does some abuses to Sybil. Meanwhile, Willard as a father builds a wall of distance from his daughter. Therefore he even does not know what Hattie has done to Sybil.
1. Mother-Daughter Relationship
The relationship between a mother and a child, especially between a mother and a daughter involves emotional, sociolinguistic, and physiologic aspects. This is
because they have certain connection that happen process of pregnancy, birth, feeding and care Deutsch 18. But, this kind of relationship does not always happen
as it does. It describes in the novel that during the first thirteen years of the Dorsetts marriage, Hattie has four miscarriages. They think that they will never have a child.
And there is another reason why this happens. It is because the psychological components that seems likely to be mother’s ambivalence about having a baby
Schreiber 124. Hattie’s ambivalence of being a mother reasserts itself. That is why the first
time she sees her daughter and thinks that Sybil is so fragile, and Hattie is afraid that she will break. A severe depression follows Hattie after she gives birth and lasts for
about the first four months of Sybil’s life. At this time, the only contact happening is when she breast-feeds her baby, and the rest of nurturing falls to the nurse, to Willard
and Grandma Dorsett. The depression follows after a child’s birth intensified the anxiety and the ambivalence of a mother that has been the characteristic of Hattie
Dorsett Schreiber 125. Little Sybil often sits alone in the stairs and feels that she is lack of
something. Although she has all children in Willow Corners wants, and she has PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
better clothes and more toys than the other child in town. The more she tries to find out the lack, the more indescribable it becomes Schreiber 126. And the lack itself is
the lack of love and care from Hattie. Mother is a role model for her daughter. A child will identify herself as her
mother; she will automatically develop her moral and behavior according her perceptions towards her mother Deutsch 322. But, in some cases there is a mother
who wants to be a role model for their children by forcing them to be what she has missed in her past life and if this is does not happen, the love of the mother turns into
something dangerous for the children Deutsch 312. In this novel, Sybil, the daughter of Hattie faces something very terrible that makes her personality split. Dr.
Wilbur, a psychiatry who analyzes Sybil concludes that her psychological disorder is caused by childhood trauma, especially abuses done by her mother. It is true that
Sybil is a victim of her mothers failed ambition in her youth and a target of her anger toward her father for stumbling off her dreams.
a Hattie Dorsett’s Past Life
Hattie Anderson is Sybil’s mother; she is one of thirteen children in Anderson’s big family. She is a daughter of Winston and Aileen. Her father is the
one who gets well respected from the town and an autocrat at home. Her mother only has little time for nurturing her many children. It is clear that her children are lack of
attention from both of their parents Schreiber 213. Hattie is a tall girl with a slender body, auburn hair and blue grey eyes, whose
the elementary school report cards reveal a solid phalanx of As. She likes to write PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
poetry and her music teachers praise for her ability and support her dream of going to music conservatory to becoming a concert pianist. She finds that her ambition
collapses when she is twelve years old. Winston, her father has yanked her from school when she is in seventh grade and places her in a store to replace her elder
sister’s position who has left to get married. There is no economic reason for making Hattie give up her studies. Hattie’s dream has crumbled, and she become ill with
chorea, a physical illness that makes her jerk and twitch Schreiber 215. Striking back for losing her dream, Hattie does little acts of mischief and
practical jokes, not by open rebellion or outright confrontation. Then she becomes a family’s trouble maker. Shortly, Hattie’s anger is last during his father’s lifetime and
after his death. She buries her hatred against him, transmitting it into idealization, idolatry, and pathological attachment, which is evident when she is fondling his
father jacket. The unloved Hattie is incapable of loving. Unnurtured herself, she becomes a nonnorturing person. A lonely isolated in her big family, then she isolates
her only child emotionally. Her anger is the result of her broken dream of pursuing a music career. Sybil, her daughter is the recipient of Hattie’s repressed furry against
Winston. Sybil is also the victim of Hattie’s father idolatry and of repressed conflict resulted from Hattie’s idealizing and blaming her father Schreiber 216.
b Hattie Dorsett’s Abuses
Hattie is not able to love because she has never been loved Schreiber 216. Then Hattie never treats her daughter properly. She does abuses and abuses.
A favorite ritual however, was to separate Sybil’s leg with a long wooden spoon, tie her feet to the spoon with dish towels, and then string her to the
end of a light bulb cord, suspended from the ceiling. The child was left to swing in space while the mother proceeded the water faucet to wait the water
to get cold. As the child swung in the space, the mother would insert the enema tip into the child’s urethra and filled the bladder with cold water…
Schreiber 198-199
From the quotation above, it can clearly be seen that Sybil really faces some tortures everyday. That ritual is not complete until Hattie warns Sybil not to tell anybody
about that. If she does, then Hattie threats that God’s wrath will do to her. And the torture continues, such as: a hot flat iron is pressed in the hands of Sybil that causes
serious burn. A rolling pin descends on Sybil’s fingers. A drawer closes on Sybil’s hand. A purple scarf is tied around Sybil’s neck until she gasps for breath Schreiber
200. Hattie will not hesitate to do such pains that almost kill her daughter. Starting
with the incident of the bead, Hattie has shoved one of the beads up her nose. Another incident is the horrible affliction in the wheat crib. When Sybil is four and a
half, Hattie puts Sybil in the wheat and leaves her. Encircled by the wheat, Sybil feels herself smothering and thinks that she is going to die Schreiber 206-207.
Beside physical tortures, Sybil also suffers from sexual abuses done by her mother. These sexual abuses done every morning and becomes a ritual. Hattie often
forces into Sybil’s vagina an array of objects catches by Hattie’s fancy. There are kinds of flashlight, a small empty bottle, a little silver box, the handle of a regular
dinner knife, a silver knife, a buttonhook, and sometimes, the object is Hattie’s finger. She explains that Sybil will be accustomed to it, because that is exactly what
men will do to her, to put things in hers and hurts her. Hattie makes a justification of the sin she does by saying that she is preparing Sybil to face the thing that men will
do. Because of all these abuses, Sybil’s hymen is severed in infection and her vagina is permanently scarred. The worst effect of that sexual abuses ritual is that Sybil will
never bear a child, because the internal injury Schreiber 199.
2 Father-Daughter Relationship
Although Allers 245 says that the term “father-love” is unusual and strange, father is needed in contributing a synergy with a mother to raise the children at
home. The absence of father at home will give the effects that child will be less confidence, dependent, has poorer relationships with peers Watson and Lindgren
309. Willard Dorsett, Sybil’s father is believed as a person who also gives
contribution to Sybil’s dissociative identity disorder. Willard does abuses in the form of negligence toward Sybil. He does not know what Hattie does, or he does not want
to know about her daughter.
a Willard Dorsett’s Past Life
All the things happen in past will give effect to what we do now. It can be our ways of thinking, attitudes, etc. Similar with Willard, his behaviour and his puritan
thought are the result of reaction toward his past life. Willard is actually an impressive person with five feet eleven height; his face
is carved well with bones; his hair is not seen to be the ravages of ageing; he has a confident face and a very health body figure; his voice is soft and low; and he has a
tilted nose similar with Sybil’s Schreiber 226. Young Willard studies elocution and PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
singing. He sings tenor in the church choir and the town glee club has organized an excellent male quartet. He plays the guitar in the Spanish style, and he also has
interested in classical music. He is also interested in economics, has a real sense of community responsibility, and is greatly respected in every town he has lived.
Willard is also a kind of perfectionist. He wants perfection of every work he does. It is not only for the sake of himself, but also for the sake of God glory. This makes
Willard very focused on the details, and often makes him blocked in communication. He has more than average intelligence, and it makes him more than average
restriction and naiveté. Then he rigidly adheres to the doctrines of his religion is so literal in his reading Scriptures Schreiber 225-227.
Willard is a son of Aubrey Dorsett and Mary. Aubrey is a confrontational and boorish six-footer with large features and goatee who, a wrestler in his youth. As a
father, Aubrey demands unquestioning obedience and requires it from his three children, Theresa III, the eldest; Willard, the middle child; and Roger, the youngest
Schreiber 228. Being ashamed of his father’s belligerence, Willard resorts to passivity.
Embarrassed by his father’s haranguing hallelujahs, aggression and gruffness, Willard cannot see himself in the image of his father. Willard makes identification
instead with his gentle, artistic, but passive mother. Willard’s identification with his mother, not only help mould is personality, but it also affects his choice of mate.
Like his father, Hattie Dorsett is overly aggressive, constantly conspicuous, and downright cruel. Willard has married his father in the female form Schreiber 228.
b Willard’s Ignorance
Neglected parents tend to be apathetic, incompetence, irresponsible, or emotionally withdrawn. They sometimes, built a distance from the child, critical and
uncommunicative Papalia, Olds, Feldman, and Gross 295. Willard Dorsett’s apathetic shows by his consideration that at her daughter’s thirty-four, Sybil is too
old to support financially. Willard, as seen by Dr. Wilbur helps his daughter grudgingly, erratically. A father minds to support her daughter who is struggling to
becomes whole makes Sybil think that her father gives her things out of a sense of duty, not because care about her. At her stage, Sybil has neither bank account, nor
permanent job. And for this excuse of what he has done, he always says that he is a busy man, too busy to take care of his one and only child Schreiber 221-222.
During Sybil’s childhood, Willard does not pay much attention on Sybil’s unusual injury, dislocated shoulder and fractured larynx and the burns on his
daughter’s hands. He knows and is aware about it, but he never wants to pay attention. He keeps on reserving his own selflessness by making an opinion that he
never sees them happen, and saves himself from the guilt by the consideration that he is busy Schreiber 240. Willard never blames Hattie for the carelessness in taking
care of Sybil in connection with the incident of the bead on Sybil’s nose and the incident in the wheat crib. He just believes in Hattie’s reasons behind the incidents
Schreiber 205-206. Willard has embellished and smothered her daughter’s problem with the
concern of his own, instead of getting the core of the problem. For instance, he seeks an instant solution, like a guitar lesson to cure Sybil’s emotional illness Schreiber
246. As a father, Willard never shows affection toward his daughter. He makes an
emotional gap instead. He says that Sybil is too big to do such a small kind of devotion from a daughter to father, such as putting a sweet smelling salve on his feet,
helping him wearing jacket and with his buckled overshoes. It is only after Willard gets crippled hands, and then she is allowed to do these things for him again
Schreiber 181. The sign of Willard’s withdrawn concern, the lifelong retreat into his shell,
has enlarged the chance of a mother to do some violence. And this has made Sybil to find a psychoneurotic escape toward an intolerable fact in her childhood. The mother
is the taproot of Sybil’s disorder, but the father through the guilt not of commission but of omission, is an important associated root. The mother has trapped her, and the
father has made Sybil feel that there’s no exit from that entrapment Schreiber 243.
3 Puritan Environment
The experts believe that the place where children live has effect on shaping child’s personality. They automatically absorb all that happen in the environment
Watson and Lindgren 299. Based on Dr. Wilbur analysis, it can be said that the environment where Sybil has spent her childhood may take a part in strengthening
her multiple personalities. She lives in a puritan environment where the people live in are also hypocrite.
a Puritan’s Ways of Life
Sybil is born on 20 January 1923 in Willow Corners, Wisconsin. Willows Corner is located in the flat terrain of southwestern Wisconsin. The surrounding
countryside is flat. The town is dotted with tall maple and elm trees, but there is no willow there. The house has been mostly built by the men work for Willard Dorsett.
The local accent of people there is barbed with a nasal twang. There are no remarkable things about this small town with monotonous news of its one thousand
persons living in area of two square miles, which is recorded in the Corners Couriers, the weekly news. Before Sybil’s birth and until she is six years old, the town
wealthiest man is her father, but it does not last long. All the wealth is lost in the 1929’s depression Schreiber 199-120.
Willow Corners has many churches of many faiths. They are: the fundamentalist group of Seventh-Day Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists, the Church
of Saint John Baptist De La Salle, and the Church of Assembly of God. The Methodist, the Congregationalist and the Lutherans all look suspiciously at one
another and at the Roman Catholic which is regarded as the manifestation of evil. Prejudice is widespread in that town. Eventhough seemingly self-righteous in
appearance can be seen in the people, but cruel is done in its behavior. There are mocks for the mentally retarded ice man and snickers for the telephone operator who
has nervous tic. Prejudice against Jews, who are only few live there, and Negroes are intense Schreiber 120-121.
People do not really take care much their surrounding that Dorsett’s next door is an ascetic person, the woman across the street is a dwarf, and the man down the
street ever rapes his thirteen year old daughter, and they still live in the same house, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
as though nothing ever happens. It all looks as if it runs so average, so normal, and so puritanical Schreiber 122.
b The Influence of Puritan Environment on Sybil’s Personality
Willow Corner is not a good place to live. It is stated that people living there live in a hypocritical way. This way of life will automatically affect Sybil’s
personality; moreover she has spent her eighteen years of her life there. Willow Corner is a place where a carcass is hiding behind the holiness of the
Sculptures. People in Willow Corner do not really care about what has happened to the Dorsett’s family, about some abuses toward Sybil, and the strangeness of Hattie.
It gives the prospect of Sybil’s sickness grow more fertile. It attests by the ignorance of people in Willow Corner of the sexual abuses done by Hattie behind the Willow
Corner’s church Schreiber 193. Sybil knows it, and it rips Sybil’s emotion. It gives a great contribution of her abundant chance of dissociative identity disorder, because
all the ignorance of the evil thing.
4. Sybil’s Dissosiative Identity Disorder Analyzed by Applying Sigmund Freud’s Personality Theory
According to the Freud, every individual has the three levels of consciousness. They are: conscious, preconscious and the unconscious levels. Then
Freud revised his theory and introduced three basic structures in the anatomy of personality: id, ego and superego Hjelle and Ziegler 32-33.
Sybil faces some horrible tortures in her childhood and these have hit her PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
conscious level ego of her memory so bad. She does not even remember that hurt anymore. The first time she has some analysis with Dr. Wilbur, she often hides what
she gets in the past and she only tells everything on the surface Schreiber 52. Then, to save herself from this horror, she creates some personalities behind her
unconscious level. And at this level, her personality starts to split. Sybil’s personality does not work as it is supposed to do and it is imbalanced. The Id, as a basic human
instinct in finding satisfaction becomes dominated whenever Peggy Lou controls her, because of Peggy Lou’s tendency of using her raw animalistic instinct, as
aggressiveness, uncontrolled emotions and changeable mood. Here, it does not mean that the other ego and superego ‘sleep’, but they cannot work optimally. The other
example is when Marry appears and controls Sybil’s body. She is a kind of a fanatic of her religion. Then she connects everything with her religion. When Sybil has a
consultation with Doctor Wilbur, Mary thinks that going to a physician who has different religion is a sin. Here, Mary’s super ego dominates others, although the Id
really wants to have a consultation because it is the only way to be normal. Being normal is a part of the Id. Furthermore, the Ego’s function is to balance what the Id
and the Super-ego wants and to adjust with reality. Vicky, one of Sybil’s splitting personalities, is dominant in the Ego. She is playing a role as a balancer among all
the personalities. Therefore, from the explanation and some proofs above, we can see that
Sybil show the characteristics of dissociative identity disorder. It means that Sybil suffers from disociative identity disorder.
C. Sybil’s Conflicts and the Ways She Deals with Them
Experts say that there are some types of conflicts. There are interpersonal conflict and intrapersonal Conflict. Interpersonal Conflict is person-to-person
conflict. Interpersonal conflict also means “an expressed struggle between at least two independent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scare resources, and
interference from the other party in achieving goals Warga 112.” There are five basic ways of addressing conflict. There are: first is accommodation. It surrenders on
ones own needs and wishes to accommodate the other party. Secondly is avoidance. In this method, people usually avoid or postpone conflict by ignoring it, changing the
subject, etc. Avoidance can be useful as a temporary measure to enhance time or as a method of dealing with very negligible, non-recurring conflicts. In more cases,
conflict avoidance can involve severing a relationship or leaving a group. Third is collaboration. In this method, people work together to find a mutually beneficial
solution, win-win solution to conflict; collaboration can also be time-intensive and inappropriate when there is not enough trust, respect or communication among
participants for collaboration to occur. Fourth is compromise. People are to find a middle opinion in which each party is partially satisfied. Fifth is competition. It
emphasized on one’s viewpoint at the possible solutions of another. It can be useful when achieving ones objectives balances ones concern for the relationship
Wikipedia, free encyclopedia. Intrapersonal conflict occurs within one’s self. It deals with the struggle a
person or character within himselfherself. There are some types of conflict within a self. The first is approach-approach because it involves making choice between two
