Superego in Lord of the Flies Sigmund Freud, a very famous psychiatrist, created three different terms, id, ego and Super ego; super ego is the brain’s conscience. It also gives the brain the ability to do the right thing. Piggy, who is a character in Lord of the Flies constantly represents superego, always turning the other cheek and doing the right thing. Piggy is a perfect example of superego in Lord of the Flies written by William Golding. Superego is a part of the brain or conscience that recognizes inappropriate behavior and also wants you to choose right over wrong. One of Freud’s theories is that the “Id – Ego combination dominates a person’s behavior until social awareness leads to the emergence of the superego, which recognizes that …show more content…
The boys decided to Piggy’s glasses to start a fire but gave him no say in it. “Here – let me go! His voice rose to a shriek of terror as Jack snatched off his glasses…Ralph elbowed him to the side and knelt by the pile.” (Golding 40) Most anyone would have thrown a punch or yelled to get the glasses back and started arguing. It is amazing that Piggy doesn’t do anything back to the boys after they stole his glasses and even elbowed him. This is a great example of how Piggy resembles super ego. Another example of Piggy resembling super ego is when Piggy tells Ralph what they used to call him, Ralph then starts to role on the floor screaming, “Piggy! Piggy!”, mocking him with the name. (Golding 11) When Ralph does this to Piggy he doesn’t even get mad at him or hardly frustrated with him. The only thing Piggy asks him to do is not tell the others and then he just forgets about it. While Piggy gets picked on all throughout the book, he chooses to walk away and turn the other cheek acting in an appropriate way. With piggy’s ability to walk away and turn the other cheek in situations like these greatly shows how he represents superego. All throughout the book Piggy is faced with many challenges where most people would act in a bad manner, although Piggy is always responding very appropriately and does not act wrongly against the other. All these examples show how Piggy
The True Nature of Humans is Revealed in the Cruelest Ways Piggy is ugly without sense, unwanted, and ridiculed by his island-mates throughout the entire novel. He is seen as the biggest outcast on the island, but he goes through a journey of self-discovery that differs from the other boy's journeys. Piggy is in search for acceptance, and just wants to fit in with the rest of the boys. The others just want fire, food, water, blood, or rescue, while Piggy just wants some friends. Most of the boys go through a physical transformation or go down a darker path, but I believe piggy goes through a deeper transformation while searching for what he wants.
At the beginning of the novel when the Golding first introduces Piggy, he strictly emphasizes the importance of Piggy’s glasses. Piggy explained to Ralph, ‘“I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.” He took off his glasses and held them out to Ralph, blinking and smiling’ (Golding 9). When Piggy held his glasses out to Ralph, it symbolized Piggy offering his intelligence or perspective to Ralph. Piggy knows things that the other boys don’t.
He reminds the boys that they need to think before they act otherwise bad things will happen, like losing boys. Piggy addresses the boys like he is an adult and they are the misbehaving children. He repeatedly says they are “Acting like a crowd of kids (Golding 38)!” “Like a pack of kids (Golding 45)!” Ralph even noticed Piggy’s voice of reason in chapter 7 when he was climbing the mountain “Now that his physical voice was silent his inner voice of reason was heard… Piggy was calling him a kid (Golding 122).”
Both quotes above show Ralph and piggy trying to keep the group together and ensure survival. Both Ralph and piggy keep their cool, and work through the
Jack’s development and characteristics support his role as the id which represents the nature of wickedness on the island. The id represents the part of one that is ruled by instincts and desire. It is typically accompanied by violent, rebellious, and selfish behavior(von Unwerth). These three adjectives are commonly associated with Jack. Throughout Lord of the Flies, Jack is constantly “disobeying, ignoring, and finally abrogating the rules that have been established for the benefit, and possible rescue of all”(Bufkin).
That quote shows how immature Ralph and the children are when they laugh at Piggy. Another example of the children's innocence is when Jack could not kill the piglet that was trapped in the vines "I was choosing a place. I was just waiting for a moment to decide where to stab him" (Golding). Jack not being able to kill the piglet
Because the boys are all from different situations they are different levels of maturity. Likely due to loss of his parents, Piggy has matured far beyond the other boys on the island. For this reason, Piggy becomes almost a parental figure on the island. Having already explored his masculinity, he seems to be more civilized then the other boys. They see this as one of Piggy’s weaknesses and walk right over him, but in reality this is one of his greatest strengths.
This displays how Piggy is sagacious and knowledgeable, by giving accommodating propositions in a time of desperate need when the rest of the boys are quite lost and do not quite know what to do, for he is the only one smart enough to dare and bring up such an idea. Suggesting rational solutions and helping the boys find a way by using his intellectuality, to create smoke, exhibits his insightful collaboration in order to get rescued. Another example that demonstrates Piggy is incisive is when he declares, “You have doctors for everything, even the inside of your mind. You don’t really mean that we got to be frightened all the time of nothing? Life…is scientific, that’s what it is.
Piggy is always talking about him aunt bringing in a female opinion on an island full of boys, by doing this it makes him more mature. “ “I'm scared of him” said Piggy “ and that's why i know him. If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's alright really an’ then when you see him again; it's like asthma an’ you can't breathe. I tell you what.
In William Golding’s book, Lord of the Flies, Piggy shows a great change from the beginning of the novel to the end, as he becomes much more confident leader of the boys. Piggy first demonstrates this new aura of confidence with his newly found ability to voice his opinions with matters that are important to him. Towards the end of chapter 2, Piggy takes the conch from Ralph to speak, as he feels like he needs to express his opinions. In this scene, Piggy remains quiet at the beginning of the meeting of the boys, showing that he is reserved, yet by the end he has warmed up to the group and voiced his opinions towards them. Piggy explains that they need to accept the reality that they may never get off of the island, and that they must learn
Before this, Piggy was struggling to find his usefulness because his asthma prevented him from helping with manual labor. Throughout the novel, Piggy is ignored by the other boys except when they need his incendiary tool. Piggy’s role on the island is also reasoning and being the adult, which means he ruins all the fun making him an outsider. “Finally, Piggy's role—as man's reasoning faculties and as a father—derives some of its complexity from the fact that the fire which the children foster and guard on the mountain in the hope of communicating with the adult world is lighted with his glasses” (Mannori). Piggy is the ‘adult’ that brings the children fire.
Despite being treated poorly in the beginning, He soon earns Ralph’s respect. It is shown when Ralph says, “But Piggy, for all his ludicrous body, had brains.” (78). Ralph still makes fun of Piggy’s physical appearance, but there’s nothing bad he can say about Piggy involving his logic and brains. Ralph is able to look past Piggy’s corpulent appearance and realize the intellectual properties that Piggy accommodates.
Throughout the book Piggy was the one character that always strived for a good society so that everyone would remain good as a whole. As an example “Piggy was so full of delight and expanding liberty in Jack’s departure, so full of pride in his contribution to the good of society, that he helped to fetch wood” (Chapter 8, Page 129). Piggy still with a reasonable mind is still trying to convince others to do good also. He stated “Which is better--to have to be a pack of painted indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is?” (Chapter 11, Page 180).
Piggy expressed this point when he “moved among the crowd, asking names and frowning to remember them. The children gave him the same simple obedience that they had given to the man with the megaphone.”(18). The man with the megaphone is an adult, someone the boys have been taught is superior to them. The obedience taught to the children is still present at the point in the novel. In addition, when Ralph says, “‘We've got to have rules and obey them.
The Id, Ego and Superego make complete sense to any person who might be interests in learning about the Psyche. Freud’s use of the psychoanalytic theory is relevant when explaining my current behaviour in regards to my past experiences that have occurred throughout my lifetime. Freud’s theory does apply to my own life as he made his theory a way to help understand and focus on the behavioural problems of the human being, and to resolve them in a way that forces me to accept my own destructive