already knew which person was controlled by the Yeerks, they knew that they have to be careful with that person, the best example for this is Jake’s older
brother, Tom. The protagonists already know that Tom is controlled by the Yeerks, so they already know what kind of measure that they have to employ to
avoid any suspicion from Tom. It is more difficult for you if you did not know which one is your enemy, and which one is not, the condition of not knowing that
will create confusion or even fear in our mind. Imagine if we wanted to talk to our parents yet we are uncertain if the parent that we are talking to is really our parent
or they have been controlled by your enemy. This is exactly what happens to some of the protagonists, they are unable
to speak freely to other people freely even to their closest friends or even their relatives. Because if they talk too much, especially if they talking about anything
which is related to the Animorphs, they may unintentionally reveals their secret to their enemy. This kind of condition will perhaps create two effects to their mind.
First it will create fear in their mind because if the person to whom they talking to is in fact have been controlled by the yeerks, it means that they’re talking with
their enemy, so they to be careful when they spoke to them, because if they made a mistake in communicating with them our life will be in danger. Second, it will
made us distraught and sad, because we cannot talk freely to people whom we loved in this case our parents, we had to lie to them in order to keep themselves
alive. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
In summary the inability to speak freely with other people is one of the impacts which are felt by the protagonists because of the terror which they received from
their battle against the yeerks. Another terror in the novel is the Animorphs’ ability to morph, although
their power gives them the ability to morph into any other creatures, the power also comes with a great risk. The drawback of their power is that they can only
stay in their morph form for two hours, if somehow they stayed in their morph form more than two hours, they will stuck in that form for the rest of their life and
they will lose their ability to morph. “Go now, the Andalite said. Only remember this - never remain in
animal form for more than two of your Earth hours. Never That is the greatest danger of the morphing If you stay longer than two hours you
will be trapped, unable to return to human form.” Animorphs 1 1996: 14.
The victim of this limitation is Tobias, in book 1 he morphed into a red
tailed hawk and somehow stayed in that form for more than two hours, because of that Tobias has to live the rest of his life as a red tailed hawk. Because of that the
Animorphs became wary to this limitation, each times they morphed they often asked each other how many times they had left, because they did not want to be
trapped in the animal form. Another reason why their ability to morph can strikes fear to their mind is
that, when they morphed into another creature an ant for example the basic instinct of that animal may take control of their mind. For example, in book nine,
they morphed into ants, they were temporarily controlled by the ant’s instinct that PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
it caused them to be unable to control their movement, or in other word their will was fully controlled by the ant’s instinct and it nearly cost them their life.
After they survive those tragedies, they were terrorized because they learn about the tragic fact about morphing into an ant.
One day Im a lobster. Then Im an ant. I figure the next step down the evolutionary ladder
is a virus or something. And I just want to say right now, Im not doing it. I am not going to become phlegm, even to save the world.
It wasnt much of a joke, but there was a kind of lame little laugh from everyone. And Rachel stopped stomping the ants - I mean, the ground.
That night, when I went home, I took a shower. I found the head of an ant. It was still locked onto the skin of my waist.
Lots of people think only humans fight wars, that only humans are murderous. Let me tell you something
– compared to ants, human beings are full of nothing but peace, love, and understanding.” Animorphs 5,
1996:49.
From that it can be assumed that whenever they morphed into other creature, their mind will go into a whole different world. They have to cope with
any instinct they may face whenever they morphed into any other creature. Suffering or experiencing a terror of death will obviously create a whirlpool of
confusion and fear in human’s mind, sometimes the whirlpool is so big that it affected the entire part of human’s mind.
C. Defense Mechanisms Adopted by Protagonists
Whenever human suffers from a psychological trauma to their mind, they will utilize defense mechanism in order to make their psychological condition
better or to hide it from other people while they hide their true feeling for themselves.
In the novel each of the protagonists used various defense mechanisms. This study analyzed each of the protagonists’ use of defense mechanism, and
whether or not the defense mechanism that they applied worked.
1. Jake’s Defense Mechanism
As seen from Jake’s characteristic, where he is described as responsible person in which his friend believe him to be able to give a good decision and he
also described as a responsible person where he will do anything to help the team to fight against the terror, he seems to adopt a defense mechanism known as
Anticipation. Anticipation, according to George Valliant is a level 4, mature type defense mechanism. Anticipation is a defense mechanism in which the user
creates some kind of road map of strategies in their mind, to handle or counter the terror which may attack the user.
The other members of Animorphs believe that Jake is the most capable person who can come up with best decision to help them with their current
situation. Anticipation is perhaps one of the best defense mechanism, because by mapping up a strategy, the victim will be able to counter the terror much easier,
rather than fighting against the terror without any plan at all. By mapping up a strategy also shows that the user of this defense
mechanism can handle the terror pretty well as he can come up with a plan to counter it.
Jake’s capabilities to be able to come up with a plan to fight or to solve their problem shows that he is the type of person who still can control his action
under the terror which attack his mind. Even though sometimes he also shows his fear toward the reader, he is one of the persons who are able to control their fear.
Perhaps that is the reason why he is chosen as the de facto leader by his friends. His friends believe that Jake capable of coping with the situation, which is
why he is chosen as the decision maker. Marco belief that he is irresponsible and he is more suitable as the jokester on the team, Rachel stated that she is not the
type to give order or decision to other people, that kind of person is Jake. Jake also seems to adopt a level 4 defense mechanism known as courage.
As the name says, courage is a defense mechanism in which the user shows sign of bravery whenever the user faced against fear or terror. In the story Jake is the
person who has the best control of his emotion. He rarely showed his fear, or true feeling in front of other people. In book 7, when the team seems to lose their hope
after being told by an omnipotent creature known as Ellimist that they will lose the fight against the Yeerks, Ellimist give them the offer to leave their planet
along with several other human to live in a new world which is provided by him. Even after all of his friend decided to a
ccept Ellimist’ offer Jake did not lose his determination to keep fighting, he is the only one who does no
t accept Ellmist’ offer.
We cant give up, Jake argued stubbornly. All we ever do is lose, Marco said. We annoy the Yeerks. Maybe we
blow up a ship, or have some little success. But the invasion marches on. And all we ever do
is barely escape with our lives. Were like some baseball team that never wins a game. And
now, according to the Ellimist, we know its going to be a whole losing season. We arent
going to the play-offs. I dont care, Jake said. Im
not giving up.” Animorphs 7: 56. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
He believed that accepting Ellimist’ offer means that they are scared, they are giving up the fight against the Yeerks. His courage seems to be greater than
Rachel, this is proven when Rachel who is known for her courage is scared and she decided to accept Ellimist’ offer.
2. Marco’s Defense Mechanism
The character Marco seems to utilize a defense mechanism known as humor, it is a defense mechanism in which people tend to say humorous things to
lighten up the situation, the user pretend that they are fine and happy in front of other people when in fact they were scared or under psychological trauma. Based
on Marco’s habit to crack jokes to other people in order to cheer himself and the others so that their mind will not be terrorized by the terror.
Yeah, thats probably it, I said tolerantly. Marcos approach to everything is to joke about it. Especially when hes worried” Animorphs 11: The
Forgotten 1997: 7.
It is normal for people to act stupid in front of other people in order to hide their true feeling. People use humor by telling jokes or trying to make other
people laugh by any means usually has other feeling hidden beneath their mind, fear, anger, or sadness. Those kinds of feeling triggered the need of something
which is able to hide their true feeling from other people. People will use any kind of method to hide that true feeling, and humor is one of the methods which are
usually the method which is utilized by people to hide their feeling. In a simple word, using humor as a defense mechanism is like wearing a clown mask which
usually has happy expression. We hide our true expression behind the happy expression of the clown mask
The use of humor can be quite effective, for example; when people use humor by cracking jokes to other people, they will try their best to make other
people laugh. People who laugh because of the humor will think that heshe that causes them to laugh is very happy at the moment he or she crack joke. Thus
heshe manage to makes other people to believe that heshe is happy at the moment, not knowing the fact that heshe has some problem in hisher mind.
Marco used this mechanism to boost his own self esteem so that he can control his fear because of the terror of death in front of others. As shown in the
example above how Jake describe Marco tends to crack joke, especially when he is worried. Marco seems to joke to reduce his confusion, fear or anxiety.
Fine by me, I was ready to do something or go insane. Inactivity makes for way too much time to think about things like death and destruction
and pain and violence. Inactivity makes for fear. Another good defense against fear is humor. From my point of view, if
youre not laughing, youre crying. Humor as coping mechanism. Besides, I sort of consider it my job to keep us loose in these
situations. Entertain the troops” Animorphs 25:The Extreme, 1999: 21.
Marco stated it himself that he uses humor as coping mechanism, he said that it is his job to entertain the team with his humor, even in dangerous situation
to relief them from their anxiety. From Marco’s case we can learn that people
crack a joke not only to make other people laugh, sometimes people crack a joke in order to cheer them up. They want to bury their true feeling beneath their own
