Psychological problems of the main female character Lucy Snowe in Charlotte Bronte’s Villete: An analysis using Psychological approach

ABSTRACT

There are three kinds of human problems; psychological problems, emotional problems, and spiritual problems. Psychological problem is the problem faced by human which is caused by their physical causes. Related to the explanation above, it was interesting to conduct a psychological analysis entitled Psychological Problems of the Main Female Character Lucy Snowe in Charlotte Bronte’s Villete (An Analysis Using Psychological Approach).

The objectives of the study are: (1) to know the kinds of psychological problems which are faced by Lucy Snowe in Villete by Charlotte Bronte. (2) To know the efforts of Lucy Snowe dealing her psychological problems.

The method that the writer applies is literary criticism and she uses psychological approach to deal with the data. Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. It uses psychological approach because in this study, the analysis is focused on studying the psychological problems of the main female character in the novel. The present study analyzes the novel from psychological aspect dealing with the psychoanalysis theory by applying anxiety, depression, and defense mechanism. The writer viewed psychological approach suitable with this method from the result of problem statement.

The research found out: (1) the main female character in the novel ―Lucy Snowe‖ suffers psychological problems such as anxiety and depression, she suffers anxiety after she knows the news that her boy friend ―M. Paul Immanuel‖ will leave her. Lucy shows her physical symptoms of anxiety through her thought as like: fear, worry, and afraid. Besides that, she also shows her anxiety through her behavior, as like: headache and dizziness. Lucy also suffers post-traumatic stress disorder, such as: lack of interest in activities, reliving the trauma repeatedly in memories, and sleep disturbances. Besides that she feels afraid in a new situation and insecure in social relationship. (2) Besides the anxiety, Lucy also suffers depression, she fells depressed because no body in this world who is able to accompany and support her life except M. Paul Immanuel. The symptoms are: Lucy has difficulty to concentrate about everything, she has difficulty in sleeping, eating, and thinking, and she also feels worthless and grief. (3) Lucy tries to deal her problems by doing defense mechanism by applying repression, she repress her problems by avoiding talk about her boyfriend, she also move to the other town. Besides that, Lucy uses rationalization; she has rationalized her love to M. Paul by preparing anything that makes him happy. Moreover, after receiving the money from Miss Marchmont, she uses the money to develop her new school.