Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Lord of Psychology, the Id, Ego, and the Superego

In the book Lord of the Flies, some of the characters represent parts in Freud's theory. It basically divides the mind into three parts, the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. Piggy, Ralph and Jack represent one of these categories, in the diagram it shows that Jack is the Id, Ralph is the Ego, and Piggy is the Superego.
The Id represents a small child. When a child is born their mind is basically all Id, Ego and Superego develop later. The Id, is all want. It runs on the pleasure principal, basically "I want something and I want it now." Our wants are controlled by the Id, food, rest, it is completely amoral. The Id runs not on emotion or morals, but on instinct, it has no sense of time basically as I said before ' I want something, and I want it now!"
The Ego, controls the Id and Superego. Its runs on the reality principal, it is mainly concerned for the person's safety. It finds a balance between the constantly disagreeing Id and Superego, so it lets each have what they desire. It has to find a balance between instinct (the Id) and morals (Superego.) It bases its decisions on the rules of society, for example if the Id desires food, it will get food in a socially appropriate way. It will go with the Id's needs if the consequences are minimal or nonexistent, if the Id wants food you would go buy some instead of running into a store, grabbing, and eating it.
The Superego acts as our conscience, bases its desires on morals. It is said to be more aggressive towards the Ego, but the Ego is said to favor to Id.

Jack represents the Id, his decisions run on primal instinct mostly. He desires pig, and he becomes completely obsessed thinking about that and nothing else until he has gotten his pig. He strongly desires leadership on the island, and the thought never leaves his mind. In all his decisions no matter what Piggy or Ralph say he just charges off driven by his desires. When they were lighting the signal fire no matter what Piggy told him about how it would work he just charged off. That is also an example of a conflict between Jack (Id) and piggy (Superego.) The Superego is always vying for power with the Id, and Piggy and Jack are constantly conflicting on decision, like, the signal fire, and the conch.
Ralph represents the Ego, the ego is said to slightly favor the Id, and as the story continues we begin to see Ralph slightly favoring Jack. Ralph bases his decisions on reality, wan the little ones insist their is a beast in the Jungle he comforts them and tells them that there is no possibility that there could be a beastie in the forest. His mind centers on being rescued, and being safe while they are on the island. He strongly argues with jack about letting the signal fire out "Don't you want to be rescued?" he built shelters for safety from the rain, and so the little ones will feel more protected. He often scorns Piggy, about his sometimes useless ideas, but sometimes grudgingly he accepts one of his ideas. He also conflicts with jack from time to time, when he lets the fire out or doesn’t help with huts.

Piggy represents the Superego, constantly correcting Ralph and Jack, and trying to improve the life o the island with somewhat useless ideas, like a sundial. His glasses are used for the fire, his decisions often reflect his morals. He is always kind to the littleuns, and clings to the order and civilization he represents their link to the adult world a bit. He is not always the voice of reason, sometimes he is reminding Ralph of his duties and urges him to stay chief to make sure Jack cannot be. He is always timidly seeking to control the Id but he never succeeds. When Jack ran off to build the signal fire he protested, and tried to control jacks behavior but he failed.

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