Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

As living creatures, human beings are not perfect. That is why human beings will always change. Morris states that personality is a person’s psychological signature which related to motives, tendencies, outlooks, and emotions. Each person will change their psychological signature as a respond to the world 1990: 450. Another statement is coming from Hurlock; she states that human always experiences personality changes. These changes are influenced by many factors, such as their needs which also change all the time and the society or the important person around him or her 1976: 19. Human personality continuously changes and progresses. The changes depend on each individual, how they will deal with many situations in their lives. In every movement or action, people have motivation behind their attitude. Maslow defines motivation which relates to the human needs. The theory is known as Maslow’s hierarchical theory of motivation. The needs are included physiological and psychological needs. According to Maslow 1981: 368- 373 the needs are physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, and self actualization. It is important in achieving the needs because it becomes the basic purpose of human beings. However, it is not easy to fulfill the needs, since life is hard and lots of problems. Based on Maslow’s theory, seen from the psychological aspect, the writer considers that the belongingness and love needs are the most important aspect. As stated by Hauck 1983: 16, many people would put love as their most important human need. In order to survive or satisfy the needs, a person needs to build an interaction with others. It is because humans are known as a social being. They cannot survive without other’s help. Since it is not easy in making the relationship, sometimes problems may arise in human’s relationship. Furthermore, if an individual perceives that he or she is powerless and live in disharmony with his or her surrounding, it will result alienation. In addition, according to Maslow the failure to satisfy the human basic needs can bring an impact toward an individual’s psychological life. The failure to satisfy the needs can be one of the motivations which can cause some reaction which sometimes can not be easily known. His attitude may be a result of an influence from his surrounding or from him or herself, or it can be both. Human beings can not avoid the process of changes in their life; they will always change because later experiences can modify the effects of the early experiences. The early experiences are starting in home environment. It is because the earliest year of life is beginning at home. In other words, family has important role to form one’s personality. Sometimes, people are unaware that the early environment in a person’s life plays a great role in shaping his or her personality. A warmth family is needed to form a child’s personality; the children will grow-up with the feeling of belongingness and love. The children feel that their existence are wanted or needed. The feeling of belongingness and love can also teach them how to share, appreciate and respect others. In fact, it is not only children who need to be loved but also everyone else. If everyone has the feeling belongingness and love, people could live in harmony. Belongingness in here means acceptance. Everyone wants to be accepted by his surrounding, even though they have to do something which they do not like. Acceptance is one of the important aspects that people should pay attention. Nowadays, a person who does not have good ability in every aspect and does not have attractive look is hard to be accepted by the society. That is why he or she experience alienation. Life is harder for a person who was born with unattractive physics, comes from simple or poor family and does not have enough ability. Besides losing freedom, human beings also experience other greatest suffering that is losing the meaning of truly human relationship. Such as the feeling of unwanted, unloved, isolated from his surrounding, etc. Losing the meaning of truly human relationship can bring an impact toward a person’s personality development. These problems may not arise if each person has the feeling of belongingness and love. Nowadays, it seems hard in achieving the belongingness and love needs, since each person only think about their own matter. That is why problems, chaos, vandalism could be happened. Love can be definite as appreciation, forgiveness, cares, affection, and respect. The losing of truly human relationship could be seen from the cases that happen in the society. For an example: A boy ended his own life because he thinks that his parents do not care about him. Another case is a man ended his friend’s mother because he can not accept her reprimand when he stays in his friend’s house. The issues above are also seen in Mishima’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima shows how the lack of love and belongingness could bring such great impact toward a person’s personality. In this novel, Mishima shows a portrait of a young acolyte who failed to satisfy his needs. His name is Mizoguchi. His unpleasant memory when he was a child taunted him. His life seems complicated; he has many problems in his life. At the end of the story, it tells how Mizoguchi decided to get his freedom in order to end his misery life. He takes an extreme action with killing people he cares about. The novel is interesting because it does not merely about romance or other usual aspects that people found. On the contrary, this novel contains psychological problems, such as the feeling of pressure, alienation, obsession, hatred, loneliness, and depression. Mishima’s exploration on human weakness in this story is interesting. In the story, Mishima shows how the failure in achieving one of human needs can make a person doing such an extreme action which can not imagine before. Yukio Mishima’s known as one of the best Asian writer. He won on international acclaim and numerous literary prizes. In this study, the writer chooses The Temple of the Golden Pavilion translated by Ivan Morris. In this novel, Mishima explore human’s common problem which is not far from the failure to satisfy is human’s needs. The failure to satisfy his needs becomes Motivation in taking his action. The relation between him and other characters also have a close relation toward his behavior. The focus of this study is on the life of the main character. Why Mizoguchi tries to achieve the belongingness and love needs? How is Mizoguchi’s failure affecting his life?

B. Problem Formulation