AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
IRENE SURYOPUTRI Student Number: 014214144
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
IRENE SURYOPUTRI Student Number: 014214144
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA 2008
Failure keeps you Humble
Success keeps you glowing
And
GOD keeps you Going
(Anonymous)
“LOOK UP AND NOT DOWN
LOOK OUT AND NOT IN
LOOK FORWARD AND NOT BACK
AND LEND A HAND”
(Edward Everett Hale)
I dedicate this thesis to:
My Beloved Mother and Father
My Sisters and Brothers
My Dear K’Sipri
My Grandmother in Heaven
blessing I would not have been able to finish my thesis. I also want to express my gratitude to my advisor, Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka M.Hum and my co-advisor, Dewi Widyastuti, S.Pd., M.Hum because without their guidance I would not be able to finish my thesis.
I thank my beloved father and mother for their love and care to me, also for their patience to wait for me to finish my thesis. For my big family, sisters, and brothers who always support me to finish my thesis, thank you very much.
I thank my “sleep partner” (Dian) for her help in every situation I needed her. I thank Galih, Irin and Adit for helping me finish my thesis.
I also want to thank my friends in campus, Cipika-Cipiki Plus (Inten, Irin, Anis, Vitoen, Novel, mbak Ari), for their friendship and beautiful moments in my college lives. They give me a lot of amazing experiences. Without them I have no colors in my life.
I want to address my gratitude to a special person who is always patient to waiting for me to finish my study, Kak Sipri. Finally, I can finish my thesis. I thank him for accompanying me for these 6 years. I thank him for understanding me, giving me support and encouragement to finish my study and my thesis.
My gratitude goes specially to my beloved Grandmother who has just passed away. I thank her for taking care of me since I was a child. Without her I cannot be like this. I thank her so much.
ACCEPTANCE PAGE ... iii
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW ... 6
A. Review of Related Studies ... 6
B. Review of Related Theories ... 7
1. Theory of Characterization ... 8
2. Theory of Child and Personality Development ... 9
C. Theoretical Framework ... 17
B. People’s Treatments toward Antoinette Mason ... 31
C. The influence of People’s Treatments in Her Childhood upon Antoinette’s Personality ... 39
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION ... 48
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 52
APPENDIX ... 54
Summary of Wide Sargasso Sea ... 54
Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
The novel Wide Sargasso Sea tells about a girl named Antoinette. Her life is full of misery. Since she was a child she experienced many unhappy experiences. Her mother never cared for her anymore after her brother got sick. People in her surrounding disliked her. Her brother’s death made her mother change into a mad woman. Antoinette married a stranger, whom finally she loved and hurt her by making love with her servant. Finally, she is locked out from outside world and she is treated as a mad woman. This thesis analyzed the influence of childhood experiences on someone’s personality.
There are three problems proposed in this study. They are (1) how is Antoinette depicted in the novel? (2) how do people in her childhood treat her?, and (3) how do the treatment in Antoinette’s childhood influence Antoinette’s personality?
This study applied the library research. This research collected the data and the information from some research books and internet. The psychological approach is the most appropriate approach to analyze the story related to the personality of the main character and her childhood experiences that influenced it.
The research finds out that Antoinette’s personality is influenced by her childhood experiences. She is a beautiful and a solitary girl. She is introverted and vulnerable. She is an obstinate and an emotional girl but she is also an affectionate and generous. She has loyalty to the place where she grows up and she doubts God. Antoinette is a woman who experiences a lot of unhappiness in her childhood. She was treated badly in her childhood. She lacks of love from people around her. She does not get enough love and emotional securities from her mother, which she should get in her age. She also accepts rejections from her mother and people in her surrounding, black people, white communities and peer. These treatments bring certain influences through her personality.
Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Wide Sargasso Sea bercerita tentang seorang gadis bernama Antoinette. Hidupnya penuh dengan penderitaan. Sejak kecil is mengalami banyak ketidakbahagiaan. Ibunya tidak pernah memperhatikannya setelah saudara laki-lakinya, Pierre, jatuh sakit. Orang-orang disekelilingya tidak menyukainya. Kematian adiknya membuat ibunya menjadi gila. Antoinette menikah dengan seorang yang tidak dikenalnya, yang pada akhirnya ia cintai, tetapi melukainya dengan bercinta dengan pembantunya Pada akhirnya ia dikurung dan diperlakukan sebagai wanita gangguan jiwa. Skripsi ini akan membahas pengaruh dari pengalaman-pengalaman masa kecil yang mempengaruhi kepribadian seseorang.
Ada tiga permasalahan yang diajukan untuk penelitian ini. Permasalahan tersebut adalah (1) bagaimana penggambaran Antoinette dalam novel? (2) bagaimana perlakuan orang-orang terhadap Antoinette di masa kecilnya? (3) bagaimana perlakuan-perlakuan masa kecil tersebut mempengaruhi kepribadianya.
Penelitian ini menggunakan metode studi pustaka. Penulis mengumpulkann data dari buku dan internet. Pendekatan Psikologi adalah pendekatan yang paling sesuai untuk menganalisa cerita ini yang berhubungan dengan kepribadian dari karakter utama dan pengalaman-pengalaman masa kecil yang mempengaruhinya.
Dari penelitian ini diketahui bahwa Kepribadian Antoinette dipengaruhi oleh pengalaman-pengalaman masa kecilnya. Antoinette adalah gadis yang cantik dan kesepian, gadis yang tertutup dan lemah, ia adalah gadis yang keras kepala dan emosional tetapi juga penyayang dan murah hati. Antoinette mempunyai kesetiaan terhadap tempat ia dibesarkan dan ia meragukan Tuhan. Antoinette adalah seorang wanita yang mengalami banyak ketidakbahagiaan di masa kecilya.Ia diperlakuakan dengan buruk pada masa kecilnya. Ia kekurangan kasih sayang dari orang-orang disekitarnya. Ia tidak mendapatkan cukup kasih sayang dan perlindungan .dari ibunya, yang seharusnya dia dapat pada usianya. Ia juga mendapatkan penolakan dari ibunya dan orang-orang disekitarnya, orang-orang kulit hitam, orang-orang kulit putih, dan teman sebayanya. Perlakuan-perlakuan ini membawa pengaruh tertentu terhadap kepribadianya.
A. Background of the Study
Every human in this world has experiences. An author uses the media of literary work to express his/her experiences, feelings and /or idea. It means that literature can deal with human’s thought, experiences, feeling and idea.
Literature is a vital record of what men have seen in life, what they have experienced of it, what they have thought and felt about those aspects of it which have the most immediate and enduring interest for all of us, it is thus fundamentally an expression of life through the medium of language (Hudson, 1958: 10).
The work itself may have character/characters to show the author’s idea. M.J. Murphy in his book Understanding Unseen pointed out that an author attempted to make his characters believable and come alive for his reader by nine ways; personal description, character as seen by another, speech, past life, conversation of other, reactions, direct comments, thoughts and mannerisms (1972: 161-173).
The writer underlines one of Murphy’s ways, past life. Someone’s past life can shape his/her nature. We can find out the character’s past life by the author’s direct explanation, the character’s thoughts and conversation of other. The writer is interested in the past life of the character in the novel.
The novel that the writer is interested in is Wide Sargasso Sea. Wide Sargasso Sea is Jean Rhys novel that earned her place in the literary canon and won the prestigious Royal Society of Literature Award and The W. Smith
Award in 1966 (Carter: http://www.jeanrhys.com/literature/novels/SSC2_wide sargassosea.html).
The novel itself is telling about Antoinette’s childhood life and her life after she is married. The novel is set in the 19th Century and is in three parts. The first part is narrated by Antoinette Cosway, the main character, when she is a child. The second part is narrated by Mr. Rocester. He is now married to Antoinette, and in the third part of the novel, Antoinette has become “the mad women in the attic”.
Someone’s past life cannot be separated from his or her childhood experiences. Watson and Lindgren in their book Psychology of the Child agree with it. They describe that someone has in the future often depend on what he or she experiences in his or her childhood:
We are realize that we are more infinitely more that we were birth, and our exploration of the events and experiences of infancy and childhood holds the promise of filling in the gap between ourselves at birth and what we are today. We examine the accounts of these events and experiences in search of ourselves, in search of explanations for our success and failures, our inhibitions and capacities, our potentialities for pleasure and sorrow (1973: 6).
In other words, the writer tries to relate literature and psychology. Wellek and Waren in their book Theory of Literature state that analyzing literary works relation to psychology means studying theory of psychology that may present within works of literature (1956: 81).
All of the explanation above shows that the topic of this thesis is worth studying. By using psychological approach in analyzing the novel hopefully the readers get some benefits from this thesis.
B. Problem Formulation
Regarding to the topic that is discussed above, this thesis will analyze problems that can be formulated as follows.
1. How is Antoinette depicted in the novel? 2. How did people in her childhood treat her?
3. How do the treatments in her childhood influence Antoinette’s personality?
C. Objectives of the Study
D. Definition of Term
This part will give brief explanation some terms that are used in this thesis in order to guide the reader to understand this thesis. There are three terms which are needed to define in this thesis.
1. Childhood
According Paul Monroe in his book Encyclopedia of Psychology of Education, childhood is a period during which individuality develops rapidly (2002: 101). According to Reber in his book The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology, childhood is a period between infancy and adolescence (1995: 122). According to Hurlock in her book Child Development, childhood is period between 2 years to adolescence (1964: 41).
2. Experiences
Paul Monroe in his book Encyclopedia of Psychology of Education
define experience as the cumulative effect, intellectual and practical, of a repeated series of acts and sufferings of like nature (2002: 238).
So, childhood experiences are the cumulative effect, intellectual and practical, of repeated series of acts and sufferings of like nature, in the period between infancy and adolescence, or between 2 years to 12 years.
3. Personality
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
Theories and other works are very helpful for the writer to accomplish this paper. There are some works that discuss about Rhys’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea
and others that are very helpful in the process to finish this paper.
Wide Sargasso Sea is Rhys’s novel that made a sensational reappearance in 1966. Which then made her won the Royal Society of Literature Award and the W.H. Smith Award forth at year (http.:/www.jeanrhys.com/literature/novels/ SSC2widesargassosea.html).
Some critiques criticized this novel. Hilary Jenkins said "Wide Sargasso Sea is highly dramatic story, exotic, psychological feminine and mysterious" (Rhys, 2001: p.vii). In the same book, Edward Said pointed out how the European imperial powers saw their colonial subjects as representing what they found most fearful and stressed the importance of cultural texts like Wide Sargasso Sea in the great game of colony and empire of race and its deployment.
Luan Gaines states in her opinion that drawing from her personal knowledge of the West Indies and the unfortunate Creole heiresses of the times, Rhys reveals the decadent, incestuous societies in which such women flourished, resented by the former slaves, ripe for the plucking from their exotic vines. The truth lies somewhere between the perspectives of Antoinette and Rochester, an odd blending of cultures inspired by the easy fortunes to be plundered in a society where women are irrelevant. Hypnotic and disturbing, Antoinette Mason’s
tortured existence is a stunning indictment of an indifferent society, even Rochester victimized by the constraints of honor and propriety. “I feel bolder, happier, more free, but not safe” he said (http://www.enotes.com/wide-sargasso/7775).
Alfredo Torres review that Wide Sargasso Sea is Unusual Insights on Racial Politics. What he found most memorable in this book is the connections it makes between the personal and public, the objective and subjective, and the natural and supernatural realms. It can be read as an extremely important analysis of racial politics, and the politics of disenfranchisement. I read it as an ingenious account of how a person becomes a ghost, impressive because the story presents a profound and serious examination of the process of how this happens (http://www. Amazone_com.WideSargassoSea).
Different from the previous studies that discus Wide Sargasso Sea from the views of cultural, gender, post-colonial, and racial politics this paper will discuss the novel from psychological view. The influence of childhood experience upon the main character personality in the novel of Wide Sargasso Sea is the main focuses. In other word, the writer focuses on psychological side.
B. Review of Related Theories
the main character. The second thing is the theories of personality and child development, these theories will help the writer to relate and show the influence of childhood experience upon the personality of the main character.
1. Theory of Characterization
Murphy in Understanding Unseens : An Introduction to English poetry and the English Novel for over seas student states that there are nine ways in which the author presents his character. Those are:
a. Personal Description
We can find out the nature of the character from the author’s description about his/her character appearance.
b. Character as seen by another
Besides, we can know the character’s nature through other eyes and also comment on his/her nature.
c. Speech
The character can give us clue to his nature through his/her nature through his/her speaking, conversation with other people, and opinion.
d. Past Life
e. Conversation of Other
The conversation of other people and the things they say about him/her can give a description of the character’s nature.
f. Reaction
The person’s nature can be known by his/her reactions to different occasions.
g. Direct Comments
The author describes the character by his/her own direct comments on the character’s nature.
h. Thoughts
The nature of the character can be known from what he/she is thinking. i. Mannerisms
We can understand the character through the way he or she behaves and talks when he or she is with other people (1972:161-173).
The writer uses the theories of character because the study that the writer wants to do is related to the characters in the novel. Moreover, the first problem formulation that the writer uses is to reveal the characterization of the main character.
2. Theories of Child and Personality Development
these theories will help the writer to relate the personality and the factors. Robert Havigurst has identified six major age periods of development, as retrieved from
Robert Havigurst: Developmental Theorist (http:/faculty.mdc.edu/jmcnair/EDF32 14%20Ttopic20outline/RobertHavigurst.html).
The Havigurt’s stages of development are: Infancy and Early 3.Learning to get along
with age-mate morality, and a scale of values 2.Learning to live with
a partner
7.Assuming civic
This paper is specifying on childhood development. The childhood of the main character of the novel that the writer wants to analyze is moreover middle childhood, so, the writer just underlines the development of middle childhood.
Middle childhood is the age period between 6 to 12 years old. According to Havigurst as retrieved from http://nongae.gsnu.ac.kr/2bkkim/won/won117.html
in age of 6-12 children should:
1) Learning to physical skills necessary for ordinary games: To learn the physical skills which are necessary for the games and physical activities which are highly valued in childhood, such skills as throwing and catching, kicking, tumbling, swimming, and handling simple tools.
with the school doing what the parents feel they cannot do so well. The facts about animal and human reproduction should be taught before puberty.
3) Learning to get along with age-mates: To learn the give-and-take of social life among peers. To learn to make friends and to get along with enemies. To develop a "social personality."
4) Learning an appropriate masculine or feminine social role: To learn to be a boy or a girl--to act the role that is expected and rewarded. The sex role is taught so vigorously by so many agencies that the school probably has little more than a remedial function, which is to assist boys and girls who are having difficulty with the task.
5) Developing fundamental skills reading, writing, and calculating: To learn to read, write, and calculate well enough to get along in society.
6) Developing concepts necessary for everyday living: A concept is an idea which stands for a large number of particular sense perceptions, or which stands for a number of ideas of lesser degrees of abstraction. The task is to acquire a store of concepts sufficient for thinking effectively about ordinary occupational, civic, and social matters.
useful to the conduct of any social enterprise, from games to government, and thus learns a "morality of cooperation or agreement" which is a true moral autonomy and necessary in a modern democratic society.
8) Achieving personal independence: To become an autonomous person, able to make plans and to act in the present and immediate future independently of one's parents and other adults. The young child has become physically independent of his parents but remains emotionally dependent on them.
9) Developing attitudes toward social groups and institutions: To develop social attitudes those are basically democratic. Attitudes, or emotionalized dispositions to act, are learned mainly in three ways; (1) by imitation of people with prestige in the eyes of the learner; (2) by collection and combination of pleasant or unpleasant experiences associated with a given object or situation; (3) by a single deeply emotional experience, pleasant or unpleasant, associated with a given object or situation.
Havigurst has the same opinion as Erickson’s statement that an individual can move on to the next, more mature stage only after having successfully completed the demands of the previous stage or having satisfactorily met its requirements (Erickson, 1969: 550).
Every person wants to have happy experiences in their life, including a child. In contrast, a lot of unhappy experiences must be deal by some children, which then influences their later development. Hurlock in Child Development
person of adults they will become (1964: 329). Childhood experiences and the memory of these experiences as the years go by leave and indelibly impression on the individual personality (1964: 732).
She also states that early years are the critical period of personality:
It would appear that the things which happen to an individual during his childhood are important in determining the pattern of his later life…It is in these early years that the essential methods are built up which the individual will use thought his life in meeting difficult situations and frustrations. The forms in which they may be expressed may change under the various influences of the environment and of maturity, but the essential characteristics of the type of reactions will remain more or less fixed (1964: 94).
According to Hurlock in Personality Development, basically human’s personality development is influenced by two factors early experiences, home experiences and experiences outside the home (1974: 233-234). Or we can say that childhood experiences are influences by the families, and outside influences. In other word, children get their early experiences from their home and their parents play important roles in shaping their personality pattern. Hurlock states:
The child’s attitudes and behaviour are marked by the family into which he is born and in which he grows up. Because the home is the child’s first environment, it sets the pattern for his attitudes toward people, things and life in general (1974: 514).
It is clear that the family has big influences in their child experiences because they are the first people who are close to the children. Outside influences can come from people outside the home, peer, and neighbors.
Horney’s theory child, needing to be loved, wants to move towards the parents, but fear of rejection. The child also feels hostility and wants to retaliate by moving against the parents, but fears punishment. The child gives up and moves from the parents.
Karen Horney believes that in child development, love and nurturance is key to a child's development. In her theory, basic anxiety and hostility are the fundamental emotions of childhood. Without adequate parental love, the child develops unhealthy interpersonal modes and a defensive sense of self (Cloninger, 2004: 155).
Horney also adds that some people turn to others for love and protection lacking in their early life (Cloninger, 2004: 159).
According to Catell, children who have not been adequately nurtured or loved, develop a belief, which may be unconscious, that they are not worthy (Cloninger, 2004: 218).
Hurlock also state that emotions colour the child’s outlook of life. His fright, curiosity, and happiness can influence the child’s view his role in life and his position in the social group (1974: 185). Further, he describes that anxiety may response into depression, nervousness, irritability, mood swings, restless sleep, quick anger, and extraordinary sensitivity to what other say or do. Feeling grief may result in loss of appetite, sleeplessness, and a tendency to experience fearful dreams. Grief also lead to feeling of guilt if the child believes that she could have prevented the moment happens. Other emotions that can influence a child’s development are anxiety. An anxious child is unhappy because he or she feels guilty about not coming up to the expectation of others, for example parents, teachers, and peers. It causes the child often feels lonely and misunderstood. Self-concepts are also shaped by the early social experiences of child. If a child is accepted, approved, respected and liked for what he is, he will acquire an attitude of self-acceptance and respect for himself. But if the significant people in his life, at first his parents and later his teacher, peers, and other persons who wield an influence, belittle him, blame him and reject him, the growing child’s attitudes toward himself are likely to become unfavorable. As he is judged by others, he will tend to judge himself (Hurlock, 1974: 23).
experiences were favorable. Too many unhappy experiences are likely to lead to unwholesome attitude toward all social experiences and toward people in general. They encourage the child to become unsocial or antisocial. Lack of opportunities for social contacts and for learning how to get along successfully with others will like wise delay normal development. (Hurlock, 1964: 225).
Emotional dominance is all the emotions a person experiences. The emotions, which will become dominant forces in his life, depend mainly upon the environment in which he grows up, the relationship he has with significant people, and the guidance he receives in controlling his reactions. Hurlock also adds that if a child experiences too many unpleasant emotions and too few of the pleasant, his outlook on life will be distorted and he will develop an “unpleasant disposition”. So, children should be protected from unreasonable and excessive fear, jealousy, anger, and other unpleasant emotion. In the case of anger, if the child gradually learns to tolerate frustration when he is young, he will not develop the habit of aggressive attack in all frustrating situations, as he grows older (1964:207).
C. Theoretical Framework
This study uses library research method in analyzing the data. Besides using the novel Wide Sargasso Sea as primary source of data, this study also uses articles and books that deal with psychology.
The writer applies Murphy’s theory of characterization to understand the characteristics of the main character. It is important to see the characteristics of the main character because the reader can understand the main character’s characterization. This theory helps to know what kind of character Antoinette is.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The object of the study is a novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, which was written by Jean Rhys, a novelist who was born in Dominica in 1890. This novel was published originally in 1966 by Andre Deutsch, in England. In this analysis the writer uses the edition that was edited by Hilary Jenkins, published by Penguin Books, England, in 1968. This novel contains three chapters with 168 pages. Wide Sargasso Sea is Jean Rhys’ novel that earned her place in the literary canon and won the prestigious Royal Society of Literature Award and The W.H. Smith Award in 1966.
Jean Rhys' late, literary masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. The novel itself is telling about Antoinette childhood life and then her life after she is married. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, life in poverty and neglected child, Creole heiress Antoinette Mason meets a young Englishman who is drawn into her innocent sensuality and beauty. After their marriage the rumors begin, her husband thinks that she is poisoning her husband. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is driven towards madness.
B. Approach of the Study
The approach used in analyzing the novel is psychological approach. Psychological approach is the most suitable approach to use in this analysis because this approach deals with one’s personality development and the topic that the writer chooses is the influences of childhood experience upon the main character’s personality. Lewis Leary in his book A Study and Research Guide
states that:
A psychological approach is an approach that applies principles of modern psychology to characters or situations within a literary work or to the person who wrote the work (1976: 57).
According to Rohrberger and Woods (1971: 13), psychological approach is an approach to literature which “involves the effort to locate and demonstrate certain recurrent patterns” and which refers to different body of knowledge that is Psychology. In applying this approach, psychological theories are generally used as interpretive tools.
C. Method of the Study
The method that the writer used to analyze the problems was library research. There were several stages undertaken in order to answer the problems formulated.
Firstly, the writer read the novel, Wide Sargasso Sea as the primary data. After reading several times the writer was interested in the personality of the main character that is related with childhood experiences.
Secondly, the writer decided to raise the topic, the influence of childhood experiences related toward personality. Then the writer drew the problem formulation.
Thirdly, the writer decided to use psychological theories on personality and child’s development. The writer decided that the novel could be analyzed also by using psychological approach.
Fourthly, the writer looked for others sources and references, such as books of psychology and its theory, books of theory of character and characterization, others books related with this thesis and also others data from the Internet, such as articles.
Fifthly, the writer examined the character’s personality by the theories of character and characterization.
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS
This chapter provides the explanation about Antoinette Mason as the main character in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea and those related to Antoinette Mason. The writer divides this chapter into three parts: the characteristics of Antoinette Mason depicted in the novel, the treatment of the people in her childhood, and the treatments in her childhood which influence Antoinette’s personality.
A. The Characteristics of Antoinette Mason
Antoinette is a Creole girl who lives with her family in Jamaica. Because Antoinette’s family is a former slave owner, black people in their surrounding hate them.
Antoinette is a solitary girl. Due to the isolation experienced by Antoinette and her family she is used to being alone. She has no friend and black people hate her and her family since they are white. “I got used to a solitary life” (p.3). Antoinette says that she has no friend and she was lonely. It can be seen in her husband’s opinion about her. He feels that even though she smiles she seems lonely. “Her mouth was set in fixed smile but her eyes were so withdrawn and lonely that I put my arms round her, rocked her like a child and sang to her” (p.49).
She is introverted when she was a girl. She seldom told her problems and feeling to other persons. When she is afraid of her mother she tells no one. When a local girl follows her and mocks her, she tells no one. She chooses to hide behind the bushes all day long in spite of telling it to someone.
She is a vulnerable girl. It can be seen from her reaction to her arranged marriage. She is afraid of what may happen to her and her life in the future. Her husband must convince her that he will give her happiness, peace and safety when she becomes his wife. It shows that she really needs someone to give her happiness and protection.
‘What is the matter, Antoinette? What have I done?’ She said nothing.
‘You don’t wish to marry me?’ ‘No.’ She spoke in very low voice. ‘But why?’
‘I’m afraid of what may happen.’
I kissed her fervently, promising her peace, happiness, safely… (p.45-46). She says to her husband that she will die without him. She really needs her husband to give her a feeling of security. She says that she is not used to happiness, and happiness that she gets from her husband is something that she is so afraid of loosing.
‘Why you make me want to live? Why you do that to me?’ ‘Because I wished it. Isn’t that enough?’
Yes that enough. But if one day you didn’t wish it. What should I do then? Suppose you took this happiness away when I wasn’t looking…’
“I’m not use to happiness, she said. It makes me afraid’ Never be afraid. Or if you tell no one.’
‘I understand. But trying does not help me.’
‘What would?’ She did not answer that, then one night whispered, ‘If I could die. Now, when I am happy. Would you do that?
Antoinette is fragile; she likes to be told that she was safe. She often cries in the night. Sometimes she wakes up in the night and tells her husband about her unhappy childhood.
‘You are safe,’ I’d say. She’d liked that-to be told ‘you are safe’.
Or I touch her face gently and touch tears. Tears – nothing! Words - less than nothing” (p. 56).
She is also an obstinate girl. It can be seen from the opinion of her husband. She likes to ask about England to her husband. But she has her own fixed idea or opinion about it.
“If she was a child she was not a stupid child but an obstinate one. She often questioned me about England and listened attentively to my answers, but I was certain that nothing I said made much difference. Her mind was already made up. Some romantic novel, a stray remark never forgotten, a sketch a picture, a song, a waltz, some note of music, and her ideas were fixed. About England and about Europe. I could not change them and probably nothing could….Nothing that I told her influenced her at all” (p.56-57).
She is also an affectionate girl and has deep concern to others. Antoinette shows her love toward Cristophine freely by hugging and kissing her. She does not care even though Christophine is her servant and she is a black woman. Her husband cannot tolerate her attitude. Her husband thinks that it is not appropriate to hug and kiss Christophine who is only a black servant.
‘Why do you hug and kiss Christophine?’ I’d say. ‘Why not?’
‘I wouldn’t hug and kiss them,’ I’d say, I couldn’t.’
At this she’d laugh for long time and never tell me why she laughed (p.55).
husband says that Hilda is a stupid girl. She explains to her husband why Hilda is giggling very rudely in front of him. It is not because she is a stupid girl but because she is a shy girl.
“Sometimes she’d smile a sweet childish smile, sometimes she would giggle very loudly and rudely, bang the tray down and run away.
‘Stupid little girl,’ I’d say.
“No, no. She is shy. The girl here are very shy’ (p.54).
Antoinette also shows her affection to a boy who cries as she and her husband prepare to leave to England. She cares about the black boy’s feeling and tries to help him by explaining to her husband that the boy loves him and wants to follow him to England. No one seems interested to answer when Antoinette’s husband asks what happened to the boy and Antoinette herself explains to her husband. Even she promises the boy that her husband will never leave him. She persuades her husband even though in the end she fails.
“He asked me when we first came if we - if you - would take him with you when we left. He doesn’t want any money. Just to be with you. Because-‘ she stopped and ran her tongue over her lips, ‘he loves you very much. So I said you would. Take him. Baptiste has told him that you will not. So he is crying.”
‘He knows English,’ she said, still indifferently. “He has tried very hard to learn English’ (p.112).
Antoinette has loyalty to the place where she grows up. She really loves the place where she and her family live in her childhood, Coulibri. She chooses to have a honeymoon in Coulibri, the estate where she grows up. She prefers to live in the place where she customarily lives. It can be seen in her opinion about the land where she lives in.
Her loves toward Coulibri is also shown when she thinks that Coulibri is the most beautiful place in the world.
‘We were alone in the most beautiful place in the world, it is not possible that there can be anywhere else so beautiful as Coulibri’ (p.83).
She also shows that Coulibri is the place where she belongs and the place where she wants to live. In her honeymoon in Coulibri, she visits Christophine and sees her place. She realizes that there is the place where she belong. She loves to see the women wash clothes in the river, the beautiful sky, and the trees.
“I thought,‘ This is my place and this is where I belong and this is where I wish to stay” (p.67).
Antoinette is a generous person. She gives money to people. She also gives food and drink to all visitors who come to their house. Her husband criticizes her for giving away her money so carelessly, not counting it. Every unfamiliar faces, Mr. Rochester calls them, sister, cousins, aunts, uncles of her visit them and she gives them a lot of meals and drinks.
not a child but a devil. Then Antoinette expresses her anger by tearing up a bed sheet with a pair of scissors into strips.
“…said Amelie.’ Christophine don’t like this sweet honeymoon house.’ Turning round she saw me and laughed loudly. ‘Your husban’ he outside the door and he look like he see zombi. Must be he tired of the sweet honeymoon too.’
Antoinette jumped out of bed and slapped her face.
‘I hit you back white cockroach, I hit you back,’ said Amelie. And she did. Antoinette gripped her hair. Amelie, whose teeth were bared, seemed to be trying to bite.
‘Antoinette, for God’s sake.’ I said from the doorway.
She swung round, very pale. Amelie buried her face in her hands and pretended to sob, but I could see her watching me through her fingers. ‘Go away, child, ‘I said.
‘ You call her child,’ said Antoinette. ‘She is older than the devil himself, and the devil is not more cruel.’…
But as soon as she was out of the room she began to sing: ‘The white cockroach she marry…’
“….I went to help her but she pushed me away, sat on the bed and with clenched teeth pulled at the sheet, then made a clicking sound of annoyance. She took a pair of scissors from the table, cut through the hem and tore the sheet in half, then each half into strips” (p.61-62).
Antoinette also shows herself so emotionally when finally she realizes that she has lost her husband’s love. She finds out her husband making love with Amelie, her black servant, in the room next to hers. She is totally angry. She leaves the house for a day and when she returns, she seems to be very mad. It can be seen in her husband’s opinion.
then, when she sees her husband angry because of it she shows her feeling by smashing the bottle against the wall and cursing him.
I managed to hold her wrist with one hand and the rum with the other, but when I felt her teeth in my arm I dropped the bottle. The smell filled the room. But I was angry now and she saw it. She smashed another bottle against the wall and stood with the broken glass in her hand and murder in her eyes.
‘Just you touch me once. You’ll soon see if I’m a dam’ coward like you are.’
Then she cursed me comprehensively…(p.96).
As a child Antoinette was a girl who believed in God. It can be seen when she prays to the God in the incident of the burning house. She wished that God helped her in that moment.
And God who is indeed mysterious who had made no sign when they burned Pierre as he slept not a clap of thunder, not a flash of lighting-mysterious God heard Mr. Mason at once and answered him” (p.21-22). But when she grows older she starts to doubt the power of God. Then, after she gets married, she does not believe in God anymore. It can be seen in her conversation with her husband when Antoinette asks her husband the reason he never kisses her anymore. He answers by mentioning the name of God. Antoinette response her husband’s question in a mocking way.
‘Yes, ’I said, ‘I have a reason, ‘and added very softly,’ My God.’ ‘You are always calling on God, ‘she said. ‘Do you believe in God?’ ‘Of course, of course I believe in the power and wisdom of my creator.’ She raised her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth turned down in a questioning mocking way. For a moment she looked very much like Amelie. Perhaps they are related, I thought. It’s possible, it’s even probable in this damned place.
‘And you, ‘I said. ‘ Do you believe in God?’
From her appearance, Antoinette is a beautiful woman. It can be seen from her husband’s opinion. He admits the beauty of her wife in the night of their candlelight dinner. He never realizes before the charm of her wife.
“She was sitting on the sofa and I wondered why I had never realized how beautiful she was. Her hair was combed away from her face and fell smoothly far below her waist.” (p.46).
The other evidence that shows the beauty of Antoinette is shown in her husband’s opinion when he watches her sleeping. He still admires his wife’s beauty.
“I thought coldly, yes, very beautiful, the thin wrist, the sweet swell of the forearm, the rounded elbow, the curve of her shoulder into her upper arm. All present, all correct” (p.88).
B. People’s Treatments toward Antoinette Mason
In her childhood Antoinette experiences many treatments from her surrounding peoples, bad experiences and good experiences.
1. Antoinette’s Mother (Annette Mason)
In her childhood, Antoinette lacks of her mother’s love. Her mother cares less to Antoinette after Pierre, Antoinette’s little brother, gets sick. Antoinette spends most of her time in the kitchen with the servants when her mother refuses her. Antoinette feels that her mother does not want Antoinette to be near her. Antoinette thinks that she is useless for her mother.
I hate this frown and once I touched her forehead trying to smooth it. But she pushed me away, not roughly but calmly, coldly, without a word, as if she had decided once and for all that I was useless to her (p.5).
Antoinette is a little afraid of her mother after knowing that her mother is talking aloud to herself. Her mother does not want someone to pester her. She just wants to sit with Pierre or she likes to be left alone. Therefore, Antoinette prefers to spend most of her time in the kitchen far from her mother.
She wanted to sit with Pierre or walk where she pleased without being pestered, she wanted peace and quiet. I was old enough to look after myself. ‘let me alone,’ she would say, ‘let me alone,’ and after I knew that she talked aloud to herself I was a little afraid of her.
So I spent most of my time in the kitchen which was in an outbuilding some way off (p. 5).
She is even angry when Antoinette pestered her with her questions about Christophine. All Antoinette’s questions are disturbing her, “Why you bother me about all this things that happened long ago? (p. 6). Antoinette also asks about Goffrey and Sass, which makes her mother angry.
“Godfrey stayed too,’ I said.’ And Sass,’ ‘They stayed,’ she said angrily (p.6).
Her mother many times rejects her. She does not want Antoinette to be around her. She always prefers to be left alone. Meanwhile, Antoinette always wants to be near her mother, but her mother chooses to avoid her, chooses not being pestered.
“I started to fan her, but she turned her head away. She might rest if I left her alone, she said.
Once I would have gone back quietly to watch her asleep on the blue sofa-once I made excuses to be near her when she brushed her hair, a soft black cloak to cover me, hide me, keep me safe” (p.7).
Antoinette’s mother does not care of her daughter. It can be seen in Antoinette’s opinion that her mother never asks her where she had been or what her daughter done,” My mother never asked me where I had been or what I had done” (p. 8).
Antoinette’s friend, Tia steals her dress and laughs at her. In her house she finds her mother with two young ladies and a gentleman with beautiful dresses. When they laugh she runs into the house. Her mother is angry with her because of that and because Antoinette is wearing Tia’s dirty clothes. Her mother says that Antoinette behaves very oddly. Antoinette feels that her mother is ashamed of her. It can be seen in her opinion when her mother does not talk and does not look at her.
All that evening my mother didn’t speak to me or look at me and I thought, ‘ She is ashamed of me, what Tia said is true’ (p. 10).
Christophine to find dress for Antoinette meanwhile they have no other dress for her except the dirty dress and the other one is stolen by Tia. Christophine says to Antoinette’s mother loudly that it is shameful, she does not care with her daughter. Antoinette is growing up wild and worthless and her mother does not care.
‘She must have another dress’, said my mother. ‘Somewhere.’ But Christophine told her loudly that it shameful. She run wild, she grow up worthless. And nobody care’ (p.9).
Antoinette’s mother gives less concern to her daughter. Neither concern nor calm her daughter from her nightmare, she blames Antoinette for wakes her brother up because she had nightmare and make such a noise.
I struggled and screamed I could not move. I woke crying. The covering sheet was on the floor and my mother was looking down at me.
‘Did you have a nightmare?’ ‘Yes, a bad dream.’
She sighed and covered me up. ‘You were making such a noise. I must go to Pierre, you’ve frightened him’ (p.10).
The other rejection from her mother that she gets is when she meets her mother after Pierre’s death. She sees her mother in bad condition and her mother has changed.
2. Antoinette’s Neighborhood
Black people hate Antoinette’s family. They are hated because they are white people and also former of slave owner. Antoinette also feels that strange black people hate them, except they who she knows. A little girl ever follows her and calls her ‘white cockroach’. She yells at Antoinette.
I never looked at any strange Negro. They hate us. They call us white cockroaches. Let sleeping curs lie. One day a little girl followed me singing, ‘Go away white cockroach, go away, go away.’ I walked fast, but she walked faster. ‘White cockroach, go away, go away. Nobody want you. Go away’ (p.7).
Not only black people, white people in Antoinette’s surrounding also dislike her and her family. The better-off communities of white people exclude them. Antoinette hears what they say about her mother when she hides on the garden before her mother’s wedding party. She hates them, all the smooth smiling people meanwhile in her back they sneer her mother, her brother and her. They say that Mr. Mason will regret his marriage with Antoinette’s mother. They do not believe that a very wealthy man such as Mr. Mason wants to marry a poor widow who already has two children. They say bad things about her father and her mother. They also say that Pierre is an idiot who is kept out of sight and mind and will be the same with Antoinette.
After the incident of the burning house, Antoinette lives with her aunt. Her aunt sends her to school. One day, on the way to school two children bullies her. They call her “crazy girl” and say bad things about her mother. They make her cry.
you in the house. She send you for the nuns to lock up. Your mother walk about with no shoes and stockings on her feet, she sans culottes. She try to kill her husband and she try to kill you too that day you go to see her. She have eyes like zombie and you have eyes like zombie too. Why you won’t look at me.’
The boy only said, ‘One day I catch you alone, you wait, one day I catch you alone’
The girl said,’you don’t want to look at me, eh, I make you look at me.’ She pushed me and the books I was carrying fell to the ground’ (p.26-27).
3. Tia
Antoinette has no friend in his childhood. One day she meets a black girl name Tia, and soon she becomes her friend. Tia is the daughter of Maillotte, Christophine’s friend. For a while they play happily together, but then her only friend and best friend, Tia, steals her dress and her money. When Tia bet Antoinette that she cannot turn to somersault under water and she wants to see her somersault she takes her money and also her dress. She goes home with Tia’s dirty clothes. Feeling sick and hating Tia, she walks home.
Tia also says that people in their surrounding thinks that Antoinette’s family is so poor like beggars and they are worst than black people.
“That’s not what she her, she said. She hear all we poor like beggar. We ate salt fish-no money for fresh fish. That old house so leaky, you run with calabash to catch water when it rain. Plenty white people in Jamaica. Real white people, they got gold money. They didn’t look at us, nobody see them come near us. Old time white people nothing but white nigger now, and black nigger better than white nigger” (p.8).
eat, sleep, and bath together with her. She believes will live with her and will be like her. But Tia hurt her; she throws a stone at her head.
Then, not so far off, I saw Tia and her mother and I ran to her, for she was all that was left of my life as it had been. We had eaten the same food, slept side by side, and bathed in the same river. As I ran, I thought, I will live with Tia and I will be like her. Not to go leave Coulibri. Not to go. When I was close I saw the jagged stone in her hand but I did not see her trow it. I did not feel it either, only something wet, running down my face (p.23).
Tia steals her dress and her money but she still considers her as her friend meanwhile Tia throws a stone at her and hurts her head.
4. Christophine
Cristophine has absolut loyalty to Antoinette. She is very devoted to her. Christophine is Antoinette’s nanny since she was a child. She is a Martinique girl. She is Antoinette’s father wedding present for her mother. She became her mother’s servant since that time. She is the most loyal person to Antoinette’s family. She stays with Antoinette’s family even they are poor. She makes Antoinette’s family still survives during the difficult time, when Antoinette’s family is so poor and no one help them after Antoinette’s father death. Because of Christophine also the other servants are still willing to stay with Antoinette’s family.
Antoinette’s mother less cares to her, Christophine is the person who always take cares and protects Antoinette. She is the only person who really loves and cares to Antoinette. She likes to sing for her, finds a friend for her, and gives her advices. Even she yields at Antoinette’s mother because she thinks that Antoinette’s mother is to far neglecting her daughter.
Later on, Christophine tries to help Antoinette to bring back Antoinette husband’s love with her magic, obeah. She also suggests Antoinette to leave her husband for Antoinette’s own happiness. She thinks that Antoinette’s husband does not love her. Then, she also tries to explain to Antoinette’s husband how is Antoinette’s feeling toward him. She gives her advices. And then, she also tries to make her calm when she goes mad. She always tries to get close and help her but then Antoinette’s husband sends her away.
5. Mr. Mason
Mr. Mason is Antoinette’s stepfather. He is a wealthy man that marrying her mother. He comes and rescues Antoinette’s family from poverty. Besides, Antoinette feels that black people seem more hate them after Mr. Mason comes and they do not poor anymore.
In some ways it was better before he came though he’d rescued us from poverty and misery. ‘Only just in time too.’ The black people did not hate us quite so much when we were poor. We were white but we had not escaped and soon we would be dead for we had no money left. What was there to hate? (p.15).
15). Antoinette sees that Mr. Mason does not believe her mother and ignores her when her mother says that she wants to leave from Coulibri. He does not believe that black people in their surrounding hate them and will hurt them, which then lead to the incident of the burning house, the death of Pierre and her mother goes mad. Indirectly, Mr. Mason makes Antoinette loosing her brother, her mother and her life in Coulibri. Antoinette cannot feel her stepfather love. In one side she thinks that her stepfather rescues her family from poverty and makes her mother happy again, in the other side she thinks that her stepfather makes their life worse than before.
6. Aunt Cora
Aunt Cora is Antoinette’s aunt. She stays with Antoinette’s family after the wedding of Antoinette’s mother. She cares to Antoinette and her mother. She distrusts Mr. Mason, Antoinette’s stepfather, on his opinion and his act toward local people, which treats them as a child who will harm no one. She encourages and agrees with Antoinette’s mother, Annette, to leave Coulibri for a while. She protects Antoinette when the incident of the burning house is happen. She take cares Antoinette when she injured, after Tia throws a stone at her and injures her head, for nearly six weeks.
“Your hair had to be cut. You’ve been very ill, my darling, ‘said Aunt Cora. ‘But you are safe with me now. We are all safe as I told you we would be. You must stay in bed though. Why are you wondering about the room? Your hair will grow again, she said’ longer and thicker.’
‘But darker,’ I said. ‘Why not darker?
Aunt Cora sends Antoinette to Boarding School and leaves her to England. She also disapproves to Robert Mason when he arranges a marriage for Antoinette and a stranger without any protection for her wealth.
C. The Influence of People’s Treatments in Her Childhood upon Antoinette’s Personality
Childhood experiences are influenced by inside and outside the home. Like Hurlock states in Personality Development that someone personality is related with what the treatment she gets in her past. Antoinette’s personality is also influenced by her past life experiences. Here, experiences inside the home are experiences that she gets from her family. Meanwhile, she gets the experiences outside the house especially her mother from her peers and neighbors.
people she knows without differentiating the skin colors or the races. Not only Antoinette gets love from Cristophine, Antoinette also gets love and care from her aunt, aunt Cora. Aunt Cora protects her and makes her feels save after she lives with her. Feeling being loved and secure makes her learns to be an affectionate girl.
Antoinette is a solitary girl. Because of the isolation, which is experienced by Antoinette and her family, she is accustomed to being alone. She has no friend and black people hate white people. “I got used to a solitary life” (p.3). The place where she lives isolates her from outside world and people. Her family has no neighbors, except black people who hate them. White people also dislike them because they are poor. Since this, situation does not allow her to have friends. Because of this condition, she becomes a lonely girl. One day, she chooses to hide in the old wall at the end of the garden after a little girl mocking her “white cockroach” (p.7). She has no one to share her feeling. Even Christophine who always take cares her never asks her feeling. She becomes lonely and quite, she keeps her feeling by herself and says nothing to no one.
rejected by her mother at the same time makes her grief, which leads her experiences fearful dream at night. Hurlock adds that grief in childhood can lay the foundations for an unhappy adulthood. Feeling grief may result in loss of appetite, sleeplessness, and a tendency of fearful dream.
The memories of her childhood, which is still clear in her mind, are still influencing her. It can be seen when every time she tells her husband about her childhood experiences is always her bad memories. She says about her mother’s treatment toward her. How her mother rejects her and her opinion that people think that she makes her mother worse. She blames herself with what happen to her mother. It is shown in her conversation with her husband:
‘Then there was that day when she saw I was growing up like white nigger and she was ashamed of me, it was after that day that everything changed. Yes, it was my fault, it was my fault that she started to plan and work in the frenzy, in a fever to change our lives. Then people came to see us again and though I still hated them and was afraid of their cool, teasing eyes, I learned to hide it’ (p.84).
Hurlock states that an anxious child is unhappy because he or she feels guilty about not coming up to the expectation of others also grief that lead to feeling of guilt that she cannot prevent the moment happen, and it causes feel of lonely and misunderstood. Base on this statement it shows that Antoinette’s loneliness is also because she always feels guilty about moments that happen in her past and she cannot prevent it. She blames herself. It supports with people opinion about Antoinette, which make her worse, influences her and make her always feels guilty.
other person who wield an influence, belittle her, blame her, and reject her, the growing child’s attitudes toward herself are likely become unfavorable, as if she judged by others, she will tend to judge herself. Since she was a child she experiences many bad things. People in her surrounding blame her, belittle her, and reject her. Antoinette tends to judge herself like what people judge on her in the past. Antoinette judges herself by blaming herself for her mother condition and others events that she cannot prevent.
She always feels insecure since people in her surrounding dislike her. Even when Mr. Mason comes and rescues her family from the poverty, she feels more insecure. She thinks that Mr. Mason makes her life worst. It is seen when local people burn their house and make Pierre die. He does not believe Antoinette’s mother and makes the incident of the burning house happen which then make her mother goes mad and locks out from outside world. She cannot treat Mr. Mason as her father. She cannot feel her stepfather love.
Her hopelessness toward life is also shown in her arranged married. Because she is not used to happiness she becomes defensive on herself by refusing to marry with Mr. Rochester. She is afraid that the other unhappiness will come to her. She tries to avoid them.
Her hopelessness is also shown in her conversation with her husband, she believes that her place is in the darkness, that her life is full of darkness, “You go,’ she said. ‘I wish to stay here in the dark…where I belong,’ she added” (p.87).
All the experiences and the people’s treatment that Antoinette received in her childhood make her always have desire to be loved. She feels so afraid of loosing her husband’s love. She seems always say to her husband that she will die without her husband’s love. It shows that she is lack of love, she is lack of feeling being loved, so when she found it she is so afraid to loose it. She is lack of love in her childhood so she tends to turn to others for love and protection which she does not get in her early life.
She always tells her sad experience in her childhood to her husband it shows that she starts to open herself to her husband, she believes her husband. She believes that she is being love.
moment. Since she is an introverted girl, she seldom talks to someone. She keeps her feeling by herself. Like what Hurlock states that if a child gradually does not learn to tolerate her frustrations when she is young, she will develop the habit of aggressiveness attack in all frustrations when she is older. No one helps Antoinette in this situation. Her mother who should be her closest person to helps her and guides her is absent for her. She never receives emotional security from her mother. Antoinette becomes an emotional person as the result of no one helps her to tolerate her frustrations when she is young.
Antoinette is a girl who believes in God. It is shown when she prays to the God in the incident of the burning house. She wishes that God helps her in that moment.
‘Yes, ’I said, ‘I have a reason, ‘and added very softly,’ My God.’ ‘You are always calling on God, ‘she said. ‘Do you believe in God?’ ‘Of course, of course I believe in the power and wisdom of my creator.’ She raised her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth turned down in a questioning mocking way. For a moment she looked very much like Amelie. Perhaps they are related, I thought. It’s possible, it’s even probable in this damned place.
‘And you, ‘I said. ‘ Do you believe in God?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’she answered calmly,’what I believe or you believe, because we can do nothing about it, we are like these.’ She flicked a death moth off the table (p.80).
Antoinette is like other children have her own stages which should be learning in her age and need to be fulfill to become more mature person. Havigurst in his development stages states that childhood about 6-12 years old achieving personal independence. Children become physically independent of his parents but still remains emotionally dependent on her parent. Antoinette as a child is physically independent from her mother, but she is still emotionally dependent to her mother. Meanwhile, her mother does not give Antoinette a guidance and emotional security. Antoinette is lack of emotional security from her parent which is she should have in her age. She does not get enough affection and protection from her mother so she is difficult to past this stage of development.
weeks. Other children in her age around her neighborhood are they who hate her. Black children in surrounding her house hate her and call her “white cockroach” make Antoinette afraid of them. Other two children in Spanish town, after the incident of the burning house, case her and say some bad things about her and her mother, which also make her afraid.
‘Half-way up they closed in on me and started talking. The girl said, ‘Look the crazy girl, you crazy like your mother. Your aunt frightened to have you in the house. She send you for the nuns to lock up. Your mother walk about with no shoes and stockings on her feet, she sans culottes. She try to kill her husband and she try to kill you too that day you go to see her. She have eyes like zombie and you have eyes like zombie too. Why you won’t look at me.’
The boy only said, ‘One day I catch you alone, you wait, one day I catch you alone’ (p.26-27).
Antoinette is difficult to make friends because most children in her surrounding treat her as an enemy. She is also difficult to past this stage because she has no opportunity to get along with her peers. Like Hurlock states that lack of opportunities for social contacts and for learning how to get along successfully with others will like wise delay normal development. Because children can move into the next, mature stage only having successfully completed the demand of the previous stage, Antoinette’s unhappy experiences and bad treatments becomes an obstacle to her to move into the next, mature stage.
Antoinette is also learning an appropriate masculine or feminine social role, learning to be a girl and acting the role that is expected and rewarded. But, her mother feels that Antoinette does not act like what she is expected when she goes home with Tia’s dirty clothes and runs away when she meets her mother’s guests. She makes Antoinette feels that she is ashamed of her, “She looked at me for some time before she said that I had behaved very oddly. My dress was even dirtier than usual” (p.9).
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION
Antoinette is a girl who lacks of love in her childhood. She is a solitary girl. When she is a child, she has no chance to have friend. Her mother also seldom talks to her. She becomes a lonely girl. She is introverted, never talks to anyone about her feeling. She has no friend and her mother never cares to her. She has no one to share her feeling. She keeps all her feeling by herself. She is vulnerable. She is afraid with what may happen to her future’s life. She also needs her husband to give her feeling of security because she is not used to happiness. She is fragile. She often cries in the night and likes to be told that she is safe. She is an affectionate girl. She has deep concern to others. Antoinette expresses her love to Christophine by hugging and kissing her, which her husband thinks that it is not an appropriate act. She also defends Hilda, her little servant when her husband thinks that Hilda is a stupid girl. She also persuades her husband to take a boy, who cries because he wants to follow her husband with them to England. She is an obstinate girl. From her husband’s opinion, she has her own fix idea or opinion about England and her mind is already made up. She has deep feeling toward the place she grown up. She loves so much the place where she lives in her childhood. She chooses to have honeymoon in Coulibri and thinks that it is the most beautiful place in the world. She is a generous person. She gives her money to people. She gives food and drink to all visitors of her house. She is an emotional person. If she is hurt, she will show her emotion freely. She is a girl
who believes of God but after all her unhappy experiences she doubts of God. From her appearance she is a beautiful woman. She has beautiful face. Her husband admires her wife’s beauty.
The treatments she gets from people in her childhood. Antoinette’s mother is the first person who should be care to Antoinette. But she is neglecting Antoinette since Pierre gets sick and the Emancipation Act is banned which make Antoinette’s family poor. People in her surrounding hate them. Local people hate them because they are white former slave owner and they laugh at them because they are poor. White communities also dislike them because they are poor. They sneer them at their back. Tia is the only friend that Antoinette has in her childhood. They do many activities together. But it is just for a while. Tia steals her dress and her money. She also throws a stone at her and makes her ill for six weeks. Christophine, her nanny is the closest person for Antoinette. She take cares her when her mother absent for her. She is always in Antoinette’s side. Mr. Mason is Antoinette’s stepfather. He makes Antoinette’s family free from poverty but he also makes black people more hate them. Aunt Cora lives with Antoinette’s family when Antoinette’s mother remarried. She protects Antoinette in the incident of the burning house and take cares her when Antoinette is ill. She also sends Antoinette to Convent School.
gets love from Christophine and aunt Cora. Since Antoinette is a girl she experiences many unhappy experiences. She becomes a sad girl. Her mother also has no concern at her. The place where she lives makes her far from outside world and people. Black people and white communities hate her. These situations make her has no friend and she has no one to share her feeling. She becomes a lonely girl. When finally she has a friend, Tia, Tia betrays her by steals her dress and her money. She feels that she is betraying by her friend and in the same time she is rejecting by her mother. It makes her grief and makes her believes that she is ashamed. Antoinette becomes an anxious child because she is unhappy. She feels guilty because she is not coming up the expectation of others and cannot prevent the moment happen. Antoinette self-concept shapes by her early experiences. She experiences many bad things. People blame her, belittle her, and reject her, so she tends to judge herself like what others judge on her in the past.
She feels hopeless about life. She says that she is not used of happiness. She is afraid what may happen in the future is worse than before. She tries to avoid it. She becomes a vulnerable person. All her unhappy experiences make her always has desire to be loved. It shows that she is lack of love.
She becomes an emotional person when she is hurt. She does not learn to tolerate her frustrations when she is young, and in this situation no one ever helps her and guides her, she develops of aggressiveness attack in her frustrations.
