house by pouring the water on the tiles of the roof. It is also the proof that she is a hard worker too. While her parents did not think about cool the house she has her
own way to find the solution even though in the morning her sheet still wet because of her sweat. She and her relatives try to cool the house by pouring it with
water from the roof. This characteristic starts to appear apparently after her father died.
According to Murphy’s theory of past life, in Orchid’s past life in Wuhu, she
knows all the struggles and suffers of her parents. She learned that she has to work harder to support the family. Her mother got depressed and sick, in the other hand
she had two siblings a sister named Rong and a brother named Kuei Hsiang which three of them need to eat.
They are too young to support the family’s needs. She has to replace the position of her father as breadwinner. Her first time visits
Peking, she is amazed by everything she has seen whether it is the decoration, the people, the food and the atmosphere in this city. To prove that she is a hard
worker person, the writer see from the reaction of the main character like Murphy said. In the second day, she goes to neighbors and peddlers at the vegetable
market to find a job. She works and gets paid daily in that market until the day when no one hired her.
I went to neighbors and peddlers at the vegetables market hoping to find work. I carried loads of yams and cabbages, and cleaned the stalls after the
market closed. I made a few copper pennies each day. Some days no one hired me and I would come empty-handed. p.13
She is not giving up looking for a job. Finally, she worked on a middle-aged woman called Big Sister Fann through her uncle. From that time, she works for
her in a shop specializing in shoes for wealthy Manchu Ladies. She says that she
likes to go to work even though her hair coated with dust and her neck painfully sore. She gives all the money she earned to her mother but still cannot pay the
bills. Her mother took a cleaning job but she was fired because of sick and it motivates her to work harder than before. She realizes that the fee of working with
Big Sister Fann is not enough to recover the family needs. After heard about decree posted on the city wall from Big Sister Fann, she
found out the way to avoid the matchmaking between her and Bottle. She decided to go and take a look the decree. The requirements make her thoughts began to
race. The life time guarantee can pay all the debts and fulfill her family needs. Her hard worked in the shoes shop now move to the selection of the Emperor’s
concubine. Every time she comes home from Big Sister Fann, the reality of marrying Bottle makes her lost the hope. It seems like somebody seize her life.
She prefers be a concubine which never get spend a night with the Emperor rather than marrying Bottle.
B. The Motives of the Main Character to be a Concubine.
Being a concubine may be what Chinese girls dreamed in that time. It was not only about the happiness of being one of Imperial’s family, but also the wealth
that they get from the Majesty for the prosperity of their family. As we know that literally concubine means a woman who lives with a man, often in addition to his
wife or wives, but who is less important than they are. It means that a concubine has no power than his wife
, they are not really important in Emperor’s eyes. The idea of being less important than wife or wives is not what Orchid
thinking about. All she need in that time is to pass the election of the candidates.
Orchid was an ordinary family before her family was died. She was interested to join the selection of Imperial consorts. Becoming the concubine, it will help her
supports her family. It is a big chance for Orchid to join the decree because she was the daughter of a Blue Bannerman like the poster said.
The candidates had to be Manchu, to keep the purity of the Imperial bloodline. I remembered Father once told me that among four hundred
million people in China, five million were Manchu. The poster also said that the girls’ fathers had to be at least the rank of Blue Bannerman. p.22
The purpose of the qualification that the candidates must be the daughter of Blue Bannerman or highest position is to make sure that they have intelligence genetic.
For a person who has no formal education and had no proper clothes to enter the palace it must be hard for her to pass the selection. So, there must be motives
behind her hard work to join the imperial decree. This thesis analyses Orchid’s motive to become a concubine. As Morris
said that motive is an inner directing force-a need or want- that arouses the organism and directs behavior toward a goal 1990:408, Orchid has her own
goals, her own desires. Being a concubine is her move to achieve her goals. . The concept of a concubine can be used to analyze the main character.
Worchel and Shebilske categorized two motives into two groups. The first is primary motive which concerns her biological needs. Every living thing must
do something to fulfill their primary motive, so does Orchid. She is looking for a job to get some money so she and her family can eat and drink. The second is
social motive which comes from learning and social interaction. As a social human being, a person needs to communicate with others. Every person lives for a
reason, to achieve something in her or his life. A way to achieve something in her
life is by learning from the past. That is what Orchid did to get better. She knows the struggles of her parents when she was child, and she can live dependently in
her young age, replace her father position as the pioneer of her family. Furthermore, according to Abraham Maslow cited by Gerric and
Zimbardo, the motives of Orchid can be explored through hierarchy of needs. Thus, the writer uses Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to analyze the Orchid’s
motives becomes a concubine.
1. Orchid’s Motive to Fulfill the Physiological Needs
The first motive of Orchid’s to become a concubine is avoiding the
poverty life. In that time, the financial of her family was broke and they live in poverty and it was the basic problem that she had.
Based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, he stated that physiology needs are the basic needs that human need to
survive such as food, liquid, sleep, oxygen, etc. It needs to be fulfilled before fulfill the following needs on the hierarchy.
As Sartain said about motive 1958: 46 that it is a complex state within an organism that directs behavi
or toward a goal or incentive, Orchid’s goal to live in prosperity by become a concubine drive her to do something in order to fulfill the
basic need. She realizes that her basic needs such as food are not completely fulfilled. It can be seen when she deli
vers her father’s coffin to Peking with her mother and her siblings to bury her father in his birthplace. The rotten smell
comes out from the coffin and they have to reach Peking as soon as possible while the journey to Peking is not easy. Her mother runs out of money on paying the
footmen and has no any money to buy food.
