Teenagers can be very inconsistent with their actions and their emotions can change in the blink of an eye. So, why are teenagers this way? Teenagers act the way they do because nature and nurture impact their identity. This will be explained through psychological studies and personal experiences. It will also express connections with Lord of the Flies and how nature versus nurture impacts the boys in the book.
In Lord of the Flies, there are many examples of how society shaped the boys into who they are and how these morals are gradually lost throughout the book. At the beginning of the book, nature required them to hunt food on the island but, the boys were raised knowing that they’d always have food. Therefore, they didn’t know what to do, when it came time to hunt. “He raised his arm in the air. There came a pause, a hiatus, the pig continued to scream and the creepers to jerk, and the blade continued to flash at the end of a bony arm. The pause was only long enough for them to understand what an enormity the downward stroke would be” (Golding 31). They’d never hunted before and their nurture was telling them that they were ending a life, which is hard. At the same time, nature was telling them that the pig is food and they need food to survive. They had also arrived on the island with much conditioning. With the conditioning, they attempted to make society on the island and vote for a chief. “Vote for chief!” (Golding 21). Even though they could live on the island, they knew they had to be rescued. “We’ve got to decide about being rescued” (Golding 20). It was part of their nurturing that they had to go back to society.
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In the middle of the boys’ stay on the island, they still had the societal hold on their actions but, it was fading quickly. They began to have views that opposed their actions. For example, Roger, when he threw stones at Maurice, made sure he didn’t hit him because he still had good morals:
Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space around Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. (Golding 62)
The boys eventually stopped thinking about what they were doing. They just did whatever came to mind. When the boys are messing with the rocks, they don’t think at all. They push the huge rocks without thinking of the consequences because they want to do something destructive. “A knot of boys, making a great noise that he had not noticed, were heaving and pushing at a rock. As he turned, the base cracked and the whole mass toppled into the sea so that a thunderous plume of spray leaped halfway up the cliff. Stop it! Stop it!” (Golding 107). However, Ralph is still conditioned to know that the boys should not have been playing with the rocks because they didn’t know what could happen. Thus, by the middle of the book, the boys were still conditioned a little but, it was only enough to not kill anyone.
By the end of the book, everyone had lost all or most of their societal standards. Ralph lost his standards after everyone, except Piggy. He began to lose his hold on society when he forgot that they needed to be rescued. “He tried to remember” (Golding 221). Then, he lost himself again when he joined in the chant of Jack’s tribe. “Ralph too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.” (Golding 115). However, they all completely lost themselves when they killed Simon. “At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leaped onto the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.” The boys are frightened of the “beast”, Simon, and their instincts cause them to kill him. Hence, by the end of the book, all the boys had completely lost themselves.
Throughout the novel, there are many symbols of nature versus nurture applied to the boys. Piggy is the prime example of civilization, so the nurturing from society never wore off. Jack is an example of nature because he loses all standards from his previously nurtured life. 'Jack was bent double. He was down like a sprinter, his nose only a few inches from the humid earth' (Golding 48). When he started to act like an animal, he started to turn into his most primitive self. Simon is the symbol of consciousness because he is the one that knows right from wrong. Lastly, Ralph is the leader and mediator that helps see everyone’s point of view.
These symbols of nature versus nurture are explained by Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality. In Lord of the Flies, Jack is the id. In Freud’s theory, the “id is a primitive part of the mind; it is instinctual and unsympathetic” (McCarthy). Jack became the most primitive he could become as he never thought about anything he did. Ralph is the ego, the one who mediates and protects the id. Ralph is the ego because he is the mediator between Jack and Piggy. Lastly, Simon is the superego, the one “responsible for chastising the ego for failing to suppress the id” (McCarthy). He has perfect behavior, so he’s the ideal image of what someone should be.
One psychological study regarding nature versus nurture included the Stanford prison experiment. In this study, college students are studied to see how they would react to a prison environment. Twenty-one people are studied, half are guards and the other half are prisoners. They were placed in a fake prison in the basement of a Stanford psychology building. The guards were told that there were no rules and to do whatever they thought fit to discipline. During this six-day experiment, the guards abused the prisoners because of the power that was given to them. The prison environment made them think differently. “Most of the guards found it difficult to believe that they had behaved in the brutalizing ways that they had” (McLeod). They all reverted to their id personality types because they didn’t have the rules of society to conform to.
In my experience, I believe nature and nurture have had equal importance in my life. I have a large family and I am the middle child; therefore, I have many older siblings to look up to and younger ones to look up to me. I remember as a kid, looking up to my older brothers and sisters and imitating them constantly. Now some of those things play into my everyday life. This is one way how nurture has played into my life, by incorporating things that I’ve seen and learned from my family into how I act today. I also see in a broader sense that today’s teens, including me, depend on our phones. In the times before cell phones, teenagers didn’t need phones but, now we’ve been nurtured into requiring a phone constantly.
Nature has also affected how I act in many situations. I, as a teenager, have many hormones that can get out of control. For example, I might feel sad or mad for no apparent reason. This is because of the natural hormones produced during puberty that make teenagers feel drastically different emotions in short periods. Teenagers today can also be very impulsive or unpredictable. This is because of the white matter in their brains. The white matter is located in the prefrontal cortex and “The frontal cortex is associated with decision-making, insight, judgment, and inhibitory control” (Packard). As teenagers our brains aren’t fully developed, leading to impulsive acts. Hence, natural hormones and undeveloped brains lead to some of teenager’s behaviors.
I believe just as in Lord of the Flies, there are examples of Freud’s personality traits in real life as well. The real-life examples aren’t as drastic as the ones in Lord of the Flies because most people aren’t stranded on an island, but there are still examples. An example of an id person would be a bully. They don’t know how to act and do things without thinking. The ego would be the person that disciplines the bully, like a teacher. While, the superego would be the person that makes the teacher feel bad for not disciplining the bully, like a principal.
Overall, teenagers are the way they are because of nature and nurture. Nature is the things they do without thinking and nurture is the environmental impact. Teenagers may sometimes be wild and unpredictable, or they may be good. It all depends on their hormones and what’s going on in their life at that moment.
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