CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS
B. The Defense Mechanisms of Elsa
Anna Freud states, “Under the pressure of excessive anxiety, the ego sometimes forced to take extreme measures to relieve the pressure…” (Freud as cited in Hall & Lindsey, 1978, pp. 51-54). The defense mechanisms have characteristics such as denying, distorting or hiding reality to relieve the pressure.
In Elsa’s case, she used a defense mechanism to alleviate the pressure of her anxiety. According to the evidence found in the film script, some of Elsa’s actions to cope with her anxiety are denial, regression, acting out, fixation, repression, and projection.
1. Denial
Denial describes a situation where a person cannot face reality. Moreover, they refuse to acknowledge some aspects of themselves (Vaillant, 1992, p. 256).
In Elsa’s case, she has been through an experience where her powers caused harm to her sister for that she is showing an obedient manner to her parents. Especially her father. In this case, she listens and follows her father’s instructions to conceal her powers. Here, there is an encouragement from her father that she has to learn to conceal her powers in isolation. She separates Elsa with her sister and others to prevent that accident from happening again.
KING. Until then, we’ll lock the gates. We’ll reduce the staff. We will limit her contact with people and keep her powers hidden from everyone including Anna.
(Lee, 2013, p. 8)
Thus, he teaches Elsa a mantra so that she can use this to conceal her powers.
KING. The gloves will help.
KING. See? You’re good… (Starting their mantra) conceal it.
YOUNG ELSA. Don’t feel it.
YOUNG ELSA & KING. Don’t let it show.
(Lee, 2013, p. 9).
Furthermore, the dialogue above shows that her father does not provide a way out for Elsa but only teaches her to “conceal it,” “do not feel it,” and “do not let it show.” In this case, Elsa’s father is unintentionally shaping Elsa’s emotion in dealing with her powers in a wrong way and unintentionally shaping a belief that if the power can be control, there is no one will get hurt anymore. This unintentional of shaping emotion and belief is later used by Elsa to survive the day. However, her father does not seem aware that because of that reason, Elsa grew with anxiety.
In her coronation day, she used the mantra (a song) as a symbol to control her powers and always believe that everything will be alright
ELSA. Don’t let them in. Don’t let them see. Be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal. Don’t feel. Put on a show. Make one wrong move and everyone will know. (Lee, 2013, p. 16).
She uses this song as a symbol to conceal her powers, and to overcome her anxious feeling of she might accidentally reveal her powers in front of others.
However, she is not aware that this song is not all about her father's instruction, but this more likely considered her denial of reality. As she does not aware that this song causes her to deny her powers, even more, she keeps following this instruction to be the "good girl" and to "put on a show" as the act to keep her powers hidden.
2. Regression
Regression marks a person who encounters traumatic experiences that retreats to an earlier stage (Hall & Lindsey, 1978, p. 53). When their parents pass
away, Elsa knows that her sister needs her the most and wants to be there to accompany her sister. However, she does not want her sister hurt by her powers and the fact that she listens to her father’s saying so that she chose to stay in her room as if she did not care. As a person who has a traumatic experience, Elsa has been struggling to cope with it. Therefore, she may look like someone who does not care about her sister, but she is regressed. It is an act of escaping from her anxiety by finding her comfort zone in dealing with her trauma.
ANNA. (Singing) Elsa? Please I know you’re in there. People are asking where you’ve been. They say have courage and I’m trying to. I’m right out here for you. Please let me in (Lee, 2013, p. 11).
3. Acting Out
Acting out is an act of coping with emotional conflicts by expressing their feelings in actions rather than reflecting through internal feelings first. This defense mechanism of acting out involves expressing wishes, feeling, or impulse in uncontrolled behavior (Vaillant, 1992, p. 253)
In the separation, young Anna always comes to ask Elsa to play with her.
However, to keep Anna safe, Elsa repeatedly refuses her sister’s request to play with her.
YOUNG ANNA. Do you want to build a snowman? It doesn’t have to be a snowman.
YOUNG ELSA. Go away Anna!
(Lee, 2013, p. 9)
Here, Elsa is acting out to hide her anxious feeling whenever her sister nears her.
When her sister asks her to play, instead of saying, “she can’t,” she refuses Anna by yelling at her and tells her “to go away.” In this case, Elsa’s unconsciously showing her uncontrolled behavior to her sister. She does not reflect first about
the consequences that both of them might feel after choosing to yell at her sister.
Whereas in the past, she was willing to play with Anna even though she was sleep.
However, in contrast, Elsa acts like a different person to her sister.
4. Fixation
Fixation is marked by someone who takes a new step full of anxiety (Hall &
Lindsey, 1978, p. 53). Elsa sometimes feels anxious in a particular situation.
Previously, when she was young, she did not need to hide her power because her family accepted her the way she was. However, Elsa accidentally hurts Anna. It caused Anna unconscious, so Elsa and her parents rushed Anna to go to the Trolls’
leader named Grand Pabbie. While Grand Pabbie tried to cure Anna, he said that there is a beauty in Elsa’s power, but it also can cause great danger. Therefore, Grand Pabbie wanted Elsa to learn how to control her powers, and that fear is her enemy.
GRAND PABBIE. Your Majesty. (referring to Elsa). Born with the powers or cursed?
KING. Born. And they’re getting stronger.
GRAND PABBIE. (about Anna). You are lucky it wasn’t her heart. The heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded.
KING. Do what you must.
GRAND PABBIE. I recommend we remove all magic, even memories of magic to be safe… But don’t worry, I’ll leave the fun.
GRAND PABBIE. She will be okay.
YOUNG ELSA. But she won’t remember I have powers?
KING. It’s for the best.
(Lee, 2013, p.7).
GRAND PABBIE. Listen to me , Elsa, you power will only grow. There’s beauty in your magic… but also great danger. You must learn to control it.
Fear will be your enemy. (Lee, 2013, p. 7)
This accident caused her to feel guilty about Anna. Moreover, the fact that Anna’s memory has been wiped away by Grand Pabbie makes Elsa worry about how she
is going to hide her powers from her sister. For this reason, Elsa grew up trying to suppress and conceal her powers. This action of suppressing and concealing caused her to become fixated. Elsa is fixated because she grew up with a new habit, which means she must get used to the fact that if previously, Elsa did not need to hide her powers. After all, her family accepted her as she was, but now she must conceal it to prevent this accident from happening again. Therefore, Elsa takes this new habit with a fear that something might happen in the process.
However, since fixation also causes an obsessive attachment to something (Hall &
Lindsey, 1978, p.53), Elsa is unaware that she grows an obsessive attachment to the gloves that her father made her wear. In this case, the gloves help her conceal her powers, and if the gloves are removed, her anxiety will rise, and she will become very insecure. As in her coronation day, Elsa is asked by the Bishop to take her gloves off.
BISHOP. (a whisper). Your Majesty, the gloves.
(Lee, 2013, p. 19)
The purpose is to perform a proper ceremony when holding both the orb and scepter. However, as soon as Elsa takes off her gloves, she begins to feel anxious.
“This moment highlights Elsa’s dependence on wearing the gloves for the emotional security that she controls her powers” (Patel, 2015, p.4).
5. Repression
Repression occurs when an “object-choice that arouses undue alarm is forced out of consciousness” (Hall & Lindsey, 1978, p. 52). For example, a disturbing memory can be prevented from becoming conscious. However, it can affect behavior because of repressing feelings or painful memories. (p. 52).
In her coronation, Elsa is deliberate hides and suppresses her emotion and powers as she sings, “do not let them in, do not let them see.” However, underneath, it lays unconscious repressed feelings struggling to surface (Kowalski
& Bhalla, 2015, p. 147). After her coronation, Anna and Hans come to find Elsa and ask for her blessing. However, Anna does not expect that Elsa will not allow her to get married to Hans. Elsa confused when her sister was talking about a marriage ceremony and even talking about inviting all the brothers of Hans to live in Arendelle.
ANNA. I mean…Queen… me again. Um. May I present Prince Hans of the Southern Isles.
HANS. Your Majesty. (bowing) ANNA. We would like--
HANS. --your blessing-- ANNA. --of--
ANNA/HANS. --our marriage-- ELSA. Marriage…?
ELSA. I’m sorry, I’m confused.
ANNA. Well, we haven’t worked out all the details ourselves. We’ll need few days to plan the ceremony. Of course we’ll have soup, roast, and ice cream and then-- wait. Would we live here?
ELSA. Here ? HANS. Absolutely ! ELSA. Anna--
ANNA. Oh, we can invite all twelve of your brothers to stay with us-- ELSA. What/ no, no, no, no, no.
ANNA. Of course we have the room. I don’t know. Some of them must-- ELSA. Wait. Slow down. No one’s brothers are staying here. No one is getting married.
(Lee, 2013, pp. 29-30).
This involves them in a fight. Considering that Elsa is emotionally sensitive, Elsa cannot hold her anger and the fact that she feels threatened with the situation at the ball. She suddenly acts more aggressively than her sister does. It makes her accidentally unleashes her powers towards Anna and the guests. In this case, her
action by accidentally unleashes her power towards the guest and Anna because she cannot control her emotion that triggers her powers to come out to the surface.
Here “she begins to externalize the inner turmoil she has thus far strived so hard to deny” (Kowalski & Bhalla, 2015, p. 147). Considering that repression occurs when “an object-choice that arouses undue alarm is forced out of the consciousness” (1978, p. 52), Elsa’s repressed feeling is forced out as Anna is triggering her by saying that she plans to marry Hans. Here, Anna becomes Elsa’s object-choice to express her disagreement.
6. Projection
After Elsa accidentally unleashes her powers in front of her sister and guests, she leaves Arendelle and goes to the North Mountain. Surprisingly, Anna follows her to the North Mountain and persuades Elsa to go back with her. However, Elsa thinks that she is okay by herself. She feels that if she stays in this place, she can freely express her power without hurting other people. Nevertheless, Anna still persuades her using beautiful memories that they experienced together when they were children. Suddenly, that accident of Anna getting injured by her powers resurface. It makes Elsa begins to feel insecure and suddenly becomes protective of Anna.
Furthermore, Elsa also receives news from Anna that Arendelle is in eternal winter. As she heard about this news, Elsa suddenly becomes panic. Elsa is not aware that as the anxiety taking control of her awareness, her powers suddenly form as the blizzard that sucked back into her and exploded out like a sharp snowflake that accidentally struck Anna right in the heart. Thus, she creates a
giant snowman to drive her sister away because she is afraid she might hurt Anna again. Here, Elsa is projected as projection has the purpose of reducing anxiety by replacing smaller danger for a bigger one (Hall & Lindsey, 1978, p. 53). In Elsa’s case, she replaces her fear that she might hurt Anna again with a way of creating a giant snowman to reduce her anxiety. Here, the smaller danger is her fear of hurting Anna again, and the giant snowman is the bigger danger. This giant snowman becomes the bigger danger that Elsa created. It is a violent and frightening creation that forcibly drives Anna away from her. However, she is not aware that this projection might hurt Anna.