reconstruct the author from its life, and use the author‟s work as a life record. Third, reading a literary work to find the mirror of personality of the author.
2. Erik Erikson‟s Psychosocial Theory
a. The principle of psychosocial theory
Erik Homburger Erikson was born in Germany in 1902. He was a psychoanalyst whose aim was to extend Freud‟s perception on personality
development. Erikson graduated from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute before coming to the United States in 1933. He became a citizen of the United States in
1939 and contributed greatly to literature on psychoanalysis, personality theory, educational practice, and social anthropology. Eri
kson‟s post-Freudian theory develops Freud‟s developmental stages into adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
According to Erikson, each of the stages has its influence on personality development.
According to Erikson in Feist and Feist , 2008: 246 “ego is the partially
unconscious organizing agency that synthesizes our present experiences with past self-identities and also with anticipated images of self. He defined the ego as a
person‟s ability to unify experiences and actions in an adaptive manner.” Erikson in Feist and Feist
, 2008: 246 “stated the three interrelated aspects of ego: the body ego, the ego ideal, and ego identity.”
The body ego refers to experiences with our body, a way to see our physical self differently from others. The ego ideal represents the image of us compared to
another ideal ego. The ideal ego is responsible for the satisfaction of our physical
self and ego identity. Ego identity is the images that we have in our social roles. The changes in our body ego, ego ideal and ego identity may occur in any life
stages. Although inborn capacities are important in personality development, ego
is mostly formed by the society. Erikson‟s view that personality is influenced by the social and historical factors is contrast to Freud‟s beliefs that personality is
mostly influenced by the biological factor. According to Erikson, humans have their ego since they were born, but to realize it, the society is needed. One of
Erikson‟s contributions to the personality theory is the extension of Freud‟s development theory up to school age, youth, adulthood, and old age.
Erikson believes that ego develops in each of the life stages according to the epigenetic principle. In epigenetic, the growth of the organs of a baby
develops step by step. Similarly to this principle, ego also has its own stages and develops according to its time and each of the ego develop after the previous step
is done. Erikson in Feist and Feist, 2008: 248 described the epigenetic principle by saying that “anything that grows has a ground plan, and that out of this ground
plan the parts arise, each part having its time of special ascendancy, until all parts have arisen to form a functioning whole”. In addition, “epigenesist means that one
characteristic overlaps one another in space and time” Evans in Feist and Feist,
2008: 248.
