DEATH DRIVE: A NEGATIVE IMPACT OF RACIAL ABUSE IN TONI MORRISON'S BELOVED (Dorongan Kematian: Sebuah Dampak Negatif dari Penyiksaan Rasial di dalam novel Beloved, Karya Toni Morrison)

Abstract

The goal of this thesis is to find out the relation between fear and anxiety in the production of death drive. Death drive, in this matter, is suffered by the main character of Beloved, Sethe. She is a black slave women that has to suffer most brutality, violence and inhuman treatment toward the domination of white people. Those conditions, later, give effects on her fear and anxiety over her living in plantation. Death drive, therefore, becomes the problem in this study, since its emergence is always triggered by the uncompensated of the id. The balance of the three components; id, ego and superego, thus, could only accommodate one interest, that is death drive. This drive, however, is produced by the trauma of the horror in the past which results in continuous redemption for Sethe. Fear and anxiety, in this way, become the factors for the drive to happen, as racialism plays so strong in Sethe's social environment. This research uses Sigmund Freud 's psychological theory of death drive to analyse the data which depicts racial abuse, fear, anxiety and death drive in Beloved. The data analysis, in short, can be formulated with a character analysis through a qualitative methodology which means the data are in texts form. The result of this thesis shows that there is correlation between the death drive and the action of Sethe in the murder of her own baby. Death drive in id energy could manifest into a beyond logic and inhuman action such as Sethe kills her baby. It is because id energy in human psyche only has temporal satisfactory state that can continue in many alternative behaviours.