the hospital, walks past his new wife and children who are waiting outside the door to his room, and is reunited with her father. The nurse tries to drug her away, to separate her from
her father because the condition of her father is really vulnerable and he is about to die soon. It is only when he whispers, Fegele my Fegele, my little bird, that the dam bursts and
it comes flooding out of her in a torrent wailing Yiddish, and then the nurse is there trying to drag her away, saying, Hush you cannot do that here, and Suzie says, do not
touch me, you cannot make me leave, I’ll never leave him, ever, and you cannot make me be quiet, no one can, do not you dare Potter, 2000: 42.
Her father cannot believe that the woman who stands beside him is his little bird,
Fegele. He thinks that Fegele is dead. That is why he does not find her until now Potter, 2000: 41.
Then, something turns in her and she finds herself reaching out to soothe the brow of the man whose stories she will probably never hear, and she starts to sing to him. The fear,
guilt, and agitation in her face slowly melt and her eyes are full of tears. It is that the man who have become a mogul, myth-maker, a father of the American dream, closes the circle
and becomes the man who cries. Suzie sings and for in this moment of remembering, she realizes not only what she has
irrevocably lost, but also what it is that she has become. He recognizes her and expresses joy at her appearance. She sits on the side of his bed and sings Je Crois Entendre Encore to
him in Yiddish as tears roll down her face In short, the repression of the character Suzie shown by her experience which is she
decides to move one country to another country in order to find her father because her father is leave and the village is attacked and burned. The repression can also be seen through
Suzie’s past experience, speech, thought, and reaction in order to survive find her father.
B. Suzie’s Defense Mechanism
In using Freud’s theory of defense mechanism, we should see how it may work and what they are. As every human being may have what-so-Freud-calls defense mechanisms
and it is unique for each individual and also it may vary in the intensity of each individual reaction. Some people may have few defense mechanism methods, some may only have one,
but it all depends on the individual personality and the stress kind, the stress intensity, and how long they deal with it.
While, defense mechanism will be active when there is a conflict, in which sometimes people deceive themselves and believe nothing is wrong; it may distort reality, in their
minds. Where the mind fails to do its tasks and defends it from experiencing anxiety about failing, it is called defense mechanism by Freud Kasschau, 1995: 273.
When people experience difficulties, they have different ways of handling their pain. These different ways of dealing with the pain are called defense mechanisms. Freud states
that the ego employs a range of defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms operate at an unconscious level and help ward off unpleasant feelings i.e. anxiety or make good things
feel better for the individual.Freud describes how the ego uses a range of mechanisms to handle the conflict between the id, the ego, and the super ego.When anxiety occurs, the mind
first responds by an increase in problem-solving thinking, seeking rational ways of escaping the situation. If this is not fruitful, a range of defense mechanisms may be triggered.
Defense mechanisms are used to protect ourselves from feelings of anxiety or guilt, which arise because we feel threatened, or because our id or superego becomes too
demanding. They are not under our conscious control, and are non-voluntaristic. With the ego, our unconscious will use one or more to protect us when we come up against a stressful
situation in life. Ego-defense mechanisms are natural and normal. When they get out of PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
proportion, neuroses develop, such as anxiety states, phobias, obsessions, or hysteria.A defense mechanism is a coping technique that reduces anxiety arising from unacceptable or
potentially harmful impulses. Defense mechanisms are unconscious and are not to be confused with conscious coping strategies.
Almost all of the defense mechanisms available to the go have three characteristics, which are they are ways of trying to reduce stress and anxiety, they involve the denying or
distortion of reality, and they operate at an unconscious level McConell, 1980: 488. There are several kinds of defense mechanisms presented by Freud’s daughter, Anna.
They are denial, displacement, intellectualization, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, regression, repression, and sublimation. In this short story,it is found around 4
kinds of defense mechanisms. Those aredenial, displacement, and regression that will help to answer the second problem formulation while the repression has already mentioned at the
previous part before.
1. Denial
Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person unconsciously rejects thoughts, feelings, needs, wishes, or external realities that they would not be able to deal with if they
were to get into the conscious mind or it is simply refusing to acknowledge that an event has occurred. The person affected simply acts as if nothing has happened, behaving in ways
others may see as bizarre. Denial entails ignoring or refusing to believe an unpleasant reality. It protects one’s psychological condition in traumatic situations, or in any situations
producinganxiety or conflict. Many people use denial in their everyday lives to avoid dealing with painful feelings or areas of their lives they do not wish to admit.
Freud states that denial is a defense mechanism by which the ego shuts itself off from certain realities. Hysterical blindness is an example of denial McConell, 1980:489. Denial
is simply understood as not accepting reality because it is too painful. The defense mechanisms are really indirect or “defensive” ways of coping with stress and anxiety. By
encouraging his patients to bring their unconscious problems to the fore –and thus deal with them at a conscious level- Freud is attempting to get his patients to use a more direct method
of coping with their developmental difficulties McConell, 1980: 489. Many of Freud patients seem to be “deliberately” unconscious of certain painful. Freud decides that they are
practicing denial, a defense mechanisms by which the ego shuts itself off from certain realities.
In this short story, the denial has been shown by which Suzie denies that she is a Jewish. It is proved when a group of Britain asks where she comes from and what her name
is then she prefers to say nothing because she knows that she is the only one child in a group that she follows and also because of being tiredofsickness, traumatic by some terrors and so
on. She looks different from the others. So that man gives her a name by looking at her physical appearance. It is proved by the changing of her name from Fegele to Suzie in order
to cover her being Jewish. When he reaches the little girl with dark eyes, still clutching the remains of the photo,
he bends down and looks into her face. Suzie, he says, for a black-eyed Susan, in his northern English accent. She looks at him, stilled and silenced by exhaustion, by the
endless of sickness, by the terrors of abandonment, and now by bafflement at the incomprehensible sounds coming out from the red cavernous mouth beneath his bristly
grey moustachePotter, 2000: 18.
2. Repression
The most important of the defense mechanism is undoubtedly repression, the process by which the ego blocks off threatening thoughts or desires and thus keeps them from
sweeping into the spotlight of consciousness. Most of these experiences have undischarged libidinal energy attached to them in some way. In repressing these experiences, the ego has
to use up some of its own energy sources. The more painful the memory or the stronger the unacceptable urge, the more energy the ego must expand in order to keep the material
repressed. Eventually, the ego may run out of steam, and bits and pieces of the repressed material may leak through to consciousness as slips of the tongue, or as a symbol in dreams
McConell, 1980: 488. Repression is a process of forgetting or ignoring unresolved conflicts, un-admitted
desires, or traumatic past events, so they are forced out of conscious awareness and into realm of the unconscious Barry, 2009:92-93. Those statementsare agreed by Lacan. Lacan
states what to repress is the desire of a subject. Desire is considered as something which is too vulgar to be expressed that it should be repressed.
Repression is a defense mechanism that works to bury painful, stressful, or horrifying memories and urges. Thus, the effect of this defense mechanism, the painful memories or
urges will resurface as a dream, nightmare mostly. Some will resurface in the slip of the tongue or writings, and also it will come in unintended action Kasschau, 1995: 273. It is
called “repression” because it would press and bury memories and urges deep inside people’s memory data bank inside the brain.
When Suzie goes to the United States in order to meet her father, she finds a group of Britain on her way to there. Then, one of them asks her about her name and she says nothing
because she feels sickness by her father’s leaving and the village is attacked and burned at PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
