B. Character Analysis
According to the story, the writer assumes one period of time which is significant to the development of Claudia’s characters is the childhood period.
Therefore, the writer needs to analyze Claudia’s childhood which is related with her psychological problems that is neuroses.
Neuroses problem of the main character has developed in the early age. It was related with her experiences in the childhood. Claudia was never wanted to be a
mother. Even when she was a child, she always prefers to be an aunt. Mother was a kind of figure that she never want to be.
I never wanted to be a mother. Even I was a little girl, playing dolls with my two sisters. I assumed the role of the good Aunt Claudia. Giffin, 2006: 1
Claudia’s childhood was not as beautiful as the other child have at her age;
her mother is self-centered of those problems and her sisters were distracted by their complicated lives. It was begun when her mother started to cheat with Claudia’s
elementary principal and many guys after him. Everybody’s around her insulted her because of her mother’s behavior. She was never being a good example for Claudia
and her sisters. And having a divorce parents was far from her imagination. She often compared her parents with ideal parents in book. But it wasn’t being real.
Claudia’s traumatic reveals that, basically, children learn anxiety all too easily. She identified her parent’s model as an example. Her mother’s attitude, which
seems to be a bad example for her, increasing her fearness of motherhood itself.
But about six years later, when I was eleven, I learned how closely the two emotions are aligned. That was the year that my mother had an “alleged”
affair she still denies it with my elementary school principal, Mr. Higgins. I steadfastly maintain that short of being orphaned of severely disfigured, it
was about the worst thing that can happen to a fifth-grader; particularly when you’re the very last person in the school to hear about it. I never had
any illusions that either of my parents was perfect, as I frequently compared them to the ideal parents in books. I wished that my father were a little more
Atticus Finch, and that my mother would occasionally behave like Ramona Quimby’s nurturing, understanding mother in my favorite Beverly clearly
books. Giffin, 2006: 48
As a child, one’s could learn quickly that sexual and aggressive expressions are unacceptable. This doesn’t prevent a child from getting angry at her parents; but
she learns to hide these feeling, even for herself. Every single event about her mother was traumatic and too painful to remember. It was a terrible childhood because
everyone always mocked her family. She never forgets when there was a boy named Chet whom called her mother as a bitch. It was a horrible situation for the fifth-grader
like her. After Mr. Higgins, her mother had another affair with Dwight. At the same time, she left Claudia’s family and divorced from Claudia’s father. Claudia was so
embarrassed with her mother’s behavior. I didn’t help that Chet was suspended for a week or that very few people saw
the drawing before it was horsed off by a janitor. All that mattered was that upon one glimpse I knew in my gut that it was true: my mom was, indeed,
doing Mr. Higgins The pieces came together for me in a rush of shamefaced horror: my mother’s Over the next few weeks, I had only heard uttered from
boys like Chet. Slut, whore and bitch. It was a real healthy stuff for a fifth- grader. I think my mother and Mr. Higgins stopped seeing each other a short
time later. But other affairs followed until she met Dwight, a tanned plastic surgeon who wore a pinky signet ring and ascots on special occasions and
always conjured rich, tacky character on The Love Boat. My mother was so smitten with Dwight and the lavish lifestyle he promised that she left us for
real, giving up custody to my father when I was thirteen. Giffin, 2006: 49-50
Claudia felt that the world would not accept her and her family inside; because her mother did many things which made them very embarrassed. It started
from the insult from her friend in the playground until her neighborhood. That made Claudia frustrated with her life.
I didn’t think too much about my parents one way or the other. Most kids don’t; until my friend in the playground decided to break the big news of my
mother’s affair via chalk graffiti. He drew two large stick figures, complete with some vivid male-female anatomy, and the words CLAUDIA’S MOM
DOES MR. HIGGINS. I remember how pathetic that I am at that time. Giffin, 2006: 48
After the scandals that her mother’s made; her parents were fighting almost
everyday. Claudia remembered when her father finally took her and her sisters to the train station. They decided to move to the other town because they can’t stand
anymore with her mother’s behavior. Her father had tried to be a good husband, but her mother never appreciates it; he even never got the divorce-memo.
Having to watch her parents fighting were a terrible experience for Claudia. Moreover, hearing that there’s one parent tears while the other down were become a
great traumatic experiences which is long lasting remain in Claudia’s psyche. My dad, who still lives in Huntington in the house we grew up in, drove to my
sister’s earlier this morning and picks me up at the train station now. Before I close the car door, he starts in on my mother. “That woman is impossible”.
He announces. My mother is usually very positive, but my mother brings out in worst in him. And apparently, he never got the divorced-parent memo that
explains that it’s not healthy for a child even an adult child to hear one parent tear the other down. Giffin, 2006: 67
Everything become worst for Claudia when she knew that, actually, she was unwanted child. Her mother told the truth that she was regretting to have her. She
thought that she wouldn’t have any child from Claudia’s father, but she was wrong. She told it to Claudia without any guilt. It made Claudia really sad.
You were accident, my mother says. An unplanned pregnancy. She never tried to hide the fact—it was something I knew at very young age. She’d tell people
in front of me. She thought that she was done, but Claudia here was an accident. Giffin, 2006: 116
Claudia never wanted to say the real reason for her decision for not having a child. She kept it as a secret of her life. An anxious person often looks for someone or
something to cling to. Still, others resolve their conflicts during childhood only to find the same inexplicable fears and continuous tensions recurring later in life.
Yet, Claudia believed that every body knew her true reason for not having a child; but it ever came out and say altogether. It was related with her bad childhood;
the fact that she doesn’t want a child because she has a great traumatic with her mother. She denied the charges for being a mother because she is afraid to be trapped
in the tiresome cop-out to blame her current predicament like in her bad childhood. She was afraid to have a family—because her previous family was messed up.
The fact that I don’t want children because I have such issues with my own mother. My first instinct is to deny these charges as I have always thought it a
tiresome cop-out to blame your current predicament on your bad childhood. Everyone has a messed-up family—to one extent to another—but we all have
an obligation to rise about it. Live in the present and stop sniveling about the past. Giffin, 2006: 50
Claudia couldn’t erase her memories of the bad childhood that she had. She couldn’t deny that she has a traumatic life because of a mother who cheats on her
family and then finally leaves them altogether. A kinds of trauma which gets buried in her psyche forever. The pain was never been erased. It was influence her point of
view on having a child. She believed that it would be felt better to be irresponsible mother than to have a mother who ignored her child; because the victims were only
innocence children; that have no power to against it. Still, I guess I can’t deny that there is a little life-shaping stigma in having a
mother who cheats on her family and then finally leaves them altogether. A stigma that gets buried in your psyche forever. And those feeling must be
playing at least a small role in all of this, just as I think my sister Daphne’s obsession with having children has a lot to do with wanting to erase the pain
my mother caused. On one level, Daphne’s approach makes more sense. Yet the thought of a redo is not only unappealing, but terrifying. I don’t want that
kind of power of anyone. I don’t want to be something that someone has to overcome. After all, I think everyone would agree that it’s far worse to be
fucked-up mother than to have one. Giffin, 2006: 50
Claudia was never imagining that her life would be full of sadness like these. Slowly but surely, she learnt that everything wouldn’t always be happened as she
wanted. Even she has a bad mother; she still believed that someday everything would go to be fine for her. Because life was like a wheel; and there’s would be a time for
everything to turning out to be. Things certainly aren’t the way you imagine them when you’re kid and
dreaming big dreams about what your life as a grown-up will look like. Even with a mother like mine, even with my untraditional wishes, even with all
books I’ve read about all the people with life screwed up in one way to another, I still could have sworn things would be so much neater and easier
than they’re turning out to be. Giffin, 2006: 108
From the analysis above, the writer assumes that Claudia’s childhood was the main reason for Claudia took a decision for not having a child. She never wants to be
like her mother. So, it was better for her to avoid all the stuff about family.
C. Analysis of the Neuroses from Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalysis Theory
Kategori