Lord of the Flies- Fruedian Psychology and the Comparison to the Characters

Essay by jesserHigh School, 11th grade December 2004

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Man is inherently evil. More accurately, a piece of man is inherently evil. Golding helps reinforce Freud's theories through his novel, Lord of the Flies. The boys take on sections of the unconscious mind and give the little island a larger importance. By Golding narrowing down the aspects of the mind and the world itself onto a small island with opposing personalities it allows the author to tackle very universal problems and topics. Golding shows an amazing example of society's unconscious in the concrete world.

The boys on the island show great contrast with out being amazingly in conspicuous and makes for a very insightful topic. With each of the boys, that small division of the humans mind unconscious becomes more apparent through the story; Piggy being intelligence, Jack being the more instinctive side of us, Ralph being that sense of moral. These three characters have the most influence on the decisions made in the book and main conflict.

Another major character is Simon, the mystic. Simon shows that side of faith or religion that all human beings share, whether it is strong or not. The moment Simon is killed; the boys completely lost their way leaving them scared and defenseless mentally. Golding shows how with the loss of ethics anything can take place in the realm of man. After the death of Simon, all reason and hope is lost and true chaos ensues. "...We just watched"; is what piggy commented about the night of the death. Without Simon, the boys begin to delude themselves and justify their own infractions by blaming on someone else. This is an example of without faith people look to put their problems on others.

Golding goes largely into detail about how if all parts of our mind (the boys on the island) do not...