Death Instinct In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Panca Wisetioko
English Literature
Faculty of Language and Arts
State University of Surabaya
[email protected]
Drs. Much. Khoiri, M.Si.
English Department
Faculty of Language and Arts
State University of Surabaya
[email protected]
Abstrak
Naluri dapat digambarkan sebagai kekuatan manusia dan dianggap ada di balik ketegangan yang disebabkan oleh kebutuhan dari id. Id dapat berkembang menjadi kekuatan destruktif yang disebut sebagai insting kematian dan ekspresi insting kematian disebut sebagai agresi. Dalam Mary Shelley Frankenstein, dua karakter utama menggambarkan insting kematian yang mempengaruhi pikiran dan tindakan yang bertujuan untuk menghancurkan atau membunuh siapa pun. Studi ini berfokus pada dua masalah , ( 1 ) bagaimana insting kematian digambarkan dalam Mary Shelley Frankenstein? dan ( 2 ) Mengapa si monster dan Dr Frankenstein menggambarkan agresi sebagai komponen dari insting kematian dalam hidup mereka di Mary Shelley Frankenstein? Data tesis diambil dari novel sebagai sumber utama dan membaca secara intensif adalah langkah berikutnya dalam analisis. Konsep yang akan digunakan meliputi konsep naluri dan insting kematian oleh Freud dan Susan , dan juga istilah agresi oleh Subaidah. Untuk menjawab masalah pertama, penelitian ini menggunakan istilah Freud tentang insting kematian dan didukung oleh konsep dari Susan tentang insting. Masalah kedua dijawab dengan menggunakan konsep dari Subaidah tentang agresi. Yang terakhir, analisis mengungkapkan bahwa insting kematian digambarkan oleh monster melalui tindakannya ketika membunuh putra Dr Frankenstein, teman, dan anggota keluarga yang lain. Selain itu, Dr Frankenstein juga menggambarkan insting kematian melalui intensi untuk menghancurkan si monster. Keduanya mendapatkan kesenangan dan kepuasan dari tindakan mereka. Dr Frankenstein dan monster tersebut menggambarkan insting kematian karena rasa marah dan frustrasi antara satu sama lain.
Kata kunci : insting kematian, sadar, id, agresi.
Abstract
Instincts can be described as the forces of human and assume to exist behind the tensions which are caused by the needs of the id. The id can develop into destructive force which is called as death instinct and the expression of death instinct called as the aggression. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the two main characters depict the death instinct that influence their minds and actions which purpose to destroy or kill anyone. The study focuses on two problems, (1) how is death instinct depicted in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? and (2) Why do the monster and Dr. Frankenstein represent the aggression as the component of death instinct in their life in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? The data of thesis are taken from the novel as the main source and intensive reading is the next step of analysis. The concept that will be used includes the concepts of instinct and death instinct by Freud and Susan, and the terms of aggression by Subaidah. To answer the first problem, this study uses Freud’s terms about death instinct and supported by Susan’s terms about the concepts of instinct. The second problem is answered by using Subaidah’s terms about the aggression. Last of all, the analysis reveals that death instinct depicted by the monster through his action in killing Dr. Frankenstein’s son, friends, and his other family members. Besides, Dr. Frankenstein also represents death instinct through his intension to destroy the monster. Both of them get pleasure and satisfaction from their actions. Dr. Frankenstein and the monster represent death instinct because the feeling of anger and frustration each other.
Keywords: death instinct, unconscious, id, aggression.
INTRODUCTION
Horror literature is focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic and the principle of the thing embodied in the person. In stories, there are many gothic creatures, like witches, vam-pires, demonic, werewolves, and ghost. This genre has ancient origins which were reformulated in the 18th century as Gothic horror, with publication of the Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. After that century, the Gothic tradition blossomed into the genre modern readers call horror literature in the 19th century. In this era, some great works and characters of horror have been adapted by some films and cinema. It shows to the world that some horror writers have given contributions. Some literary works concern with horror in genre are Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, the works of Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897).
One of the most famous horror novels is Frankenstein which was written by Mary Shelley in 19th century. In that era, the novel was also being a very important work in literature contributions that had made by women acceptable. Although Mary Shelley wrote many novels, none of her another works was popular like Frankenstein, which still gains its popularity until today. (www.famousauthors.org/mary-shelley) A study of the scientific aspects of the novel is so popular and timely that the present author and others have presented or published papers on this theme (Ginn, 2003; Ketterer, 1997). The National Library of Medicine has developed a traveling exhibit examining Frankenstein's science, and a conference dedicated to this theme (Frankenstein's Science: Theories of Human Nature in the 18th and 19th Centuries) was held in Canberra, in 2003. (nlm.nih.gov/hmd/frankenstein/frankhome.html)
The author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, is often known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. She was one of the famous horror writers in the world. Mary was a British woman novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, travel writer, and editor of the works of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley who was a Romantic poet and a philosopher. And she was the daughter of the political philosopher William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft who was famous as the writer, philosopher, and feminist. She wrote many horror novels including Lodore (1835), Faulkner (1937), Mathilde (1959), Valperga or the Life and Adventures of Castruccia, Prince of Lucca (1823), The Last Man (1826), and The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830). She also wrote a number of short stories, travelogues and other works, but Frankenstein has been the unforgettable works of her. Mary Shelley herself is best remembered by literature world as the author of Frankenstein.
The story of this novel tells about an ambitious inventor named Dr. Frankenstein who forces to create a human from various body parts taken from some corpses in graves. He believes that he can create a perfect human which is stronger and smarter than any ordinary human being. He finally finishes his project in making that creature. But, the result does not alike what he expects before. The creature looks like a monster rather than a human. It makes Dr. Frankenstein rejecting and dumping him. The monster cannot accept how the doctor treats him because the doctor himself is as the creator and the father of the monster who should love him and treat him well like God who creates and loves human beings. The doctor always mocks the monster about his physical appearance condition which is very ugly, even looks like a devil. The monster is very angry with the doctor. He hates the doctor a lot and he wants to kill the doctor as a revenge. Not only the doctor, but the monster also hates human being because people treats him as bad as the doctor even though the monster has given aid to humans.
The other thing that makes him hate human is because there is no one wants to be his friends. Everyone who meets him always run, hit and shout that he is a monster. He feels depressed and desperate about his life and his condition. He always asks to himself why he cannot be an acceptable person in his real life. After he got many bad things, he says that he will kill all human being, especially a man who created him and all persons that he loves.
One by one, everyone who loved by Dr. Frankenstein were killed by the monster. The doctor himself also promises to kill his creature because of those accidents. Both of them have death instinct to kill each other. In the end of the story, Dr. Frankenstein dies in the way when he looks for the monster. The monster feels very satisfied with his death, after that he falls down to the sea, and no one never see him again.
Death instinct which is depicted in Frankenstein and it based on the concepts of Sigmund Freud. According to Orbach (2007), his conceptualization of the death instinct behaviors reflecting self-destructive tendencies, guilt feelings, suicide, melancholia, masochism and sadism are furnished with a motivational force of their own, as well as a specific mechanism of action, that is the repetition compulsion. The death instinct drives man to the ultimate state of quiescence – death through the urge inherent in organic life to restore an earlier state of things.
This novel presents death instinct that is depicted by Dr. Frankenstein and the monster as the characters of Shelley’s Frankenstein. There is a stage which is being the part of the story that represents the instinct. It is shown when the monster killed Frankenstein’s son (Shelley, 1994: 179). The action that has been done by the monster is the representation of the death instinct, especially the purpose of death instinct. It depends on Freud terms (1949: 6), he explained that the purpose of death instinct is to kill someone or destroy something.
The another things that are shown in this novel is the reason of the characters when they want to do aggression which is being the component of death instinct (Subaidah, 2012), she also said that anger feeling becomes the one of the reasons or factors to do aggression to another person. The reason is depicted in the part of the story when the monster becomes angry and wants to kill all human and the doctor who is being his creator (Shelley, 1994: 172)
Depends on Schultz (2008: 56), Freud also developed three parts of mind. He drew that the parts are the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. Aside from the three levels of consciousness, Freud believed there to be three parts of personality. There are the id, the ego, and the superego.
That is why this study is being the study that analysis about death instinct and its reason because there are many statements and actions that has been represented by the characters of the novel, especially about death instinct and its reason.
RESEARCH METHOD
To reveal the death instinct of the characters, this study applies the concept of human instinct in analyzing the problems. The concept which will be applied to discuss the matter in this study is the psychoanalysis theory especially the concept of death instinct by Sigmund Freud.
The main data source of this study is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, while the data which is used in this study is in the form of statements which are taken from the novel Frankenstein that reveals the death instinct of the characters, Dr. Frankenstein and the monster.
This study will be conducted by using descriptive-qualitative method. It means that this study provides descriptive analysis without using any statistic or number in analyzing the subject matter. The concept applied to discuss the matter in this study is death instinct which is mostly described by Mary Shelley in her novel which titled is Frankenstein.
Since the focus of the study becomes clearer, data classification is needed. After collecting and classifying such complete data, the study arranges it in order, so that the study is able to get good understanding about the story of the novel and the issue which is going to be analyzed. In the next step, the story is being analyzed by using theory that is Instinct theory. Here, in analyzing death instinct of human being, this study tries to elaborate dialogue, conflict, and action in the novel and applies the concept. Then, the next step is to reveal how is the death instinct of the characters, which is viewed from the theory of psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud. Finally, this research provides a deep analysis on the death instinct of Dr. Frankenstein and the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
DEFINITION OF INSTINCT
The forces which human assume to exist behind the tensions caused by the needs of the id are called instincts. It can change their aim (by displacement) and also that they can replace one another-the energy of one instinct passing over another. This also consists in the satisfaction of its innate needs. (Freud, 1949: 5)
Instinct also can be described as the basic elements of the personality, the motivating forces that drive behavior and determine its direction. Freud’s German term for this concept is Trieb, which is best translated as a driving force or impulse (Bettelheim, 1984). Instincts are a form of energy—transformed physiological energy—that connects the body’s needs with the mind’s wishes.
The stimuli (hunger or thirst, for example) for instincts are internal. When a need such as hunger is aroused in the body, it generates a condition of physiological excitation or energy. The mind transforms this bodily energy into a wish. It is this wish—the mental representation of the physiological need—that is the instinct or driving force that motivates the person to behave in a way that satisfies the need. A hungry person, for example, will act to satisfy his or her need by looking for food. The instinct is not the bodily state; rather, it is the bodily need transformed into a mental state, a wish.
When the body is in a state of need, the person experiences a feeling of tension or pressure. The aim of an instinct is to satisfy the need and thereby reduce the tension. Freud’s theory can be called a homeostatic approach insofar as it suggests that people are motivated to restore and maintain a condition of physiological equilibrium, or balance, to keep the body free of tension.
Freud believed that people always experience a certain amount of instinctual tension and that people must continually act to reduce it. It is not possible to escape the pressure of our physiological needs as we might escape some annoying stimulus in our external environment. This means that instincts are always influencing our behavior, in a cycle of need leading to reduction of need.
People may take different paths to satisfy their needs. For example, the sex
Drives may be satisfied by heterosexual behavior, homosexual behavior, or auto sexual behavior, or the sex drive may be channeled into some other form of activity. Freud thought that psychic energy could be displaced to substitute objects, and this displacement was of primary importance in determining an individual’s personality. Although the instincts are the exclusive source of energy for human behavior, the resulting energy can be invested in a variety of activities. This helps explain the diversity people see in human behavior. All the interests, preferences, and attitudes people display as adults were believed by Freud to be displacements of energy from the original objects that satisfied the instinctual needs.
Freud grouped the instincts into two categories: life instincts and death instincts. The life instincts serve the purpose of survival of the individual and the species by seeking to satisfy the needs for food, water, air, and sex. The life instincts are oriented toward growth and development. The psychic energy manifested by the life instincts is the libido. The libido can be attached to or invested in objects, a concept Freud called cathexis. If you like your roommate, for example, Freud would say that your libido is cathected to him or her.
The life instinct Freud considered most important for the personality is sex, which he defined in broad terms. He did not refer solely to the erotic but included almost all pleasurable behaviors and thoughts.
Freud regarded sex as our primary motivation. Erotic wishes arise from the body’s erogenous zones: the mouth, anus, and sex organs. He suggested that people are predominantly pleasure-seeking beings, and much of his personality theory revolves around the necessity of inhibiting or suppressing our sexual longings.
In opposition to the life instincts, Freud postulated the destructive or death instincts. Drawing from biology, he stated the obvious fact that all living things decay and die, returning to their original inanimate state, and he proposed that people have an unconscious wish to die. One component of the death instincts is the aggressive drive, described as the wish to die turned against objects other than the self. The aggressive drive compels us to destroy, conquer, and kill. Freud came to consider aggression as compelling a part of human nature as sex.
Freud developed the notion of the death instincts late in life, as a reflection of his own experiences. He endured the physiological and psychological debilitations of age, his cancer worsened, and he witnessed the carnage of World War I. One of his daughters died at the age of 26, leaving two young children. All these events affected him deeply, and, as a result, death and aggression became major themes in his theory. In his later years, Freud dreaded his own death, and exhibited hostility, hatred, and aggressiveness toward colleagues and disciples who disputed his views and left his psychoanalytic circle.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF INSTINCT
According to Susan (2004: 42), there are some characteristics of instincts. She summarized the four aspects of instincts: source, pressure, aim, dan object. The first is source. All physic energy is derived from biological processes in some parts or organs of the body. There is no separate, exclusively mental energy. The amount of energy a person has does not change throughout a lifetime although it is transformed so that it is invested differently. At first, psychic energy is directed toward biological needs. As development occurs, this same energy can be redirected into other investment, such as interpersonal relationships and work.
The second is pressure. It refers to its force or motivational quality. It corresponds to the strength of the instinctual drive; it is high when the drive is not satisfied and falls when the needs is met. For example, a hungry infant has a high pressure of the hunger drive: one just fed has hunger at a low pressure. When the pressure is low, the instinct may nt have noticeable effect; but when the pressure is high, it may break through, interrupting other activities. A hungry baby wakes up, for example, and it depends on Susan (2004: 42).
The next characteristic is aim, the function of instinct according to a principle of homeostatis, or steady state, a principle borrowed from biology. Instinct aim to preserve the ideal steady state for organism (Susan, 2004: 42). Changes moving away from this steady state are experienced as tension. The aim of all instincts is to reduce tension, which is pleasurable. Instincts operate according to what Freud called the pleasure principle, they aim simply to produce pleasure by reducing tension, immediately and without regard to reality constraints.
Tension reduction occurs when the original biological instinct is directly satisfied, for example, when a hungry infant is fed or when sexually aroused adult achieves orgasm. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that only direct biological drive satisfaction can reduce tension. Some transformations of libido also allow tension reduction (Susan, 2004: 42).
Such healthy, socially acceptable ways of reducing tension are termed sublimation. However, indirect expressions of libido do not always reduce the pressure of instinct. Thus a chronic deviation from a restful, homeostatic state occurs in individuals who have not found ways to reduce tension, such as neurotics (Susan, 2004: 42).
The last is object, this characteristic of instinct is about the person or thing in the world that is desired so that the instinct can be satisfied, it based on Susan’s terms about instinct (2004: 42). For example, the object of the hunger drive of an infant is the mother’s breast: it brings satisfaction. The object of a sexually aroused adult is a sexual partner. Investment of psychic energy in a particular object is called cathexis.
It is with respect to the object of an instinct that there is the most variation, the most influence of experience on a person’s fundamental motivations. Some sexually aroused men look for a wom
