Mabel’s Indifference Influences on Mabel’s Behavior

her brothers say and suggest to her. Mabel becomes an indifferent girl. It is shown by the author through her action towards others. Sometimes, Mabel shows no emotion to others, even to her brothers. She very rarely communicates with them, even to answer their questions. She serves them but she never talks to them. Mabel’s carelessness to her brothers can be shown when her brothers suggest her to live with her sister, but Mabel does not perceive what her brothers say, even to answer their questions. It is shown below: “You’ll go and stop with Lucy for a bit, shan’t you?” he asked. The girl does not answer. “I don’t see what else you can do”, persisted Fred Henry. “Go as a skivvy’, Joe interpolated laconically. The girl did not move a muscle. p.468 Mabel’s carelessness towards her brothers is a way to adjust herself from the sadness caused by the fact that her parents passed away and her sister has married. The change in her behavior shows egocentric and negativism as adjustment mechanisms, in which she never listens to her brothers’ suggestion and defends her perception. As what Carroll defines that the individual who is egocentric dwells on himself and interprets every situation from a personal angle and Carroll also defines that a negativistic person is one who strongly resists suggestion from others 226. She is never interested with anything her brothers have done. She does not care about them. Everything that her brothers say or suggest to her is useless, because she does not want listen to her brothers’ opinion. Mabel does not take any notice of him. They have talked at her and round her for so many years, that she hardly hears them at all p.468. Mabel’s indifference is not only happened with her brothers, but also with Dr. Jack Fergusson, her doctor whom she loves. It is seen, when they meet for the first time. Mabel serves him as a guest without communication between them. She just does what her brothers have instructed to her. At this point Mabel rose from the table, and they all seemed to become aware of her existence. She began putting the dishes together. The young doctor looked at her, but did not address her. He had not greeted her. She went out of the room with the tray, her face impassive and unchanged. p.469 Her sight to Jack Fergusson also shows her indifference. Her eyes do not look friendly, cool, and no desire. Her attitude makes others become not comfort in communicating with her. In her first meeting with Jack Fergusson, Mabel looks at him with her steady, dangerous eyes, which always makes him uncomfortable, unsettling his superficial ease p.470. Mabel’s behavior above makes people around her feel not comfort to be closed with her.

d. Mabel’s Orientation to Money

Mabel shows no emotion to her brothers, she serves them but she never talks to them. She does all the house works. Mabel is considered as a “servant” to the family. She serves her brothers because of money. So, Mabel does not do all of the house works for nothing. For some people, it is very surprising to see Mabel’s condition in which she has to serve her own brothers to make a living. What a big irony that she has to be a servant in her own family. Moreover, she is very pleased with the money that she earns from her own brothers. She needs money to survive. It also makes her proud and confident because she earns money for her work although it is only in a small amount of money. Mabel is a person who always needs someone to support her life, especially after she loses her father. For months, Mabel had been servant-less in the big house, keeping the home together in penury for her ineffectual brothers. She had kept house for ten years. But previously it was with unstinted means. Then, however brutal and coarse everything was, the sense of money had kept her proud, confident. The men might be foul-mouthed, the women in the kitchen might have bad reputations, and her brothers might have illegitimate children. But so long as there was money, the girl felt herself established, and brutally proud, reserved p.471. Mabel’s dependence towards money replaces the emptiness in her heart because the absence of love which she experiences. After leaving by her parents and sister, she uses money as her orientation in life. Here, she shows displacement as one way to defend herself, and substitution to adjust herself from the fact of the absence of love of her parents and sister. It can be seen when she uses money to replace her suffering from a loss. This condition is appropriate with the statement Morris quoted, that displacement is the redirection of represses motives and emotion from the original object to substitute object 506. Mabel’s behavior shows substitution because her orientation to money is a way to forget the sadness she feels. And by doing all of the house works and becomes the servant in her own house, Mabel can shift her thought about her parents’ death. It is appropriate with Carroll’s statement that substitution is adjustment mechanism in which frequently an individual who has become convinced of his inferiority in one kind of activity will give up trying to succeed along that line and concentrate on another activity 216.