In 1957, scientist Leon Festinger proposed “Cognitive Dissonance Theory”, which states that a powerful motive to maintain cognitive consistency can give rise to irrational and sometimes maladaptive behavior. Cognitive Dissonance affects the person's ability to make decisions and allows for them to escape the guilt. Lord of the Flies is an example of “Cognitive Dissonance” in humans, in that both the novel and the psychological theory illustrate the premise that humans tend to justify their actions by lying to themselves. William Golding’s book Lord of the Flies is about a group of boys whose plane crashes, leaving them stranded on an island. Throughout the book the boys lose their sanity and begin to fight. As the boys struggle to find a balance in power between Ralph, a young boy who was originally elected as leader, and Jack, a wild, ill tempered, boy who challenges Ralph; the two shy intelligent boys, Piggy and Simon, are ostracised and viewed as unreliable and suspicious.Subsequently Simon is brutally murdered after trying to alert the group that the monster they have feared is really just a dead military parachutist (Golding, 138-139). Later Piggy also dies as an effect of Roger, Jack’s second in command, crushing him with a boulder (Golding, 164-165).
“Cognitive Dissonance Theory” is the theory that humans justify our actions by …show more content…
Leon Festinger first suggested this theory in 1957 when observing a cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members, particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult, when the flood did not happen. While many less committed members admitted the fault of the cult, the more devoted members re-interpreted the evidence to show that they were right all along, that the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members.