life is by learning from the past. That is what Orchid did to get better. She knows the struggles of her parents when she was child, and she can live dependently in
her young age, replace her father position as the pioneer of her family. Furthermore, according to Abraham Maslow cited by Gerric and
Zimbardo, the motives of Orchid can be explored through hierarchy of needs. Thus, the writer uses Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to analyze the Orchid’s
motives becomes a concubine.
1. Orchid’s Motive to Fulfill the Physiological Needs
The first motive of Orchid’s to become a concubine is avoiding the
poverty life. In that time, the financial of her family was broke and they live in poverty and it was the basic problem that she had.
Based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, he stated that physiology needs are the basic needs that human need to
survive such as food, liquid, sleep, oxygen, etc. It needs to be fulfilled before fulfill the following needs on the hierarchy.
As Sartain said about motive 1958: 46 that it is a complex state within an organism that directs behavi
or toward a goal or incentive, Orchid’s goal to live in prosperity by become a concubine drive her to do something in order to fulfill the
basic need. She realizes that her basic needs such as food are not completely fulfilled. It can be seen when she deli
vers her father’s coffin to Peking with her mother and her siblings to bury her father in his birthplace. The rotten smell
comes out from the coffin and they have to reach Peking as soon as possible while the journey to Peking is not easy. Her mother runs out of money on paying the
footmen and has no any money to buy food.
Before leaving us, the footmen carried the coffin to the bank of the Grand Canal so we could see the passing boats, where we might get help. The
heat worsened and the air grew still. The smell of decay from the coffin grew stronger. We spent the night under the open sky, tormented by the
heat and mosquitoes. My siblings and I could hear one another’s stomachs rumbling p.10.
From the quotation above, it can be said that the rumbling sounds from their stomach show that they are hungry. She is not able to fulfill her need of food.
In her waiting for the help from the boatmen, she clearly says that she feels dizzy with fatigue and hunger. Luckily, she is a tough girl. She and her family have to
face this condition patiently for a while, until they arrive in Peking. Soon as she arrives in Peking, she has to looking for a job to earn money
so she can fulfill her basic needs of food and drinks. She and her mother live in her Uncle’s rented house. As a normal human being, Orchid needs a proper house
to live, proper cloth to wear and enough food to be eaten. Although she has relative family in Peking, it does not mean that her Uncle can fulfill her needs of
food and drink. Even they have to pay the house where they live now. The writer emphasizes the lack of physiological needs especially in food.
I stared at the beggar as he passed my window. He raised his empty bowl toward me. His fingers
were as dry as dead branches. “Porridge,” he said. “We are out of rice,” I said. “I have been digging up white clay from my
yard and mixing it with wheat flour to make buns. Would you like one? ”
p.21. From her statement, we know that Orchid is lack of food to be eaten and
clay is not something to be eaten or something to be mixed in any dough or food, commonly. Even when she lives in Wuhu, her neighbors eat earthworms for
dinner and sell their children to pay off the debt. Fortunately, her parents do not do that. Moreover, the beggar reminds her that the clay will clog the intestines.
“Don’t you know that white clay clogs the intestines?” “I know, but there is nothing else to eat.”
She does not have any choice to eat except those clay buns. Food is the basic need to be fulfilled as the physiology needs, it does not mean that eating white clay mix
with wheat flour can fulfill her need of food related to the main food of Chinese people is rice. Not porridge, buns, moreover earthworms. She has to find a way to
get the appropriate food to be eaten. Back to Sartain theory about motive that it drives an organism to behave
achieve the goal. From the characterization of Orchid which are hard working and tough , since her father died she has to replace her father position as the
breadwinner and find a job to earn money so she can buy food to be eaten with her family. Once she works for her neighbors and peddlers at vegetable market,
carries loads of yams and cabbages, does the cleaning job after market close. She only earns few copper pennies each day p.13, but it just to cover the debts claim.
Thus, to turn her poverty into better life, she sees the opportunity to become a concubine by join the decree of Imperial Consorts. She always thinks optimist in
any hard situation of her life including join the decree. Even though she is discouraged by Big Sister Fann but she still confidence with what she got.
Logically, when she is accepted as the Emperor’s concubine, she is not worry
about food, drink, and cloth anymore. That is proven when she is accepted as one of Emperor’s concubine. Orchid is selected as the Imperial Consort of the fourth
rank and gets a title as Lady of the Greatest Virtue. She has her own palace, six eunuch, six ladies in waiting, four maids and three chefs p.71. She does not have
