To end with, Piggy personifies the concept of superego to carry out the instinctual moral good most of the times. Golding represents Piggy as being more logically and intellectually mature than the others. Acting as the voice of reason, the superego inside Piggy’s personality moralizes him as a sympathetic and sensible boy, and guides him to choose what is morally right. While Jack leads the boys to make noise and rush, “Ralph is left, holding the conch, with no one but Piggy” (Golding 37). As the mob is full of noise and movement, Piggy does not follow Jack in over excitement, but rather keeps calm and stays with the chief.
His superego dominates him to maintain civilization. He displays consistent attention to societal rulings, and believes structure is the most important thing to the boys. In addition, Piggy is willing to contribute for the society as he is “so full of pride in his contribution to the good of society, that he helped to fetch wood” (Golding 142). The moral goodness and devoted nature of Piggy come from his instinct human nature, which is the primary focus of the superego that it meets the ethical standards by which the ego operates.In conclusion, throughout the novel Lord of the Flies, Golding uses Jack, Ralph, and Piggy to illustrate three different dimensions of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Jack embodies id as he always seeks for pleasure and has selfish desires for hunting and controlling others; Ralph perfectly demonstrates how ego plays an important role on balancing the id and superego, whereas Piggy epitomises superego due to his total unselfish sacrifices and moral standards.
While these three little boys manifest the three different aspects of personalities, it is prominent that the subconscious mind plays an important role in dictating human actions.
