AN ANALYSIS OF MAIN CHARACTERS’ CONFLICT IN
FLORA RHETA SCHREIBER’S NOVEL SYBIL
A THESIS
BY:
DINI DITA FAURIKA
REG. NO.: 080721005
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LETTERS
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH SUMATRA
MEDAN
AN ANALYSIS OF MAIN CHARACTERS’ CONFLICT IN
FLORA RHETA SCHREIBER’S NOVEL SYBIL
A THESIS
By:
DINI DITA FAURIKA
REG. NO.: 080721005
SUPERVISOR, CO-SUPERVISOR,
Dra.Swesana Mardia, M.Hum Drs. Parlindungan Purba , M. Hum
NIP. 19571002 198601 2003 NIP. 131837561
Submitted to Faculty of Letters
University of North Sumatra
In partial fulfillment of the Degree
Of Sarjana Sastra in English Literature
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH SUMATRA
FACULTY OF LETTER
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
Approved by the English Department of Faculty of Letters
University of North Sumatra (USU) Medan as the Sarjana Sastra
Examination.
Head, Secretary,
Dra. Swesana Mardia Lubis, M. Hum Drs. Parlindungan Purba, M. Hum
Accepted by the Board of examiners in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Sarjana Sastra from the English Department, Faculty of Letters, University of North Sumatra, Medan.
The Examination is held on the Faculty of Letters, English Department, University of North Sumatra on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009.
The Dean of Faculty of Letters
University of North Sumatra
Prof. Syaifuddin, M. A, Ph. D
NIP: 19650909 199403 1004
Board of Examiners:
Dra. Swesana Mardia Lubis, M. Hum ……….
Drs Parlindungan Purba, M. Hum ……….
AUTHOR’S DECLARATION
I, DINI DITA FAURIKA, declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. Except where reference is made in the text of this thesis, this contains no material published else where or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or awarded another degree.
No other person’s works has been used without due acknowledgements in the main text of this thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of another degree in any tertiary education.
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COPYRIGHT DECLARATION
Name : DINI DITA FAURIKA
Title of Thesis : AN ANALYSIS OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS’ CONFLICTS IN FLORA RHETA SCHREIBER’S NOVEL SYBIL
Qualification : S-1 / Sarjana Sastra
Department : English
I am willing that my thesis should be available for reproduction at the discretion of the Librarian of University of North Sumatra, Faculty of Letters, English Department on the understanding that users are made aware of their obligation under law of the Republic of Indonesia.
Signed :
ABSTRAK
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,
First of all, I would like thank and praise to Almighty God, Allah SWT, for blessing and giving me strength, health, patience and as in finishing this thesis in order to get a S1 Degree in English from Faculty of Letters, University of Sumatera Utara.
Then, I would like to express a deep gratitude, love and appreciation:
To my father, A.Natsir Tanjung, SE, my mother, Diana Roswita
Iriani Sitorus and to my beloved brothers and sister. Thank you for the material and emotional support. You all know how much I love you and I present this thesis for you.
To Drs. Syaifuddin, M.A, Ph.D. as the dean of the Faculty of
Letters, University of Sumatera Utara.
To Dra. Swesana Mardia Lubis, M.Hum as the head of English
Department program and as my supervisor for her time in giving suggesting for this thesis.
To Drs. Parlindungan Purba, M.Hum, as my supervisor for his time
To all Lecturers in English Department Program for giving me
instruction, tuition and knowledge.
To my beloved M. Ikhwan Husni, thanks for your advice, your
support for making me cries, make me laugh and you’re standing beside to hear my entire story.
Last but not least, thank you to Chocolate Gank, thanks for your
support and you’re standing beside.
Medan, 19th March 2010
TABLE OF CONTENT
1.5 The Significant of the Analysis ... 5
1.6 The Methods of Research... 5
1.7 The Review of Related Literature ... 6
CHAPTER II: CLARIFICATION OF THE TERMS 2.1 General concept of Novel... 7
2.1.1 Theme ... 7
2.1.2 Character ... 8
2.1.3 Plot ... 9
2.1.4 Point of View ... 10
2.1.5 Setting ... 10
2.2 General concept of conflict ... 11
2.3 The Types of Conflict According to Kurt Lewin Theory ... 14
2.3.1 Approach-Approach Conflict ... 14
2.3.2 Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict ... 15
CHAPTERIII: THE RESEARCH METHODS
3.1 The method of the analysis ... 18
3.2 The technique for collecting data ... 18
3.3 The technique for analyzing data ... 19
CHAPTER IV: AN ANALYSIS OF THE MAIN CHARATERS’ CONFLICTS IN FLORA RHETA SCHREIBER’S NOVEL SYBIL 4.1 Sybil’s conflicts ... 20
4.1.1 Sybil’s approach-approach conflict... 20
4.1.2 Sybil’s avoidance-avoidance conflict ... 24
4.1.3 Sybil’s approach-avoidance conflict ... 27
4.2 Dr.Wilbur’s conflicts ... 31
4.2.1 Dr.Wilbur’s approach-approach conflict ... 32
4.2.2 Dr.Wilbur’s avoidance-avoidance conflict ... 33
4.2.3 Dr.Wilbur’s approach-avoidance conflict ... 35
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1 Conclusion ... 39
5.2 Suggestion ... 40
BIBLOGRAPHY
SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL
ABSTRAK
INTRODUCTION
1.1. The Background of the Analysis
Literature is a term used to describe written and spoken material. It is also used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the terms are most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination. One of the creative imaginations of literature is novel, a form of an extended fictional prose narrative that emphasis on the character development. According to Reeve (1785:26) novel is a picture of real and manners and of the time in which it was written. Novel deals with a human character in a social situation, and man as a social being.
According to Roberts (1993:20) Character is the persons presented in dramatics of narrative work, who are interpreted by reader as being endowed with the moral and dispositional qualities that are expressed in what they say in a dialogue and what they do in the action. Shaw (1972:15) has explained that every novel is an account of life and it involves conflict of the characters. Conflict can be seen clearly in a plot because it is arranged by several united events. Conflict also exists in other elements of prose that is character and motif. By the statement above, it can conclude that conflict is wrapped in story through characters and the way they perform.
Eric C (2000: 366) conflict is incompatibility of ideas, beliefs, roles, needs, desires, and values and so on. Kurt Lewin (1952) developed types of internal conflicts that individuals face; he identified several situations in which we experience mutually irreconcilable alternatives that are use different emotions: * Approach-approach conflict: when we want two different things, both of which we like (have "positive valence"), but we should choose one of the things we preferred.
* Avoidance-avoidance conflict: when we have to choose between two alternatives that we do not like ("negative valence")
* Approach-avoidance conflict: when one thing has both positive and negative qualities.
Linda Seager (2000) divides conflicts into some term which are not so far different from Kurt Lewin theory, they are:
- Inner conflict, suggesting that the characters are unsure of themselves, or their action, or even what they want.
- Social conflict, deals with conflict between a person and a group (pitting a person against a larger system).
- Situational conflicts, develop as characters disagree about how to best survive and within each scene, different points of view emerge. Some characters panic, others become leaders, trying to persuade the group to follow them.
- Cosmic conflict, a conflict that occurs between a character and a supernatural force.
From the definitions, it can be understood that both Lewin and Seger suggest conflict is a situation where choices are not resulting satisfaction. In the word, conflict is a disappointed or unfulfilled desire. Conflict can occur between individuals or between groups of many types and there are so many factors to make conflict and it seems natural because it has become parts of human being life. Thus, conflict is a matter which is result as disappointed senses.
This novel is dominantly expressing internal and external conflicts of the main characters that they are having to facing and solve the conflicts that appear.
1.2. The Problem of the Analysis
The problems of the analysis in this thesis are:
What are the conflicts of Sybil that found in Flora Rheta
Schreiber’s novel Sybil according to Kurt Lewin theory?
What are the conflicts of Dr. Wilbur in Flora Rheta Schreiber’s
novel Sybil according to Kurt Lewin theory?
1.3. The Objective of the Analysis
This thesis is written to find, analyze and explain the conflicts of
Sybil that found in Flora Rheta Schreiber’s novel Sybil according to Kurt Lewin theory.
This thesis is written to find, analyze and explain the conflicts of
Dr.Wilbur that found in Flora Rheta Schreiber’s novel Sybil according to Kurt Lewin theory.
1.4. The Scope of the Analysis
1.5. The Significance of the Analysis
Theoretically, this thesis analysis made to increase the literature understanding in terms of literary works through the analysis of the conflict and to make the readers know the meaning of conflict and what are the main characters’ conflicts in the Flora Rheta Schreiber’s Novel Sybil and how they are facing the conflicts. Practically, this thesis can be used as references and
1.6. The Method of the Analysis
Scientific writing has a certain kind of method. Usually, research on literary work that has long published carried out by library research. Thesis is classified into scientific one because it has systematic way of arrangement. There must be steps of procedure to complete collected data found in the source.
1.7. The Review of Related Literature
This thesis has consulted several books in collecting the data of analysis and used some references that contain some information which design to assist and related to the topic. Some of them are:
A Core Text in Human Behavior by Merle J.Moskowits, 1996
In this book, Lewin defines that they are three kinds of conflict that are: approach-approach conflict, avoidance-avoidance conflict and approach-avoidance conflict. It can be defines that it is easier to analyze the characters’ conflict in the novel.
Theory of Literature by Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, 1977
II. CLARIFICATION OF TERMS
2.1 General Concept of Novel
There are three major genres of literature, such as poetry, prose, and drama. Which each genre has it is own characteristic. In this chapter explain briefly about novel because in the novel there is the main object of the analysis in this thesis.
Taylor (1981:78) says that novel is a prose work of quite some length and complexity which attempts to reflect and express something of the quality or value of human experience or conduct.
Novel can portray characters and actions which represent of real life dealing with human life, passion or ambition, desire, joy, sadness, feeling, thought, egoism and many related to human life.
In analyzing a novel, one should apply a series of steps in order to get better understanding about the novel, about the theme, plot, characters and setting.
2.1.1 Theme
2.1.2 Character
Perhaps the single most important aspects of a good novel were characterization. The reader must care about the character in order to care about what happens to them. To achieve this, the characters must be three-dimensional. Like a real people, characters have hope and fears, strengths and weakness, and one or more objectives. Even if you don not use all of the information, it helps to write down as many details about the characters as possible. One way to go about this is to use one of the many characters guides that are available.
In the real world we know that human as a people, but in a novel, human called as character. It can be animals, people, plants and things. According to Robert (1993:20) character is the persons presented in dramatics of narrative works, who are interpreted by reader as being endowed with the moral and dispositional qualities that are expressed in what they say and what they do in action. Character is very important in real made creation of literary works such as novel, drama or even some poems. The nature of character presentation brings a positive impact for readers to find out what is going on and what is it for. It can be traces to generalize opinion for man in general.
1. By what the person say: “give up! Don’t be silly. I haven’t even started yet.”
2. By what someone else says: “Jenkins? A building is a quitter compared to him.”
3. By his or action: Alex straight tined her shoulders, and took a deep breath.
4. By indicating his or her thoughts: So they thought that she would give up.
5. By the way that other people treat him or her: here was a mission which there no one can quit.
6. By the author’s direct words: Miranda was a young girl who never tired to work hard.
A character in a fiction may realize in a number of way. Characters have been constructed to make out an action. They words that they are say and the comment that made by the creator depend on how they are presented.
2.1.3 Plot
2.1.4 Point Of View
Point of view is who is telling the story. This can be done by several ways. In first person, one character is speaking in the ‘I’ voice. Second person, which uses ‘you,’ is the least common point of view. Third person, who can be handled in a variety of ways, is the most often used method. In third person limited, the narrator can only go inside the head of the character telling in the story. This requires the character to be in every scene which must be told through their eyes. Third person gives the author the freedom in writing. Using this point of view, the author can have different point of view characters for different scenes.
2.1.5 Setting
Setting is another aspect traditionally included in analysis of prose fiction and it is relevant to discussion of other genres. The term ‘setting’ about the location, historical period, and social surrounding in which the action of the next develops. Setting can be defined as the place and period of the story, the canvas on which dramatic events are drawn in details.
A novel can be analyzed from several of point of view. It can be analyzed from the moral, social and religious point of view. In this case, the thesis is discussing about the conflict that is related to the characters in the novel, which is much related to the private and social life
2.2 General Concept of Conflict
Conflict is a necessary element of fictional literature. It is defined as the problem in any piece of literature and it is often classified according to the nature of the protagonist or antagonist. Conflict is actual or perceived opposition of needs, values and interests. A conflict can be internal (within oneself) to individual. Conflict as a concept can help explain many aspect of social life such as social disagreement, conflicts of interests and fights between individuals, groups or organizations. It is common that everyone will experience conflict in his life since conflict is a natural part of human life.
when the satisfaction of one of the motives precludes the satisfaction of another, when goal achievements are mutually exclusive. However, the most difficult conflict occurs when the satisfaction of and also intensifies another motive. This occurs when the attainment of a goal actively weakness or reverse previous goal achievement. According to Moskowitz (1969:313) conflict is one of the inevitable consequences of the fact that we are multi-motivated organism; it is therefore a fundamental quality of man, especially of a highly civilized man whose irreconcilable motives are woven into the fabric of his personality.
Psychologists have devoted a great deal of effort to analyze and experimental investigation of conflict behavior. In summarizing some of our knowledge about conflict, we will use a helpful classification that was first proposed by Kurt Lewin. In Moskowitz and Orgel book “A Core Text in Human Behavior” (1969:314), Kurt Lewin developed types of internal conflicts that
individuals face; he identified several situations in which we experience mutually irreconcilable alternatives that are use different emotions:
Approach-approach conflict: when we want two different things, both of
which we like (have "positive valence"), but we should choose one of the things we preferred.
Avoidance-avoidance conflict: when we have to choose between two
alternatives that we do not like ("negative valence")
Approach-avoidance conflict: when one thing has both positive and negative
Linda Seager (2000) also divides conflicts into some term which are not so far different from Kurt Lewin theory, they are:
Inner conflict, suggesting that the characters are unsure of themselves, or their
action, or even what they want.
Social conflict, deals with conflict between a person and a group (pitting a
person against a larger system).
Relational conflict, centers on the mutually exclusive goals of the protagonist
(main character in the story) and the antagonist (character or force that opposes the protagonist).
Situational conflicts, develop as characters disagree about how to best survive
and within each scene, different points of view emerge. Some characters panic, others become leaders, trying to persuade the group to follow them. Cosmic conflict, a conflict that occurs between a character and a supernatural
force.
In conclusion, conflict can also be regarded as an emotional reaction to a situation that signals disagreement of some kinds. Unless conflict is externalized as action, it remains merely as an internal tension.
2.3 The Types of Conflict According To Kurt Lewin Theory
2.3.1 Approach-approach conflict
Approach-approach conflict occurs when an individual is simultaneously motivated toward two equally attractive goals. For examples, the young child with one nickel to spend may have to choose between two enticing varieties of candy, or when a young man is bringing his girlfriend to see a movie, and they find that there are two attractive movies. The young man wants to see movie A but his dating wants to see movie B, now the young man is forced to choose whether he has to satisfy his desire or to make a decision between two attractive subjects. This kind of conflict can be pictured as follows:
Where pluses stand for the alternative incentives, the lines and arrows signify the motives and the direction of their associated responses, and the circle signifies the individual in conflict. If the response tendencies in approach-approach behaviour were exactly equal in strength and if the goals were exactly equidistant the person might in deed experience a prolonged period of frustration.
But in actuality this is rarely case –the person in this conflict generally has unequal response tendencies toward the two goals, because in the past he has been reinforced more often or more intensely by one that by other. Example, the children choose the chocolate over licorice because he has had more chocolate or because chocolate tastes better to him. One might say, that approach-approach situations are fortunate kinds of conflict; they occur frequently but are generally easy to resolve; the alternatives involved are both pleasant; and any frustration that ensues is likely to be temporary rather than enduring.
2.3.2 Avoidance-avoidance conflict
In avoidance-avoidance conflict, the individual is confronted with two aversive situations; she/he is motivated to avoid both, but he can not avoid one without encountering the other. For example, the child who must either eat his spinach or be spanked experiences by his mother. The avoidance-avoidance conflict is represented schematically as:
The essence of avoidance-avoidance conflict is that it is almost always involves an imposition from outside rather than a pure conflict between the individual’s own motives. The child does not have any inherent motive to eat spinach or to be spanked but his motivated only to avoid both.
The conflict is generated in part by the situation confronting the individual rather than form within the person himself. Therefore, this kind of conflict tends to be more characteristic of childhood than it is of adulthood because the child is much less free to make his own decisions. When avoidance-avoidance conflicts are truly inescapable and irresolvable, they are important, because they tend to generate other motives that have to do with either free or anger. And these drives in turn evoke additional, complicating motives that originate within the individual himself. As a matter of fact, most sustained of approach-avoidance conflicts where the conflict is primarily one of withdrawing from the situation entirely versus remaining in the situation for some positive benefit.
2.3.3 Approach-avoidance conflict
In approach-avoidance conflict the individual is confronted with a situation that is both aversive and attractive; approach and avoidance response tendencies are simultaneously evoked. For example, a young lady may be motivated to accept a date with John because she wants to have an escort to an important dance, but at the same time she may find John an unattractive or boring fellow with whom she would prefer not to spend her time. The approach avoidance situation is represented as:
+
-Unlike approach-approach and avoidance-avoidance conflicts, the approach-avoidance conflict does not tend to lead to enduring or even increasing frustration. Since both responses tendencies are directed toward the same situation, the individual can neither postpone one motive (as in approach-approach) nor escape the conflict (as in avoidance-avoidance situations). Any response to the situation will produce frustration. Approach-avoidance conflict is the most important sources of frustration, and they are even more frequently experienced in adulthood than in childhood. This is because of the greater complexity of the adult motivational pattern, which involves a greater number of personal motives and therefore, a greater potential for inconsistency and contradiction.
Shaw (1972:125) explain that in case of literary terms, conflict is defined as the tension in a situation between characters, the actual opposition of characters (usually in drama, fiction and in narrative poetry), there may also occurs conflict between a character and a society environment.
III. THE RESEARCH METHODS
3.1. The Method of the Analysis
This thesis is written by using some methods, by collecting the data from some books and many other supporting materials that related to the subject matter that will be analyzed. The main source of the thesis is the Flora Rheta Schreiber’s novel Sybil which contains the important information that synchronizes with the subject of the thesis that will be analyzed. As an additional sources, the internet searching has been use to support and complete this thesis to find out any related data with the subject that can support the analysis, if the many sources are got, the much information will got.
The analysis of the subject matter element is described, and then the method is known as descriptive method. The elements of the subject matter are described from general statement into specific ones and supported by the other related sources so that can not be doubted.
3.2. The Technique in Collecting Data
Other significant information is taken from the literature books and some other references that related to the topic of the analysis.
3.3. The Technique in Analyzing
IV. AN ANALYSIS OF THE MAIN CHARATERS’ CONFLICTS IN
FLORA RHETA SCHREIBER’S NOVEL SYBIL
4.3 Sybil’s conflicts
4.3.1 Sybil’s approach-approach conflict
Since Sybil at six month, she is very rarely faced in two attractive things, or two good situations, all the physical and mental abuse always make her facing the bad situation to choose. Until she went to New York and meet Dr. Cornelia Wilbur to take psychoanalysis to against her problem that she do not know before. For years Sybil taking the therapy, hope that she can cure. But, it takes too long. Knowing the fact that she has a multiple personality and do not know is it can cure, Sybil close her self, thirty-five years old and an old maid – exclude the phalanx of the married, a third plate at their dinner tables. Isolated, lonely, she felt removed from the world. When Henry, a man who sat next to her on the chemistry lab and whom also she knew from other classes, shows his attract to Sybil and clearly said that he likes her. Even though, Sybil also likes Henry too, but her body language clearly said her rejected to him because her fears if this feels continued, Henry will know everything about her and rejecting that can makes her hurt.
“Henry. Male companionship. Perhaps the father of the baby Sybil so urgently wanted but probably couldn’t have. Whenever a man had entered her life, she had wanted his children even more than she wanted him. And the desire for Henry, although deeply buried, had been there. Why not dinner? One thing would lead to another. If she allowed herself to become involved with Henry, he would come to know her well and learn all about her. Then he would reject her. She knew that she had to protect herself against such an eventuality. No man must come close until she was well. Well? She winced. Would she ever be well?”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:320)
Every task and examination in her college failed, and one obvious external failure was that Sybil dropped out from school – too sick to learn. When Dr. Wilbur find new way – hypnosis to speed up the integration of Sybil and other personalities, they feel doubtful at the first time, they think that they can not doing anything that they do before and they fear that Dr. Wilbur treats will change and they fear of losing her.
‘We are going to start now,’ the doctor announced decisively. All of you are going tom grow. You are going to keep right on growing. Fifteen minutes from now you will be thirty-seven and three months – Sybil’s age.’
‘Thirty-seven is awfully old,’ Nancy Lou Ann demurred, ‘that’s too old for anything.’
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:356)
‘Will you love us now that we’re old?’ Peggy asked wistfully. ‘I will always love all of you,’ was the answer
‘And be our friend as you were in the past?’ asked Marcia
‘Things will be quite different,’ Vanessa remarked apprehensively. ‘Whenever you have a difference of opinion,’ the doctor pointed out.
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:357)
Ramon is the person who had aroused feelings in Sybil that she never felt before. Always afraid to see the same person, man or woman too many times make her fear that they would discover her lapses of time or meet one of other selves, habitually unable to make plans in advance since the morrow might not belong to her, Sybil had dared to be with Ramon in the course of eight weeks of continuous dating. But, even she has a romance life, it not makes her depressed and her desire to death lost.
“As Sybil worked on preparation for dinner, she also admitted to herself that her depression and suicidal feelings had not been put to rest by the euphoria of her romance. Even during these eight weeks there had been tugs of despair, desire for surcease, the surcease of death.”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:383)
had so often been rejected. He had turned from her in the same way that she had just turned from Ramon.
4.3.2 Sybil’s avoidance-avoidance conflict
Sybil is facing with the reality that she has to choose one of two bad situations which are the situations has the same worst result for her and make her personality more dissociate. She has to decided which are the best chooses for her even it also give bad effect. The situation beginning when Sybil admitted to Dr.Wilbur that she had lost time, it had been an admission also to her. Instead she had used the circumlocution: “blank spells”.
Dr Wilbur explanation makes Sybil feel embarrassed, she know what Sybil did not know about herself and Sybil scared that she can find the terrible thing about Sybil because of what she called the idea of ‘lost time’.
“The doctor told her, ‘While you lose consciousness, another personality takes over for you.’ Had not been fear, it was recognition. That sentence explained the things, good and bad, that people had said she had done, but which she hadn’t, the strangers who said that they knew her. Embarrassed that the doctor would find out the terrible things, the evil things about which perhaps the doctor knew already but wasn’t telling, she had fled from the office, haunted by self-accusation”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:111)
By dividing into different selves, defenses against not only an intolerable but also a dangerous reality, Sybil had found the way to survival. The battered ritual has began since Sybil at six month and continued until her early childhood, then after the ritual Sybil’s mother always warned Sybil not to dare to tell people about what she do to her. When Sybil old enough to crawl, she manages the revenge but, the revenge against her mother was easier in the early years of life because there are friends, her grandmother and a maid who love the child.
After Sybil grew older, her mother took over the nursery of Sybil and ended the interlude of the maid and her grandmother. And it makes a further punishment and makes Sybil can not fight back.
“As Sybil grew older, however, the interlude of her grandmother and Priscilla ended, and her mother steadily took over the helm. The stage to repression was set as Sybil, commanded not to tell, not to cry, lest she be punished, kept everything to herself. Sybil learned not to fight back because by fighting the punishment evoked further.”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:203)
Little Sybil like to create things and paintings. Even her mother treats her so mad, Sybil always wants to show her creation to her mother, but, her mother never care and always ignoring. Once, when Sybil pushes her mother to see her creation, and not follows her mother command, she gets trapped and should choose the best perhaps.
“Sybil was trapped. If she obeyed, she had to go to the tree, where Hattie stood ready to hit her. If Sybil didn’t go, she would be hit for disobeying. Deciding on the former, Sybil pulled the ornament down quickly and eluding her mother, ran towards the door. Hattie starts after her daughter, Sybil ran faster. Her mother’s menacing, ‘do not you run in this house,’ echoed every where. Sybil wondered whether she should keep running or stop. If Sybil stopped, her mother would hit her because of the Christmas ornament. If Sybil ran, her mother would hit her for running. Entrapment was complete. ”
The conflict in her childhood make Sybil becomes a closed personality and always accepts what people done to her. She never fight back, and it make she dissociate her personality to protect her and help her to handle the emotion that never can be she expressed. But her other personality does, they did it for Sybil. Sybil has sixteen personalities, and each personality describing Sybil feeling that she can not shows, her anger, her defenses, her tears that can not been crying when she sad etc.
Certain that her life had stopped while she retraced a path that uncovered only anguish, Sybil felt that she had indeed come to the end of the line. She did not want to live this way. She could scarcely even endure just being awake. Walking she knew one of the others might take over. Even when there was not an actual takeover, there was the everlasting internal pressure, the interference by the others. She felt alone, useless, futile. Convince that she was never going to get better; Sybil was faced with self-recrimination and complaints.
“’Awoke as me, stayed my self.’ These were the triumphs of Sybil’s fragmented existence as, almost four years after the interception of the analysis; she continued to fall prey to the same archetypical event, reproduced in the same ritualistic form. Sybil, it might be said, lived in parentheses. Outside the brackets was approximately one third of her walking life.”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:313)
existences of the other selves, but Sybil, however – this was the great irony of her predicament – had not known about the others, until Dr. Wilbur had told her about them. The irony was compounded by the fact that even after the doctor had alerted Sybil to the truth; Sybil has refused to meet the others on tape, and refused to come closer to them, to accept them.
‘How many times have I started over again?’
‘I don’t know how many times,’ the doctor replied. ‘Will you quit trying? It won’t do any good at all. Why start over? Why not go on from where you are?’
‘I don’t know what was done in my name,’ Sybil blurted. ‘Maybe mayhem. Murder.’
‘Sybil,’ the doctor replied firmly. ‘I’ve told you again and again that no one of the others goes against your ethical code.’
‘You’ve told me,’ Sybil replied anxiously. ‘But do you really know? We can’t be sure.’
‘Sybil,’ the doctor ventured for what in the course of over three years was easily the hundredth time, ‘I should like you to hear the other selves on tape.’
‘No.’ Sybil shook her head decisively. ‘The only thing I want to hear about these others, as you call them, is that they no longer exist.’
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:289)
4.3.3 Sybil’s approach-avoidance conflict
Sybil Isabel Dorsett is a young woman who has traumatic and conflicts that make her personalities separate, but the most horrible traumatic is from inside her family. Sybil’s first dissociation happens when she is but a baby and the major cause of her multiple personalities is rooted in her mother, who was likely, a paranoid schizophrenic. Also, during Sybil’s childhood she was subjected to mental traumas and physical tortures from her schizophrenic mother.
result of Sybil’s alternate personalities taking over in order to cope with emotions that Sybil herself had learned to block out during her childhood.
“Sybil found herself clinging to realities. Even while she did so, however, she realized that the time-honoured conundrum, the terrible thing, had overtaken her again. It had been the reality of her life to have something happen that had no beginning and to experience the painfully familiar. ‘This is where I came in’ feeling, with its tantalizing withholding of everything that had gone before. Study for exam. As Sybil sat at her desk, however, the pages of her education text blurred with her panic, and she asked herself fervently: Will there never be an end that also has a beginning? Will there never is continuity bridging the awful void between now and some other time, a time in the future, a time in the past.”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:101)
Sybil never knows that she has separate personalities, but she knows that she has a problem that had been a lifetime dilemma, and she needs to seek a solution but neither she nor anybody else understood. Until a physician who cures her mother ordered a help, the Doctor knows that there is something wrong with Sybil, but Sybil do not want to tell to much to the physician, all Sybil said was she knows that she has to see a psychiatrist., then physician suggests a Dr. Wilbur, a female psychologist, but her parents are skeptical. During her medical psychoanalysis treatment Sybil parents feared and unacceptable about the psychoanalysis’s couch might be antithetical to their most deeply held religious convictions; they believe that such intervention is sinful.
“They feared and unacceptable about the psychoanalysis’s couch world might be antithetical to their most deeply held religious convictions, their religion taught that each individual has the privilege of choosing between God and devil. God is assuming full responsibility for the actions of those who choose him. The devil could exert control of an individual’s destiny only if that individual gave him control. But Sybil’s decision remained unchanged. While waiting for a bed at Clarkson and for word from Chicago, she saw the immediate future as stepped out assault on the ‘terrible thing’ that had enshrouded her life.”
In 1948 Hattie dies and Sybil tries to work but her bouts with ‘lost time’ continue until finally Mr. Dorsett knows there is something drastically wrong and then allows Sybil to visit the Dr.Wilbur in New York in August, 1948.
Before long, Dr. Wilbur discovers that Sybil has many more than three personalities, because of the sexually and physically abusive, Sybil suffered a broken larynx, dislocated shoulder, a bead up her nose, black eyes and constant bruises, as well as intense sexual abuse involving a shoe hook which resulted in Sybil’s incapability to have children because of her mother traits to her. But, the psychoanalysis that Dr.Wilbur made to Sybil veers into the terrifying pathways of religious conflict beside ambivalent feelings to her parents.
“Sybil wanted to be free. But she was terrified that analysis would take her religion away. The terrors was greatly intensified, moreover, by the realization that the help that she had always thought would come from God was now coming from Freud”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:261)
They are integrated. She expressed joyousness in being a normal person in a world through which she moved without incident in a time which clocks no longer seemed capricious.
4.4 Dr.Wilbur’s conflicts
Dr. Wilbur is a psychiatrist who diagnosed Sybil was having a multiple personality disorder and reported that Sybil has sixteen other ‘selves’. Also, she is the psychiatrist who helps Sybil to cure her, and make her personality become unity. Before long, Dr. Wilbur discovers that Sybil has many more than three personalities. Dr. Wilbur trying to mapped a family tree or hierarchy of Sybil’s sixteen selves and there are five direct descendents of Sybil personality, there were Vicky, Peggy Ann & Peggy Lou, Marjorie, and Ruthie. Of this main descendents they had their own descendents. All multiple personalities have one which knows everything, because Dr. Wilbur has difficulty to ask an explanation about Sybil family, because she is a closed personality,
Dr. Wilbur becomes very dependent on Vicky to keep her updated on the actions of the ‘others’ include Sybil. The most notable after Vicky are Peggy Lou and Peggy Ann who reflect Sybil’s unrealized anger and fear against her abusive mother. Dr. Wilbur is gradually introduced to the dramatic Vanessa, the artistic Marcia, and the suicidal Sybil Ann. Lurking inside are also two male personalities, the carpenters, Mike and Sid, who have taken on the traits of Sybil’s father Willard, and her tyrannical Grandfather. In her way to make them one, Dr. Wilbur facing a trouble that Sybil not accepts Dr. Wilbur diagnoses and she did not want to know the other personalities.
4.4.1 Dr.Wilbur’s Approach-Approach conflict
At the first time when Dr. Wilbur knows that Sybil has a multiple personality, she speculated that Sybil case more complicated. She speculated that Sybil’s dissociation had taken during Sybil childhood, the childishness of Peggy become a clue and probably it because the shocks too. But what? So little had been revealed even to speculated about the causes. In her difficulty to find the way how to make an analysis about the causes of Sybil dissociation, she found that psychoanalysis would be able to bring a much greater psychological sophistication to an understanding of Sybil psychology and the analysis should revealed the factor of the dissociation and how to treat it. And she tried to learn and found the causes of Sybil’s dissociation during the analysis.
“She knew that she would have to utilize the spontaneous reactions of all the selves not only in uncovering the origin of the illness, but also in treating it. She knew that it would be necessary to treat each of the selves as a person in her own right and to winnow away the reserve of Sybil, the waking self. Otherwise the total Sybil Dorsett would never get well. The Doctor knew that he would have to make tremendous sacrifices of time and modify her usual consulting-room Freudian techniques to the harnessing of every shred spontaneity that would help her break through to the truth that lay concealed behind these selves.”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:104)
“The Doctor herself had suggested pentothal reluctantly because she believed that straight psychoanalysis was the treatment of choice in Sybil’s case. But the intimation of suicide, the actual near-attempt, made it necessary to resolve, to some degree and over a short period of time, the intense anxiety and depression – emotional release or discharge resulting from recalling to awareness a painful experience that has been repressed because it was consciously intolerable and desensitizing painful emotions, pentothal often led to increased insight .”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:323)
4.4.2 Dr.Wilbur’s Avoidance-Avoidance conflict
Unfortunately, Dr. Wilbur feels that Pentothal become ‘magic’ for Sybil. The dependency upon the Doctor make Sybil developed during the Pentothal treatment made Sybil feel both loved and important. On all this euphoric counts make Sybil came to regard Pentothal as ecstasy and salvation. Dr. Wilbur was becoming increasingly concerned about administering Pentothal to Sybil. The Doctor did not like the uses of needle, did not like Sybil’s growing dependency and the fact that Sybil was using Pentothal to circumvent problems. Feeling that the gains did not outweigh the risks for Sybil, Dr. Wilbur decided to terminate this treatment, even it makes Sybil and other personalities feel worst, feel punishes.
“In the doctor’s office On Monday, Sybil demanded. ‘Just give me Pentothal on Wednesday night before the chemistry final on Thursday. Then I’ll be in the best possible shape for writing the exam.’
‘No. Sybil. No,’ said the doctor.
‘Pentothal was something I could count on,’ Sybil pleased. ‘You’re of sterner stuff. We’ll find other, safer, stronger means.’ ‘I can’t stand it.’
‘What you’re saying to me, Sybil, is that there is something you feel that you can’t deal with as Sybil. As of this moment, that’s true. But it doesn’t have to stay true, you see?’
‘I don’t see. You want me to dissociate,’ Sybil replied bitterly. ‘If I didn’t, you’d miss seeing Vicky and all those other people you’re so fond of.’”
In autumn 1959, Dr Wilbur faced the fact that the Dorsett analysis was following a halting path. Progress was slow and resistances strong. Sybil showed signs of marked improvement for longer or shorter periods; then one of the other selves would slide into depression, conflict, trauma, fear, and self-destructiveness. All accomplishment suffered, and some accomplishments failed. She states that the progress had to be more rapid. New action was essential. And then Dr. Wilbur felt that she needs to do that with increasing assurance and intensity. When she is consults her colleagues for their opinion about Dorsett case, she is given an advice to continue along the route that she has been following. She decided that being a pioneer was not all, that it was cracked up to be. Pondering the grave problems confronting both between her patient and herself, Dr. Wilbur knew that she was facing a professional crisis.
Now she would experiment with hypnosis – which Sybil refused at the first time she came to meet Dr. Wilbur to continue the analysis – in analysis. She decided that she was ready to be a pioneer.
“Towards the end of a gloomy and unfruitful analytic hour in the autumn of 1959, Dr. Wilbur said softly, ‘Sybil, when you first came to me in New York, you asked me to promise that I would not hypnotized you. I agreed, but there were tremendous disturbance I didn’t understand then. Now I believe that hypnosis can help us.’
Sybil replied quietly, ‘I have no objection.’” (Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:351)
4.4.3 Dr.Wilbur’s Approach-Avoidance conflict
When Dr Wilbur know about the other personalities of Sybil –Peggy, she diagnosed that Sybil and her other personality has a same body but different memories, different moods, different experiences and different ways in order to expresses themselves. Peggy was unself-conscious in a little girl way, not easily embarrassed. Instead she got mad. Instead of being like Sybil, circuitous, she gave vent to undisguised terror. And she knows that Peggy carried some terrible burden that Sybil refuses to face.
“Dr. Wilbur mind teemed with speculation, insistent but inconclusive. She had never treated a dual personality. She would have to treat the disturbance as she would any other case. First you get the roots of the disturbance; then you proceed from there. The immediate problem is to tell Sybil about the diagnosis, a task more difficult than the doctor had first realized.”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:83)
suddenly ended the conversation, because she feels the pressure on her almost endurable.
“Dr. Wilbur could see that Sybil was suffering, and she tried to reassure Sybil by explaining that having other selves was nothing to be afraid of because it was just a form of what psychiatrist call ‘acting out’ ; lots of people act out what troubles them. It didn’t work. Indeed, when, far from being reassured, Sybil protested, ‘I’ve never heard of one person who does that,’ the doctor began to question whether, even after all the delays, she had been too precipitous in the way she had sprung on Sybil the knowledge of the other selves.”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:111)
During her analysis, Dr. Wilbur found that Sybil has more than two or five personalities. She had then speculated that Sybil’s case more complex than other people that also have multiple personality. Even Dr. Wilbur knows that Sybil has a genetic factor that make her personalities separate, she also certain that the illness had been environmentally induced. She is convinced that the personalities were not conflicting parts of the total self, struggling for the identity, but rather defenses against the intolerable environment that had produced the childhood traumas. With the revelation of the personalities, Dr. Wilbur remains that the strategy of analysis is done like it had been before – to uproot and analyse the traumas, thus rendering unnecessary the defense against each particular trauma and the self who did defending.
The digging of the traumas can make the personalities come into integration, but also can make a defenses of the each personalities to integrate.
“Dr. Wilbur also realized soberly that there were risks to be faced. The very act of facing an uprooted trauma, by intensifying the pain, often functioned as a setback. There was no assurance that uprooting the trauma would lead to partial integration of the self who defended against it. The illness was so severe, the need for integration so great, that all possible risks were warranted in a newly intensified struggle.”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:284)
On 2 September 1965, is the day where Dr. Wilbur recorded in her daily analysis notes on the Dorsett case: ‘All personalities one.’ Sybil becomes the new person, not what had been waking Sybil. Now she can own all the personalities feelings, and have the time –a whole day that she can not remember before. While she seemed more mature, she also seemed younger than her fourthy-two years. The impression became even stronger then she remarked.
“Sybil said, ‘I hoped for a time when I would know what I was doing all the time I was doing it. The she added with a compelling intensity, ‘Now I can account for every minute. When I wake up, I know what I did yesterday and can plan what I’m going to do today.’”
(Schreiber, Sybil, 1973:401)
youthfulness withheld in chronological youth, Sybil’s newly healed psyche was still somewhat fragile – not quite ready to trust itself.
V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
Conflict is a mental struggle to release oneself from incompatible option where situation require the person to make a choice among alternatives courses of action in which some motives will be satisfied but others will be frustrated. So, conflict may lead the person to a very complex situation in taking a decision from alternatives that bring disappointment, because the choices given are irreconcilable motives that must be resolved.
Only human have a conflict. As a motivated and goals directed creature, they are always trying to be a constant guest of satisfaction in their behavior to fulfill their motives. As a fact, complete satisfaction is impossible, for failure often comes in because of men’s limited ability. When such a case happens, it is entering a conflict situation.
In the novel Sybil, the protagonist, Sybil and Dr.Wilbur are the individual and social beings who have certain motives to satisfy themselves. The realization of their guest for fulfillment is hardly. Their inability to resolves their irreconcilable tendency has led them into conflicts.
other or the circumstance in which their lives. For the Approach-Avoidance conflict, the individual is in her external and internal conflict, like or dislike she has choose one of it.
6.2 Suggestions
It is suggested that other students should try to investigate further researches on this novel Sybil. These researchers would be very significance to understand in appreciate deeper about the novel and also give better perception in understanding the author. To understand the literary insight of literary work is done by reading. Reading the literature (means: the novel Sybil) derives the reader to enter an interest of pleasure and instruction that provides. Literature provides a pleasure by suggesting the using of language in its variety and connotative meanings or enjoyments to spent time. Therefore, reading the literary work is representing our attitudes to mirror what are the values that we can get from it.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kenny, William. 1996. How to Analyze Fiction. New York: Random House Inc. Marcus, Eric C. 2000. Change Processes and Conflict, in Morton Deutsch and Peter T. Coleman. The Handbook of conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.
Peck, John. 1983. How to Study a Novel. London: MacMillan Education Ltd. Reeve, Clara. 1785. Literature: An Introducing to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. New York: Harper Collins Inc.
Roberts, Edgar V. 1995. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Schreiber, Flora Rheta. 2005. Sybil. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan.
