ID, Ego and Superego in Lord of Flies and Sun Also Rises - Research Paper Example

Outline I. Introduction: A. The definition of id, super ego and ego B. What the paper aims at doing II. Body: Compares each character and its role in the story Lord of the Flies with the characters of Sun Also Rises and eventually identifies categorically the id, ego and super ego in the later story. A. Identify the theme and justifies the roles of the characters in Golding’s work B. Identifies the ego in Hemingway’s work C. Identifies the id in Hemmingway’s work D. Identifies the super-ego in Hemmingway’s work III. Conclusion Sums up the comparison and restates the identified roles of the characters in Hemmingway’s work. ID, Ego and Superego in Lord of Flies and Sun Also Rises William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Ernest Hemingway’s first novel relate two entirely distinct stories but with characters which have certain similarities in their psychological responses towards the reality. These two stories were written around the same period and both of them can be analyzed with a psychoanalytic approach to the characters. Sigmund Freud defines ‘Id’ as “a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitation” (DeCenso 26). But ego and super-ego are rational selves. “Their formation is dependent on some form of experiential cultural located dynamic” (DeCenso 26). The paper attempts to identify the Id, Ego and super-ego in the story The Sun Also Rises comparing the roles of the characters with those of Lord of the Flies where Jack is the id, Ralph is the ego and Piggy is the super ego. The first story depicts the power sharing relationship among some British school children that are individualized with their distinct personality traits. But the later projects the life of a group of characters that are driven by different conflicting forces at the same time. It is necessary to mention that the three protagonists of Golding’s story—Jack, Piggy and Ralph are the allegorical representation of the three different components of human psyche. Ralph represents the consciousness of mind (ego) when he is guided by rationality, while Piggy acts as a voice of conscience representing the super-ego. “Ralph is practical and organized. For him the most important thing is to light a fire so that the boys can be recognized” (Golding, 14). Jack on the other hand is driven by violent desire for power, hunting, aggression and all other primitive impulses. In Hemingway’s story the characters are in fact multi-layered. Jake indulges carnal desires towards his fiancée Brett but he also recognizes his physical limitation caused by thee war and this torments his moral self. Brett is always in a frolicking mood enjoying temporary passing affairs. But it is also true that she truly loves Jake and her multiple affairs can be arising from her lack of gratification in Jake’s love. For example, when Jake says, “there’s not a damn thing we could do”(Golding, 26), Brett replies, “ I don’t want to go through that hell again”. She goes to San Sebastian with Cohn, formerly had a relation with Mike, Patched up with Pedro, the bullfighter in no time. But she has an ultimate realization that keeps her from sexual intimacy. Cohn is a character that is comparatively less intricate, dependent on the sensual needs. Bill on the other hand is complacent with what life can afford to him. He lives in the present, trying to live in the moment. Since the characters of Hemingway’s story, are presented in reality, it becomes rather strenuous to categorize them as presenting three distinct levels of human personality—namely id, ego and super-ego. The children in Golding’s story are distinct in their personality. Jack hunts the sow, kills Piggy and raises his own group for colonizing others. Piggy represents the ways of civilization. For example, he uses the conch to call other dispersed boys in the island. It is he who with eyeglasses helps in lighting a fire for the purpose of being rescued by any passing ship. Ralph leads the team and designates the duty of the boys like wise man acting with his conscious mind guiding the rest. Although her character is very subtle, Brett bears certain projection of a child shaken with irrational desires and therefore the behavioral pattern of id is noted in her nature. According to Slethaug “even to play some game again and again is the source of pleasure and as much a part of the uncanny as manifest doubles” (Slethaug 14). Brett multiple affairs with the male characters, and having sexual relation with almost all of them is the reenactment of one source of pleasure, which she experienced with Jake in the per-war time. If Jack likes hunting as a child and enjoys it time and again, Brett is a young adult, who tries to re-experience sexual intimacy Jake finds unable to reciprocate. Brett’s character can be seen as hankering after security, in her relationship with Cohn or Mike or Pedro. This urge to ‘regress into a protected, tension-free states characteristic of infancy’ is defined as ‘thanatopsis urge’ by Freud (Slethaug 14). Such repeated flings of Brett communicates her desire for self-assertion, self-preservation and mastery over the situation just as Jack in Lords Of The Flies, yearns for establishing authority among the children and eventually manages to erect a group of his own. Consequently he says, “We’ll have rules…lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks ’em” and this utterance implies that he will banish the offender with physical strength (Goldimg, 14). In Golding’s story, Simon plays a significant role. After the vision of the head of the sow as speaking to him in the form of Beelzabub, he realisms that evil leaves within the self. It is also noteworthy that the arch-god was banished from heaven for his power seeking nature. In terms of Freud’s interpretation of dreams head can be well taken as a phallic symbol. Simon also to some extent fulfills the requirements of ego—the conscious self. The vision of sow head reflects the fear of castration or preservation against extinction. In Hemingway’s story, Jake is the ego, who in reality has become impotent and Brett serves to bring him to reality at two levels. Thus Brett is the id following Freud’s definition. First, Brett’s refusal to have intimacy with him because of his impotency makes his impassionate and therefore complicit towards her flings and admits, “ We’d better keep away from each other” (Hemingway, 26). Secondly, she is an alter ego because Brett in her multiple unsuccessful love relationship is portrayed as a double to Jake. Jake is in immediate relation with his circumstances and his behaviors are enormously influenced by his recognition of his physical limitations. In other words, Brett projects the castrated self of Jake. According to Freud thanatoptic urge is essentially like ‘death wish’ (Slethaug 14). “Brett’s constant attempts to reenact earlier meaningful sexual relationship ironically…leads to nothing new and productive inn their relationship but only to sterility or death” (Slethaug 15). According to Eby, “[Brett] represents the most dangerous sort of bull—the animal which has fought repeatedly and knows how it feels to gore a man” (Eby 309). “They have steers in the corral to receive them and keep them from fighting, and the bulls tear in at the steers and the steers run around like old maid trying to quiet them down” (Hemingway, 133). She poses the risk of castration almost to everyone she meets. Even Cohn feel disgusted to see that he is steering to get hold of his desire with Brett and finally stops. The moral voice, which characterizes the super-ego, has been found in Pedro’s personality. Pedro appears to serve as a voice of conscience that brings Brett to reality with the recognition of her own impotency and castrated self. “Instead of being castrated by Brett, Romero forces her to come to terms with her status as a woman, telling her to grow her hair and in a Freudian sense forcing her to ‘recognize’ her own ‘castration’” (Eby 309). “He wanted me to grow my hair out. Me, with long hair. I’d look so like hell”(Hemingway, 242) As noted earlier, the character of Jake in The Sun Also Rises, resemble the Ego-stage of human personality. He has control over himself. He is also introspective. For example, Jake’s looking at the mirror and his recognition of his impotency after Brett coils from his touch in the car, is a self-directed analysis. Jake is not only more passive but also his composition does not allow him to express anger at what the First World War has occasioned him. He has taken his wound as a joke. He is unable to accuse war for his wound and even unwilling to express his loss. In this way Jake’s wound and pain is elaborately displaced (Moglen 36). According to Moglen, Jake rather “indulges a mystifying philosophy that his wound is merely one more instance of paying for what one gets in life” (Moglen 36). Moglen also notices Jake’s refusal to voice his aggression. Therefore it won’t be wrong to say that the child-like desires to compensate for his incapacity with aggression and self-aggrandization in his relation with Brett has been replaced with his ego. Both Ralph and Jake show the insufficiency of ego. It is a self that is socialized and acts in a rational way thereby separating the irrational, subjective world of the mind from the identity. This socialized self keeps a distinction with the physical reality and other selves. According to Burns “the ego is only is a veneer of socialization, which can soon be stripped off” (Burns, 126). Such incapacitation of the ego is found in the episode when Simon comes to the beach to express his understanding after his vision and finds that Ralph and Piggy has joined the chaotic revelry of Jack. The animal nature—the id just lies under the ego always seeking to manifest because of the pressure created by socialization (Burns 126). Similar attitude is found in Jake’s personality. It is not that his consciousness and socialization always leads him to dumb recognition of the evils of social forces. At times he vents his aggression at those who have “comparable social privileges (like Mike) who fail to disavow their pain” (Moglen 36). In Golding’s story, Piggy acts as a reminder of the moral responsibility for Ralph. His innovative thinking regarding the use of the Conch found in the island helps the scattered boys to assemble together. Piggy is portrayed as a fat, bespectacled boy, whose hair does not grow. The object behind such portraiture is to make him defy the forces of society and nature save the morality. He also criticizes Jack. In Hemingway’s story, Mike can be described with the traits of superego. When Cohn observes that the life is not good for a steer, after his incidental realization that he cannot break the ice with Brett, Mike, although in a drunken state, moralizes that Cohn should rather enjoy being a steer. Mike has noticed Cohn’s fruitless hanging around about with Brett. In addition to this Mike asks Cohn about his meaningless wandering. Ironically in both the stories the voice of conscience is silenced. Jack kills Piggy and Cohn boxes Mike down. The above discussion therefore identifies the ego, id and super ego in the work of Hemmingway using gradual comparison and using Freud’s theory. The ego is Jake, super ego is Mike and id is Brett following the roles ascribed in the other story Lord of the Flies where Ralph is the ego, Jack the id and Piggy the super ego. In both cases the roles have been assigned according to the roles played by the characters and following the concepts given by Freud. The stories are narrated in two different contexts but the backdrop against which the characters are assigned the roles of id, ego and super ego can be connected. Works Cited Burns Robert B., Essential psychology, London: Springer, 1991. DeCenso James, The other Freud, London: Routledge, 1999. Eby Carl P., Hemingway’s fetishism, New York: Suny Press, 1999 Moglen Seth, Mourning Modernity, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007 Slethaug Gordon, The play of the double in postmodern American fiction, Illinois, Southern Illinois University Press, 1993. Hemmingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954. Available at: http://www.archive.org/stream/sunalsorises030276mbp/sunalsorises030276mbp_djvu.txt (accessed on August 5, 2010) Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. South Africa: Pearson. 2005.   Read More