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CHAPTER II
UNDERLYING THEORY
This chapter will be divided into three parts. The first part is individual psychological theory which consists of notion of individual psychology and basic concept of individual psychology, the second part is structural elements of the movie involving narrative elements and technical elements, and the third part is theoretical application.
A. Notion of Individual Psychology Alfred Adler is the figure who found an individual psychological theory. He was born in a suburb of Vienna on February 7, 1870 and son of the middle- class Jewish Merchant. “Individual psychology insists on the fundamental unity of personality. All apparent dichotomies and multiplicities of life are organized in one self-consistent totally” (Adler in Feist, 1985: 64). In other word,individual has physical and personality as a unity in conducting his action who is guided by attitudes toward social life. Another Adler’s statement (in Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 139) is “the foremost challenge confronting individual psychology is to prove this unity in each individual: in thinking, feeling, and acting, the so-called conscious and unconscious, in every expression of personality”. In viewing life, human being as an organic unity always thinks his final goal and strives to get these final goals. According to Adler (in Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 140), “every personhas a natural aptitude for community feeling or social
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interest, the innate ability to engage in cooperative reciprocal social relations”. It assumes that individual builds his or her personality concept is influenced by feeling, social relation, and life’s goal. Adler (in Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 140) also present “the person not only as a unified relational system but also as an integral part of larger system-the family, community, indeed humanity itself: individual psychology regards and examines the individual as socially embedded”. B. Basic Concept of Individual Psychology There are six basic concepts of individual psychology proposd by Adler: (1) inferiority feeling and compensation, (2) fiction finalism, (3) striving for superiority, (4) social interest, (5) style of life, (6) creative self.
1. Inferiority Feeling and Compensation “Inferiority feeling is feelings appear as result of psychological and social weakness in individual’s subjective perception” (Adler in Hall and Lindzey, 1993: 247). It means that source of inferiority feeling is weak feeling or imperfection in each field of life. According to Adler (in Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 141), “in each individual, certain organs are some what weaker than others, making the person more susceptible to illnesses and diseases involving these organs”. It includes organ inferiority in Adler’s concept; “the whole human race is blessed with organ inferiorities” (Feist. 1985:67). Thus, human beings face this organ inferiority with compensation. They strive to climinate their weaknesses with some kinds of manners.
The statement shows that fictional finalism has great significant to motivate people to strive their goals. Fictional goal also influence all individual’s action to create what to be done in daily life for his or her parents perception of the future. Adler insisted “each individual has power to create a personalized fictional goal”. It is constructed “out of the raw materials provided by heredity and environment, but the goal is neither genetically nor environmentally determined” (Feist, 1985: 66). Moreover, Adler states “the creativity of the personality is that power which expresses itself in the desire to develop, to strive, and to achieve and event to compensate for defeats in one direction by striving for success in another” (Monte and Robert, 2003: 173). This is an innate drive to compensate for deficiency that drive individual to set a fictional goal to be successful.
3. Striving for Superiority “Striving for superiority is a single motive, flowing from life itself and shaping the various sub drives” (Adler in Feist, 1985: 70). It means that a man generally is motivated by drive to be superior or more dominate than others. Strriving for superiority responses the feeling of inferiority because a man driven by need overcome the feeling of inferiority and purposed toward superiority. Adler argued “The striving is innate, not acquired. It exists at birth, and precedes feeling of inferiority, rather than springing from then” (Feist, 1985: 70). The striving must be developed to get the direction of superiority though it is innate. Then, Adler in believed that “the striving for superiority is innate and that we are never free of it because it is life itself”. In addition, “at birth, it exists as
potentially, not actuality” (Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 144). This process brings a man toward development from one stage to the next and high stage. Every person has own creative power to strive perfection in his life. “We strive for perfection not only as individuals; as members of society, we strive to perfect our culture” (Adler in Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 144). Adler also states “striving is useless if it doesn’t benefit other people; it is healthy if it proceeds in the direction of social interest” (Feist, 1985: 71). It closely related to social because human beings live in reality with their social world even to strive to create a better life.
4. Social Interest “Social interest is an attitude of relatedness with humanity in general, as well as empathy for each member of the human race” (Adler in Feist, 1985: 71). It means that human being consider their relationship to live cooperatively with others for social importance rather than for personal importance. Adler insisted (in Suryabrata, 2002: 188-189) “Social interest is true and inevitable compensation for all the natural weaknesses of individual human being”. It reflects that “people are pushed by the need to overcome their deep- seated feelings of inferiority and pulled by their desire to be superior” (Adler in Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 147). Adler further defines “social interest is the matter dealing with how create life to be meaningful and useful for others” (Boere, 2008: 143). Actually, Social interest is not only innate as well as achieved as developmental process but also it is acquired both innate and developmental
and compensation; “in infancy we all experience inferiorities, either imaginary or real, that motivate us to compensate in some way” (Hjell and Ziegler, 1992: 145). Human being has different life-style, which becomes any cooperation among them. All of the person’s behavior emerges from his or her style of life and everything is done not far from life-style to get the highest goal. In Adler’s argument, he states “everything we do is shaped and directed by our unique life- style; it determines which aspects of our environment we will attend to and which aspects we will ignore” (Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 145). Adler (in Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 146) maintained four types of life-style attitudes: a. The Ruling Type In this type, people posses a dominating attitude toward the outside world and confront the major life tasks in a hostile, antisocial manner. b. The Getting Type This type shows how people relate to the outside world. People’s main concern in life is getting as much aas possible from others. Because they possess a low degree of activity, however, they are not likely to hurt others. c. The Avoiding Type People have neither sufficient social interest nor avtivity to solve their own problems. Their goal is to sidestep all problems in life, thereby avoiding any possibility of failure.
d. The Socially Useful Type Person with this type expresses a genuine concern for and communication with other people. The person realizes that solving three major tasks (work, friendship, and love) requires cooperation, personal courage, and a willingness to contribute o the welfare of others.
6. Creative Self “The creative self is a dinamic concept”. It implies “movement and this movement is the salient characteristic of life” (Adler in Feist, 1985: 78). This creative power reveals freedom. People have freedom to do and to be what they want, and to create their own style of life to gain the goal. Adler (in Hjelle and Ziegler, 1992: 150) maintained that “the style of life is shaped by the person’s creative power. In other word, each peron is empowered with the freedom to create his or her own life-style”. Adler (in Feist 1985:77) also insisted that “this creative power is responsible for the final goal, determines the method of striving for the goal, and contributes to the development of social interest”. Hence, creative self gives meaning for life. Besides, “creative self creates the goal as well as the element to reach it” (Hall and Lindzey, 1993: 252). It is identified that creative self is an active principle of human being which becomes connection to make easy to strive the goal. Adler also supposed “the creative forces produce perception, memory, imagination,fantasy, and dreams” (Feist, 1985: 78). Based on the assumption, principally, individual has power to realize his or her own desire throughout creative action in daily life.
“Setting denotes the location, historical period, and social surroundings in which the action of a text develops” (Klarer 1999: 25). The setting can shows the situation that is described in the work. Consequently, without setting there will be no story. Setting can give critical information about plot and character that are integrated one another. Setting can be divided into two parts explicitly, setting of place and setting of time. Setting of place deals with where the action takes place, while setting of time is the time when the action happens. c. Plot Plot is the arrangement of events. According to Hall (in Koesnosoebroto 1988: 29), “plot seals with what happens in a story, the story’s organized development, and usually chains linking cause and effect”. Klarer (1999: 15) argued “plot is the logical interaction of the various thematic elements of a text which lead to a change of the original situation as presened at the outset of the narrative”. There are two kinds of plot according to Klarer (1999: 15):
- Traditional Plot Structure In this plot, there are four sequential levels; exposition-complication- climax or turning point-resolution.
- Flashback Plot Sructure Flashback introduces information concerning the past or future into narrative. It also encompasses four levels; climax-resolution-exposition- complication.
d. Point of View Point of view deals with the author’s relationship to his or her fictional character. According to Klarer (1999: 21), “point of view or narrative perspective characterizes the way in which a text presents person, events, and settings”. Klarer (1999: 21) also elaborate three basic positions of point of view:
- Omniscient Point of View This is mediated by external narrator who refers to protagonist in the third person. It presents the action from an all-knowing.
- First Person Narration First Person Narration is prexented by protagonist or by minor character. The action is seen through a participating figure, which refers to her or himself in the first person.
- Figural Narrative Situation The action is mediated through figures acting in the text. e. Style Style is a a choice of words into sentence. Kennedy (1983: 75) presents “style refers to the individual traits or characteristics of a piece of writing; to a writer’s particular ways of managing words that we come to recognize as habitual or customary”. Therefore, style is very important in building a whole of story. Kennedy asserts “style indicates a mode of expression; the language a writer uses”. He also explains the notion of style including “such traits as the
- Make-Up Make-up is an important part to draw a character’s personality. “Make- up originally necesssary because actor’s faces would not register well on early film stocks. It has been used in various ways to enhance the sppearance of actors on the screen” (Bordwell and Thompson, 1990: 133). Therefore, make-up can change physical appearance of actors and create suitable combinstion with costume.
- Lighting Lighting is “more than just illumination that permits us to see the action. Lighter and darker areas within the frame help create the overall composition of each shot and hence guide our eyes to certain objects and action” (Bordwell and Thompson, 1990: 133). Most mainstream films rely on the three point lighting style. The three points are “key light; the major source of illumination, fill light; the opposite side of the camera from the key light, back light; in above and behind the subject, shining down and hitting the subject on the back of the head” (Mamer, 2009: 252-254).
- Figure Expression and Movement Figure involve “a wide range of possibilities, since the figure may represent a person but could also be an animal” (Lassic in Bordwell and Thompson, 1990: 137). Figure expression may be called action because film consists of some kinds of scting of style. Moreover, actor’s performance is the skill to become character in film which is not the real people’s action. Later, Bordwell and Thompson (1990: 138) ensure that “there are many
ways a film might motivate non realistic acting”. One of them is “an attempt to give a realistic performance would make the character stand out as inappropriate to his or her place in the context of the film’s total mise-en- scene”. b. Cinematography Cinematography rfers to the art of technique of movie photography. As said by Bordwell and Thompson (1990: 156), “cinematography depends to a large extent on photography”. In cinematography, there are some elements:
- The Range of Tonalities “An image may seen all grays or stark black and white. It may display a range of colors”. Some images infuence the range of tonalities. “The range of tonalities in the image in the course of the photographic process” (Bordwell and Thompson, 1990: 156-158).
- Speed of Motion The speed of motion depends on the relation between the rate of the film as shot and printed and the rate of projection. Whatever the shooting rate, if the projection rate corresponded, the action would look smooth and realistic (Bordwell and Thompson, 1990: 159). Thus, the speed of motion affects the action’s result of the screen.
- Perspective Relation The photograpic lenses can change perspective relation of the image. “if two different lenses photograph the same scene, the perspective relation
that serve the needs of the film and eventually discarding the rest”. Thus, editing can create a meaningful relation between shot one to another shot. e. Sound According Bordwell and Thompson (1990: 244-247), sound has some advantages for a film. First, it engages another sense mode our visual attention can be accompanied by an aural attention. Second, sound can actively shape how we interpret the image. Third, film sound can direct our attention quite specifically within the image. The last advantage is sound bristles with as many creative possibilities as editing. D. Theoretical Application This research employs the individual psychology theory by Alfred Adler, who analyze the movie. It focuses on the inferiority feeling of two major character in Greg Berlanti’s Life As We Know It. There are some steps in analyzing the movie. Firstly, the analyzing begins from the structural elements of the movie which consists of characters and characterization, setting, plot, point of view, style, theme, and technical elements. Secondly, the writer applies a study about the theory of individual psychology that is appropiate to analyze the problems of personality. It can be done toward action, the dialogues, and the thought of the character. Those steps will answer the objective of the research.
