Mruk 1999 also agreed that self esteem is an important factor in defending our mind from threatening factor. Mruk believed that people with high
self esteem will be able to develop a better control toward threatening thought.
a
People with either dispositionaly high or experimentally enhanced self- esteem exhibit less anxiety and anxiety-related defense in response to
threatening stimuli. High self esteem has also been shown to decrease defensive responses to thoughts of death.
Harmon-Jones, 1997 On the other hand, according to Mruk 1999 the mind of people with low
self esteem will more likely be affected when they are experiencing threatening stimuli that could affect their mind. Their emotion will be susceptible to various
negative effect because the lack of self esteem. People with lower trait self-esteem tend to experience virtually every
aversive emotion more frequently than people with higher self-esteem. Trait self-esteem correlates negatively with scores on measures of anxiety,
sadness, depression, hostility, anger, social anxiety, shame, guilt, loneliness, as well as general negative affectivity and neuroticism.
Mruk, 1999
In summary terror management theory believes that it is important for
people to manage their self esteem really well. Because if they want to have better control toward threatening thought, increasing their self esteem is useful to
maintaining their control toward their mindemotion. The more self esteem people have, the more they can control their emotion toward threatening stimuli. On the
other hand, people with low self esteem will more likely be unable to control their emotion toward threatening stimuli
2. Theory of Characterization
In fiction especially in Novel, characters or casts always exist inside of it. In a novel character is the one responsible for what happen in the story, they are
the actor who is involved with what happen in the story. Thus in every novel there is a term known as Characterization.It is how the
character in the story are described, their appearance, personality, and how they interact with the plot. Minderop 2005 stated that in novel there are two methods
that are usually used to characterizing the character inside the novel, they are: a. Direct method
Direct method characterization is done by the writer itself. The writer, without the use of any character inside the novel explicitly mentioned the
characteristic of the character inside the novel. b. Indirect method
Indirect method characterization is usually done by ignoring the existence of the writer. The characterization is done through the characters inside the novel
itself. Usually one character will describe the characteristic of another character. Minderop 2005: stated that characterization in a novel involves six things;
i. Through the dialogue or conversation between each characters From the conversation between character we may gain information about
the characters inside the novel, for example; Person A is talking to person B, in PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
their conversation person A discuss about Person C, in it he describes who is person C, his characteristic, his personality, how person C interact with each
other. In some cases person A will reveal about himself, either to another character person B for example or to the reader.
ii. The setting of the conversation In fiction or even in reality, the setting of the conversation will affect the
characterization process, for example people who converse in a public area will have less serious discussion compared to those who converse in a more private
area, thus their conversation will be affected by the situation, because when people wanted to talk about other people in a public area they are cautious with
other people who may hear the conversation. They are afraid if their conversation is heard and eventually known by that person or they afraid that they may broke
that people’s reputation
iii. The character which is discussed or characterized This refers to the characters which being characterized in the conversation
in a novel, we can call this character as the object of characterization because heshe is the one being described by other characters.
iv. The mental condition of the character Mental condition is one of characteristics of the character inside the novel.
The mental condition of a character can be seen from how they talk, interact with PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
other people, and dealing with their problem. Sometimes mental condition of a character is mentioned explicitly by another character.
v. Intonation, dialect, and vocabulary Intonation will reveal the nature of a character, the level of intonation
when a character is talking will determine their personality Minderop : 34. Vocabulary is also important in determining the characteristic of a character, for
example, we can learn that a character is a polite and kind character if heshe tends to use polite words when speaking other people. On the other hand a
character which tends to use harsh, rude, or impolite words can be easily identified as a character with an impolite characteristic. From the use vocabulary
we can also imagine the background of a character. vi. The action of the character.
Aside from how they speak, how the characters act and behave in the story also can give us an image of their characteristic. For example we can know that a
person has short temper emotion by analyzing how that person tends to do something unpredictable like injuring other character when heshe is irritated.
3. Theory of Defense Mechanisms
Defense mechanism is psychic procedures for avoiding painful admissions or recognitions Peter Barry, 1995: 98. Defense mechanism is utilized by people
both consciously and unconsciously to defend their mind from psychological attack after certain event.
