Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Psychological aspect of human being is the most interesting and complicated thing to deal with because it is not visible by looking only with naked eyes. Psychological aspect has important contribution almost in every part of human life. It relates a character’s past experiences with hisher present experiences. It is necessary to be considered when talking about the character or the characteristics of a character. The form of characteristics is highly affected by the psychological aspect of the character itself. Sometimes, analyzing and tracking back into a character’s past life are necessary in order to compile the information and indications of his characteristics which are on the present day. This is what Psychologists usually do on their therapy in order to solve the problem of their clients. Like a chain, the past experience of a character has an effect in the development of a character itself. What they have learned, seen, heard, felt and faced are the factors of what they will be in the future. The experiences always relate one to another. Therefore, the characteristics of a character on the present will be the result of the development process of the character from the past. This kind of processes cannot be seen on the physical aspects. The process only can be dealt with psychological aspects of the character because it is deeply buried in mind, not visible in the reality. When talking about psychological aspect, a consideration on the relation between the conscious and the unconscious elements of a character is needed. Like what Freud has done on his works, the analysis depends upon the notion of the unconsciousness, which is the part of the mind beyond consciousness which nevertheless has a strong influence upon the character’s action Barry, 1995: 96. The unconsciousness has a great contribution on the characteristic and action of a character. A character can only be fully understood by doing an investigation on the unconsciousness of the character. The one that is popular of Freud’s works is the idea of repression. Repression is the forgetting or ignoring of unresolved conflicts, unadmitted desires, or traumatic past events, so that they are forced out of consciousness awareness and into the realms of the unconsciousness Barry, 1995: 96-97. Something that is repressed in mind is buried in the unconsciousness. Sooner or later it will come out into a form of action. For example a character who is experiencing a sexual abuse in hisher childhood may become a sexual abuser on the future. Another example is a character who is restricted by certain rules, in the future, sooner or later, heshe may become a maniac of something. These two examples indicate the idea of repression which can be found in society. There are still a number of such cases though they are not discovered yet. The repression which is buried in the unconsciousness can come out into any form. It may be an action or a certain mentality. It is also possible to come out into a form which is related to who the character is or what heshe usually does in daily activities. Art, for example, has no limitation. An artist can freely express hisher feelings into artworks. The repression of the artist may come out easily in the form of an artwork because of the freedom given by art. Art is an expression of the unconsciousness and can be interpreted to give insight into a person’s personality or emotional state. Alan Tormey 1971: 103 states that the core of which he formulates as the proposition that if an artwork has an expressive property, then the artist, in creating that artwork, expressed a feeling state of which is the qualitative analogue. In painting, the use of color, size, line, shape and space as well as the complexity of art, convey meaning. There is a general assumption that artworks are created by a process in the course of which an artist expresses hisher emotions, and that the special character and value of an artwork is the result of the emotion. Art is the media where people can transfer ideas and feelings expressively. By art, people can express what they see, what they hear, and what they feel about something in their life. There is a moment when people tend to enjoy expressing their feeling through artworks rather than words. This is for the matter which people cannot say through words. Sometimes, people have difficulties in expressing their feelings in words. They use the other media, which is art, in order to express their feelings rather than say in words. By doing this, people can express the experience, mood, idea, and thought freely because in art there is no restriction in expressing feelings. There is no limitation of messages transferred to the media. The artist can put any messages on it. In this phase, an artist unconsciously heals hisher self. This idea is provided by Alexandria Bean. There are some artworks having deep value and message behind their forms, something which is symbolically mentioned through the media of the art itself. R. K. Elliott 1967: 119 states that this experience is eloquently described: we can hear the musical message as if someone were expressing his emotion in and through the sounds as a person does in and through his voice. In painting, the artist transfers hisher message in colors on the canvas. In music, by hearing and interpreting the tones, people can understand the message. Thus, artwork is something that is symbolically reflecting the artist’s messages or feelings through its media. In literary works, a symbol is considered as the essential part of the story. Symbol is something that has and reflects another meaning of its form. Authors create symbol in their work on literature to give sensations to the readers. It gives interesting in reading and makes the reader thinks and feels challenged to get to know more about the story. Since the object of the study in this undergraduate thesis is a kind of literary work, the writer considers in giving the theory which relates the psychology and literature. In some cases, analyzing literary works needs concepts and methods of psychological analysis. As Dr. Russell 1964: 421 states that “…both may attempt to describe human lives…”. In doing a psychological analysis on literary works, it is impossible to observe the character’s psychological aspects without a knowledge of psychology. The analysts need to borrow some methods of psychology in order to get the adequate knowledge in observing the character’s psychological aspects. Thus, psychology and literature can be used in the same direction in the analysis regardless their different concern. Related to the idea of repression, art, and symbol in literary work, the writer puts an attention on a painting which is the symbol of the novel painted by Suwen, one of the major characters in Suchen Christine Lim’s novel, Fistful of Colours. Suwen is an artist of great potential, yet she has difficulty expressing her feelings in word. She has painted a controversial painting. Her painting included in the art exhibition in Singapore gets various comments from the society. Some of them are destructive comments. Suwen’s painting must be having certain message. There must be a factor that drives Suwen to paint such kind of painting. Painting is a kind of artworks. It is likely to be the form of repression because art is a media in which people can express their emotion or feeling freely. Since Suwen is an artist and having difficulty expressing her feelings in word, the factor must be related to her feelings. Based on the psychoanalysis, feeling is related to the unconsciousness. Inside of the unconsciousness, the repression is buried. The indication above gives the writer inspiration to reveal the idea of repression which is reflected on Suwen’s painting. To make a clear analysis of this undergraduate thesis, first of all, the writer concerns on the characteristic of Suwen because it is the basic information that is needed in analyzing a literary work. Characters of the novel have great contribution in developing the storyline of the novel. Without characters, there would be no storyline. After analyzing the characteristic of Suwen and having sufficient information, the writer goes to the finding of Suwen’s experience which may have a relation with the repression. After that, the writer observes and reveals the significance of painting related to Suwen’s repressed experience based on the psychoanalysis’ way.

B. Problem Formulation