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Similarities Between The Stanford Prison Experiment And Lord Of The Flies

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Murder or Mercy: Morality in the Human Brain “The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.” - Michio Kaku When reading such stimulating novels such as Lord of the Flies, the psychological mysteries of the human mind are often the first thing you notice, be it the ability to justify killing another human being or just the need to build a society in order to maintain humanity. The psychological deterioration in both Golding’s fictitious novel, Lord of the Flies, and Zimbardo’s in depth psychological study, the Stanford Prison Experiment, are similar in the character archetypes that emerge in the stressful situation and the results of a particular ethical code gaining authority. Though those who were put into power were initially impartial, once power was introduced into the equation, familiar character archetypes began to emerge. In Lord of the Flies, said recognizable models manifested in the form of the hero, Ralph, and the villain, Jack. As the story progressed we found the innocent being portrayed by Simon, whose tragic death was a key turning point in the mental stability of all of the boys. There was a similar incident to the death of Simon that occurred on the second day of Zimbardo's experiment, the mental breakdown of prisoner #819. After speaking with a priest and breaking into hysterics, he was encircled by other inmates and was forced to listen …show more content…

Though fictional, Golding’s magnum opus is a well though out and well substantiated piece of literature exploring the deterioration of the human mind in response to stressful stimuli, in just the same way as the great experiments of Phillip

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