1. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
LOTF NOTES
Lord of the Flies – William Golding

2. More Freudian Theory
ANXIETY: Once we learn not to prohibit the expression of desires that we would be punished for, they urges do not go away, so we become ANXIOUS.

3. DEFENSE MECHANISMS DENIAL DISPLACEMENT
Blocking external events from awareness. If a situation is too much to handle, we refuse to experience it.
It is a primitive and dangerous defense because it disregards reality.
One way of reducing anxiety is to express the impulse in disguised form, thereby avoiding punishment or condemnation by the superego.
For example: aggressive impulses may be displaced by racing cars or taking kickboxing classes.

4. Identification of Aggressor
When one takes on the personality characteristics of someone else because doing so solves some emotional difficulty
For example: imitating someone we admire in an effort to establish identity
Rationalization
A distortion of “the facts” to make an event or an impulse less threatening. We do it often enough on a fairly conscious level when we provide ourselves with excuses. For many people with sensitive egos, making excuses comes so easy that they never are truly aware of it.

5. REGRESSION REPRESSION
A movement back in psychological time when one is faced with stress.
When we are troubled or frightened our behaviors often become more childish or primitive. According to Freud, we retreat back to a time when we felt safe and secure.
REPRESSION
A defense mechanism in which an impulse or memory that is distressing or might provoke feelings of guilt is excluded from conscious awareness by being pushed out of awareness into the unconscious.

6. SUPPRESSION PROJECTION
A process of self-control in which impulses, tendencies to action, and
wishes to perform disapproved acts are in awareness but not acted upon.
PROJECTION
A defense mechanism by which people protect themselves from awareness of their own undesirable traits by attributing those traits excessively to others

7. UNCONSCIOUS
Memories, impulses and desires that are not available to consciousness. According to the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, painful memories and wishes are sometimes repressed-that is, diverted to the unconscious where they continue to influence our actions even through we are not aware of them
All defenses are lies, even if we are not conscious of making them. Lies breed lies and take us away from reality.