The play mainly tells about the love story of two contrasting figures, Alma, a religious pure spinsterish girl and John, a secular demoniac young doctor.
Born as a preacher‟s daughter, Alma becomes a role model of a good person. This
is because she has to keep her father‟s pride as a minister. Therefore, she should consider both her behavior and action very carefully. Besides that, her mother‟s
mental condition also becomes the reason that encourages her to grow up that way. Being shaped by those external factors, her true characteristics are still
hidden. Her peculiar characteristics set her apart from the other children of her age. As a normal grown-up girl, Alma falls in love with John, a long-time
bachelor that has a contrasting personality with her. Unfortunately, their love story does not run smoothly. Being in love with John, Alma finds herself guilty
due to John‟s bad reputation. On the other hand, John finds Alma has too much „soul‟ elements that cannot fit his excessive „body‟ elements. As a result, they
cannot stay together as a couple; John marries Nellie, Alma‟s singing student instead. Alma learns that
John‟s suspicion is true that her doppelganger double personality should not be repressed. John learns that what Alma suggested about
soul is right and that he is too secular. As a result, their personality is reversed at the end of the play.
B. Approach of the Study
To be able to accomplish the goal of this study, the writer applies the psychoanalytical approach. It is originally developed by Austrian psychoanalyst,
Sigmund Freud. The main concern of psychoanalysis is human‟s unconscious; the
unconscious may include unconscious thoughts, beliefs, motives, intentions and emotions. Thus, the person who is not able to recognize the real character of his
behavior becomes the object of the psychoanalytic research Phillips, 2014. Freud believed that this unconscious thought is the source of the conflict people
face. This kind of thought will lead them to experience the repression, or “the
involvement of old memories that are associated with specific events related to the earliest sexual acti
vity of children” de Mijola, 2014.
In his journal, Sarnoff explains the main discussion of psychoanalysis as follows:
Psychoanalytic theory describes the defense mechanisms which serve to protect the individual against external and internal threat. Where people
cannot escape from threatening forces from without, they will often incorporate the hostile forces and identify with the aggressor, as in the
case of some members of a minority group taking on the prejudices of the majority toward them. Or people will maintain old attitudes by denying
and distorting the reality of existing dangers. Threatening internal impulses may be repressed and projected onto others, or sometimes may
lead to the appearance of attitudes directly opposed to the repressed wishes Sarnoff, 2014.
According to Sarnoff, psychoanalysis deals with the application of defense mechanism as the way to keep oneself away from conflict caused by either
internal or external factors. However, when an individual fails to defend himself from the threat causing the conflict, he or she will try to get rid of the conflict by
refusing or obscuring the fact. In the case of internal threat, it can be repressed or transmitted into another impulse.
C. Method of the Study
