An Analysis of Ego Defense Mechanisms of Mr. Borkman in Henrik Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman,

Abstract

The thesis discusses about the main character’s ego defense mechanisms in the drama written by Henrik Ibsen John Gabriel Borkman, it was published in 1896 and the story tells about love and family. John Gabriel Borkman is a former director of a bank who corrupts the bank’s money for his own life. That action makes his family breaks down because he has bad relation with his wife and son. The incident also affects his career; he is fired from his job as the Bank director. Freud’s theory of personality will be used to discuss about the main character ego defense mechanisms. Ego defense mechanisms are ego’s strategies to handle conflict those are caused by id and super ego. There are many defense mechanisms that are listed by Anna Freud but the researcher takes just ten of them that will suitable with John Gabriel Borkman, those are projection, isolation, denial, displacement, reaction formation, intellectualization, regression, repression, sublimation and rationalization. The researcher wants to analyze this in order to find out Mr. Borkman’s defenses, the reason and the effect of those defenses by examining his dialogues and actions in Henrik’s Ibsen play John Gabriel Borkman. The method to use in this thesis is inductive method that examines the discussion from specific to general. The researcher uses the qualitative data as the type of data and this thesis involves the description, analysis, and interpretation to present the topic of the discussion. The type of research which is used in this study is vii the library research because the thesis uses the books collection, the previous thesis and journals for the sources. The result of the study shows that John Gabriel Borkman uses the six defenses, such as: projection, denial, isolation, displacement, reaction formation, rationalization. They are his way to handle his fear of punishment, fear of abandonment, shame, anger, and guilt. The defenses are also used to protect his selfesteem. The defense mechanisms are needed by everyone and each of them has different effect. There is a defense that brings positive and negative effects. In Mr. Borkman himself, the defense mechanisms give both the negative and positive effects. Those defenses bring negative effects to his relationship with his surrounding such as his lover, his family and his friend. Those make him far from them and destroy the bound between him and his family. The positive effects are just affecting to Mr. Borkman himself because by using the six defenses he can relieve and handle his fear, guilt, shame, and anger. Those can also protect his self esteem.