PERSONALITY DISORDER AS REFLECTED BY THE PROTAGONIST CHARACTER IN PATRICK SÜSKIND’S PERFUME: A PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY

By

Aminatuzzuhriyah
02004144

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the writer presents background of the study, identification of the problem, limitation of the problem, formulation of the problem, objectives of the study, and significance of the study.

A. Background of the Study
Perfume, originally is published in German as Das Parfüm. It is a suspense novel written by Patrick Süskind in 1985; this novel is interesting to be studied because of several reasons. The first reason, this novel was written by Patrick Süskind, the co author of the enormously successful German television series Kir Royal in 1986. Patrick Süskind is a genius writer, who has a good fantasy. He was a winner of The World Fantasy Award in 1987 for the novel Perfume. This award is given annually by the World Convention, to acknowledge excellence in fantasy writing. The other genius works of Patrick Süskind are The Double Bass in 1981, The Pigeon (1988), The Story of Mr. Sommer (1991), Three Stories and a Reflection (1995), and a screenplay for the film Rossini in 1996. The play The Double Bass (1981) became an instant success and a favorite of the German stage. The film Rossini becomes the winner for German Screenplay Award in 1997.

The second reason, Patrick Süskind is one of German writers, who has a genius idea and good fantasy in narrating themes especially regarding on personality disorder. The instance of Patrick Süskind’s brilliance is the description of the protagonist character, Grenouille, as a genius man with personality disorder that is psychopathic in the novel Perfume. Perfume is one of Patrick Süskind’s best novels that brought him to the top of brilliant writing career.
The third reason for studying this novel is that Perfume tells about the story of a murderer, Grenuoille, who has personality disorder. Grenouille, the protagonist of the novel, is a genius man who has an extraordinary sense of smell and a bizarrely destruction obsession. He is a psychopathic murderer. He kills 25 maids to be fetched her personal scent for his obsession that is to create the extravagant perfume.
Personality disorder is always to be something interesting to talk. Levin (1978: 526) said that personality disorders are so named because they are rooted in character structure, and represent lifelong patterns of maladjustment. The big question that appears in people’s mind is how they can see this world by look through the side of psychology. In doing that way, people will hope that they can understand why person who has personality disorder behaves like that. For most case, normal personality does not realize that it is not easy for personality disorder to behave like them, to adjust themselves to the normal personality’s world, or even to understand normal personality. In this case, parents, the society, will play important roles in helping and reducing one who has personal disorder’s anxiety of growing into normal personality.
Cleckley (via Kendall and Hammen, 1998: 435) described that psychopathic persons as violators of norms and the rights of others, but also noted that because they are often intelligent and likeable, they can present a good front. They may seem poised, articulate, and calm; but, in fact, they are insincere and lie with ease to manipulate others to serve their own needs. A psychopathic personality is known as the kind of personality disorder. The psychopathic murderers are people who can make someone feels frightened. They tend to behave criminal, cruel, sadist, and maladjustment. Nevertheless seeing from their way in doing their work, they are intelligent and genius person. If they are seen in one side, they look calm personality. But in the other side, they can change to be a bloodless murderer. They are egoist. They do criminal action just for meet their needs. They never think the impact of their action for the other.
The last reason for choosing this novel to be studied is there is no one in Ahmad Dahlan University analyzes the admirable work of Patrick Süskind, especially Perfume, regarding on personality disorder through Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory.
Sigmund Freud, one of master of psychologist and well known as the father of psychoanalytic. He was born on May 6, 1856, at Freiberg, Moravia, a small Austrian town now part of central Czechoslovakia and died in London on September 23, 1939. He was a Jewish-Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. In the theoretical development of psychoanalysis, Freud employed a topographical model of personality organization. According to this model, psychic life can be represented by three levels of consciousness—the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. (Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 82-86)
Psychoanalysis can be used to investigate persons who has personality disturbance. In this case, psychoanalysis is as psychopathology, that is the study of psychological disorder. Freud divides the anatomy of personality organization into the three basic structures, namely the id, the ego, and the superego.
People have the different problems in their life. Freudian Theory can help people to solve their problems. Through psychoanalysis, it can be analyzed why one behaves differ from others.

B. Identification of the Problem
Literary criticism is the study, discussion, and evaluation of literature. Subhan mentioned,
“Literary criticism is the activity of studying literary works seriously or academically with the target of making a sound critical analysis on the literary works”. (Subhan, 2003: 4)

Literary criticism is done by reading and studying the literary work seriously. It aims to analyze the literary works. Subhan said,
“By reading literary works (literature) one can enrich his life because there are many kinds of literary experience in literature (in prose, poetry, and drama). It is known that the story in literary works may happen in our lives, or in the lives of the people living near us.” (Subhan, 2003: 2)
Novel is one of the forms of literary work that is prose. There are many reasons why some people read novel. One of them is the story of the novel enrich the reader’s knowledge about many things. In the novel is found many experiences of life. Through the novel, people can learn how they should be to live on.
According to Stanton and Chapman (via Nurgiyantoro, 2002: 23) states that there are two elements to build up a novel those are intrinsic elements and extrinsic elements. Intrinsic element is the elements that build up the novel itself. Extrinsic element is the elements of the novel, but indirectly influences the construction outside of the novel. In the novel Perfume, there are many characters that play important parts in the story. There are many problems that can be discussed in the novel Perfume such as the problem of character and characterization, theme, plot, setting, point of view.
Psychology is the science to studying human’s behavior, thought and mind. The difference behavior, thought and mind of people can be analyzed through psychology. Psychology has the close relationship with the literary work. Psychology can be used to analyze the literary work. Subhan (2003: 57) said, “Psychology can be used to help a literary critic or a literary researcher to explain, interpret, and evaluate literary works”. One of some elements in the novel that can be analyzed by psychology is the characterization of the character. There are many ways to understand one’s characterization, for instance through Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, Adler’s individual theory of personality, Jung’s analytical theory of personality, and the other.
Perfume is a fantastic novel. The setting is in France on eighteen-century. In that time, cities in France is closed by stink which may be strange for modern human in every corner and the human have dull nose toward stink. Someone who has no scent of his body will be said as a monster. He will be an outcast. It happens to Grenouille. He is isolated from society because he does not smell, as the human ought to smell. The society considered him as a monster because his strange.

C. Limitation of the Problem
From the identification of the problem above, the writer will limit the problem into three problems, those are how the characterization of the character Grenouille in the novel Perfume is and the causal factor of personality disorder of the protagonist character in the novel Perfume seen from Freud’s psychoanalytic theory is.


D. Formulation of the Problem
Based on limitation of the problem, the writer formulates the problems that become research question of study. The formulations of the problem are as follows:
1. How is the characterization of the character Grenouille in the novel Perfume?
2. What is the causal factor of personality disorder of the protagonist character in the novel Perfume seen from Freud’s psychoanalytic theory?

E. Objectives of the Study
Based on the formulations of the problem, the objectives of the study are:
1. To describe the characterization of the character Grenouille in the novel Perfume.
2. To describe the causal factor of personality disorder of the protagonist character in the novel Perfume seen from Freud’s psychoanalytic theory.

F. Significance of the Study
The research is expected to give some advantages for the other, those are:

1. For the researcher
To improve the knowledge of the researcher about literary works deeper, especially novel.

2. For the students
a. To motivate the students in studying literary works, especially novel.
b. To motivate the students to improve their appreciation about literary works.

3. For the reader
To motivate the reader to reading literary works to broad the reader’s knowledge.

4. For the other researcher
To motivate the other researcher to analyze the literary works of Patrick Süskind, especially Perfume, by using the other approaches