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Superego In Lord Of The Flies

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Superego in Lord of the Flies Sigmund Freud, a very famous psychiatrist, created three different terms, id, ego and Super ego; super ego is the brain’s conscience. It also gives the brain the ability to do the right thing. Piggy, who is a character in Lord of the Flies constantly represents superego, always turning the other cheek and doing the right thing. Piggy is a perfect example of superego in Lord of the Flies written by William Golding. Superego is a part of the brain or conscience that recognizes inappropriate behavior and also wants you to choose right over wrong. One of Freud’s theories is that the “Id – Ego combination dominates a person’s behavior until social awareness leads to the emergence of the superego, which recognizes that …show more content…

The boys decided to Piggy’s glasses to start a fire but gave him no say in it. “Here – let me go! His voice rose to a shriek of terror as Jack snatched off his glasses…Ralph elbowed him to the side and knelt by the pile.” (Golding 40) Most anyone would have thrown a punch or yelled to get the glasses back and started arguing. It is amazing that Piggy doesn’t do anything back to the boys after they stole his glasses and even elbowed him. This is a great example of how Piggy resembles super ego. Another example of Piggy resembling super ego is when Piggy tells Ralph what they used to call him, Ralph then starts to role on the floor screaming, “Piggy! Piggy!”, mocking him with the name. (Golding 11) When Ralph does this to Piggy he doesn’t even get mad at him or hardly frustrated with him. The only thing Piggy asks him to do is not tell the others and then he just forgets about it. While Piggy gets picked on all throughout the book, he chooses to walk away and turn the other cheek acting in an appropriate way. With piggy’s ability to walk away and turn the other cheek in situations like these greatly shows how he represents superego. All throughout the book Piggy is faced with many challenges where most people would act in a bad manner, although Piggy is always responding very appropriately and does not act wrongly against the other. All these examples show how Piggy

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