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Sanada Chiaki; while Sanada experiences interpersonal conflicts with her father and Kawashima Masayuki.
a. The Interpersonal Conflicts of Kawashima Masayuki
1 Against His Mother
Little Kawashima Masayuki had a conflict with his mother. His mother always hit and abused him. It started when he was four years old. As a little child,
he did not have the power to fight his mother. His mother abused him because he reminded her of his father. Kawashima’s mother hated his father because she
thought that Kawashima’s father was a foolish. Kawashima’s mother often locked Kawashima in the bathroom.
‘I think what’s behind them, behind the night terrors, is that after my father died, when I was four, my mother started hitting me. She’d beat the
hell out of me.’ ….
‘And I know he had one, for a while at least, because my mother always used to describe him as the sort of fool who’d put a down payment on a
car he couldn’t afford. I haven’t seen my mother for years, but the last time we met, at my high-school graduation, she said she’d treated me the
way she did because I reminded her of him – meaning my father the fool.’ ….
‘I was about five or six my mother started locking me in the house and taking only my little brother. One time I climbed out the window and ran
down the road chasing after them, and she dragged me back to the house and tied me to the water pipes in the bathroom.’ 11-13
Kawashima also suffered many abuses from her mother. He was not only hit, he also got stabbed and cascaded with ammonia. This can be seen from the quotation
below: ‘my mother, she put ammonia, on my hand, and one time she said, do you
want a tattoo, and she sharpened this pencil, a hard one, 4H or 5H, really sharp, and she stabbed my arms, and legs with it, and she hit me, with a
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milk bottle, and tied up my ears, and fingers, with string, she didn’t care, she’d prise open my eyelids, with her fingers, and bring the tip, of a
burning cigarette, or a needle, right up to my eye, it didn’t bother her at all, so now, do you understand, the secret?’ 173
The situation of Kawashima and his mother could be categorized as
conflict. According to Atkinson and Hillgard, “a major source of frustation is conflict between two opposing motives. When two motives are in conflict, the
satisfaction of one leads to the frustration of the order” 424. The abusing makes his mother satisfied because she could release her hated to Kawashima’s father,
but it makes Kawashima depressed and makes him suffering from the psychological disorder. Worchel and Cooper state that “interpersonal conflict is a
conflict that arises between the characters with power outside the character” 460. It is the conflict between Kawashima and the power outside him, in this
case is his mother. The cause of the conflict of Kawashima and his mother, according to
Isenhart and Spangle, is the interest. Kawashima and his mother have different interest and goal. On one side, Kawashima wants to be loved by his mother, and
on the other side, his mother wants to release her hatred to Kawashima’s father and she releases it to Kawashima by abusing him. According to Beebe, Beebe and
Redmond, the style of Kawashima in approaching this conflict with his mother is giving in. He does not do anything when his mother abuses him and he gives up
easily since he has no power to fight his mother. This can be seen from the following quotation:
A lot of times she’d beat me with no warning, and that was especially scary, so I used to try to stay prepared all the time. I’d keep reminding
myself: Mother’s going to hit me, Mother’s going to hit me . . . 12
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To resolve this conflict, Kawashima’s primary-school teacher puts Kawashima in a home for abused kids, called Home.
From the quotations above, it can be seen that the abusing of Kawashima’s mother brings him a conflict with his mother. His mother abuses him to release
her hatred to his father. All Kawashima could do is giving in, since he does not have the power to fight his mother.
2 Against the Woman He Stabbed
On the age of seventeen, Kawashima meets and lives with a stripper. She is nineteen years older than Kawashima. She often brings a man to their apartment
after she works in the strip club, it can be seen from the following quotation: “The woman frequently brought men she’d met at her strip club back to the apartment
and fooled around with them, right in front of Kawashima.” 25. She would be angry and attack Kawashima if Kawashima does nothing with those men. When
finally he decides to be rough with those men, she still attacks Kawashima. Kawashima believes that he is the only one who cares about her, that is why he
also believes that she would never leave him. One night, Kawashima is trying to hug her but she rejects him. Kawashima
feels that the woman is angry with him and he needs to be punished. Kawashima thinks that she is going to leave him and that thought scares him. He thinks that he
must not let her go. To overcome this fear, he takes an ice pick and stabs her. He was convinced that after her shower she’d leave the apartment. And
wouldn’t come back. How long would he have to sit there, scared half to death, waiting for her to return? He mustn’t let her go.
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…. And the next thing he knew he’d flung open the shower curtain and the tip
of the ice pick in his hand was soundlessly piercing her stomach. 27 According to Worchel and Cooper, this conflict is categorized into
interpersonal conflict, because he is fighting with the outside power, in this case is the woman. This conflict is also categorized as pseudo conflict, based on Beebe,
Beebe and Redmond theory of types of conflict. Pseudo conflict is a conflict which happens because a person misinterprets something which is given by
another person. Kawashima misinterprets the message given by the woman, he thinks that the woman is angry and going to leave him. It scares him because he
believes that she would never leave him. To resolve this conflict, Kawashima uses negotiation method. Kawashima
leaves the apartment without being asked. Though Kawashima keeps returning to the apartment for couple of time, the woman refuses to meet him.
He moved out without being asked. Although he returned to the apartment a number of times in the weeks that followed, the woman always refused
to see him, and eventually she moved away. 28 From all the quotations above, it can be seen that Kawashima is having an
interpersonal conflict with the woman. The conflict emerges because Kawashima misinterprets the message given by the woman. Kawashima resolves the conflict
by leaving the apartment.
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b. The Interpersonal Conflict of Sanada Chiaki
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