Childhood Psychosocial Development in ‘Lord of the Flies’

Introduction

A childhood psychosocial development can be simplified as the stages a child undergoes while growing up, but more focus is put on the social interaction with the environment. As described by Erikson (2014), a child’s development is influenced by social experiences he/she experiences across different developmental stages. Hence, this paper aims at examining and analyzing a child’s psychosocial development through the example of the movie ‘Lord of the Flies 1990’ whereby a group of boys is trapped in an island and they have to fend for themselves.

Brief Synopsis

After a plane crash, a group of military schoolchildren find themselves in a deserted island where they have to look after each other without the presence of an adult. Although they are initially cooperative, and that they work together, things later on take a turn and they split into two groups. Ralph, who is liberal-minded, leads one group while Jack, who is militaristic in nature, leads the opposing group. Due to social and psychological factors, the schoolboys experience psychosocial developmental stages, whereby the boys no longer find it easy to differentiate between a civilized society and savagery.

Theme 1 — Self-Esteem

As illustrated by Thompson et al. (2018), once a child has reached the pre-teen age, he/she begins to assert some form of control and power, which is achievable through directing peers on plays and games. For children who become successful in this stage tend to feel the capability of leading others. On the other hand, those who are not equally successful in acquiring such skills, they usually find themselves left with senses of self-doubt and lack of initiative. Therefore, it is very clear that both Ralph and Jack are the successful lot on this childhood developmental stage. For instance, Jack’s skills allow him to form a crew and discard Ralph’s rules simply because he sees himself more skilled than the rest of the crew. Those who failed in this stage have no alternative but to join Jack’s crew (Lord of the Flies, 1990, 00:56:48).

Scene 1 — Piggy’s Emotional Intelligence

Ralph introduces use of conch as a way of calling meetings. He claims, “Whoever holds the conch gets to speak, and that’s the rule” (Lord of the Flies, 1990, 00:11:06). He comes out as the mature and an intelligent leader. However, Piggy portrays a more stable emotional intelligence. For instance, right after Jack’s crew mistakenly kill Simon for thinking he was the beast, Ralph cannot help himself but cries incessantly. Then Piggy tries to calm him down by saying, “what could you do in talking about it…anything could have happened” (Lord of the Flies, 1990, 1:03:27). That is, Piggy is more than calm and does not seem to be emotionally fazed about the manner at which Simon died. He understands.

Theme 2 — Personality Development

Cherry (2018) reiterates the aspect of conflict experiences as the turning points in a child’s psychosocial development. That is, a child is likely to change his/her personality if an impactful and conflicting situation takes place. Such conflicts are expected to either improve a child’s personality or make the situation worse. In the event of a conflict, childhood psychosocial development has equal potentials of both growing and failing. Thus, if a child has a successful encounter with the conflict, then he/she emerges out of this stage with strong attributes, which can serve him/her for the rest of the lifespan.

From the movie, Jack’s personality transforms tremendously, whereby he honestly endorses Ralph as the leader by saying, “I guess you just won the election” (Lords of the Flies, 1990, 00:12:49). However, once Jack and Ralph disagree on leadership ideologies, Jack morphs into a rough, militaristic and bullish child who cares less about others.

Scene 2– Jack’s Gender Stereotypes

No doubt, the movie portrays lots of gender stereotyping, whereby the group that didn’t hunt were considered girls. Hence, this stereotypes the fact that girls cannot do physical skills such as hunting, which is, of course, wrong. Although the absence of girls is obvious, the nuanced aspects of female stereotype indicate the expectations of boys in the society, which is to fend for the opposite sex. For instance, because Jack had taken over the island’s leadership, he took the initiative to offer Ralph the available pig meat. That is, despite being rivals, Jack goes to Ralph’s camp and claims, “we killed a pig today and we’re going to have a feast. You can come if you want to” (Lord of the Flies, 1990, 00:56:25). The gesture of letting Ralph and Piggy have some meat indicates Jack’s masculinity and somehow it may represent Ralph as the female who is to be taken care of. Moreover, Jack constantly refers to Ralph and Piggy as “girls” (Lord of the Flies, 1990, 00:56:35)

Conclusion

From the movie ‘Lord of the Flies’, different stages of a child’s psychosocial development are evident. Themes such as self-esteem, gender stereotyping, personality development and emotional intelligence are comprehensively depicted in the film, which makes it easier to understand a child’s development. It is notable that environmental settings, along with social interactions, are imperative in influencing childhood psychosocial development. For instance, Ralph and Jack had to form different and opposing camps due to conflict in their social interactions, particularly without the guidance of adults or parents.

References

Cherry, K. (2018). How Do Children Develop in Middle Childhood? VeryWellMind.com, Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2Ro7hsR

Erikson, E. (2014). Childhood and Society: Stages of Psychosocial Development (3rd ed., pp. 124–206). London: Vintage Digital. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2SjKU83

Lord of the Flies (1990). Dir. Harry Hook, Castle Rock Entertainment: United States. Retrievable at https://bit.ly/2Bc3m9W

Thomson, K., Gadermann, A., & Rowcliffe, P. (2018). Measuring social-emotional development in middle childhood: The Middle Years Development Instrument. Journal Of Applied Developmental Psychology, 55(3), 107–118. DOI: 10.1016/j.appdev.2017.03.005; Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2ADxyfF

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