The Beast Inside: A Psychoanalytic View on Lord of the Flies

Sinem Oruç

Middle East Technical University, Senior Student

THE BEAST INSIDE: A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW ON LORD OF THE FLIES 1

Abstract

“Unless we get frightened of people.”

Human’s innate tendency to commit evil has always been a haunting topic in various realms
from literature to humanities. Golding’s masterpiece Lord of the Flies illustrates how this
inborn evil shows its face when the system goes bankrupt; power shifts, and the environment
compels individuals to survive. The boys’ struggle to survive against the conditions of nature,
against each other and against the evil inside give readers the insight into the psychology that
underpins the decisions and actions humans take, which make them who they are. Throughout
this study, characters in Lord of the Flies will be analyzed from the perspectives of their
development and psychological state. Also, their stance in the story and who they choose to
be will be analyzed. The aim of this study is to question if humans are bound to face that beast
they carry inside, or whether ”becoming the beast” is a matter of choice. The characters who
reject “that beast” and those who become “the beast” will be compared and contrasted. I argue
that it is the human will and conscience that can overcome indignity and the beast even
though conditions compel them to do the opposite. All in all, this is the trait that marks
humans among all other living things.

Keywords: Lord of the Flies, power, order, evil, psychoanalysis

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The Beast Inside: A Psychoanalytic View on Lord of the Flies

While narrating the story of a group of schoolboys marooned on a deserted island, William
Golding’s masterpiece Lord of the Flies tells us the truth about ourselves: the beast inside us.
This beast causes humans to inflict atrocities on one another regardless of age, race or place,
and the most obvious example is wars we create, and we die for. One might not simply
believe naïve schoolboys the oldest of which is aged 12 could be drawn into savagery and go
as far as to sacrifice one another, but this is what happens in Lord of the Flies. What causes
those boys to turn into savages can be found out through a psychoanalytic view on characters,
which is expected to reveal the source of the beast inside.

Summary

“The boy with the fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock his way towards
the lagoon” (p.1). In the opening of the novel Lord of the Flies, Ralph looks around the island
which will soon cease being the playground of a group of schoolboys. After an attack on their
province, while a group of English schoolboys are being evacuated to a safer place, their
plane is attacked by the enemy air force. The plane crashes on a deserted island, leaving the
boys all alone to survive against conditions and themselves. At first, they try to establish the
same system in their homeland there. In Ralph’s leadership, they assemble meetings in which
all boys express their ideas by taking turns and share the responsibility by taking on different
chores like hunting, building huts, gathering consumable water and taking care of the fire.

However, this system stops functioning too early. Reason and order leave their place to
savagery and fear as children get the taste of hunting. The sole entertainment on the island
becomes hunting, and they start to neglect everything else on the island apart from that ritual.
Jack’s team, the hunters, do not hunt for living but live for hunting, which makes them forget
who they once were. Then, surviving in the island becomes a matter of being the hunter or
avoiding being hunted. Ralph, Piggy, Simon and Samneric have to protect their own society
against all odds and resist the beast in order to avoid being hunted down. Nevertheless, all of
them except Ralph, saved by a naval officer, end up being victims of the savagery reigning on
the island.
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Discussion

Lord of the Flies, published in 1954, has a groundbreaking place in literature as it makes us
face with the plain truth of human nature: the evil inside. Different from other adventure
novels like Robinson Crusoe or The Treasure Island, Lord of the Flies presents a rather dark
picture as to what human beings are capable of doing when environment and conditions
compel them to do so.

Written in the aftermath of The Second World War, Lord of the Flies reflects Golding’s
firsthand experience of war as he mentions in his essay Fable:

Before the Second World War, I believed in the perfectibility of social man;
that a correct structure of society would produce goodwill, and that therefore you
could remove all social ills by are organizations of society. It is possible that today I
believe something of the same, but after the war I did not because I was unable to. I
had discovered what one man could do to another…I am thinking of the vileness
beyond all words that went on, year after year, in the totalitarian states . . . there were
things done during that period from which I still have to avert my mind lest I should
be physically sick. They were not done by the head hunters of New Guinea, or by
some primitive tribe in the Amazon. They were done skillfully, coldly, by educated
men, doctors, lawyers, by men with a tradition of civilization behind them, to beings
of their own kind. (p. 86-87)

As it can be understood from Golding’s statement, he loses his belief that society and
organization can regulate human behavior and prevent evil deeds they are inclined to commit.
Golding’s shattered belief in humanity combined with his experience as a teacher in boys’
school leads him to create savages out of meek schoolboys who once said ”Sir, yes, sir!”’

Then, what makes these children singing in church choir become savages thirsty for blood?
Now that no one can teach them how to hunt on the island, how come do they turn into
perfect hunters after a few trials? Answers to these questions can be traced in Freud’s
structural model of human psyche, which he introduced in his book The Ego and the Id. This
model consists of id, ego and superego, which stand for instinctual, moderating and
moralizing sides of humans respectively. Humans swing among those levels and act in
accordance with the dominating one. Additionally, perspective on childhood does not go
unaffected by Freud’s groundbreaking views on human psyche. He mentions childhood
sexuality in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, which shatters the belief that
children are asexual innocent beings. Rosendial (1961) suggests that Freud’s conclusions
reveal that no child is innocent, and children are actually microcosms of adults. (p. 2)
THE BEAST INSIDE: A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW ON LORD OF THE FLIES 4

Similarly, the children marooned on the island do every possible thing to negate the belief in
childhood innocence, which stems from the surfacing of the innate evil, the id, which humans
carry inside.

Ironically, schoolboys evacuated from the war create a brand new war of their own on the
island. The naval officer asks when he sees the heartbreaking state of children “What have
you been doing? Having a war or something?” (p. 221) As “men of a smaller growth”
(Rosendial, 1961, p. 7), boys on the island create a replica of the war created by adults. It
seems that regardless of the place or age, humans are capable of starting a war because of the
beast they carry inside. Al-Saidi (2012) suggests “Golding’s central point in the novel is a
conflict between the impulse toward civilization and the impulse toward savagery rages
within each human individual, regardless a child or an adult” (p. 133).

When released from the control of the school, children enjoy the freedom of acting
relentlessly without thinking of the consequences of their actions. Gorman (2007) describes
the children’s state as, “What they feel is a sense of freedom: freedom from restraint, from
discipline, from rules they never understood and that seemed to be imposed only to keep them
from enjoying whatever they wanted to enjoy. Freedom for them is freedom from reason, or
freedom to indulge instincts” (p. 215). Similarly, Subhi (2010) suggests “When let to their
own devices, Golding implies people naturally revert to cruelty, savagery, and barbarism” (p.
13). In other words, what causes children to run wild is the sudden abolition of control
mechanisms and the rules mandated by those mechanisms. That’s why, the order Piggy and
Ralph try to establish, which is based on a set of rules, fails too soon and is replaced by
anarchy where one’s fear is another’s power. Physical functioning replaces reason in this new
order; therefore, a littleun’s, the day-dreamer Simon’s and near-sighted Piggy’s death follow
one another. As this society gets rid of weak ones, survival of the fittest becomes dependent
on boys’ position in the hunting ritual: The hunter or the prey?

In this new order, as the carnal side of children begins to take over, they let go of their
identity through a variety of rituals. For example, Jack starts painting his face and body when
he goes hunting. Though his excuse is to avoid pig’s recognizing his scent, the real truth is to
hide behind the paint and act without the constraint of being a human:

He knelt, holding the shell of water. A rounded patch of sunlight feel on his face and a
brightness appeared in the depths of the water. He looked in astonishment, no longer at
himself but at an awesome stranger. He split the water and leapt to his feet, laughing
THE BEAST INSIDE: A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW ON LORD OF THE FLIES 5

excitedly. Beside the mere, his sinewy body held up a mask that drew their eyes and
appalled them. He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He
capered towards Bill and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid,
liberated from shame and self-consciousness. The face of red and white and black,
swung through the air and jigged towards Bill. Bill started up laughing; the suddenly
fell silent and blundered away through the bushes. (p. 69)

Hunting becomes the sole activity in which children get together. When they do not hunt,
boys reenact the hunting by playing the role of the hunter and pig in turns. Rituals indigenous
to this activity develop in time as well. They chant the hymn ‘”Kill the pig. Cut her throat.
Spill her blood“ in hysteria. In those ecstatic moments, boys make triumph dance and
horrifying noises unconsciously, and they do not even realize they kill Simon during one of
the rituals. They develop a religion of their own as well. They offer a pig’s head to ‘the beast’
to please it and avoid its rage. All of these are signs of savagery and bigotry boys are driven
into. Similarly, through the end of the novel, hunters are mentioned as ‘savages’ or ‘dark
figures’, which implies boys have forgone their human side totally.

Reflections of the structural model of human psyche can be seen in the character
development, as well. Ralph, Piggy and Jack might stand for the three levels of human
psyche. Piggy with his scientific look on events and constantly reminding children on the
island what adults would think as to their actions has the moralizing role; in other words, he is
the superego. He constantly tries put things in a scientific frame. He rejects even the
possibility that there might be a beast on the island saying “Life is scientific, that’s what it is.
(...) I know there isn’t a beast— not with claws and all that, I mean” (p. 118). Additionally,
when Ralph is shocked after witnessing Simon’s murder, Piggy tries to bring him to his
senses by constantly telling him what happened was nothing but an accident. He is the
conscience of the island, and with his death, the conch is smashed into pieces, which
symbolizes that boys have lost their taste for judging right from wrong totally. Jack is, on the
other hand, is the id. From the very beginning with his outbursts of anger and open hostility
towards Ralph and Piggy, he shows the signs of being a real troublemaker. He is obsessed
with hunting and being good at it. As he masters in hunting, he starts to take pleasure more
and more. After their first kill, he narrates the whole event like an epic with an “ecstatic grin”
(p. 74). His mind gets crowded with hunting memories, and the power of “outwitting a living
thing, imposing will upon it and taking its life like a long satisfying drink” (p. 75) haunts him.
On the other hand, Ralph is the mediator between the two, the ego. Ralph tries to find a
balance between morality and savagery on the island, the obvious indication of which is the
THE BEAST INSIDE: A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW ON LORD OF THE FLIES 6

conflict between Piggy and Jack. Rosendial (1961) states Ralph’s body becomes “the
battleground where reason and instinct struggle, each to assert itself” (p. 94). He fluctuates
between these two ends throughout the novel; that’s why, his memory and reasoning fail from
time to time due to the heavy burden of being the mediator. The roles assigned to the three
main characters in the book can best be understood from their stance towards each other. For
example, the first conflict between Ralph and Jack reveals their roles: “The two boys faced
each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and
there was the world of longing and baffled commonsense” (p. 100).

However, assigning roles to characters would be restricting them as each of them go

through different phases of personality change. For example, Jack, who becomes the chief of
savages in the end, cannot kill a pig though he has the chance to “because of the enormity of
the knife descending and cutting into flesh; because of the unbearable blood” (p. 34).
Similarly, Rodger, who turns into a real savage in the end and causes Piggy’s death, throws
pebbles to the direction of littleuns but tries not to hit them so that they are not hurt in the
beginning of the novel. Even Piggy states “I’d like to put on war-painting and be a savage.
But we must keep the fire burning” (p. 156), which illustrates that he, too feels fluctuations
among different sides of his personality. Similarly, Piggy and Ralph cannot resist attending
the hunter’s feast in which Simon is killed because of curiosity and hunger. Reiff (2009)
states “Although Golding demonstrates humans’ capacity for evil most completely in Jack
and the hunters, he also shows that evil is not confined to one group of people, because even
the two good boys, Ralph and Piggy, participate in Simon’s murder” (p. 72).

Golding presents us with a dark picture as to human reality in Lord of the Flies. Tiger
(1947) argues “So the boys try to construct a civilization on the island, but it breaks down in
blood and terror because the boys are suffering from the terrible disease of being human” (as
cited in Al-Saidi, 2012, p. 133). Even though boys are rescued in the end, this is not a happy
ending, which is symbolized by Ralph’s weeping for “the end of the innocence, the darkness
of man’s heart and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.” (Golding,
1954, p.223) Ralph and all other boys on the island leave their childhood there and will never
be the same after that war they have created, just like the way every other people who witness
the war reality and what people are capable of inflicting on one another.

However, there would be a much darker picture in Lord of the Flies but for Piggy, Ralph
and Simon. Though they fail and end up victimized by the savagery, they stand up to what
THE BEAST INSIDE: A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW ON LORD OF THE FLIES 7

they believe in: Humans can create beauty and establish order in spite of the innate evil and
conditions. Piggy and Ralph are in the same situation with Jack; however, they decide to go
after what is ‘right’. They reject being savages and stick to the dignified side of humans, just
like the way Piggy sticks to the conch till his death. Therefore, it is undeniable that the beast
is inside us, but it is our choices which make us who we are. Who we choose to become is
under our will. Similarly, Subhi (2010) concludes “In fact, everybody has the potential for
true goodness and evilness. (...) One can prevent inner darkness from surfacing if controlled
by reason and suitable environment” (p. 19). Reason and conscience exist together with
savagery and violence inside us, and their surfacing is determined by human will.

Conclusion

Lord of the Flies brings what is hidden into the surface: the beast inside. Although it is
impossible to eradicate that beast inside us or in society, it is possible for humans to make
choices depending on their will, which makes them who they are. We see this in Piggy, Ralph
and Simon’s stance in the story and their resisting against the savagery they are being drawn
into. While Golding confronts us with the darkest side of humans, the destructiveness, he
presents us with the bright side of humanity through those characters as well. It can be
concluded that humans carry both evil and goodness inside; therefore, it is humans who create
beauty or atrocity at will.

References

Al-Saidi, A. (2012). Savagery and Heart of Darkness in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.
Studies in Literature and Language. 4 (1), 129-134.

Gorman, R. (Ed.) (2008). Golding's Lord of the Flies Spurs Examination of Human
Nature. Great Events from History: The Twentieth Century, 1941-1970. New York: Salem
Press.

Reiff, R. (2009). William Golding: Lord of the Flies. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish

Rosenfield, C. (1961). ‘Men of a Smaller Growth': A Psychological Analysis of William

Golding's 'Lord of the Flies'. Contemporary Literary Criticism, 58, 93-101.

Subhi, E. (2010). Civilization and Savagery in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness with Some
Refernces to Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Retrieved from:
THE BEAST INSIDE: A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW ON LORD OF THE FLIES 8

http://www.ircoedu.uobaghdad.edu.iq/uploads/41/CIVILIZATION%20AND%20SAVAGER
Y%20IN%20CONRAD%E2%80%99S.pdf

William, G. (1954). Lord of the Flies. London: Faber & Faber

William, G. (1965). The Hot Gates and Other Occasional Pieces. New York: Harcourt, Brace
& World.