Psycho Analysis Case

Have you ever been so angry you wanted to punch someone in the mouth and knock their teeth down their throat, but you chose not to? If so, Sigmund Freud, the father of psychology, would blame this impulse toward violence on your Id, a human’s instinctual drives. Freud teaches that the reason you chose to control your anger is because the super-ego- a human’s conscience, morals, and reason- over powered the Id. (Heffner) Freud also believes that humans naturally want to follow a leader. In Lord of the Flies the author, William Golding, shows that the Id is repressed by society’s rules and the super-ego because human nature is naturally violent and seeks pleasure. If allowed, this dark part of our brain will control our actions. To restrain the Id, societies create laws to protect themselves from each individual’s selfish drives. This order in society originates from the super-ego. Howard Bloom explains in The Lucifer Principle that the mind has two sides that are always at odds with each other. “The thinking human, no matter how exalted his sentiments, was still listening to the voices of a demanding reptile and chattering ancient mammal. Both were speaking to him from the depths of his own skull.” (Bloom 27) Golding shows, through the book’s characters, that the Id and super-ego are constantly in conflict, and his characters want to be led by a leader. Golding provides several examples throughout his book that I believe support these ideas.

Golding shows us through his book’s characters that barbaric, violent nature is present in every human’s mind, no matter how young and naïve the mind. Jack, one of the book’s main characters, removes himself from the group of boys, and several other boys follow him. These boys go out on a pig hunt, locate a pig, and kill it with a knife. In the chaos of the fight with the pig, Roger, one of the boys, shoved a spear up the pig’s rear end. The pig squealed and screamed. Robert shouted, “Right up her ass!” (Golding 135). Golding uses this scene to exemplify the brutal urges present in the reptile portion of the human brain. Golding’s characters are young boys, between the ages of five to twelve, yet they inflict pain and suffering on another living being because they are left to their own devices on a deserted island and are not controlled by society, the super-ego.

Another way Golding demonstrates the violent and reptile part of the brain is through Simon, a religious figure. At one point in the book, Simon imagines having a conversation with “The Lord of the Flies”, who represents the devil. In this conversation the devil declared, “Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!” (Golding 143) This sentence speaks about the inner darkness of human nature, the “Beast” or Id, that exists in all people and will take over the person if society and the super-ego, does not keep it in check and protect people from themselves.