Post-Traumatic Stress Among the Children in Golding’s Lord of The Flies

Abstract: The essay explored the connection between the deviation of the children’s behavioral patterns and the theory of psychoanalysis. Texts by Klein and Freud and also adaptations of their theories by Mangs, Martell and Salzberg-Wittenberg were used to explore whether the characters followed the developmental stages according to psychoanalysis. Through a comparison between the records of the characters’ behavior with diagnostic material regarding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder composed by the American Psychiatric Association, the conclusion was drawn that the result of the analysis points towards the fact that the deviation in the behavioral patterns of the children was a result of the traumatic events that took place around them.