William Golding's Lord of the Flies: A Freudian Analysis - Essay Example

Golding agrees with Freud’s theory and builds his characters around the theory. Golding confirms the theory that if man is allowed to move according to his desires he will turn into a savage beast. William Golding is a British novelist of the twenty first century. He is most famous for his novel “Lord of the Flies”. The novel is based on the Freudian concept of id, ego and superego. The characters in Golding’s novel go well with Freud’s theory where many characters, when marooned on an island, turn from being civilized to savagery.

Golding agreed with Freud’s theory which divided mind into three parts. Freud believed that it is the society that imposes limitations on people. Once away from rules the primitive self of a person becomes prominent. For that matter he based his novel “Lord of the Flies” on Freud’s structural theory where children are trapped in a situation away from civilization and gradually deteriorate from being civilized to savage beasts. The aim of this paper is to analyze Golding’s novel, “Lord of the Flies” from Freudian point of view and to understand how his characters fit into the three parts i.e. Id, ego and superego.

Baron (2001) explains the structural theory by Freud according to which id is that part of the personality, reflecting “various bodily needs, sexual desires and aggressive impulses”. Id works unconsciously and if given opportunity it seeks immediate satisfaction of primitive needs. Ego is defined as “the part of the personality that “checks the id until conditions allow for satisfaction of its impulses”. Ego makes an effort to delay gratification until it can be found in socially approved ways.

Superego is defined as the part of the personality which is close to morality and “seeks to control the satisfaction of id impulses—only when it is correct to do so as required by the ego”. The superego and the id are often found in conflict with one