The effects of loveless marriage on human sexuality revealed by the main characters of Junichiro Tanisaki`s the key - USD Repository

THE EFFECTS OF LOVELESS MARRIAGE ON HUMAN
SEXUALITY REVEALED BY THE MAIN CHARACTERS
OF JUNICHIRO TANIZAKI’S THE KEY

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters

By
EMERENSIA ROSWITA NAGE RAGA
Student Number: 034214031

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2008

THE EFFECTS OF LOVELESS MARRIAGE ON HUMAN

SEXUALITY REVEALED BY THE MAIN CHARACTERS
OF JUNICHIRO TANIZAKI’S THE KEY

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters

By
EMERENSIA ROSWITA NAGE RAGA
Student Number: 034214031

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2008

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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma :

Nama

: Emerensia Roswita Nage Raga

Nomor Mahasiswa

: 034214031

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada perpustakaan
Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

The Effects of Loveless Marriage on Human Sexuality Revealed by the Main
Characters of Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Key
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan
kepada perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan,
mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan
data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau
media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya
maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya
sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal: 10 April 2008

Yang menyatakan

(Emerensia Roswita Nage Raga)

The path that I ’m walking

I must go alone
I must take the baby steps
‘till I ’m full grown
Fairytales don’t always have a happy ending, do they?
And I foresee the dark ahead if I stay
(Big Girls Don’t Cry-Fergie)

This under gr aduat e t hesis is dedicat ed t o
My beloved par ent s
My br ot her s and sist er s

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I praised my Lord Jesus Christ and Mother Mary for all blessings so
that I was able to do my best to finish this undergraduate thesis. Therefore, I
would like to express my deepest gratitude for the following people.
My greatest gratitude comes to Dewi Widyastuti, S.Pd., M. Hum as my
advisor who had been willing to guide me and also to spend her time for reading

and guiding me to finish this thesis. No doubt that this undergraduate thesis will
not be finished witho ut her advice and assistance from month-to- month. I would
like to show my gratitude to Dra. Theresia Enny Anggraini, M. A. as my coadvisor who had been willing to read and correcting this thesis. I also show my
deep gratitude for all lecturers of English Letters for sharing all their
knowledge, and for the secretariat staff for the help and service.
My greatest love goes to my beloved parents, (†)Bonefasius Raga, BA
and Paulina Kii for the unconditional love, understanding and support. I am very
proud to have you as my parents who let me be myself and never blame me for all
my mistakes but let me fix them by myself. My love also goes to my brothers
(†)Milus and Yoan, my sisters Angly, Melni, Anna, and Inne for understanding
my bad characteristics, and to my big family in Sumba and Flores for the kindness
and love.
Next, I would give big thanks to Riany and fr. Frid Amtonis, CSsR for
the friendship, understanding, support and time we shared together. I was so
grateful to have Ka Cici, Ka Mia Parera, Ka Ima Monteiro, Ka Helen, Ka
Marcel, Encik, Erin, Ardicku, Fatno, Ito Siga, Adi Malo, The Hugo’s sisters -

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Detty, Arum, Ratna-, Lely da Silva, Ida Kakang, Nino, Erni Langgar, Ivon

Jehamat, Indri Malo, Icul, Jimmy, Patrick, Loritha, Yusta, Lien, and Etty as
my brothers and sisters who are always here to accompany and support me
especially when I was in my bad time. Also I would give thanks to my
Syuradikara’s friends: Elvira, Uchiek, Fanny, Hilda, Suzan, Inlar, Linda, Reni,
Abbe, Rith, Felix and Tony for our togetherness.
My life would be so monotonous without my dear 03’ friends in my
campus: Ella, Prita, Widhy, Tyaz, Yayac, Vallone , Ronald, Frieda, Ajenk,
Lucy, Armando, Richard, Dian, Jonathan, Putri, Alice, Meme, Tika, Jonny,
Danang also Ketan Item a.k.a We Won’t Pay crews . I thank them for being my
best friends for five years. Hope our friendship will remain the same.
I would not forget to give thanks to all crews of Wisma Sang Penebus
Nandan for the support and encouragement to finish my undergraduate thesis.
Then, the thanks will go to the family of Y. Rillo Sudarso in Kasihan, Bantul, the
family of F.X. Sunaryo and all friends in Menur 11a for all of kindness and
attention.
The last, I would show my gratitude for all people whose names are not
mentioned here who give a lot of contributions during the writing of this
undergraduate thesis.

Emerensia Roswita Nage Raga

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE..................................................................................................
APPROVAL PAGE........................................................................................
ACCEPTANCE PAGE..................................................................................
MOTTO PAGE …………………………………………………………… .
DEDICATION PAGE ……………………………………………………...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...........................................................................
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...............................................................................
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................
ABSTRAK.......................................................................................................

i
ii
iii
iv
iv
v

vii
viii
ix

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................
A. Background of the Study......................................................................
B. Problem Formulation............................................................................
C. Objectives of the Study.........................................................................
D. Definition of Terms ..............................................................................

1
1
3
4
4

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ................................................
A. Review of Related Studies ...................................................................
B. Review of Related Theories .................................................................
1. Theory on Character and Characterization.......................................

2. The Relation between Literature and Psychology ...........................
3. Theory of Love and Marriage ..........................................................
4. Theory of Human Sexuality ……………………………………….
C. Theoretical Framework.........................................................................

6
6
8
8
10
11
16
23

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ............................................................
A. Object of the Study .............................................................................
B. Approach of the Study .........................................................................
C. Method of the Study.............................................................................

24

24
25
26

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ........................................................................
A. The Characteristics of the Main Characters .........................................
B. The Causes of Loveless Marriage .......................................................
C. The Effects of Loveless Marriage on Human Sexuality.......................
1. The Sexual Ideas ..............................................................................
2. The Sexual Attitude .........................................................................
3. The Sexual Behaviours ....................................................................

27
27
36
45
46
51
53

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ..................................................................

59

BIBLIOGRAPHY
64

…………………………………………………………...

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ABSTRACT
Emerensia Roswita Nage Raga. The Effects of Loveless Marriage on Human
Sexuality Revealed by the Main Characters of Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Key.
Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma
University, 2008
Love and sex can not be separated from the aspect of human life especially
when related to the marital life. They are elements which support each other to
gain the happiness in a marriage. Love is the reason why a man and a woman end
in a marriage, even though it is not the main point of the successful marriage. The
commitment and communication can be the other points. In a marriage, sex can be
the way to communicate because it expresses the deepest feeling of each other in
an intimate way. The Key by Junichiro Tanizaki is a novel which has theme about
sexuality in marital life. The main characters are a husband and a wife who
experience a loveless marriage, thus it affects their sexuality.
The study has three objectives. First, to find out the characteristics of the
main characters. Second, to find out the possible factors that cause the main
characters of The Key, in particular the husband and the wife, experience the
loveless marriage. The last is to find out how the loveless marriage affects their
sexuality.
To answer the problems, the writer conducted the library study to get the
related theories and information that may support the study. The primary source
was the novel entitled The Key and the secondary sources were from the internet
and books related to the theories of love, marriage and human sexuality.
The study has three results. First, the husband has characteristics as the
introverted person and also the person who always feels suspicious of the others,
while the wife is a modest and introverted person. Second, the characteristics of
the husband and the wife make them have less of love in their marriage. The
causes of loveless marriage are the lack of commitment and the lack of
communication between both characters because of their characteristics makes
them difficult to gain the commitment and good communication on their marriage.
Third, the loveless marriage which has the lack of commitment and lack of
communication affects their sexuality, in particular, the sexual ideas, attitude and
behaviours. Both characters have the different ideas of sex. The wife considers
sex as taboo and only the duty as a good wife, while the husband considers sex as
a way to gain the pleasure. Both characters have the negative attitude towards sex
since they do not enjoy sex. The loveless marriage also affects the sexual
behaviours which are the extramarital sexual relationship done by the wife, the
sexual fantasies and dreams, and after-drunk sexual activity as the way to gain the
sexual pleasure.

viii

ABSTRAK
Emerensia Roswita Nage Raga. The Effects of Loveless Marriage on Human
Sexuality Revealed by the Main Characters of Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Key.
Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma,
2008
Cinta dan seks tidak dapat dipisahkan dari aspek kehidupan manusia
khususnya ketika berkenaan dengan kehidupan perkawinan. Elemen-elemen
tersebut saling mendukung satu sama lain untuk mencapai kebahagiaan dalam
sebuah perkawinan. Cinta menjadi alasan ketika seorang pria dan seorang wanita
menikah walaupun buk anlah hal utama dalam kesuksesan perkawinan. Komitmen
dan komunikasi menjadi hal penting lainnya. Dalam perkawinan, seks dapat
menjadi cara untuk berkomunikasi karena seks mengekspresikan perasaan
terdalam satu sama lain. Novel The Key oleh Junichiro Tanizaki mengangkat tema
seksualitas dalam kehidupan perkawinan. Karakter utama yaitu suami dan istri
mengalami perkawinan tanpa cint a dan ini berdampak pada seksualitas mereka.
Ada tiga pokok tujuan dalam studi ini. Pertama, untuk mengetahui
karakteristik dari karakter utama. Kedua, untuk mengetahui faktor- faktor yang
menyebabkan karakter utama dalam novel The Key, mengalami perkawinan tanpa
cinta. Ketiga, untuk mengetahui bagaimana perkawinan tanpa cinta
mempengaruhi seksualitas mereka.
Untuk menjawab permasalahan tersebut, penulis menggunakan studi
kepustakaan untuk memperoleh teori- teori yang berhubungan dan informasi yang
membantu studi ini. Data primer yaitu novel berjudul The Key dan data sekunder
berasal dari internet dan buku-buku yang berhub ungan dengan teori cinta,
perkawinan dan seksualitas manusia.
Studi ini memperlihatkan tiga hasil. Pertama, sang suami memiliki
karakter sebagai seorang yang introvert dan selalu curiga terhadap orang lain
sedangkan sang istri adalah seorang yang sederhana dan introvert. Kedua,
karakteristik suami dan istri menyebabkan mereka tidak memiliki cinta dalam
perkawinan mereka. Penyebab perkawinan tanpa cinta itu adalah kurangnya
komitmen dan komunikasi diantara keduanya karena karakteristik mereka
menyulitkan keduanya untuk berkomitmen dan berkomunikasi dengan baik.
Ketiga, perkawinan tanpa cint a yang ditandai oleh kurangnya komitmen dan
komunikasi berdampak pada seksualitas mereka, khususnya, pada ide, sikap dan
perilaku seksual. Kedua karakter mempunyai ide yang berbeda tentang seks. Sang
istri menganggap seks sebagai hal tabu dan kewajiban sebagai istri yang baik,
sedangkan sang suami menganggap seks sebagai cara untuk mendapatkan
kepuasan. Kedua karakter mempunyai sikap negatif terhadap seks sejak mereka
berdua tidak benar-benar menikmati seks. Perkawinan tanpa cinta juga berdampak
pada perilaku seksual yaitu perselingkuhan yang dilakukan sang istri, fantasi
seksual dan aktifitas seksual pada keadaan mabuk untuk mendapatkan kepuasan
seksual.

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study
Literature is a work of imagination or creative writing. The forms of
writings can be fiction, drama or poetry and they can be the results of author’s
imagination and creativity as the reflection of what happens in his
surrounding, for example, the story of human life. As readers, we may be
confused to consider novel or fiction as the reflection of reality or as the result
of author’s imagination and creativity.
Bressler said in his book Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory
and Practise(2nd edition)
Although it may simultaneously communicate facts, literature’s
primary aim is to tell a story. The subject of the story is particularly
human, describing and detailing of variety of human experiences, not
stating facts or bits and pieces of information. By so-doing, literature
concretizes an array of human values, emotions, actions and ideas in
story form (1999: 11).

It is clear that he said about literature’s primary aim which is to tell a story
about human life and human experiences and it may have its value of life. It
can help us to understand the literary work and its whole elements based on
our point of view.
Since the literature’s purpose is to tell a story about human, it directly
leads us to one intrinsic element of the story, which is character. It can also
covers the aspect of individual and his characteristic and also his relationship

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with other characters. Human being and their relationship are ve ry complex,
thus it influences character’s relationship in the novel.
When talking about human relationship, we can talk about the
relationship between men and women. E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel
said that “the main facts of human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and
death”. In particular Forster talked about love as the base of human
relationship which can lead to an union with another human being
No human relationship is constant, it is unstable as the living beings
who compose it, and they must balance like jugglers if it is to remain;
if it is constant it is no longer a human relationship but a social habit,
the emphasis in it has passed from love to marriage (1974: 38).
As the base of human relationship, the balance love can become the important
point of a marriage, but we should realize that love is not the only point of
successful marriage although we can not ignore that love is the reason why a
man and a woman declare their love in a marriage. The communication
between partners in a marriage can help for the successful marriage and
reduce the conflicts. In a marriage, sex can be the way for partners to
communicate because it expresses their love in a very intimate way and also
their deepest feeling to each other. James M. Humber said that “it is natural
for humans to use sex to communicate. Because sex is a communicative art...”
(in Primoratz, 1997: 154). Sometimes in a marital life, sex can create a
misunderstanding between partners. Men and women are similar in their
desire for loving, warmer and closer sexual relationship, but one trouble is
found that they seem to have the communication problem. They wish their
partner will tell what they want in their sexual life. They only think and hope

3

that their partner will do what they want sexually. Unfortunately, it will not
happen if one of them does not take initiative. The sexual life then seems
boring and it influences more to the marriage.
The sexual problem in marital life is experienced by the main
characters of The Key, a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki. The main characters are
a husband and a wife who have problems in communicating what they want in
their sexual life. They are remaining silent of it, and after twenty years of
marriage, when they grew older, the problem is going worst. They only dream
and wish, but they do not tell their partners. Both partners are telling their
problems of love and sexual life in their own diary that were kept secretly.
They concern of less love they have in marriage and also the sexual
relationship. What happened between both characters makes me interested in
choosing this topic because the writer thinks that marriage, love and sex can
not be separated from the aspect of human life. In particular, love and sex give
contributions to each other to make seuccessful and happy marriage.

B. Problem Formulation
1.

How are the main characters described in this novel?

2.

What are the possible factors that cause a loveless marriage?

3.

How does it affect their sexuality?

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C. Objectives of the Study
In this thesis there are three problems that are going to be discussed
here. In relations to the problems, the study has three objectives. First, to find
out the characteristics of the main characters. Second, to find out the possible
factors that cause the main characters of The Key, in particular the husband
and the wife, experience the loveless marriage. The last is to find out how the
loveless marriage affects their sexuality.

D. Definition of Terms
There are definition of terms that are going to use in this study.
1.

Love
Love is “a feeling of attraction and a sense of self-surrender arising out

of a need and directed toward an object that offers hope of gratification
(Sadler, 1944: 134-135). E. M Forster (1974: 35) in Aspects of the Novel
simplifies the meaning of love as “the desire to give and get”. On other words,
love is a kind of mutual relationship between those who can give and receive
the feeling of attraction.
2.

Marriage
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of The English Language

Unabridged (Volume II) defines marriage is “the state of being united to a
person of the opposite sex as husband or wife” (1981: 1384). It means that
marriage is related to the relationship of a man and a woman who are united as
a husband and a wife.

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3.

Sex and Sexuality
The “sex” term (or sexual) is commonly understood as the genital organs

and its function are closely related to the “sexual intercourse” which
biologically meant to have production or procreation. Whereas sexuality
shows the whole characteristics by which differentia te human being as man
and woman (gender) such as their physics, their psychology, their
characteristic, their way of thinking, the shape of their body, etc (my
translation; Gilarso, 2004: 1). We can say that human sexuality not only
covers the aspect of physical but covers both physical and non-physical aspect
includes sex.
4.

Character
M.H. Abrams in A Glossary of Literary Terms defines characters are

“the persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by
the reader as being endowed with moral and dispositional qualities that are
expressed in what they say-the dialogue-and by what the do-the action” (1981:
20). A character is also an imagined person who inhabits a story. But usually
we recognize in the main characters of a story, human personalities become
familiar to us. It is important to know the character of the story because it
makes us easier to understand based on the personal characteristics. Most
writers of the literary story attempt to create characters who strike us not as
stereotypes but as unique individual (Kennedy and Gioia, 1999: 60).

CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW

A. Review of Related Studies
As far as the writer knows when conducting this undergraduate thesis,
the reviews and studies dealing with novel The Key have not been published
yet, but there are many reviews and comments about its author, Junichiro
Tanizaki. He is said to be one of the major writers in modern Japanese
literature and also the most popular Japanese novelist who was awarded
Japan's Imperial Prize in Literature in 1949. He had written 21 works during
the period of 1910-1961 included novels, short stories and plays.
Tanizaki was well-known of his “wrapping technique of narrating
stories”. He often used the wrapping technique in narrating most of his stories.
This technique parallels to a Japanese preoccupation with wrapping. In the
West, people tended to regard the wrapping around a gift as a way of hiding it,
of teasing the recipient. If a wrapped gift were accepted and put to one side
unopened, they would be offended. In Japan, on the other hand, to open a
present immediately is thought to display too much interest in the object itself
rather than the sentiment which motivated it. It influenced the way Tanizaki
narrated his stories, he was “wrapping” the stories and let the reader find the
preoccupation

of

‘unwrapping”

the

whole

stories

(Atkinson,

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_200307/ai_n9256307/pg_2).

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Junichiro Tanizaki had a mixed reputation and gained pro and cons
toward his works. Even though he was very popular in West as the famous
modern Japanese writer, but in his own country he got cons because of the
uncommon topic or theme of sexuality he took was considered as vulgarity.
Although he is widely regarded in the West as one of the major
figures of modern Japanese fiction, critics from his own country are
ambivalent about a man who wrote so freely of sado- masochism,
incest, and the erotic fantasies of elderly men- many in Japan were no
doubt relieved when he died before he could be awarded the Nobel
prize for which he had been so strongly tipped. (Atkinson,
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_200307/ai_n9256307/
pg_2)
After Tokyo earthquake of 1923, which destroyed half the city, he
moved to the Kansai region (the greater Kyoto-Osaka area), where a more
traditional lifestyle still prevailed. The new environment influenced his
outlook, and many of his works carry an implied condemnation of excessive
interest in Western things. His works were often dealing with “the tensions
between the traditional and modern culture of his native land and often used
irony and the obsessive erotic desires of his characters to mirror the influence
of

the

West

on

the

old

cultural

heritage”

(http://www.litweb.net/biography/138/Junichiro_Tanizaki.html).
Tanizaki often writes of women, taking as his themes obsessive love,
the destructive forces of sexuality, and the dual nature of woman as goddess
and

demon

(http://www.questia.com/library/encyclopedia/tanizaki-

junichiro.jsp). He was bravely writing the novel that took the theme of
sexuality, the uncommon topic at that time. In The Key he shows that the

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submissive wife can be wildly obsessed of sex and alcohol although she
covers up by her traditional Japanese upbringing
The author of this novel takes the theme of sexual problem in middle
age where the lacks of communication and understanding become the points
of this problem as seen in the quotation below
The two protagonists start to use their diaries as a means of
communication by tacitly agreeing to read each other's diaries while
outwardly pretending that they do not. The diaries reveal their problems
of understanding each other and separateness even during the shared
activity of sexual union (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/tanizaki.htm).
This work wants to give a view about the effect of loveless marriage
on human sexuality. Since the main characters are husband and wife, the
writer wants to show the importance of love and sex in marital life.

B. Review of Related Theories
Here the writer will elaborate some theories that will be necessary in
dealing with the topic of this undergraduate thesis.
1. Theory of Character and Characterization
A character is an imagined person who inhabits a story. We usually
recognize that in the main characters of a story, human personalities become
familiar to us. It is important to know the character of the story because it
makes us easier to understand based on the personal characteristics. Most
writers of the literary story attempt to create characters who strike us not as
stereotypes but as unique individual (Kennedy and Gioia, 1999: 60).

9

M.H. Abrams in A Glossary of Literary Terms (1981: 20) said that a
broad distinction is frequently made by the alternative methods for
“characterizing” the person in a narrative are showing and telling. In showing,
the author presents his character talking and acting and then leaves the reader
to infer what the motives and disposition behind what they say and do. In
telling, the author himself intervenes authoritatively in order to describe, and
often to evaluate, the motives and dispositional qualities of his characters.
There are few ways in which an author makes his character
understandable (Murphy, 1972: 161-173).
a. Personal description
The author can describe a person’s appearance and clothes. It is a kind of
physical description that helps us to imagine the character.
b. Character as seen by another
The author describes the character through the eyes and opinions of
another character and they are the reflected image of the character.
c. Speech
The readers can get clues to the character through what the person says in
a conversation or when he puts forward an opinion.
d. Past life
What happen in the past life can give the clue to understand what shaped a
person’s character. This can be done by the direct comment by the author,
the character’s thought, through the conversation or other characters.

10

e. Conversation of other characters
A clue to a person’s character can be derived through the conversation of
the other characters and the things they say about him.
f. Reactions
How that person reacts to the various situations or events can give the
reader clues to the person’s character.
g. Direct comment
The author can describe or give comment on a person’s character.
h. Thoughts
The author can give us directly what the person’s thinking about.
i.

Mannerism
A clue to the person’s character can be a person’s mannerism, habits or
idiosyncrasies.

2. The Relation between Literature and Psychology
Since literature is dealing with human and taking the characters that
are usually human, we can say that the object of human is also the object of
psychology. Roger B. Henkle (1977: 29) in Reading the Novel: an
Introduction to the Techniques of Interpreting Fiction distinguishes novels
into two modes: social novel and psychological novel. The psychological
novel is said to be organized according to the mental and emotional
experience of one or a few characters, while the social novel is organized
through social interaction. Psychological novel focuses on an individual’s

11

development, including the movement of his thought, the forming of his
personality and the complex internal motives that animate him. It will help us
to understand the person’s feeling and attitude as we share his particular
experiences extensively.
The emergence of modern psychology, especially Sigmund Freud
theory of the unconscious, affected a new dimension of human drama “the
working out of anxieties in dreams, the psychic patterns of trauma and
repressions, of wish fulfilments and sexual desires and death wishes” (Henkle,
1977: 35). Kennedy and Gioia also said that modern psychology had an
immense effect on both literature and literary criticism, allowed us to explore
new and controversial areas such as wish fulfilment, sexuality, the
unconscious and repression (1999: 1947). We can say that psychology will
help us more to analyze the character’s mind and give understanding of what a
person thinks, of his attitude and also behaviour based on psychological
interpretation.

3. Theory of Love and Marriage
Love and marriage are important and they are complex aspects of
people’s lives. A man and a woman who love each other usually end in
marriage in order to make their love perfect. Marriage based on love is also
believed to remain constant in relationship. In other words, the commitment to
declare the love in an institution called marriage is expected to maintain the
marital relationship between partners.

12

Love is “a special kind of attitude with strong emotional and
behavioral components” (Crooks and Baur, 1983: 196). It means that love
involves someone’s emotion or feeling and behavior dealing with the attitude
towards another person. Commonly, we understand that love is distiguished
into passionate love and companionate love.
a.

Passionate Love
Ellaine Hatfield and Richard L. Rapson (1996: 3) in Love and Sex:

Cross-Cultural Perspectives define passionate lo ve is “a hot, intense emotion,
sometimes called a crush, obsessive love, lovesickness, head-over-heels in
love, infatuation, or being in love.” They defined it this way:
A state of intense longing for union with another. Passionate love is a
complex functional whole including appraisals or appreciations,
subjective feelings, expressions, patterned physiological processes,
action tendencies, and instrumental behaviors (1996: 3).

Sex researchers tend to use the terms passionate love and sexual desire
almost interchangeably. This is because passionate love has been defined as a
“longing for union” and sexual desires as “a longing for sexual union”.
Researchers tended to say that passionate love may include both “longing for
union and sexual union (Hatfield and Rapson, 1996: 3).
Robert Crooks and Karla Baur in Our Sexuality also define passionate
love, also known as romantic love or infatuation as “a state of extreme
absorption in another. It is characterized by intense feeling of tenderness,
elation, anxiety, sexual desire, and ecstacy” (1983: 208). From the definition

13

above, we can say that the passionate love is closely to the physical aspect of a
human, especially when related to the sexual desire.
b.

Companionate love
By contrast companionate love (sometimes called the true love or

marital love) is “a warm, far less intense emotion. It combines feelings of deep
attachment, commitment, and intimacy (Hatfield and Rapson, 1996: 3)”. They
defined:
The affection and tenderness we feel for those with whom our lives are
deeply entwined. Companionate love is a complex functional whole
including appraisals or appreciations, subjective feelings, expressions,
patterned physiological processes, action tendencies, and instrumental
behaviors (1996: 3).

Companionate love is “a less tense emotion. It is characterized by friendly
affection and a deep attachment that is based on extensive familiarity with the
loved one” (Crooks and Baur, 1983: 210). It is clear that the companionate
love is not involving the physical attraction at all, however, it is more to the
feeling of affection and tenderness.
From that definition of passionate and companionate love, we can say
that love is very complex. It covers many aspects including the physical and
non-physical side. The sexual desire, infatuation, hot and intense emotion,
intense feeling of tenderness, elation, anxiety, and ecstacy are the
characteristics of the passionate love or romantic love, whereas, a less tense
emotion affection, a deep attachment, commitment, and intimacy are the
characteristics of the companionate or marital love.

14

True love or companionate love is necessary to a truly happy marriage.
Because the purpose of marriage is to gain happiness by the union of two
people, love can become the basis of the happy marriage. Marriage is also
called “the union of love” that is legalized by an institution; it should be based
on love and commitment between a man and a woman as partners in life to
gain the happiness. Unfortunately, in the past time, marriages were arranges
through contracts between parents; “romance” was not expected to play a part.
“Happiness” is sometimes thought to be an automatic outcome of marriage.
(Crooks and Baur, 1983: 455-456)
Igor Primoratz in Human Sexuality also emphasis that the importance
of marriage institution that can control the human sexuality. He said “unlike
the procreation view, which sees human sexuality as originally animal like and
means to elevate it by channelling into it socially (and religiously) sanctio ned
institution of marriage... (1997: xiv)”.
There was a time when marriage meant procreation, but this is no
longer true. The desire for children is common to most young married people
but as the years pass, the time eventually arrives when the family is complete.
Successful sex life in a marriage can not be so difficult to achieve unless
husband and wife realize that sex is a beautiful thing to be shared and as the
expression of their love and feelings in an intimacy. In middle age, the marital
life can face the declines in satisfaction, commitment, expression of love,
romantic feelings and friendship (Morris, 1990: 389).

15

The stability in a marriage may be gained from the balance of three
components of love; Robert J. Sternberg mentioned it as “triangular theory
of love: intimacy, passion, and commitment ” (in Brannon, 1996: 242, 254).
Intimacy means the intimate communication between partners. Intimacy is
also the desire for close, confidential communication with the other (Crooks
and Baur, 1983: 196). Passion can mean the intense sexual desire between the
partners. Then, commitment can mean the decision to keep the relationship in
a marriage institution.

According to Sternberg as quoted from Brannon’s

Gender: Psychological Perspectives, relationships that have only one of the
components should be more stable than those that lack one. Furthermore, love
relationship that have two components should be stable than those with only
one (1996: 254). Love relationships without institutional support, such as
cohabition is easily to break up than marriage, even though the institutional
support for marriage is not the guarantee for stable relationship between
partners.
Commonly married people expect their partner to be more seductive,
initiate sex more, be more experimental, be more complimentary, be wilder
and sexier, talk more lovingly, give more instructions, and be warmer and
more involved (Hatfield and Rapson, 1996: 142). Men and women create
different activities to make intimate communication. In a marriage, sex is
often used by men to create intimacy and means of communication but women
create emotional intimacy through talk and self-disclosure (Brannon, 1996:
244). The difference in communication between men and women can create a

16

misunderstanding between both partners. It makes difficult for them to talk to
each other. Brannon said that “both interpret the underlying messages as well
as the words, and the differences in styles may lead men and women to
understand messages that their partners did not intend to send (1996: 245)”. It
means that the different style of communicating can create misunderstanding
or even conflict between partners.

4. Theory of Human Sexuality
Jay Braun, Darwyn E. Linder and Isaac Asimov (1979: 382) in
Psychology Today: An Introduction (4th edition) explain more about human
sexuality as the subject of great interest to all of us as sexual beings. Human
sexuality is begun with the sex diversity: male and female that lead to the
concept of gender: maleness and femaleness. Genetic factors, hormonal
influences and social influences make a great influence to the gender identity
and gender roles. In particular, the social and cultural influence affects how a
person relates to other people emotionally and sexually, the things that will
arouse the individual sexually, and much more (1979: 385).
Ruth Blaier gave a long explanation about human sexuality:
Our individual sexuality, like our natures, are socially constructed
from our individual histories of interactions with other people and
society, and they continually change....A person’s sexuality may
express a desire or need to be vulnerable to another person or,
alternatively, a determination never to be vulnerable to another person.
It can express a general need to experience commitment to,
dependence on, submission to transcendence with, or physical-psychic
unity with another person. It can express a need to always be in control
of oneself, of another person, of all situations, or of all people one
develops any relationship with. On the other hand, it can express the

17

need to be, for once, not in control, but to surrender control to another.
Sexuality can be seen also as a survival mechanism; a trading of needs
and desires, a desire to be liked, needed, wanted, indispensable, the
highest priority in someone else’s life. Sexuality can be perceived as a
measure of one’s attractiveness to other people, as a route to intimacy,
as the way to be entrusted with another’s vulnerability. Perhaps too
obvious to mention is the possibility that sexuality may also have
something to do with love...and with (uncomplicated?) physical
pleasure. And, of course, our sexuality can express many of these
needs at different times and simultaneously (in Hatfield and Rapson,
1996: 112).

She wants to show that human sexuality is very complex but naturally
bound up to every human being. Human being grown up during his every
phase of life to find out the maturity of individual sexuality that influenced by
the social-environmental situation, and the interaction to other people
surround him. The sexuality expresses the desire to unite to another person
physically, emotionally, and psychologically in an intimate way.
In Our Sexuality, Robert Crooks and Karla Baur (1983: 3) said that
human sexuality is governed more by psychological factors (motivational,
emotional and attitudinal) and by social conditioning (the process by which
we learn our society expectations and norms) than by the biological factors
such as hormones or instinct. The psychological and social factors influenced
our sexual attitude, ideas and behaviour more than the sexual instinct and
hormones because these biological factors exist naturally since we are born,
whereas, the psychological and social factors shapes our sexuality through the
process.
Related to the ideas of sexuality, in his introduction on Human
Sexuality, Igor Primoratz said that there are four major theories of human

18

sexuality. Sex has been conceived as bound up with procreation, or with love,
or as a type of body language or finally as a source of a certain type of
pleasure (1997: xxi). Sex that bound up with procreation is presented as a
natural function to fulfil someone’s maturity and to get the children. Sex that
bound up with love can be explained as a way to express the deepest love
between a man and a woman. Sex can be the language of those people to
communicate their feelings to each other. Sex as a source of certain pleasure
means that sex is a source to fulfil the sexual desire and sexual instinct that
can create a kind of pleasure.
Gender roles also give the influence to human sexuality. The belief
about the maleness and femaleness, the assumption about the appropriate
sexual behaviour according to the norms may influence human sexuality.
Woman is seen as undersexed, while men are oversexed. Women are
believed to be inherently less sexually inclined than men. Women is told by
her parents, peers, and books that sex is something a woman should do to
please a man especially her husband. The society also emphasised that
“normal women” do not enjoy sex as much as men. Some women, believing
that it is not appropriate to be easily aroused sexually; they should hide their
normal responses to the sexual arouses. Men are believed to be initiator while
women are recipients. In most societies, men should initiate intimate
relationships with their partners. A man is said to be active, assertive, and
even aggressive in controlling the sexuality. In contrast, a woman may not act
like that because she is taught to have a role of “passivity”. It may result in sex

19

becoming more of a duty than a pleasure. Men als o said to be a “sexperts”; to
enjoy the role as a sex teacher. It seems that men understand the sexual needs
better than women (Crooks and Baur, 1983: 47-51).
In Love and Sex: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Elaine Hatfield and
Richard L. Rapson also talked about the study case of sexual satisfaction in
marital life. The opinion towards the sexual satisfaction between the couples
in marriage changed through time. Earlier, they said that men and women
were different and unequal; also sex was considered as a woman’s distasteful
duty and it urged women to shed their traditional passivity and enjoy sex.
Then, the opinion changed that men had a duty as a “sexual teacher” and his
job was to awaken his wife dormant sex drive. Now, the ideal was of male and
female sexual autonomy. Both men and women were portrayed as sexual,
independent agents, self-sufficient and in control of their own sexuality (1996:
136). It means that the duty to fulfil the sexual satisfaction in a marriage is not
only the duty of a wife or a husband only, but it is the duty of both partners as
a way to express their sexuality, love and feeling.
Jay Braun, Darwyn E. Linder and Isaac Asimov in Psychology Today:
An Introduction (4th edition) defines attitude is “a relatively enduring
evaluation formed on the basis of two components: knowledge and beliefs
about an object (a person, as situation, a behaviour) and affective reactions to
the object” (1979: 582). More simply it is said that “attitudes are likes and
dislikes” (Braun et al., 1979: 567). People have different attitudes about an
enormous number of subjects whether they are negatives or positives.

20

Attitudes can be formed through the condition in which a positive or negative
emotional reaction becomes associated with some object and through the
repeated behaviours. Thus, the attitude towards sex varies from person to
person. It can be positive or negative depends on the knowledge and beliefs
about sex.
Sigmund Freud, a well-known psychologist said that the basis of
human behaviour is to be found in various unconscious instincts or drives. The
instincts are distinguished into death instincts (show up as self-destructive,
suicidal tendencies or aggression towards others) and life instincts (the
survival of individual includes hunger, thirst, self-preservation and especially
sex).
Freud used the term of “sexual instinct” not just to refer to erotic
sexuality but to the desire for virtually any form of pleasure. The death and
life instincts is a part if the id that operates based on the “pleasure principle”
that is “the way in which the id seeks immediate gratification of an instinct”
(Morris, 1990: 451). Since the id is an unconscious part of human mind, we
can say that sex is an unconscious desire that will continually seek expression
to fulfil the pleasure. But we should not forget that there are ego and super ego
that control our unconscious mind. The ego that operates by “reality principle”
mediates between “environmental demands (reality), conscience (super ego)
and instinctual needs (id)”. The super ego that is “the social and parental
standard of what one would like to be” (Morris, 1990: 452) also will control
the basis of our instincts includes sex.

21

The psyc hosexual stages introduced the way in which the sexual
instinct is satisfied during the course of life.
a. Oral Stage ( birth to 18 months)
The first stage in which the infant’s erotic feelings centre to mouth, lips
and tongue.
b. Anal Stage (roughly 18 months to 3 ½ years)
Second stage when a child’s erotic feelings centre on anus.
c. Phallic Stage (after age 3 and so)
Erotic feelings centre on the genitals. Children discover their genitals and
the pleasure of masturbation. At this time a child may experience Oedipus
Complex, which is a child’s sexual attachment to the parent of the
opposite sex and jealously toward the parent of the same sex. In this
period, boys will attract more to their mothers while girls attract more to
their fathers.
d. Latency Period (5 or 6 years to 12 or 13 years)
A period after phallic stage in which the child appears to have no interest
in the opposite sex. Boys play with boys, girls play with girls, and neither
sex takes much interest in the others.
e.

Genital Stage
At this time, our sexual impulses reawaken and directed toward member of
the opposite sex. In love making, the adolescent and the adult are able to
satisfy unfulfilled desires from infancy and childhood. Ideally, immediate
gratification of these desires is replaced by mature sexuality, in which

22

postponed gratification, a sense of responsibility, and caring for others all
play a part.
The sexual behaviour refers to the sexual activities and its patterns can
be masturbation, erotic fantasy and dreams, shared touching, oral- genital
stimulation and coitus (Crooks and Baur: 1983: 252). When a person reaches
its genital stage and he is mature and responsible enough to control his
sexuality, marriage can be the institution that can control human sexuality, in
particular the sexual behaviours as quoted from Human Sexuality “unlike the
procreation view, which sees human sexuality as originally animal like and
means to elevate it by channelling into it socially (and religiously) sanctioned
institution of marriage... (Primoratz, 1997: xiv). All healthy men and women
are physiologically equipped to respond both physical stimulation (touching
and being touched by the hands, lips, body and perhaps objects) and
psychological stimulation (provocative sights, sounds, behaviour and erotic
fantasies (Braun et al., 1979: 387-388). Both men and women can become
sexually aroused by psychological and physical stimulation; but effective
sexual stimulation varies from person to person. They can be aroused by the
touch in erogenous zone that is varies with the individual, visual stimulation,
and sexual fantasies to arouse the sexual response (1979: 398). More, “the key
to understanding human sexual arousal remains locked in emotional processes
which we do not…fully understand” (1979: 389).

Feeling relaxed and

affectionate are more effective than feeling anxious and hostile in sexual
arousal.

23

Most people think human sexuality increases at puberty; it reaches full
strength at early adulthood, gradually fades away with increasing age, and
eventually stops. We can not ignore that the increasing of age can affect the
decrease of hormones production and the physical condition influences the
sexual responsiveness, particularly, in the middle age. There will be a time
when a person can not be aroused or satisfied sexually. The individual may be
tired, preoccupied, drunk, angry at the partner, anxious about “performing”
well, or simply uninterested in sex at that time (Braun et al., 1979: 391). The
sexual problem can be the responsib ility of both partners and sexual
interaction can not be improved without communication between partners and
the effort to reduce the anxiety and negative attitude towards sex.

C. Theoretical Framework
The theory of character and characterization is needed to answer the
first problem about the characteristic of the major character. This theory will
help more to identify the characteristic of the husband and the wife in this
novel. The theory of love and marriage is used to analyze the second problem
about the possible factors that cause the loveless marriage. The last theory is
the theory of human sexuality, will be applied to answer the last problem.
How the loveless marriage affects the major character’s sexuality will be
examined using the theory of human sexuality. Therefore, the writer thinks
that the theory of character and characterization, theory of love and marriage,
and theory of human sexuality will help more to analyze the three problems.

CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY

A. Object of the Study
The study particularly focuses on t