How Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is

Represented in ​Lord of the Flies

Griffin Conklin
Ms.Preminger & Mrs. Bauman
3rd Period
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020
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Desperate. Uncivilized. Traumatic. These three words best describe the events that

transpired on the island in​ Lord of the Flies​. In ​Lord of the Flies,​ a group of boys are deserted on

an island and struggle to survive until they are fortunately rescued by a naval officer. Maslow’s

Hierarchy of Needs is a proven and widely accepted theory on the needs that humans must

satisfy. In William Golding's Novel ​Lord of the Flies​, the boys stranded on the island were

unable to meet their most basic of needs, per Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and were therefore

burdened with crippled psyches, having no sense of family or belonging, and were then

compelled to revert to more tribalistic violence.

Throughout the story, the boys lacked basic resources like food, water, and shelter which

thrust the children into a state of disarray. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs proves that people have

five types of needs to be met: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization (Hopper,

2020). Maslow theorized that when those needs are not met people will fall into sickness and

have poor mental health. The effects of not meeting Maslow’s needs for safety and physiological
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stability are visible in multiple ways throughout the story. For example, As the boys go longer

without their basic needs of safety satisfied, they grow more and more fearful of what they do

not know. This makes them take drastic measures to feel safe. Early in the story, the younger of

the boys are already falling apart, and this is evident when the narrator says, “The littlun Percival

had early crawled into a shelter and stayed there for two days, talking, singing, and crying, till

they thought him batty and were faintly amused”(Golding ch.4). Though the older and more

brave boys are more resilient at first, in chapter five, Jack states, “Now they talk--not only the

littluns but my hunters sometimes--talk of a thing, a dark thing, a beast, some sort of

animal”(Golding ch.5). The boys struggle throughout the whole book to get shelter, drinking

water, and a steady source of food. This starts to take a toll on their bodies but mostly their

minds. They started to believe that there is a beast on the island that is hunting them, and this put

pressure on them to get those needs satisfied. Though the boys were too distraught to get

anything done which only made their paranoia and distrust for each other worse. Overall, this is

one of the driving factors that influenced the chaotic events that took place on the island.

Additionally, the overwhelming lack of respect and belonging pitted the boys against

each other and divided them. “According to Maslow, the next need in the Hierarchy involves

feeling loved and accepted. It also includes our need to feel that we belong to a social group.

Importantly, this need encompasses both feeling loved and feeling love towards others”(Hopper,

2020). In order to satisfy the need for love and belonging, people must have a community and

family around them, and the effects of not meeting this need can leave one feeling isolated and

by oneself. The best example of the boys’ lack of community and togetherness is when they

divide into two separate groups. Throughout the whole story, there was a clear divide amongst
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the boys, but they persevered for a while. This perseverance came to a screeching halt when

Ralph called an emergency meeting. Jack boldly stated, "I'm going off by myself. He can catch

his own pigs. Anyone who wants to hunt when I do can come too”(Golding ch.8). Most of the

older boys who felt undervalued and disregarded by the others left with Jack to go live how they

saw fit. It is likely that the boys felt divided because they rarely put effort into interacting with

each other. Most of the older boys didn’t even take the time to learn the younger boys’ names, let

alone think about them. Ralph, the chief, also seemed to pay little attention to what the boys

wanted which left them feeling unheard and disrespected. On the other hand, Jack seemed to

provide a sense of community that the older boys missed. Before the group divided Jack

interacted with the boys and formed bonds, unlike Ralph. The lack of belonging and love

culminated in a divided island pitted against each other.

Moreover, the fear and paranoia that cast a shadow over the island drove the boys mad

and reverted them to tribalistic savagery. Maslow’s Hierarchy demands that people or society

must meet the need for self-actualization along with all of the previously stated needs.

“Self-actualizing is becoming all that one is capable of being”(Shahrawat and Shahrawat, 2017).

There must be a decent satisfaction for the other needs, such as physiological needs, safety

needs, love and belonging needs, and esteem needs before self-actualization can be achieved.

Self-actualization means meeting one’s goal. All of these factors combine to put the boys into a

constant state of fight or flight. In the novel, the boys have the desire and drive to self-actualize,

but combining this with their lack of satisfaction for their other needs creates a primitive

tribal-like society. Most of the boys who voluntarily joined Jack have the goal of being manly

survivalists, who hunt, kill, and garner respect. Ralph, however, has the goal of survival until
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rescue. Early in the story, Piggy says, "How can you expect to be rescued if you don't put first

things first and act proper?"(Golding ch.2). All the boys have different priorities and they cannot

agree on which needs to satisfy first. Therefore they are getting nothing done. Without those

needs satisfied, they are lacking homeostasis which induces fear and panic. These motives clash

into a power struggle, and combining this with the boys’ lack of infrastructure to survive, creates

an environment riddled with petty violence. The boys were always in survival or fight or flight

mode, which made their conflicts violent and savage. The deaths of Piggy and Simon, and all the

fights leading up to the deaths, can be traced back to the boys’ lack of stability and desire to

self-actualize. The tribalistic events that carried out on the island were rooted in the boys’ failure

to establish infrastructure before attempting to self-actualize.

Crippled psyches, no sense of belonging, and tribalistic violence are what the boys in

Golding’s ​Lord of the Flies​ get after failing to meet the most basic need of Maslow’s Hierarchy

of Needs. The events that took place on the island, such as murder, extreme paranoia, and

barbaric terror because of the boys’ failure to meet the Hierarchy of Needs will leave the boys

with mistrust for leaders, PTSD, and a constant state of paranoia. Though a fictional story, ​Lord

of the Flies​ is one of the best examples of how society will behave without satisfying their needs

and the effects of not fulfilling Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

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Works Cited
Hopper, Elizabeth. "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Explained." ThoughtCo, Oct. 30, 2020,

thoughtco.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4582571​.

Golding, William, and Edmund L. Epstein. ​Lord of the Flies​: A Novel. New York:
Perigee, 1954.

Shahrawat, Aishwarya, and Renu Shahrawat. “Application of Maslow’s Hierarchy of

Needs in a Historical Context: Case Studies of Four Prominent Figures.”

Psychology​, vol. 08, no. 07, 2017, pp. 939–954., doi:10.4236/psych.2017.87061.