the protagonist’s confidence in defending her family’s legacy” SparkNotes Editors, 2007.
According to West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, African Americans struggled to gain equal treatment. In the South, African Americans
had been treated like second-class citizens since the time of slavery Encyclopedia Editors, 2005
. Finally, southern African Americans’ lives were changing. Their expectations were also changing.
According to Katherine Raz’s paper,
the story involves characters from both sides of the entire African American culture. DeeWangero represents the
“new black,” with her natural hairdo and brightly colored clothing. Mama and Maggie remains traditional people, unchanged and unaffected. The characters
never directly mention their feelings about the Americanization of African tradition. By telling the story from the mothers point of view, Walkers
representation of Wangero is seeped in irony. The way Wangero loved her African heritage becomes an exploitation of it Raz, 2005.
B. Approach of the Study
To answer the problem formulation in this study, the writer applies psychoanalytic criticism by Lois Tyson. Psychoanalytic criticism is a literary
approach which useful to understand human behavior. It is the most suitable approach to analyze this short story because according to Tyson in his book
Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide second edition, “psychoanalysis concepts have become part of our everyday lives” 2006:11.
Peter Barry in his book Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory,
states that psychoanalytic criticism uses some of the
techniques of psychoanalysis in the interpretation of literature 2002:96. Tyson states in his book Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide
second edition, “the goal of psychoanalysis is to help us resolve our
psychological problems, often called disorders or dysfunctions ” 2006:12. He
believes that everyone at least has one psychological problem. He also says, “the focus is on patterns of behavior that are destructive in some way”
2006:12. It also certainly can help us to understand human behavior and literary texts, which are about human behavior. The characters’ repetition of
destructive behaviors reveal the existence of some psychological difficulties that have been influencing them for some time. This is why the writer thinks
that this approach is the most suitable to analyze this short story. This literary approach will help the writer to analyze the psychological
problems and self-defense mechanisms of the main characters, Mama, Maggie and Dee. Although psychoanalytic criticism comes from the field of
psychology, it is relevant to be used as an approach to analyze literary work because psychology and literature are closely related subjects. Lindauer in
Bornstein’s Psychology and Its Allied Disciplines states that literature is best at describing human condition in dramatic form 1984:144. While Lindauer
also states that psychology studies human characteristics systematically, both in real life as well as in literature, which is “the reflection of human feeling,
experience, and life” Wellek and Warren, 1956:94. Thus, both psychology and literature study about human characteristics or condition.
Psychoanalysis is considered the most suitable approach to analyze the topic and work in this study. Tyson states that unconscious desires are served
by defense mechanisms which include Avoidance, Denial, Displacement 2006:15. Tyson also states that anxiety is an important experience because it
can reveal core issues which are includes Low Self Esteem, Insecure or Unstable Sense of Self , Fear of Abandonment, and Fear of Intimacy
2006:16. The psychoanalysis will help the writer to analyze the core issues and self-defense mechanisms that are reflected on each character. Therefore,
the writer employs this method in order to answer the question in the problem formulations.
C. Method of the Study
This study applied primary and secondary sources. A library research was a method to get the material or data taken from the library. So the primary
source was the literary text itself, a short story by Alice Walker titled “Everyday Use”. The secondary sources include some articles, journals and
criticisms from the internet related to the work, and books. The sources were used for evidence to support this thesis.
There are several steps that are taken in the research. First of all, it was reading the short story carefully and repeatedly in order to understand the
story. The second step was finding out some references related to the theory of literature that was needed to help the writer analyze the elements in the story
such as characters.
The next was analyzing the characteristics of the two main characters by using the theory of character and characterization by M.J Murphy, and tried to
focus on any “dysfunctional” or abnormal behavior of them, because then it is possible to implement the psychoanalytic
concepts from Tyson’s Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide second edition. Finally, after writing
the analysis, the last step was bringing a conclusion based on the overall analysis.
