Freudian Terms

The Freudian terms id, ego, and superego are defined as “one’s instinctual needs and desires”, “the conscious mind”, and “the voice or sense of morality, rules, and society” respectively. In every single person there is a part of each: the id, ego, and superego within us. However, each person embodies the terms in very different ways. When the three main characters of Lord of the Flies are aligned with the Freudian terms id, ego, and superego, then Jack’s savagery and   primal impulses represent the id, Ralph’s conscious mind represents the ego, and Piggy’s parental voice of morality/society represents the superego.
In Lord of the flies, Jack is associated with the Freudian term the id. The id is one’s instinctual needs and desires; it is the immediate gratification of one’s primal impulses. Someone aligned with the id has no morality and acts without the consideration of social norms. Jack is very focus’ on meat and hunting, to a point that it is almost an obsession. Jack is always saying “We want meat” (51) emphasizing that he does not care about getting rescued, but rather hunting and killing. When Jack and the others first kill the pig, they come back to Ralph and Piggy saying “you should have seen the blood!” (70) and acting very excited. Jack then gets angry when the others do not acknowledge his victory because they are preoccupied with the fact that the fire has gone out. “I painting my face—I stole up…” (74) is his response when they ignore him. Hunting is Jack’s primal passion that he must do. Another example of Jack embodying the id is when he says they do not need rules: “bollucks to the rules! We’re strong! We hunt!” (91). Someone who identifies with the id would not want to have rules because they would interfere with his instinctual needs and desires.
While Jack is associated with the id in Lord of the Flies, Ralph embodies the Freudian term ego. The ego is the conscious mind; it is in between the id and the superego. Ralph often tries to keep...