Lord of the Flies - Psycological Analysis

“In a 2005 survey about gay bullying statistics, teens reported that the number two reason they are bullied is because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender expression”, according to bullyingstatistics.org. It has also been shown that those who are bullied themselves often go on to bully others because it is all they know, or that bullying covers up their own shames. The character Jack Merridew in Lord of the Flies is not evil like many would argue, but rather is ashamed of the fact that he is gay and closeted. This is supported by the hunter’s casting off of religion and government, Jack’s inability to hunt unless in front of other boys, and the beast as a symbol.

“When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed”(Rand). This was stated by Russian-American novelist Ayn Rand; the extract relates to the novel William Golding wrote called Lord of the Flies. Golding wrote about a group of schoolboys trapped on an island from a plane crash. The boys had to figure out how to survive without grownups. Trying to survive was difficult because they had to have common sense and order. They lose those traits throughout the book which resulted in selfishness and corrupt behaviors.

What went wrong in the Lord of the Flies? Some may say Jack and some may say Roger, but what are the real reasons for the downfall of the boys? They are, the loss of hope, the loss of order, and the passing of time.

“We all have a social mask, right? We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image. But behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we 're capable of” (Phil McGraw) one once said. In Lord of the Flies the characters wear a social mask that opposes their true feelings. Written by William Golding, the story revolves around a group of boys who become stranded on an island and must depend on themselves to survive. They elect a chief, a boy named Ralph. However, as the story progresses, the group become influenced by Jack, an arrogant choir chapter boy. Intriguingly, although they desire to be with Jack and join his tribe, the boys remain with Ralph for most of the story. The rhetorical triangle, which analyzes a speaker or writer based on three ideas- ethos, pathos, and logos-, helps many to better understand the children’s actions and mentality; ethos focuses on the credibility and ethics of the speaker while pathos concerns how the speaker appeals to the emotions of the audience and logos is about the speaker’s use of evidence to appeal to the audience’s sense of reason. The boys stay with Ralph because of Ralph’s use of ethos but prefer to be with Jack because of Jack’s use of pathos and ethos which shows Golding’s message- humans were masks.

Stranded on an island, a group of boys have the choice to be civil or savage. In Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, British schoolboys are marooned on an island. They voted Ralph to be the leader in an effort to remake the culture that they had left behind, accompanied by the intelligent Piggy as counselor. But Jack wants to be the leader too, and he individually lures all of the boys away from civility to the brutal survivalism of hunters. The conch symbolizes power, respect, and social order. Within the Lord of the Flies, Golding provides a brief look at the savagery that controls even the most civilized human beings. William Golding mirrors our modern day society by

Lord of the Flies illustrates that beneath the boys’ educated and sophisticated exterior, is a dark and savage instinct. Once held in place by the moral code of society, the deserted island offers a freedom from order and

William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies examines the moral, cognitive, and behavioral characteristics of a group of boys as they are stranded on a desolate island in the heat of war. Through a series of situations and escalating conflicts, each character’s true inner identities are brought to the surface. Each identity signifies a universal truth about human nature, and, though each chapter, messages are hinted through each character’s words, beliefs, and behaviors. A significant number of the novel’s key themes and messages can be traced to one of four boys. Each boy experiences significant development and change, which supports the novel’s overarching ideas.

A saying that is used throughout the Norton Marching Band is “everybody all of the time,” which is to say if one person messes up once that causes more problems than just their own one mistake. If one was to miss one day of rehearsal there would be a hole and another individual would miss their dots because they had no one to guide off of. Golding believed that “everybody all of the time” was true in the sense of society. In his novel Lord Of The Flies Piggy, Ralph, and Jack have failures during the novel that cause other mistakes to be more significant. Proving that society fails due to the failure of the individual.

The novel The Lord of the Flies exceptionally depicts the rise and fall of a society. The novel also presents what young boys in isolation could do. It represents humble beginnings and chaotic times until they get rescued. When they are rescued they are portrayed as savages with the military officer in disgust at what h as seen. This novel had peered through reality to tell a gloomy tale of young boys in isolation trying desperately to survive a chaotic time, while including important factors of society and

In William Golding’s allegorical novel Lord of the Flies, examples of Sigmund Freud’s psychological theories are illustrated within the main characters through there personal thoughts and actions. Freud’s theory explores the inner separations of the mind and the effects on ones personality. Jack, the antagonist, can be seen as the immature and bloodthirsty Id, who hungers for meat and stops at nothing to get what he wants. Piggy and Simon can be seen on the other end of the spectrum as the SuperEgo, through their intellect and compassion. Ralph represents the Ego, the middle ground between the two extremes, by his responsible decision making skills and leadership qualities. All three characters balance each other out, and when either extreme gains too much power, turmoil issues as seen in the end of the novel.

Some speculate that the people who commit extremely appalling acts as adults were raised to commit these ghastly crimes, while others believe that everyone is born with an evil already inside of them. In William Golding’s psychological fiction Lord of the Flies, the idea of being born innately evil is recurrently alluded to. The novel is about a group of young British boys who crash land on a remote island. They are left with no laws to tell them what they can or cannot do, and are extremely frightened of a so called “Beast” that they expect lives on the island. In the Lord of the Flies, “The Beast” symbolizes the evil and devilish proclivity inside of all humans. Through the use of “The Beast”, William Golding illustrates how the novel is

Imagine yourself alone, in a cold dark room with no doors or people in sight. Wondering how you could survive living in something so abandoned. That is exactly how these boys felt. In the book, Lord of The Flies, by William Golding, a plane crash has sent children beyond the eyes of man onto an uninhabited island in which they are the only survivors. All of the boys are under the age of twelve with little to no experience in society. There are many obstacles around them during the time period with hardship and war engulfing anyone in their path. The author uses theses social issues in his writing in many different ways.  Throughout the novel, William Golding uses symbolism, characterization, and tone to illustrate how the children experience a loss

In viewing the aspects of the island society, the author William Golding's Lord of the Flies as a symbolic microcosm of society. He chooses to set the children alone in an unsupervised world, leaving them to learn ‘ the ways of the world’ in a natural setting first hand. Many different perspectives can also be considered. Golding's island of marooned youngsters becomes a microcosm. The island represents the individual human and the various characters represent the elements of the human psyche.

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, narrates the story of a group of English boys as they struggle to survive on an uncharted, uninhabited island. The boy’s airplane crashes into the island and kills any adults on board -- leaving the boys to fend for themselves. Ralph and Piggy meet each other first and, upon Piggy’s counsel, Ralph decides to call a meeting of all the boys by blowing on a conch shell. The boys quickly begin to form a society in which they elect Ralph as their leader. A boy called Jack quietly disagrees and believes that he should lead the group. As times passes, Jack and his choir become hunters for the rest of the boys and they begin to enjoy the ways of a predator. As Jack grows more savage, he becomes unhappy with the

“Isolation is a dream killer” (Barbara Sher). In the novel Lord of the Flies written by William Golding, kids stranded on an island must figure out how to survive. By hunting pigs and building shelters the kids tried to subsist on the island. Through the process of hunting, the kids became cruel, evolving to the point of being barbaric. Thus, through the barbaric actions of the boys and the outside world, Golding shows that savagery exists in all people.