Background of The Study
Each individual on the society has the same chance to suffer from anxiety. Anxiety is certainly not just concerned with irrational fear, in many cases it would be
irrational not to be anxious Emanuel 2000:5. Real potentially threatening events perceived can be anxiety-provoking. This potential threatening danger can be in a form
of satire, judgmental action and humiliation. The reaction upon those threatening dangers also determine the character of individual. Each individual is demanded to
draw a certain character so that his existence acknowledged by the community. Individual who possess anxiety needs to struggle to choose between selfish
drives or the demands of community. It is individual protection against the often violent indifference of nature to individual needs and against the aggression and violence
within individual that threaten continually to undermine human relations Rennison 2001:54. On the one hand, individual argues to be existed on the community and to be
fulfilled the demand of community. On the other, individual with anxiety has selfish drives not to act nor does react, in which
he doesn’t have a strong power to act or react due to the anxiety. Ewen in his book entitled An Introduction to Theories Personality
2003:20 defines anxiety as a highly unpleasant emotion that is similar to intense nervousness. This unpleasant feeling that makes individual choose not to give reaction
to express her feeling of threatening danger. Anxiety is also causing individual not to take any action to maintain his existence. This individual may also being afraid to
express his feeling of suffering himself over the anxiety. Individual and community are giving influence on each other. Community is a
social system of a type, which meets all the essential functional prerequisites of long
term persistence’ from within its own resources Parsons 2005:11. Different resources of each individual creates a total complex of human relationships. In addition,
individual grows out of the action in terms of means-end relationship. It stands to reason that relationship among individual is very needed to live among the community.
Individual who suffered from anxiety is hard to build the relationship with any other member on the community. The relationship cannot be create without any
communication on each individual. Anxious individual cannot also create a proper communication since it is hard to take any action or reaction. Without action and
reaction, interaction with another member on the community will not be occurred so that communication cannot be completed.
Miss Brill, Josephine and Constantia are those who ride out the storm. Three of them are suffering from anxiety. They are spinsters whose existence on the community
are being questioned as found in Short stories written by Katherine Mansfield entitled Miss Brill
and The Daughters of the Late Colonel. Miss Brill tells a story about a struggle of a spinster to live properly among her community. She wants her existence
to be acknowledged and respected in her community. Josephine and Constantia of The Daughters of the Late Colonel
are in the same boat with Miss Brill. Both of them are having the mourning period after the death of their father. Without their father, their
existence on their community are being questioned. The writer concern to examine how anxiety suppress one individual and affect the
individual’s existence on the community.