Id In Lord Of The Flies

Words: 537
Pages: 3

Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a thrilling novel on the descent into savagery and immorality within a group of young schoolboys. At a first glance, the boys are hidden away in a paradise; no adults, no rules, only fun and games. However, the paradise slips away from the boys grasps as they rapidly begin to inhabit the evilness buried deep within themselves, due to their loose hold on civility and morality. The philosopher Sigmund Freud introduced what is known as Id, Ego, and Superego; three parts of the human personality. The function of Id is to ensure the survival of the host in which it lives, it represents our instincts and our desire to live. Ego deals with the demands of reality, it uses reasoning to make choices without any …show more content…
In Lord of the Flies, the “Id” component is represented by Jack. Jack is one who entered the descent into savagery almost too quickly, which lead to poor leadership skills and his inability to reason. Jack’s entire purpose on the island seems to be his never-ending yearning for power, which he intends to steal. Jack gets roughly half of the group to agree with him on one specific topic; having fun. Jack makes it clear that he wants to have fun, go hunting, and not have a care in the world other than for food and to survive. Jack is able to get past the thought of taking the life of a pig, and justifies it with survival and the need for food. Others, like Ralph and Piggy struggle a bit with Jack’s views. Those who are against Jack form their own group and put their focuses towards being rescued through building fire and shelter. Jack succeeds in brutally killing a sow with the help of his group, the boys perform heinous acts of cruelty and inhumanity. They decapitate her and put her head on a stick, they then announce her as “the beastie”. The beastie is an imaginary creature made up in the boys heads, in reality the beastie is the fear hidden inside of each of the boys. Jack helps in taking the beastie to the extreme because his mind is filled with immoral nonsense, he questions its presence, its true form, and he continues the madness by