DEFENSE MECHANISM ADOPTED BY THE PROTAGONISTS … · DEFENSE MECHANISM ADOPTED BY THE PROTAGONISTS AGAINST THE TERROR OF DEATH IN K.A APPLEGATE’S ANIMORPHS AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

DEFENSE MECHANISM ADOPTED BY THE PROTAGONISTS

AGAINST THE TERROR OF DEATH IN K.A APPLEGATE’S

ANIMORPHS

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

By

MIKAEL ARI WIBISONO

Student Number: 124214015

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2016

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ii

DEFENSE MECHANISM ADOPTED BY THE PROTAGONISTS

AGAINST THE TERROR OF DEATH IN K.A APPLEGATE’S

ANIMORPHS

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

By

MIKAEL ARI WIBISONO

Student Number: 124214015

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2016



A SarjanaSastra Undergraduate Thesis

DEFENSE MECIIAMSM ADOPTED BY TITE PROTAGOMSTSAGAINST THE TERROR OT OTATTT IN K.A APPLEGATE'SAAUMORPHS

By

Mikael Ari Wibisono

Student Number: lz4ll4}ls

Defended before the Board of Examiners

On August 25,2A16

and Declared Acceptable

BOARD OF EXAMINERS

Name

Chairperson

Secretary

Member I

Member2

Member 3

Dr. F.X. Siswadi, M.A.

Dra. Sri Mulyani, M.A., ph.D /

Dr. F.X. Siswadi, M.A.

Drs. HirmawanW[ianarkq M.Hum.

Elisa DwiWardani, S.S., M.Hum

Yogyakarta, August 31 z}rc

Faculty of Letters

lv

Dharma Universityfr'.arrr s41

s" -_#1,ffi

QG*l(tls srst*\.\ tQrtnR<{l

. Ari. Subaryo, M. Hum.


STATEMENT OT' ORIGINALITY

I certiff that this undergraduate thsis contains no material which has be€npreviously submitted for the award of any other degroe at any universiry, ad that,to the best of my knowledge, this undergraduate thesis contains no materialpreviously written by any other person except where duo reference is made in thetext of the undergraduate thesis

Yogyakarta, July 14, 2016

Mikael Ari rffibisono


LEMBAR PERNYATAA}I PERSETUJUAI\ PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH

UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma

Nama :Mikael Ari Wibisono

NomorMahasiswa :124214015

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada PerpustakaanUniversitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yangberjudul

DEFENSE MECHANISM ADOPTED BY THE PROTAGONISTSAGAINST THE TERROR OF DEATH IN ICA APPLEGATE'S

ANIMORPHS

Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bilaada). Dengan demikian saya memberikankepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dhanna hak unfuk menyimpan,mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalandata, mendistribusikan secara terbatas dan mempublikasikannya di internet ataumedia lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin kepada sayamaupun memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama sayasebagai penulis.

Demikian pemyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya

Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal 14 Juli 2016

Yang menyatakan

\,igMikael Ari Wibisono


vii

THE MORE YOU

KNOW

THE MORE YOU

FORGET


viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Jesus Christ, for the

protection and blessing given to me. He protected me from harm, ensuring that

nothing will harm me in writing this thesis.

I also would like to express my gratitude to Drs. HirmawanWijanarka,

M.Hum, my thesis advisor who has guided me in writing this thesis. He patiently

notified me about mistakes which I made repeatedly, until I fix those mistakes. He

also told me about various things which helped me in writing this thesis, from

how to write this thesis in proper format to trivial things which I still considered

as important and helpful. I will not forget to give my gratitude to Mrs. Elisa

DwiWardani, S.S., M.Hum for her willingness to become my thesis co-advisor.

She has helped me in correcting several additional mistakes which I made in

writing this thesis.

My gratitude also goes to my parents and brothers whom I love so much.

They often remind me to write my thesis. They often scolded me if I did not write

my thesis. They expressed their love toward me through their scolding because I

believe that they want me to graduate as soon as possible, after that I am able to

fully struggle with the next stage of my life.

I also would like to thank my friends who have accompanied me in writing

this thesis, Cicilia Dwi Saputri, Putri Ekarini, Theresia Anggraini, Bambang

Listyanto, Yoseph Odipus, and Yakobus Joko. They have given me motivation,

encouragement to quickly finish this thesis. I would like to give special gratitude

towards Cicilia Dwi Saputri, who have helped me in fixing the format of this


ix

thesis. She patiently guided me in writing this thesis in the proper format.

Somehow I believe that if they did not often invite me to write thesis together, it

would be hard for me to build enough motivation to finish my thesis.

I also would like to say thank you to people who have provided a place for

me to write my thesis, the Library of Sanata Dharma University, LUK café, Smart

Lounge and Mini Library at Lippo Mall, and KFC joint at Merbabu Hotel. The

existences of these places have helped me find a good place to write my thesis.


x

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE…………………………………………………………………..ii

APPROVAL PAGE……………………………………………………………iii

ACCEPTANCE PAGE………………………………………………………..iv

STATEMENT OF ORIGINAILITY………………………………………....v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH………………………………………………....vi

MOTTO PAGE………………………………………………………………...vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………...vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………x

ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………….xi

ABSTRAK……………………………………………………………………….xii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………...1

A. Background of the Study……………………………………………...1

B. Problem Formulation………………………………………………….4

C. Objectives of the Study……………………………………………….4

D. Definition and Terms………………………………………………….5

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE………………………………..6

A. Review of Related Studies……………………………………………6

B. Review of Related Theories…………………………………………..10

C. Theoretical Framework……………………………………………….16

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………...18

A. Object of the Study…………………………………………………...18

B. Approach of the Study………………………………………………..20

C. Method of the Study…………………………………………………..21

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS……………………………………………………23

A. The Description of the Protagonists’

Characteristics………………………………………………………….23

B. Terrors Faced by the Protagonists, and

Their Impact to the Protagonists………………………….……………32

C. Defense Mechanisms adopted by the Protagonists……………………38

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION………………………………………………..48

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………51

APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………..53

Appendix 1………………………………………………………………53

Appendix 2………………………………………………………………55


xi

ABSTRACT

WIBISONO, MIKAEL ARI, Defense Mechanism Adopted by the Protagonists

Against the Terror of Death in K.A Applegate’s Animorphs. Yogyakarta:

Department of English Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2016.

Death is something that every living thing in this world cannot avoid.

Sooner or later death will come and claim the living things’ life. When someone is

forced to face death (or in other word face the terror of death) it will create a

reaction inside that person’s mind related to the death which he or she faces.

Usually the reaction caused by such even is fear. Fear can be one of things that

affects one’s psychological condition.

This study has three objectives. First, this study describes the characteristic

of the protagonists in Animorphs. Second, after describing the protagonists and

understand their characteristics, this study wants to analyze the kind of terrors

which are faced by the protagonist. Third, after understanding the terror and the

character’s reaction towards it, this study wants to analyze the kind of defense

mechanism that they use, and how they apply it in their daily life

This study used library research methods. First the writer read the main

source of the study which is all of the Animorphsnovels. Second the writer

selected thirteen books and conducted close reading on them. Third the writer then

studied from books, journals, and studies which has a relation with the problem on

the novel. Finally the writer analyzed the relation between the studies/theories and

the novel. The primary source of this study is K.A Applegate’s Animorph, while

the secondary sources are books and journals about psychology, terror, and

defense mechanism. The approach used in this study is psychological approach,

because this study wants to analyze the psychological condition of the

protagonists.

The problems that the protagonists of theAnimorphs have are how their life

is endangered because of the Yeerks’ invasion. This study discovers that the

protagonists of Animorphs choose their defense mechanism based on their

characteristic. Jake, who is considered to be a responsible person, adopted a

defense mechanism called anticipation (realistic planning). Rachel, who is the

most reckless and the bravest member of the team adopted a defense mechanism

called courage (bravely facing any trouble). Marco, who likes to make a joke out

of everything adopted a defense mechanism called humor (Entertaining himself

and others). Tobias, who is a loner, adopted a defense mechanism called

dissociation (distancing himself from others). Cassie, who is a pacifist and hates

violence adopted a defense mechanism called withdrawal, because she prefer to

run away from conflict or violence rather than facing it.


xii

ABSTRAK

WIBISONO, MIKAEL ARI, Defense Mechanism Adopted by the Protagonists

Against the Terror of Death in K.A Applegate’s Animorphs. Yogyakarta:

FakultasSastraInggris, UniversitasSanata Dharma, 2016.

Kematian adalah hal yang tidak bisa dihindari oleh semua mahkluk hidup

di bumi, cepat atau lambat seseorang akan mengakhiri hidupnya atau dengan kata

lain mengalami kematian. Ketika seseorang dipaksa untuk menghadapi kematian,

sebuah reaksi akan muncul di pikiran orang tersebut yang disebabkan oleh bahaya

kematian. Reaksi yang biasanya muncul akibat menghadapi kematian adalah rasa

takut. Rasa takut adalah salah satu hal yang memiliki pengaruh besar pada kondisi

psikologis manusia.

Penelitian ini memiliki tiga objektif. Pertama penelitian ini membahas

karakteristik dari para protagonis novel Animorphs. Kedua, setelah mengetahui

karakteristik para protagonis, penelitian ini membahas teror yang dihadapi oleh

para protagonis. Ketiga, penelitian ini membahas mekanisme pertahanan ego yang

digunakan oleh para protagonis untuk melawan teror tersebut

Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kajian pustaka, langkah pertama yang

diambil oleh peneliti adalah membaca kelima puluh empat novel Animorphs yang

merupakan sumber utama dari penelitian ini. Langkah yang kedua, peneliti

memilih enam belas buku dari lima puluh empat buku untuk dianalisa lebih

mendalam. Langkah yang ketiga, peneliti menyaring dan menganalisa buku,

jurnal, dan penelitian yang berhubungan dengan penelitian ini. Langkahterakhir,

peneliti menganalisa hubungan antara permasalahan yang diajukan dengan teori

dan penelitian yang ada di buku dan jurnal. Sumber utama dari penelitian ini

adalah novel Animorphs karangan K.A Applegate. Sumber sekundernya terdiri

dari berbagai buku dan jurnal yang berkaitan dengan psikologi, terror, dan

mekanisme pertahanan ego. Pendekatan yang digunakan oleh penelitian ini adalah

pendekatan psikologis. Karena penelitian ini menganalisa kondisi psikologis dari

para protagonis.

Masalah yang dihadapi oleh para protagonist dari novel Animorphs adalah

terancamnya hidup mereka karena invasi dari Yeerks. Penelitian ini

menyimpulkan bahwa para protagonis menggunakan mekanisme pertahanan ego

berdasarkan sifat dan karakteristik mereka. Jake yang dianggap paling dewasa dan

bertanggung jawab menggunakan mekanisme yang disebut anticipation

(mempersiapkan rencana dalam segala situasi). Rachel, karakter yang paling

pemberani menggunakan mekanisme courage (beranimelawanmasalah). Marco,

yang kesehariannya suka bercanda dalam segala situasi menggunakan mekanisme

humour (menghibur diri sendiri dan orang lain). Tobias yang seorang penyendiri

menggunakan mekanisme withdrawal (menjauhkan diri dari orang lain). Cassie

yang paling lembut serta membenci pertikaian darah menggunakan mekanisme

bernama withdrawal (melarikan diri dari masalah karena tidak tahan dengan

masalah tersebut).


1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Every living thing in this world will eventually die; we do not know when

we will experience it. We usually never care about it in our life because our daily

life runs as normal as usual. But what if our life is terrorized by death or in other

words we are faced with a situation which could endanger our life.

The impact of being under the terror of death may change people’s

personality completely, for example, it may change a person with happy go lucky

attitude into someone with a gloomy mood. In worst case it may also cause

someone to lose their sanity. The impact also may disturb people’s social life, for

example the fear makes them depressed and scared enough as the result it will be

hard for people to socialize with others. In K.A Applegate’s Animorphs, The

protagonists of the books face this kind of situation; their life is terrorized by an

alien race known as Yeerks. The protagonists have to risk their life multiple times

to protect themselves and planet earth from the Yeerks’ secret invasion.

Fear can be one thing that affects one’s psychological condition the most;

every person in this world has different reaction toward fear. Some people may

not show any reaction of fear whenever they were facing certain terror which

usually terrorized people’s mind, they either does not get scared or they try to act


2

tough in front of other people while in fact they were scared inside. People like

this usually want to show other people that he or she is fearless, and ready to face

anything, sometimes people like this also want to be a role model for the people

around him/her so that they too can be as fearless as he/she is. There are also

people who like to run from the trouble. They tend to deny the fact which is

happening in front of them. They pretend that nothing happen, they are trying to

believe that everything is fine, but inside their heart they know that the terror is

exist and it is unavoidable.

Self-esteem, it is argued, safeguards people against the ill effects

stemming from many of life's problems. This premise assumes that people

with high self-esteem, in contrast to those with low self-esteem, will

behave in more socially acceptable and responsible ways, will somehow

be more resilient to life's vicissitudes, will generally display higher

achievement in conventional pursuits, and will ultimately possess greater

socio emotional well-being (Burns, 1979; Covington, 1992)

Both Burns and Covington believes that self-esteem development is really

important, as they believe that it will help protecting our mind from any kind of

terror towards it and it will make it easier for us to think of a solution to overcome

the terror.

Self esteem itself is more like our confidence toward our self; this

confidence is the one which is usually used by human to show their courage.

People who have lots of self esteem are usually more courageous or confident in

facing almost any kind of situation than people who have less self esteem. People

with low self esteem will more likely be shaken or confused whenever they were

facing dangerous situation.


3

It is interesting to analyze how people react toward something which

terrorizes their mind. The different reaction shown by people is usually caused

because of their natural personality. For example, people who naturally have a

brave and courageous personality usually react against such condition nearly

without showing any fear in front of people, but that’s not always the case because

sometimes there are also people who response to terror by clearly showing their

fear even though naturally they have a brave and courageous personality.

It seems that the level of terror also affect how people react towards it, the

bigger the terror the more it affect people’s mind. For some if not most people,

terror of death is the biggest terror of their life. Whenever they are facing this

terror they cannot control their fear and thus it greatly affects their daily life.

B. Problem formulation

Based on the background of the study mentioned above, this study will

analyze these three problems

1. How the protagonists’ characteristics are described in the story?

2. What are the terrors faced by the protagonists and their impact to the

protagonists?

3. What kind of defense mechanisms are utilized by the protagonists based on

their characteristics?


4

C. Objectives of the Study

The objective of this study is divided into three parts. First this study

wants to analyze how the protagonists are described in the novel. As stated in the

title, in which this study wants to analyze how the protagonists react to certain

terror, it is important to understand how the protagonists are described in the

novel. The first problem focuses on describing their characteristic, how they

interact with other people.

Second, after describing the protagonists and understand their characters,

this study wants to analyze what kind of terrors which are faced by the

protagonist. This study also explains how those terrors are able to strike the

protagonist both physically and mentally

Third, after understanding the terror and the character’s reaction towards

it, this study wants to analyze what kind of defense mechanisms which are utilized

by the protagonists to help themselves coping against anything which is caused by

the terror.

D. Definition and Terms

The word terror mentioned on the title is something which causes very

strong feeling of fear (Merriam Webster, 2015)

Defense mechanism is psychic procedures for avoiding painful admissions

or recognitions (Peter Barry, 1995: 98)


5

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

A. Review of Related studies

Therese Holm (2001) studied about the use of language in several

children’s book, which among them is Animorphs. According to Holm, the

language in Animorphs is somewhat cliché-filled and flat, she is referring to the

use of repetitive expression or passages that seems to be bit turgid in front of adult

reader. For example: “He just looked at me with those deep, troubled eyes –eyes I

can now see only in my memory” (Animorphs 1999: 56).

This style of writing is usually brushed off by adult reader. They consider

it as badly written. Yet for those who usually cares about the plot of the book

rather than the writing style prefer this kind of writing style because it made it

easier for them to read.

Roger D. Sell (2002) compared Animorphs with the famous children show

known as Power Rangers, both media has two similarities. First, the main plots of

both stories are about five teenagers who are given a special power to protect their

planet from evil.

Second, the unification of the group (from both media) somehow erase the

individuality from each person. They become more care to each other more than

they care about their own wellbeing. Roger symbolizes this as the need of erasing

individuality for the sake of a greater good (in Animorphs the greater good refer to

protecting the planet from yeerks’ invasion)


6

Roger symbolizes the protagonists’ ability to morph into any creature that

they touched as children’s metamorphosis into adult hood. When they leave their

human body to morph into animal form, they leave their normal human mind and

body into something new, something which they never know before, something

which sometimes are dangerous for them. for the sake of saving other people, it is

similar to children who has to leave their childish personality in order to find

something better and new for their development.

He also stated that the protagonists’ ability to morph can also be viewed

from negative perspective, from this perspective the morph can be symbolized as

people who want to cast away their identity, or people who try to throw away their

old identity because they feel more comfortable in their new identity.

Dr Edwin Bakker and Dr Beatrice De Graaf study that something like

terrorist attack or terrorist threats can cause a shock to some people. They will be

terrorized or traumatized by those events that may disrupt people’s psychological

condition.

Terrorist attacks, and even terrorist threats, can be considered traumatic

events. Such events are defined in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

of Mental Disorders IV” as an event in which the person experienced,

witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual

or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to physical integrity of

self of others (Edwin Baker, 2014:5).

According to them, the differences of fear shown by people whenever they

were experiencing this event were not caused by the level of the terror. The

difference is caused by the perception, imagination and vulnerability of targeted

audiences or otherwise involved parties. In other words each people have different

ways of perceiving their fear when they were terrorized by such event.


7

Fear should not be considered merely as a negative reaction to threats and

attacks. In fact, fear of danger is a very natural and useful emotion. Fear is

a survival mechanism. Fear of terrorism can encourage people to take the

necessary precautions and actions (Edwin Baker, 2014: 2).”

They also believe that fear does not always bring negative effect, people

can use that fear as stepping stone so that they can overcome that situation. This is

related with the previous statement that each person have different reaction of

fear, it is up to them to manage their own fear. They can let the fear consume their

mind, or they will try to overcome those fear.

“Recall the valence prediction that fearful and angry individuals will make

risk-averse choices across gain and loss frames when compared with

individuals who are low in dispositional fear and anger. The appraisal-

tendency approach generates the same prediction for fearful individuals.

However, it differs for angry individuals, predicting that they will make

risk-seeking choices across frames.”(Lerner, 2001: 3-4).

Jenifer S Lerner and Dacher Keltner analyze about the result of human’s

fear and anger. They study that human’s fear may cause severe result to

themselves or even to everyone around them. The result is caused by people’s

behavior when they were affected by strong emotion like fear and anger.

In the end, what makes this study different from the previously mentioned

studies is that this study explores the relation between the protagonists’

characteristics with their mental condition. This study also focuses on analyzing

how the protagonists of Animorphs utilize certain defense mechanism to cope

against the terror. This study also analyzes the development of the protagonist

caused by the terror, how the terrors mold the protagonist into a different kind of

person which depends on how well they suppress the terror.


8

B. Review of related Theories

1. Terror Management Theories

Because this thesis explores someone’s reaction whenever they face

something which terrorize their mind, this thesis adopts terror management

theory.

Terror management theory is a theory which revolves around the

management of self esteem to control psychological conflict which is caused by

facing the terror of death. This theory is proposed by Seldon Solomon, Jeff

Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski

Self-esteem is sought because it provides protection against the fear of

death, the fear of death is rooted in an instinct for self-preservation that

humans share with other species. Although we share this instinct with

other species, only we are aware that death is inevitable--that is, that our

self preservation instinct will inevitably be thwarted.

(Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986: 1).

This theory seems to assume that self esteem management is important in

coping against fear. Self Esteem can provide protection to one’s mind because it

will reduce the thought of fear as long as people can manage their self esteem

really well. terror management theory, increased self-esteem

According to terror management theory, increased self esteem should

enhance the functioning of the cultural anxiety buffer and thereby provide

protection against death concerns. In effect, high self-esteem should

reduce the effects of MS on worldview defense.

(Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986: 6)

People who have more self esteem is believed by this theory to be able to

control their behavior and fear in front of other people whenever they were facing

terror of death.


9

Mruk (1999) also agreed that self esteem is an important factor in

defending our mind from threatening factor. Mruk believed that people with high

self esteem will be able to develop a better control toward threatening thought.

a People with either dispositionaly high or experimentally enhanced self-

esteem exhibit less anxiety and anxiety-related defense in response to

threatening stimuli. High self esteem has also been shown to decrease

defensive responses to thoughts of death.

(Harmon-Jones, 1997)

On the other hand, according to Mruk (1999) the mind of people with low

self esteem will more likely be affected when they are experiencing threatening

stimuli that could affect their mind. Their emotion will be susceptible to various

negative effect because the lack of self esteem.

People with lower trait self-esteem tend to experience virtually every

aversive emotion more frequently than people with higher self-esteem.

Trait self-esteem correlates negatively with scores on measures of anxiety,

sadness, depression, hostility, anger, social anxiety, shame, guilt,

loneliness, as well as general negative affectivity and neuroticism.

(Mruk, 1999)

In summary terror management theory believes that it is important for

people to manage their self esteem really well. Because if they want to have better

control toward threatening thought, increasing their self esteem is useful to

maintaining their control toward their mind/emotion. The more self esteem people

have, the more they can control their emotion toward threatening stimuli. On the

other hand, people with low self esteem will more likely be unable to control their

emotion toward threatening stimuli


10

2. Theory of Characterization

In fiction especially in Novel, characters or casts always exist inside of it.

In a novel character is the one responsible for what happen in the story, they are

the actor who is involved with what happen in the story.

Thus in every novel there is a term known as Characterization.It is how the

character in the story are described, their appearance, personality, and how they

interact with the plot. Minderop (2005) stated that in novel there are two methods

that are usually used to characterizing the character inside the novel, they are:

a. Direct method

Direct method characterization is done by the writer itself. The writer,

without the use of any character inside the novel explicitly mentioned the

characteristic of the character inside the novel.

b. Indirect method

Indirect method characterization is usually done by ignoring the existence

of the writer. The characterization is done through the characters inside the novel

itself. Usually one character will describe the characteristic of another character.

Minderop (2005:) stated that characterization in a novel involves six things;

i. Through the dialogue or conversation between each characters

From the conversation between character we may gain information about

the characters inside the novel, for example; Person A is talking to person B, in


11

their conversation person A discuss about Person C, in it he describes who is

person C, his characteristic, his personality, how person C interact with each

other. In some cases person A will reveal about himself, either to another

character (person B for example) or to the reader.

ii. The setting of the conversation

In fiction or even in reality, the setting of the conversation will affect the

characterization process, for example people who converse in a public area will

have less serious discussion compared to those who converse in a more private

area, thus their conversation will be affected by the situation, because when

people wanted to talk about other people in a public area they are cautious with

other people who may hear the conversation. They are afraid if their conversation

is heard and eventually known by that person or they afraid that they may broke

that people’s reputation

iii. The character which is discussed or characterized

This refers to the characters which being characterized in the conversation

in a novel, we can call this character as the object of characterization because

he/she is the one being described by other characters.

iv. The mental condition of the character

Mental condition is one of characteristics of the character inside the novel.

The mental condition of a character can be seen from how they talk, interact with


12

other people, and dealing with their problem. Sometimes mental condition of a

character is mentioned explicitly by another character.

v. Intonation, dialect, and vocabulary

Intonation will reveal the nature of a character, the level of intonation

when a character is talking will determine their personality (Minderop : 34).

Vocabulary is also important in determining the characteristic of a character, for

example, we can learn that a character is a polite and kind character if he/she

tends to use polite words when speaking other people. On the other hand a

character which tends to use harsh, rude, or impolite words can be easily

identified as a character with an impolite characteristic. From the use vocabulary

we can also imagine the background of a character.

vi. The action of the character.

Aside from how they speak, how the characters act and behave in the story

also can give us an image of their characteristic. For example we can know that a

person has short temper emotion by analyzing how that person tends to do

something unpredictable like injuring other character when he/she is irritated.

3. Theory of Defense Mechanisms

Defense mechanism is psychic procedures for avoiding painful admissions

or recognitions (Peter Barry, 1995: 98). Defense mechanism is utilized by people

(both consciously and unconsciously) to defend their mind from psychological

attack after certain event.


13

George Valliant studied about defense mechanism and introduced a

version of defense mechanism based from his idea. He classified defense

mechanisms into four levels, Psychotic, Immature, Neurotic and Mature.

a. Psychotic Level Defense Mechanism

Psychotic level defense mechanism is commonly used to alter the reality

of the user’s mind. Thus the users of this type of mechanisms are often looked by

other people as insane or crazy. The mechanisms which are included in this level

are: (Valiant, 1992: 243-244)

i. Delusional projection

Delusions about external reality, the user of this mechanism imagine about

an imaginary situation different from the actual situation.

ii. Denial

Refusing to accept the reality, they believe that the situation around them

is not real.

iii. Distortion

Crude reshaping of external reality to fit the victim’s mind, this is similar

with delusional projection only in this mechanism the user tries to imagine the

current situation into their liking

b. Immature level defense mechanism


14

Immature level defense mechanisms often alter distress engendered by

threat. Although it will take some times before the user is able to heal their

problem, the change caused by using this mechanisms is really significant, they

will have a lot of improvement in relationships with other people . The

mechanisms of this level are: (Valiant, 1992:244-245).

i. Projection

Attributing one’s unacknowledged feeling toward others, this mechanism

involves sharing what is hidden inside the user’s mind to other people.

ii. Schizoid fantasy

Tendency to use fantasy to escape from the problem, the user fantasize

about something which is able to ease up their stress

iv. Passive-aggressive behavior

Aggression toward others caused by passivity, the user annoy other people

around them by suddenly acting passively

v. Acting out

Direct expression of unconscious wish or impulses, the users express their

hidden actual feeling to other people consciously or unconsciously.


15

c. Neurotic Defense Mechanisms

Neurotic level defense mechanisms alter private feelings or instinctual

expression. To the beholder they appear as individual quirks or neurotic hang-ups.

They often can be dramatically changed by conventional, brief psychotherapeutic

interpretation. The mechanisms of this level are: (Valiant, 1986: 786-794).

i. Repression

The mechanism which involves withholding one’s feeling in their mind,

the user usually tried to hold their true feeling inside their mind in order to hide it

from other people.

ii. Withdrawal

Removing oneself from the reality, the user of this mechanism prefer to

cut their ties to other people or the community around them to avoid painful strike

to their mind

iv. Isolation

The mechanism in which the user cut the ties between their emotion with

reality. The users of this mechanism tend to face certain annoyance without

involving their natural emotion.

v. Displacement

Shifting aggressive impulses to, or acceptable target


16

vi. Undoing

Attempting to undo threatening thought, the user of this mechanism try to

repent their threatening behavior by doing the opposite of said behavior.

d. Mature Level Defense Mechanism

Mature level defense mechanisms are commonly found among

emotionally healthy adults and are considered mature, even though many have

their origins in an immature stage of development. They have been adapted

through the years in order to optimize success in human society and relationships.

The use of these defenses enhances pleasure and feelings of control. These

defenses help to integrate conflicting emotions and thoughts, whilst still remaining

effective. Those who use these mechanisms are usually considered virtuous

(Valiant, 1992: 239-246).

The mechanisms of this level are:

i. Altruisms

Instinctually gratifying service to others, the user of this mechanism try to

make their mind feel better by making other people satisfied with what the user do

to them.


17

ii. Anticipation

It is a defense mechanism which involves realistic planning for future

events. The users of this defense mechanism literally anticipated the danger and

making a plan in order to prevent the situation from causing disturbance to the

user or people around them.

iii. Acceptance

This mechanism is the opposite of denial, the users of this mechanism

positively accepting their actual situation.

iv. Patience

The defense mechanism in which the users patiently endure their current

difficult circumstances until it passes away.

v. Humor

Expression of ideas or feelings that brings pleasure to oneself or others.

Sometimes the users of humor sarcastically jokes about the current situation in

order to cheer the users or the people around them.

vi. Courage

The willingness to face a certain threat, the user of this mechanism prefer

to face the problem head on rather than run away from it.


18

C. Theoretical Framework

Terror management is used to solve the problems that study have from

analyzing the novel (Animorphs). The first problem may not be answered by

applying the theory, as the first problem is about finding out what is the source of

the terror, and how that terror were able to incite fear in the protagonists’ mind.

Terror management theory can be applied to solve the second and third problem,

the second problem is about what is the effect of the terror, this is related to the

level of self esteem that the protagonists of the novel (Animorphs) has. Because

all protagonists have different kind of self esteem the effect of the terror will also

be varied. This study analyzes the level of self esteem that each of the protagonists

possess, and see how does it helps the character in defending their mind or

emotion against the terror of death from their enemies. As stated before in

previous section that terror management theory deal with the management of self

esteem, thus the study will adopt that theory to see the management of self esteem

inside the novel.

George Valliant’s defense mechanisms will be used to analyze how the

characters of Animorphs cope with their situation. What kind of defense

mechanism that they will adopt to help them coping with their problem, what is

the result of using that defense mechanism, whether they are able to manage their

situation by using the defense mechanism or not.

This thesis fused the application of Terror Management Theory and

Defense Mechanism, because this thesis believed that both theories can be

synchronized to solve the problem. Theory of Terror Management will be used to


19

understand how the character react to the terror, or in the word how the terror

affected the protagonists, are they scared, or will they fight back against the terror.

After learning their behavior toward the terror this thesis analyzed what kind of

attempt which they used to fight the terror which lingered in their mind.

Minderop’s characterization of characters in a novel will be used to further

understand the nature of the character of Animorphs. It is difficult or maybe

impossible to analyze the protagonists’ reaction toward the terror if we do not

understand the characteristic of the protagonists.


20

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

A. Object of the Study

Animorphs is a series of novel written by K.A Applegate, the whole story

consists of 54 books. There are also ten spin-off series which even tough are not

really important to the main story it still has relation with the main story. The

series was published by Scholastic, the first main book was published on June

1996 while the last book was published on May 2001.

Animorphs is written in first person style, the story is told by a narrator

which is none other than the protagonists themselves. Each book is narrated by

different character, for example book one is narrated by Jake while book two is

narrated by Rachel and so on. Only the last book which had different style of

narration, the last book is narrated by all of the character.

Twenty six books of Animorphs series were written by ghostwriters.

Typically, K. A. Applegate would write a detailed outline for each book, and a

ghostwriter, would spend a month or two writing the actual novel. After this,

Applegate, and later her series editor, Tonya Alicia Martin, would edit the book to

make it fit in with the series' tight continuity. Ghostwriters are credited for their

help in the book's dedication page.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._A._Applegate

21

The books was re-released from May 2011 to September 2012, but

because of tepid sales, the re-release version only released eighths of the original

fifty four books.

On 1998 Animorphs series were adapted into television series by

Nickelodeon; the series is split into two seasons, 20 episodes on season one, and 6

episode on season 2. The series lasted approximately 20 minutes (minus

commercial).

The television series is not a complete adaption, although it borrows lots of

element from the books, not all of the story in the books was adapted into the

series. Animorphs had also been adapted into several video games, not only that a

toy line based on Animorphs were also made in 1999, but the commercial was

rather unsuccessful so the sale was cancelled.

The story of Animorphs is about five teenagers who accidently involved in

an alien war. The story begins when the five teenagers walk from a shopping mall

together through a construction site. On the construction site they meet with an

alien named Elfangor. This alien tells the five teenagers about an alien race called

Yeerks which is about to invade planet earth, after Elfangor gives them a special

power. These five teenagers must risk their life multiple times to save their planet

from the Yeerks. Yeerks is a parasite-like alien race which has similar form as

slugs, they are able to enter people’s head and then control those people from

their brain. This makes the fight against the Yeerks is difficult, because the


22

Animorphs cannot trust anyone about their secret identity, anyone can be invaded

by yeerks, neighbor, teacher, friends, and even their family.

The elements of the story is about war (because they fight against the

yeerks) survival and horror ( because they risked their life multiple times),

freedom (because they fight to liberate earth and other planets from the yeerks).

B. Approach of the Study

This thesis uses psychological approach, because the study deals with how

people are coping with a condition that cause terror to their mind, this approach is

used to get better understanding the relation between the protagonists’

characteristics and their psychological condition.

Psychological approach itself as the name suggests analyzed the ”Victim”,

and then learned their faulty behaviors and habits, along with damaging words,

thoughts, interpretations and feedback that affect strategies for daily living after

receiving a certain psychological attack or in this case, the terror of death.

Psychological approaches assume that many disorders result from mental,

behavioral, and social factors, such as personal experiences, traumas, conflicts,

and environmental conditions. (Paris, 1997)

Paris (1997) stated that human characters in literature works were not

simply functions in a text or encoded messages from the author, but they were

imagined human beings whose characteristics made sense in motivational terms.


23

Thus a psychological understanding about these characteristics will make the

literature works more fascinating. Because if we analyze the characters’

psychological condition, we will get better understanding about

Thus, by using psychological approach, this study analyzes how the terror

affect the character inside the novel, what kind of reaction is shown in the novel,

and find out why they show that reaction. This approach is used in relation with

one of the theory which is used in this study, which is the terror management

theory. As terror management theory analyze how the protagonists manage their

self esteem to cope against the terror, the psychological approach is used to jelp

finding it out and also learn the relation between the terror and the character’s

reaction.

C. Method of the Study

The study adopts library research method, the researcher gathered various

data and theories which is relevant with the study by looking it from a various

book and other source. There is no interviewing some people in gathering the

data, because the data in this study is purely from books and other written material

(like journal from a website for example). The source itself is books which

contain important information related to the theory which is used in this study and

also written material which contain information which is able to help this study.

The main source of this study is K.A Applegate’s novel Animorphs. Altough the

writer did read the entire fifty books, only eighteen from fifty four books were

chosen to be used to analyze the protagonists. The chosen book are book #1, #3,


24

#4, #5, #6, #7, #10, #11, #15, #16, #17, #19, #21, #22, #25, #27, #33, and #34 The

reason why only eighteen books were chosen is because the chosen book was

enough to describe each of the protagonists’ characteristic. The protagonists’

characteristic also doesn’t change at all. In book #15 Rachel is described as brave

and reckless, in book #54 Rachel is still brave and reckless. It doesn’t mean that

the other book doesn’t have any kind of description regarding the protagonists’

characteristic. It is just that if this study used all the data from the entire series,

this study will lose its primary focus and will just become a study about

explaining Animorphs in general. The secondary data are Peter Barry’s The

Beginning Theory, Edwin Bakker’s Towards a Theory of Fear Management in the

Counterterrorism Domain: A Stocktaking Approach, Ernest Becker’s The Denial

of Death, and George Vaillant’s Ego Mechanisms of Defense: A Guide for

Clinicians and Researchers. Other sources also include journal and studies which

has relations to this study.

The first step that the writer did was reading all of the fifty four Animorphs

novels. After finished reading all of the novels, the writer chose sixteen books

from the fifty four novels which considered important in helping the writer on

working on this thesis and reread them thoroughly again in order to fully

understand the problem which is faced by each of the protagonists. The writer

then studied from books, journals, and studies which has a relation with the

problem on the novel. Finally the writer analyzed the relation between the

studies/theories and the novel.


25

CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS

As stated in the title, this research adopted the terror management theory to

analyze the problem. Terror management theory concern with how to deal or treat

a psychological attack caused by various thing related to terror (which in this

study’s case is terror of death) to human’s mind and analyze what happen inside

their mind when they are dealing with the trouble. This thesis also analyzed how

the protagonists adopt defense mechanism in order to cope with the terror. The

analysis in this study will be split into several parts based on the number of

problem that it has.

A. Description of the Protagonists’ Characteristics.

Minderop stated that there are several ways of describing a character in a

story. K.A Applegate, the writer of this story seems to characterize or describing

the characters inside the story from the opinion of other character, instead of

directly mentioning it herself, by using the third person perspective. The novel

Animorphs is told from the first person perspective, each book is narrated by each

protagonists, telling the story from their own perspective (for example book one is

told from Jake’s perspective, because he is the narrator of said book, and then

book two is told from Rachel’s perspective and so on). Thanks to this method it is

easier for the reader to analyze the character itself, because by looking at the way


26

they describe other character, and also their expression and emotion when

speaking, it is easier for the reader to analyze the character inside the novel.

1. The Description of Jake’s Characteristics

The First character to be described is Jake, from other character’s

perspective (from books which is narrated by any character other than Jake), Jake

is the kind of person who has the charisma as the leader of the team. Other

characters often look up into him whenever they need a decision in any situation

(especially difficult ones). Rachel, in book seventeenth stated that Jake is a very

responsible person, he is described as someone who is needed on a team.

But it was tricky, see, because we knew Jake, my cousin and our sort-of

leader, might get all tense and righteous on us. Not that he's that way at all.

He isn't. But he's very responsible. Someone has to be, and it sure isn't me.

(Animorphs #17, 1996:2).

Jake is also depicted to be kind and humble as well, as although he often be

considered as the de facto leader of the team and often becomes the one who gives

command to the team, he does not want to be called as leader. This is proven

whenever he is called by prince by Ax, because of his leadership, Jake dislike that,

and he often reminds Ax to not call him prince.

<l am Aximili-Esgarrouth-lsthil.>

We all just kind of stared.

"Ax," Marco said. "Pleased to meet you"

<Who is your prince?>

One by one we looked at Jake.

"Oh, give me a break," Jake said. "I am not anyone's prince."

But the Andalite had stepped forward.

He bowed his head and lowered his tail.

<I will fight for you, Prince Jake, until I can return to my cousins.>

(Animorphs #4, 1996:61).


27

Even though Jake does not consider himself as the leader of the team, he

cares greatly about the safety of his friends, he often feel responsible whenever his

plan does not go as planned and eventually put him and his friend in danger. He

often shown worried and scared whenever his friends are put in danger. Jake’s

responsibility is one of the reason why his friends tends to rely on him in making

a decision.

In accordance to Terror Management Theory, where the management of

self esteem is very important in fighting the terror in people’s mind, Jake has a

good control toward his self esteem; he is able to keep his emotion in check even

in a dangerous situation. Numerous times throughout the series, the protagonists

other than Jake describe him as the person capable of handling certain situation

which no other protagonists is capable of, like giving the right strategy in the

middle of a battle.

If we Animorphs have a leader, it's Jake. He's strong, inside and out, and

really good looking, also inside and out. I mean, he's just an amazingly

cool guy. Jake has had to grow up a lot in a very short time. It's weird to be

a kid, and yet act like some kind of a general or something. We all decide

the big stuff together. But when we're in a fight, it's Jake who has to make

the little decisions a lot of times, the little decisions that could leave one of

his friends dead.

(Animorphs #9, 1997:10)

Jake’s capability in controlling his self esteem is the reason why he is

chosen by his friend to be leader of Animorphs. Based on his friend’s decision, we

can see that Jake is the person who can control his self esteem better than his

friend. Even though Jake is capable of managing his self esteem, that does not

mean he cannot get worried or scared. Sometimes when his decision goes wrong


28

and put his entire friend in danger, Jake will show his fear and confusion. He gets

scared because he feels responsible for what happen to his friend.

2. The Description of Marco’s Characteristics

Marco is the second character to be described in this study. In the story,

Marco only lives with his father, they mother was believed to be missing on the

sea and presumed dead by everyone. After the accident, his father was greatly

depressed that it caused him to quit his job.

“Marco and his dad live in a garden apartment complex. One of the older

ones, on the far side of the big neighborhood where Jake and Rachel both

live. I'd only been over there a couple of times. I think Marco is kind of

embarrassed because he doesn't have much money. He used to live in a

house just down the street from Jake. But that was when his mother was

still alive, and before his father had a breakdown and quit his job.”

(Animorphs #4, 1996:42).

Marco’s mother who was believed to be dead is actually alive; she was

infested by a Yeerks known as Visser One, the highest ranking Visser in Yeerks

world. Before he learned that fact, he is reluctant in becoming Animorphs,

become the guardian of the earth, because he does not want to make his dad to

lose another family member again. After learning the truth about his mother,

Marco became determined to fight against the Yeerks and defeat them, in order to

save his mother from Visser One’s control.

Even though Marco’s family is in a devastated condition Marco, is

depicted as the kind of guy who likes to make fun or joke on anything. He often

makes fun of everything, even in a most dire situation he still able to make a

sarcastic comment, which intended to either cheer up his friend, or he just


29

annoyed by the situation. His habit of making jokes is sometimes able to irritate a

person to a certain degree. Sometimes he make a joke about something which is

not suitable to his or their current condition, and sometimes he accidentally make

a joke which can hurt other people’s feeling. Rachel often disliked Marco’s joke,

Marco and Rachel often argued with each other, this is caused by Marco’s

constant annoying comment toward Rachel, regarding her personality.

Sometimes, Marco’s joke can be seen as an attempt to hide his true feeling

(shy, fear, etc) in a certain condition. He once stated it himself that he makes jokes

to defend his mind from anything that may harm his inner mind. His habit to make

a joke also can be seen to hide his sadness because of the loss of his mother. He

doesn’t want other people to know his inner mind. He forces himself to make

other people believe that Marco is the guy who likes to crack a joke.

“My dad stood for a long time, looking down at the white marble

headstone. It has my mom's name. The day she was born, the day she died.

And a message that says, "No wife, no mother, was ever more loved, or

more deeply missed."

My dad and I stood a few feet apart. We didn't say anything. We both just

kind of cried.

You probably wouldn't think I was the kind of guy who would cry. Mostly

I don't. Mostly I make jokes about things. It's better to laugh than to cry,

don't you think?

I do, even when the world is scary and sad, especially when the world is

scary and sad. That's when you need to laugh.” (Animorphs #5: 81)

Compared to Jake, Marco has less control toward his self esteem. In the

story, whenever Marco was put in a dire situation, he was overwhelmed by the

fear in his mind. For Example in book #21, After the Animorphs morphed into a

flea in order to infiltrate a meeting between world leaders, Marco was unable to

control his transformation back into his human form. If Marco did not able to


30

transform back in time, he will be stuck in the form of flea for the rest of his life.

This caused him to panic and made him unable to control his transformation even

further.

3. The Description of Rachel’s Characteristics

In term of appearances Rachel is depicted as beautiful, she always wears

clothes which made her looks like a beautiful model. Despite Rachel’s beautiful,

model-like appearances, her personality is bold and reckless; Her friends

considered her as the type of person who always jumped into action.

I guess most guys would say Rachel is prettier. Personally, I don't think of

her that way because she's my cousin. But Rachel does look like some

kind of blond supermodel. Not that Rachel acts like Ms. Fashion. Just the

opposite if there's danger, Rachel is right there, usually a few steps ahead

of anyone else. (Animorphs #6, 1996:11).

From the quotation above, Rachel is described as the kind of person who

prefer to challenge the danger or terror rather than running away from it.

<Hammerheads!> I yelled. <Hammerheads!>

We drove down beneath the surface, and there they were: hammerhead

sharks.

<There must be ten of them!> Tobias said.

<Ten of them against five dolphins and a tiger shark,> Rachel said. <We

can handle it.>

There are times when I really admire Rachel's reckless courage. But


31

there are other times when I just want to slap her. We had fought sharks

before. We had won, but it had been a close call. Very, very close. And

there were more sharks this time.

<Easy, everyone. We don't know they're going to attack us.> Jake said,

as calmly as he could with ten sharks heading straight for us.

(Animorphs #15, 1998:35)

In book #15, The Animorphs encountered more than ten hammerhead

sharks while on a reconnaissance mission under the sea. Despite the

overwhelming odd, Rachel prefers to fights all the sharks rather than run away

from them. She even shows disappointment when all of her friends decided to run

away from the shark.

I have been afraid many times since becoming an Animorphs. But this was

bad. There are few things as horrifying as watching a shark come at you.

Knowing he intends to eat you.

<0kay, look, we don't need this fight,> Jake said. <Let's get out of here.>

<Just run away?!> Rachel asked in outrage. <You're welcomed to stay

behind, Rachel,> I said.

(Animorphs #15, 1998:35)

Rachel’s recklessness can be clearly seen from quotations above, she is the

kind of person who likes to face the problem head on rather than run away from

the problem.

Aside from her bold and reckless characteristics she is also described as

short tempered person. Even though she often shown to be brave in facing a

certain dangerous situation, whenever she deems the odd to be too overwhelming

for her to handle, or she dislikes a certain situation so much she will be unable to

control her self esteem. Her inability to control her self esteem is shown through

her outburst anger and showing an irresponsible attitude. She once decided to skip

school after being told that it is impossible to win the war against the Yeerks by

an Omniscient creature called Ellimist. Her action causes an argument between


32

her and her teammates; they berated her for how she skips school and run amok in

a morph form. Rachel’s control toward self esteem is not as good as Jake’s control

toward his. Rachel is unable to conceal her inner feeling. Another example is on

book #22, in which a boy named David angered Rachel so much that she wants to

kill him.

I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.

No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was

going to kill him. I felt sick inside. It might have been the morphing that

was annihilating my internal organs and replacing them with the primitive

organs of a housefly. Or it might have been the feeling that comes from

rage and hate.

(Animorphs #22 1998: 13)

The quotation above is told from Rachel’s perspective; in the quotation

Rachel shows her desire to kill David. She questioned whether her desire to kill

David is because of her inner rage or not. Another example is from book #33, in

this book Rachel loses her self control and wants to kill an enemy named Taylor

because Rachel can’t forgive what Taylor did to Tobias.

Rachel's claws closed on Taylor's neck, crushing her esophagus. She was

turning blue, suffocating. "Help!" she rasped pitifully. "Someone help

me!"

<Rachel! No. Rachel, don't do it!>

<She dies, Tobias. For what she did to you, she dies.> She moved as if

to slam Taylor against the wall.

<No!> I yelled. <Rachel. No.>

Rachel turned to look at me, hesitated. Then dropped Taylor like a

crumpled candy wrapper. The sub-visser fell to the floor and scrambled for

the door.

(Animorphs #33 1999: 80)

From the examples above, it is safe to assume that whenever Rachel is

angered enough, she will do irrational act without any second thought. The

examples from book #22 and #33 shows that Rachel’s anger clouded her


33

judgment that she believes murder are the solution to the problem. Her decision to

murder someone shows that she can’t control her self esteem, because she can’t

find any other solution other than murder whenever she is angered.

4. The Description of Cassie’s Characteristics

The character of Cassie in the novel is depicted as the character that brings

moral value to the team; and like Jake she shows great concern toward the well

being of her teammates. She is kind and empathetic; her caring nature may cause

her to be able to sense other people’s feeling. Because of this she often acts as the

therapist of the team.

Several times in the story, whenever a certain character is put on a deadly

situation, she will comfort that character. The perfect example of Cassie’s

kindness and concern toward her teammates is in book fourth when Marco nearly

gets himself killed by a shark; Cassie came to Marco’s house the day after the

incident to make sure that Marco does not get terrorized by that scary experience.

From the case above we can learn that Cassie cares greatly about her friends’

wellbeing, she can’t put her mind at ease until she truly sure that her friend is

alright

Another instance is when Cassie helps Marco to morph back into human

in book twenty first. Marco is having some difficulty in morphing back from flea

to human form, and he almost gets trapped in the flea form. She comforted Marco

through the process to help him morphed back into human form. Cassie’s kind

and caring attitude seems to be originated from her daily life; Cassie’s parents are


34

both vets, her mother worked as a doctor in a zoo, while his father runs a wildlife

clinic in their barn. Cassie often helped her father on taking care of the injured

animal. It can be assumed that Cassie unknowingly creates a bond toward the

animal, that bond perhaps what makes her care greatly about other creature’s life.

Her habit of to taking care an animal may affect the way she saw the life

of other creature. Several times in the books Cassie often angry or became

irritated if she saw animal is being endangered or mistreated by human. In book

fifteen Marco commented that Cassie is not the type of person who likes to create

a plan which could endanger themselves, but if it is about saving a mistreating an

animal she will do anything to save it.

It was Cassie's idea, oddly enough. Normally she'd be the last person to

ever cook up a harebrained scheme. But this involved mistreating animals.

And you don't want to mess with animals when Cassie is around.

(Animorphs #15, 1996:2)

In summary, Cassie is the type of person who cares greatly about the well

being of her friends. She likes to comfort her friend whenever she feels that her

friend is in danger or in some sort of trouble both physically and mentally.

Unfortunately, her kind and caring attitude make it hard for her to control

her self esteem. Whenever Cassie is involved in something violence, she cannot

tolerate that action and she will run away from it. This is shown in book

nineteenth, when she along with her team slaughters an army of controlled Hork-

Bajir. She is terrified by her action of killing the Hork-Bajir that she decides to

quit the team, in order to avoid the violence war.


35

5.The Description of Tobias’ Characteristics

As described by him and other characters Tobias is the type of character

who tend to create a gap between himself and society or in other word Tobias is

an outcast. Tobias’ condition (him being an outcast) is caused by his family’s

condition. Both of his parents are dead by the beginning of the story, Tobias live

under the care of either his uncle or his other relatives (he moved from one

relative to another) and according to Tobias himself, none of his relatives did not

really care about him.

In school Tobias did not have much friends, he often became the object of

bullying by other students. His lone wolf nature was further magnified when he

was accidentally misused his morphing ability which caused him to become a red

tailed hawk for the rest of his life. Thus he was completely cast away from normal

human life.

Asides from fighting the Yeerks Tobias also faced with the problem of his

new life. In the beginning Tobias was having a difficulty in adjusting to his new

life, he was heavily devastated when he killed a rat for the first time because he

was unable to cope with his new instinct. He is a human who have to live with a

body and instinct of a hawk. Tobias, at first finds it difficult to cope with his new

condition. His first kill made him believe that his human mind was gone; he

believed that he was a hawk, so he began to stay away from his human friends and

began to life as a red tailed hawk

The next few days were like a long, slow dream. I stayed away from Jake's

house. I did not communicate with my friends. I disappeared.


36

I found a place for myself. It was perfect red-tail territory - the place where

I had made my first kill. A nice meadow surrounded by trees. Not far off

there was a marshy area that was good, too. Although there was another

red-tail who had a territory over there, so I couldn't hunt there often.

I spent my days hunting. Sometimes I would ride the high hot winds and

watch the meadow. Sometimes I would sit in a tree and watch till some

unwary creature ventured out. Then I would swoop down on it, snatch it

up, kill it. Eat it while the blood was still warm (Animorphs #3, 1996: 50).

It is not until later in the same book that he was convinced by his friends

that even though his body was a red tailed hawk, he still had human mind, he was

still Tobias.

Tobias can be described as the lone wolf of the team; he is the type of

person who prefers to be alone rather than interacting with other people. Even

though Tobias has a lone wolf attitude that he doesn’t mean he completely

secluded himself from people around him. Tobias only prefers to be alone

especially whenever he is in distress. Before the series began, other characters

confess that they only know little about Tobias. His lone wolf attitude may have

been caused by his family and social background.

Regarding how Tobias handles his self esteem, he has his own way of

coping with his current situation. Whenever Tobias is faced with situations which

cause discomfort or even distress in his mind, he tends to hide into seclusion.

B. Terrors Faced by the Protagonists and its Impact to the Protagonists

The source of terror in this book is mainly the Yeerks and death. The fight

against the Yeerks has pushed the mind of the protagonists to the limit. As stated

in terror management theory, human is the only species which is able to realize

that death is inevitable. This combination of an instinctive drive for self-


37

preservation with an awareness of the inevitability of death creates the potential

for paralyzing terror.

So when the Animorphs are put in a dangerous situation in which their life

is endangered because of their fight with their Yeerks, it automatically creates a

terror in their mind.

Have you ever watched those old war movies where the Americans would

be heading for some enemy beach? You know, they'd be in a little boat,

riding through the surf, getting ready to jump out on a beach that was

going to be chewed up by machine-gun bullets and mortars? That's what

this felt like. Like we were pretty calm now, but in a few seconds it was

going to be life and death. Things would happen very fast. And none of it

was going to be good (Animorphs #10, 1997: 84).

The paragraph above which is told by one of the protagonists, Marco,

explains the situation of the war against the yeerks, the fight against the yeerks is

described as war where someone’s life is at stake at any second. The protagonists

of the Animorphs are just junior school student, perhaps their age are around 15-

16, so it is safe to assume that the level of terror may be amplified because the

victim of this terror is just a middle school student, perhaps their level of self

esteem is not really ready to handle such condition, whereas it is stated that self

esteem is really important in maintaining the terror to our mind. So when the

terrors are attacking their mind, and their mind and self esteem is not up for the

challenge just yet, especially at the beginning of the story.

“So what?” I shot back. "You heard the Ellimist. We're doomed. It's going

to be Yeerks one, humans zero. We lose. So who cares about anything?

Who cares if I skip school to go flying?” (Animorphs #7, 1997:54).

The example above shows us how the condition has made the character

(Rachel) scared that she does not even care about anything. According to Terror


38

management theory, this phenomena may happen because the sufferer doesnot

have enough self esteem when they were facing the terror, because they are not

ready with the condition and thus the condition shaken their mind.

The condition of being scared or terrified will affect their daily life, like the

example above how Rachel was so terrified that it made her to skip school. The

condition of being terrified caused different effect to the protagonists; this may be

related to how well they can manage their self esteem.

In Rachel’s case we can see that the condition of being terrified has made

her ignorant to several other things (like she did not really care about skipping the

school because she believed that sooner or later she will die anyway). Probably

Rachel’s management toward her self esteem at that moment is not at good

condition, thus causing her to panic and becoming ignorant.

The terror of the yeerks also greatly affected the protagonist’s daily life, it

changed the way the protagonists lived their life. The terror changed the way the

protagonists do their daily activity, for example, in book four one of the

protagonist, Cassie stated that even just for the sake of going to Rachel’s house

along with her friends, they have to go separately in order to avoid any suspicion

that they intentionally gathering at Rachel’s house, in addition they even have

Tobias as surveillance to check whether there is anything suspicious around or

not.

In a very short time we had all grown accustomed to a world of fear and

danger. We had arrived at Rachel's house separately. We had each checked

to make sure we weren't being followed. We had planned the afternoon in

advance to be sure that Rachel's mom and her two sisters would be out.


39

We had even had Tobias fly over the area looking for anything unusual.

(Animorphs #4, 1996: 9).

This shows that the fight against the Yeerks has changed their lives from

normal ones into lives where they have to be careful when they are going

somewhere, especially when they want to hang out with another member of the

Animorphs.

Their condition not only changed how they do their daily activity, but also

made it difficult for them to communicate to other people. At the beginning of

every book the protagonist who becomes the narrator of that book always tell their

current condition. From their narration we can learn that they were facing a

situation where it is hard for them to reveal their full identity. Like in the

examples below

“My name is Cassie. I can't tell you my last name. I wish I could. But I

can't even tell you what town I live in or what state. We have to disguise

our identities, we Animorphs. It's not about being shy. It's about staying

alive.” ( Animorphs #4, 1996: 1 ).

Imagine a situation where someone has to be very careful when they want

to speak with other people, because if that person talks to someone, that person

may put himself in danger. That is exactly what happened to the protagonists of

the Animorphs, They are unable to speak or interact freely with other people,

because they didnot know if the person which they interacted with was controlled

by Yeerks or not. They did not want to make that person knew that they was

involved in the battle against the Yeerks.

The condition of already knowing who your enemies are creates a barrier

between you and your enemy, in the case of the story when the protagonists


40

already knew which person was controlled by the Yeerks, they knew that they

have to be careful with that person, the best example for this is Jake’s older

brother, Tom. The protagonists already know that Tom is controlled by the

Yeerks, so they already know what kind of measure that they have to employ to

avoid any suspicion from Tom. It is more difficult for you if you did not know

which one is your enemy, and which one is not, the condition of not knowing that

will create confusion or even fear in our mind. Imagine if we wanted to talk to our

parents yet we are uncertain if the parent that we are talking to is really our parent

or they have been controlled by your enemy.

This is exactly what happens to some of the protagonists, they are unable

to speak freely to other people freely even to their closest friends or even their

relatives. Because if they talk too much, especially if they talking about anything

which is related to the Animorphs, they may unintentionally reveals their secret to

their enemy. This kind of condition will perhaps create two effects to their mind.

First it will create fear in their mind because if the person to whom they talking to

is in fact have been controlled by the yeerks, it means that they’re talking with

their enemy, so they to be careful when they spoke to them, because if they made

a mistake in communicating with them our life will be in danger. Second, it will

made us distraught and sad, because we cannot talk freely to people whom we

loved (in this case our parents), we had to lie to them in order to keep themselves

alive.


41

In summary the inability to speak freely with other people is one of the impacts

which are felt by the protagonists because of the terror which they received from

their battle against the yeerks.

Another terror in the novel is the Animorphs’ ability to morph, although

their power gives them the ability to morph into any other creatures, the power

also comes with a great risk. The drawback of their power is that they can only

stay in their morph form for two hours, if somehow they stayed in their morph

form more than two hours, they will stuck in that form for the rest of their life and

they will lose their ability to morph.

“<Go now,> the Andalite said. <Only remember this - never remain in

animal form for more than two of your Earth hours. Never! That is the

greatest danger of the morphing! If you stay longer than two hours you

will be trapped, unable to return to human form.>” (Animorphs #1 1996:

14).

The victim of this limitation is Tobias, in book #1 he morphed into a red

tailed hawk and somehow stayed in that form for more than two hours, because of

that Tobias has to live the rest of his life as a red tailed hawk. Because of that the

Animorphs became wary to this limitation, each times they morphed they often

asked each other how many times they had left, because they did not want to be

trapped in the animal form.

Another reason why their ability to morph can strikes fear to their mind is

that, when they morphed into another creature (an ant for example) the basic

instinct of that animal may take control of their mind. For example, in book nine,

they morphed into ants, they were temporarily controlled by the ant’s instinct that


42

it caused them to be unable to control their movement, or in other word their will

was fully controlled by the ant’s instinct and it nearly cost them their life.

After they survive those tragedies, they were terrorized because they learn

about the tragic fact about morphing into an ant.

"One day I'm a lobster. Then I'm an ant. I figure the next step down the

evolutionary ladder

is a virus or something. And I just want to say right now, I'm not doing it. I

am not going to become phlegm, even to save the world."

It wasn't much of a joke, but there was a kind of lame little laugh from

everyone. And Rachel stopped stomping the ants - I mean, the ground.

That night, when I went home, I took a shower. I found the head of an ant.

It was still locked onto the skin of my waist.

Lots of people think only humans fight wars, that only humans are

murderous. Let me tell you something – compared to ants, human beings

are full of nothing but peace, love, and understanding.” (Animorphs #5,

1996:49).

From that it can be assumed that whenever they morphed into other

creature, their mind will go into a whole different world. They have to cope with

any instinct they may face whenever they morphed into any other creature.

Suffering or experiencing a terror of death will obviously create a whirlpool of

confusion and fear in human’s mind, sometimes the whirlpool is so big that it

affected the entire part of human’s mind.

C. Defense Mechanisms Adopted by Protagonists

Whenever human suffers from a psychological trauma to their mind, they

will utilize defense mechanism in order to make their psychological condition

better or to hide it from other people while they hide their true feeling for

themselves.


43

In the novel each of the protagonists used various defense mechanisms.

This study analyzed each of the protagonists’ use of defense mechanism, and

whether or not the defense mechanism that they applied worked.

1. Jake’s Defense Mechanism

As seen from Jake’s characteristic, where he is described as responsible

person in which his friend believe him to be able to give a good decision and he

also described as a responsible person where he will do anything to help the team

to fight against the terror, he seems to adopt a defense mechanism known as

Anticipation. Anticipation, according to George Valliant is a level 4, mature type

defense mechanism. Anticipation is a defense mechanism in which the user

creates some kind of road map of strategies in their mind, to handle or counter the

terror which may attack the user.

The other members of Animorphs believe that Jake is the most capable

person who can come up with best decision to help them with their current

situation. Anticipation is perhaps one of the best defense mechanism, because by

mapping up a strategy, the victim will be able to counter the terror much easier,

rather than fighting against the terror without any plan at all.

By mapping up a strategy also shows that the user of this defense

mechanism can handle the terror pretty well as he can come up with a plan to

counter it.

Jake’s capabilities to be able to come up with a plan to fight or to solve

their problem shows that he is the type of person who still can control his action


44

under the terror which attack his mind. Even though sometimes he also shows his

fear toward the reader, he is one of the persons who are able to control their fear.

Perhaps that is the reason why he is chosen as the de facto leader by his

friends. His friends believe that Jake capable of coping with the situation, which is

why he is chosen as the decision maker. Marco belief that he is irresponsible and

he is more suitable as the jokester on the team, Rachel stated that she is not the

type to give order or decision to other people, that kind of person is Jake.

Jake also seems to adopt a level 4 defense mechanism known as courage.

As the name says, courage is a defense mechanism in which the user shows sign

of bravery whenever the user faced against fear or terror. In the story Jake is the

person who has the best control of his emotion. He rarely showed his fear, or true

feeling in front of other people. In book 7, when the team seems to lose their hope

after being told by an omnipotent creature known as Ellimist that they will lose

the fight against the Yeerks, Ellimist give them the offer to leave their planet

along with several other human to live in a new world which is provided by him.

Even after all of his friend decided to accept Ellimist’ offer Jake did not lose his

determination to keep fighting, he is the only one who does not accept Ellmist’

offer.

"We can't give up," Jake argued stubbornly.

"All we ever do is lose," Marco said. "We annoy the Yeerks. Maybe we

blow up a ship, or

have some little success. But the invasion marches on. And all we ever do

is barely escape

with our lives. We're like some baseball team that never wins a game. And

now, according to

the Ellimist, we know it's going to be a whole losing season. We aren't

going to the play-offs."

"I don't care," Jake said. "I'm not giving up.” (Animorphs #7: 56).


45

He believed that accepting Ellimist’ offer means that they are scared, they

are giving up the fight against the Yeerks. His courage seems to be greater than

Rachel, this is proven when Rachel who is known for her courage is scared and

she decided to accept Ellimist’ offer.

2. Marco’s Defense Mechanism

The character Marco seems to utilize a defense mechanism known as

humor, it is a defense mechanism in which people tend to say humorous things to

lighten up the situation, the user pretend that they are fine and happy in front of

other people when in fact they were scared or under psychological trauma. Based

on Marco’s habit to crack jokes to other people in order to cheer himself and the

others so that their mind will not be terrorized by the terror.

"Yeah, that's probably it," I said tolerantly. Marco's approach to everything

is to joke about it. Especially when he's worried” (Animorphs #11: The

Forgotten 1997: 7).

It is normal for people to act stupid in front of other people in order to hide

their true feeling. People use humor (by telling jokes or trying to make other

people laugh by any means) usually has other feeling hidden beneath their mind,

fear, anger, or sadness. Those kinds of feeling triggered the need of something

which is able to hide their true feeling from other people. People will use any kind

of method to hide that true feeling, and humor is one of the methods which are

usually the method which is utilized by people to hide their feeling. In a simple

word, using humor as a defense mechanism is like wearing a clown mask which


46

usually has happy expression. We hide our true expression behind the happy

expression of the clown mask

The use of humor can be quite effective, for example; when people use

humor by cracking jokes to other people, they will try their best to make other

people laugh. People who laugh because of the humor will think that he/she that

causes them to laugh is very happy at the moment he or she crack joke. Thus

he/she manage to makes other people to believe that he/she is happy at the

moment, not knowing the fact that he/she has some problem in his/her mind.

Marco used this mechanism to boost his own self esteem so that he can

control his fear (because of the terror of death) in front of others. As shown in the

example above how Jake describe Marco tends to crack joke, especially when he

is worried. Marco seems to joke to reduce his confusion, fear or anxiety.

Fine by me, I was ready to do something or go insane. Inactivity makes

for way too much time to think about things like death and destruction

and pain and violence. Inactivity makes for fear.

Another good defense against fear is humor. From my point of view, if

you're not laughing, you're crying. Humor as coping mechanism.

Besides, I sort of consider it my job to keep us loose in these

situations. Entertain the troops” (Animorphs #25:The Extreme, 1999: 21).

Marco stated it himself that he uses humor as coping mechanism, he said

that it is his job to entertain the team with his humor, even in dangerous situation

to relief them from their anxiety. From Marco’s case we can learn that people

crack a joke not only to make other people laugh, sometimes people crack a joke

in order to cheer them up. They want to bury their true feeling beneath their own


47

joke, like Marco who cracked a joke in order to enlighten the team’s mood when

they are pitted against a deadly situation, thus boosting his and his teammates’

confidence.

3. Rachel’s Defense Mechanism

Based on Rachel’s characteristic in which she is described by other

character as the bravest, the most reckless of the team. Rachel adopts a defense

mechanism known as courage, a level 4 defense mechanism according to George

Valliant. Courage is a mechanism which involves the mental ability and

willingness to confront conflicts, fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, despair,

obstacles, vicissitudes or intimidation.

Rachel’s choice of defense mechanism seems to be natural based on her

characteristic, perhaps it will be strange if Rachel who is a tomboyish girl with a

fierce attitude to employ a defense mechanism which is contrast to her brave

attitude. Rachel also seems to use another defense mechanism called acting out,

although Rachel is brave and reckless, she is also the kind of person who tends to

express her inner feeling whenever she get distressed. This is proven in book

seventh when she fall into despair because she believes that it is impossible for

them to win the war against Yeerks. Her belief causes her act to be driven by her

despair, for example she decided to skip school because she believes that it is

useless for her to go to school because the Yeerks will win. Another example of

her usage of acting out is shown how she is fine with murdering someone

whenever she is angered.


48

4. Tobias’s Defense Mechanism

Learning from his nature Tobias seems to adopt a defense mechanism

known as withdrawal, a defense mechanism in which the user tend to separate

himself from other people to relief his own feeling from all trouble.

Some people believe that removing themselves from the society will help

them relieve their mind or feeling from the terror or trauma in their mind. By

secluding oneself from the society, free from other people, they believe that their

condition of being alone will help them heal their mental condition.

People like this often believe that the more they socialize with other

people the more their mind will be hurt. Meeting with certain people will trigger a

pain in their mind because it may remind them to the terror. They also believe that

by distancing themselves from the others it will make their condition better, as if it

is better if he/she disappear from their life, as his/her existence will only bring

pain to others.

Tobias tends to secludes himself from the others whenever his mind is

terrorized. In book three when he was overwhelmed by his new hawk instinct, he

was terrified to the point he believed that his humanity completely gone. Because

of this he believes that it will be better if he disappear away from his human

friend. His mind believes that he does not belong to live among his friend who is

fully human while he is a hawk with a human mind.


49

Despite Tobias’ tendency to dissociate himself from his friend, he has

good deal of self esteem when it comes to fighting the Yeerks. Tobias rarely

shows his fear when it comes to fighting the yeerks. He always ready to help

whenever he is needed without any second thought or fear in his mind.

Tobias found meaning in the war, he felt like he was a part of something.

As explained before, Tobias had a quite miserable life before he become

Animorphs and involved in the war. His parents already passed away before the

story began and he only lives with relatives who do not really care about his

wellbeing. Furthermore he is often bullied by other students at school. Therefore it

can be stated that Tobias’ courage and willingness to fight against the yeerks is

caused by his belief that he is happier in his new life as part of the Animorphs

compared to his previous life. Therefore because he belief that his current life is

more meaningful than his previous one, it become his motivation to always fight

against the terror.

5. Cassie’s Defense Mechanism

Cassie’s kind and caring nature often struggle with her condition of

fighting the Yeerks, in book nineteenth, she decided to quit the Animorphs

because she cannot tolerate the violence of the war any longer. In that book, she

decided to quit the Animorphs and stop to be involved in the war against the

Yeerks after she murder another alien creature


50

“ Maybe if I hadn't felt so hollow, so weak, so sickened inside, maybe I

would have felt the extra set of eyes on me. But I wasn't paying attention. I

was done being afraid. I was done hurting other creatures. I was done,

done, done being an Animorphs.” (Animorphs #19 : 6)

Cassie can be considered as naïve; this is shown when she decided to quit

the battle just because she does not to be involved in the violence nature. Her

decision book #19 shows that she does not really think about other things, like the

result if she quit the battle, the wellbeing of her friends, the fate of the earth.

Cassie seems to adopt a defense mechanism called withdrawal.

Withdrawal is a mechanism in which the user tends to run away from a problem

because he or she hates the problem. Cassie’s withdrawal can be seen from how

she prefers to avoid conflict and run away from it.

The example of her withdrawal can be seen from book #19, from how she

decided to quit the battle against the yeerks because she cannot tolerate the

violence in it.

Another example is from book #7, this is the same condition which Rachel

faced. The Animorphs are questioned by Ellimist whether they want to lived in a

new planet by quit fighting against the Yeerks, or they can choose to keep

fighting. Cassie is one of the members who choose to live in a new planet because

she believed that they do not have any chance to win in the war. Her decision

proves that she wants to quickly end the conflict and live in a peaceful state again.


51

Even though she knows that her decision means sacrificing her old planet

and lots of other human and animal for the sake of living peacefully along with

several others earth creature. Asides from withdrawal, Cassie also seems to utilize

Altruism, Altruism is a defense mechanism in which the users will feel more relax

when they give service to other people. Cassie’s kind and caring attitude make her

unable to leave her friend whenever they are is faced with certain danger. As

stated above both in book fourth and twenty first, she is the one who always be

there to help whenever her friends is in some kind of trouble (in her belief). In

book fourth she decides to come into Marco’s house in order to make sure that

Marco doesn’t get traumatized after nearly killed by a shark.

Her desire to help those who needs to be saving not only just for her

friend, Cassie also determined to save any animal that need to be saved. She will

be troubled whenever she learns that there is an animal is in some kind of trouble.

In book ninth, Cassie learn that a group of skunk babies are in danger. Because of

this Cassie becomes greatly concerned about the wellbeing of the babies, that she

is worried about the wellbeing of the skunk babies.

Another instance of Cassie’s altruism is on book fifteenth. Cassie

convinces her friends to help her saving some parrot who she believes to be

mistreated by a restaurant. From the explanation above, it is safe to assume that

Cassie is the person who can’t put her mind at ease until she is one hundred

percent sure that someone or something close to her is safe. If she deems someone

or something to be in danger, she will be distraught by it and will do her best to

take care of them.


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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

The problems that the protagonists of theAnimorphs have are how their life is

endangered because of the Yeerks’ invasion. The battle against the yeerks has caused

a situation which caused great terror in Animorphs’ mind. They occasionally fell into

fear and despair in the story. The condition force the protagonist (both consciously

and unconsciously) to adopt a defense mechanism to defend their mind and to

struggle against the terror.

The terrors not only threaten the life of protagonists, the terrors also threatened

the life of those who are close to them. This condition made the terror worsen

because the situation where someone who are close to them are in danger will make

their fear and anxiety multiply to certain level. The terrors not only come from their

battle against the Yeerks, it also comes from how they cope with their new morphing

ability, how they must familiarize themselves with their new experience whenever

they morph into other creature. Each character have their own technique of dealing

with the terror, the way they choose their own technique is based or caused by their

characteristic.

Marco, who is well known as the jokester because of his habit of making joke out

of everything he can, utilized a defense mechanism known as humor, in which the

user tell jokes or making a funny comment to enlighten the situation.


53

His use of humor as defense mechanism can be seen as his attempt to hide his true

feeling toward his friends. He doesn’t want his friend to see his sadness or weakness,

so he wear a mask called humor in order to hide those feeling.

Rachel, who is brave but reckless which caused her to be nicknamed, as Xena

the Warrior Princess by Marco as a joke to her brave and reckless attitude, adopted a

defense mechanism known as courage. Courage, as the name suggests is a defense

mechanism in which the user boldly faced their terror without showing any fear

toward others. Aside from her brave and reckless attitude she is also short tempered.

Whenever Rachel’s anger is pushed into its zenith, she will let her anger burst in front

of other people. Each time she is in this state her action will be clouded by her

emotion and or anger, causing her to do something which is deemed unacceptable by

other people.

Jake, who is considered the most responsible member of the Animorph, was

chosen by his teammates to become the leader. They chose Jake to become the leader

because of his capability the most reasonable plan or decision. Based on his natural

capability as a leader, Jake adopted a defense mechanism known as anticipation.

Anticipation is a defense mechanism in which the user create plans to counteract the

terror before it can cause any harm to their mind or even harm them physically. Jake

also combine Anticipation with another defense mechanism known as courage. The

combination of his courage of facing every challenge enables him to make the most

reasonable decision to counteract the terror.


54

Tobias, as a loner, tends to move into seclusion away from other people. His loner

characteristic is further emphasized after he was trapped in body of a hawk. His status

as a hawk with a human mind initially made him believed that he does not belong to

live alongside his human friend, so he completely isolated himself from his human

friends (albeit temporarily). This kind of defense mechanism is known as

dissociation, in which the user (in this case is Tobias) separate himself from other

people in order to avoid the painful fact or memories. Tobias, as the user of this

mechanism believe that the more they interact with people who knows him, the more

his painful memories will appear on his mind.

Cassie, who is a pacifist, has some difficulties whenever it comes to violence,

especially when a certain species of creatures are being endangered. Cassie adopted a

defense mechanism called withdrawal. She adopted it because she prefer to avoid

conflicts and violence rather than facing them Cassie’s pacifist nature made it hard

for her to cope with the harsh battle against the Yeerks, if she wants to join in the

war; she had to endure the violence nature of the war. Yet her pacifist nature also

becomes the reason why Cassie tends to help those who needs her help. She cares

greatly about the wellbeing of someone or something she cares about. She will do her

best in order to make sure that those that she cares about are fine both physically and

mentally.


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APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Summary of K.A Applegate’s Animorphs

The story of Animorphs revolves around five teenagers, Jake, Marco,

Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias, who meet with Elfangor an alien who is being chased

by his enemies. Elfangor, who is in a critical condition, gives the teenagers a gift.

The gift is a power which enables the teenagers to morph into any creature that

they touched.

After obtaining the power, they learn that the Earth is being invaded by a

race of aliens called the Yeerks, a slug like parasitic species who infest humans

through their ear canals and take complete control of human’s body, turning them

into what is called a controller. The humans, who become controller are still self

aware about their condition, but they can’t do anything to their own body because

the Yeerk in their head has complete control over their body and their action. The

Yeerks do not invade the earth through open conflict, instead they choose to

secretly infest the human through a subtle mean (for example, secretly infesting

the governor through a hospital).

Elfangor tells the teenagers to use their new power to fight against the

Yeerks in order to stop their invasion. At first, the teenagers do not really believe

about what happen in the construction site, they believe that it is just a dream.

After they learn that some people are actually become controller, including Jake’s

older brother, Tom, they decide to fight against the yeerk in order to stop them

from turning every human into controller.


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Marco decides to name themselves as Animorphs, the Animorph fight

against the yeerks numerously, ruining their plans one after the other. In book #3

the Animorphs invade the Yeerks’ ship to break the ship’s camouflage system in

order to reveal the Yeerks’ invasion to the public. In book #4, the Animorphs

races against the Yeerks to discover an Andalite ship which is trapped under the

sea. In the ship they find an Andalite called Aximili Esgarrouth Istill, or Ax for

short, which become their allies in fighting the yeerks. In book #5 they invade Mr

Chapman’s house (Mr Chapman is their principal who happens to be a high

ranking controller) to steal a Z space transponder.

In book #7 the Animorphs learns that the Yeerks have infested an entire

hospital staff, which enables them to turn the patient of that hospital into a

controller. They also learn that their governor, who is a presidential candidate

plans to have surgery on that hospital. In order to prevent the Yeerks’ plan to turn

the governor into a controller, they invade the hospital and sabotage it from inside.

In their attempt to sabotage the Yeerks infested hospital, Jake is accidentally

becomes a controller. Fortunately the Animorph quickly learn that Jake is being

infested by a yeerks, they trapped Jake inside a barn for three days to let the Yeerk

inside his head dies from starvation.

In book #15 the Animorph prevent the Yeerks attempt to make an army of

hammerhead shark. The Yeerks plan to use the Hammerhead Shark to help them

defeating the Leerans, an aquatic alien race. The Yeerks want to infest the Leerans

in order to gain their ability to read the minds of other creature.


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Starting from book #51 until the last book (#54) the fight against the

Yeerks becomes known to the public. In book #52 the Yeerks abandon their subtle

strategy and begin to openly attack the human.

Asides from fighting the Yeerks, sometimes the Animorphs also face other

problem. In book #24, the Animorphs fight against other aliens known as

Helmacrons. In book #25, the Animorphs is ordered by the Ellimist to prevent

Crayak’s attempt in annihilating an alien race called Iskoort. In order to prevent

Crayak’s plan, the Animorphs have to defeat the Howler, a powerful alien race

which serve as Crayak’s foot soldier.

Appendix 2: General Information about the Alien Races in Animorphs

In Animorphs there are several alien race involved in the story, some plays major

role in the story, while other just play minor role in the story.

1. The Yeerks

The most significant alien race in Animorphs is The Yeerks. Yeerks are

parasite-like alien who have the ability to completely control other creature’s

body. They achieve this by entering the creatures head (through ear holes when

infesting human) and then move into the creature’s brain.

The Yeerks as a race of parasite slug, do not need a regular food in order

to stay alive, they need to be irradiated with an energy source known as the

Kandrona ray


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At first, the Yeerk is just a race of parasite slug who can only infest a

creature native to their home world known as Gedds and have primitive

technology. Seerow, an Andalite who leads the first expedition to the Yeerks’

home world, pitied the Yeerks, who are highly intelligent, but have a very limited

technology.

He also teaches the Yeerks about science and technology. He even build a

portable Kandrona generators. As time goes, the Yeerks who are now an advanced

alien race betrayed Prince Seerow, they attack the Andalites on the Yeerks

homeworld and start their plan to conquer the galaxy.

2. The Andalite

The Andalites are an advanced race of aliens. They are the primary race

fighting the Yeerks and are known throughout the galaxy for their advanced

technology.

The Andalites’ physiology is similar to centaur. Their lower body are

similar in appearance to deer, it has two legs on the back and two on the front.

Their upper body is similar to human’s torso, there are two hands on their upper

body. Andalites have a tail on their back which is similar to scorpion’s tail. On

their head there are two eyes, two ears, one nose, and two stalk eyes which give

them 360 degree vision. The Andalites do not have a mouth, they communicate

with others through telepathy. The Andalites eat by using their front legs, they use

it to crush the grass and absorb its nutrients.


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Andalites have very advanced technology, they have very advanced

spaceships which is capable of traveling through space really fast. Their notable

technology which play a major role in the story is their morphing technology. The

morphing technology allows anyone the ability to morph into any animal. In order

for someone to morph into other animal, they need to touch that animal to acquire

its DNA. For example, if someone want to morph into a dog, they need to touch

the dog to acquire its DNA, after gaining that person will be able to morph into a

dog anytime he or she desires. The animal’s DNA will be recorded in the

morpher’s system, so if someone already acquire an animal’s DNA, they are able

to morph into that animal whenever they want without having to touch the animal

again.

Andalite, like the Yeerks also play a major role in the story. Andalites are

the primary race of aliens who are fighting the Yeerks. Seerow, an Andalite, is the

main cause of the Andalite-Yeerk war. Elfangor, the person who give the

protagonist the access to the morph technology is also an Andalite. Ax, one of the

Animorph is also an Andalite. Tobias is half Andalite, his father is Elfangor, while

his mother is human. Furthermore, the main antagonist of the story, Visser Three

(later becomes Visser One) is a yeerk which infest the body of an Andalite

3. Hork Bajir

Hork Bajir are a race of dinosaur-like alien who is completely enslaved by

the Yeerks. In appearance, The Hork-Bajir have strong reptilian bodies with

leathery skin. They have snake-like necks with a sharp beak at the end of their


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heads, tyrannosaurus-like feet, three claw-tipped fingers. Their most notable

feature is that they have huge, long blades all over their bodies.

Altough Hork-Bajir are scary in appearance, they are a race of peaceful

alien. Their long blades are only used to cut the tree for them to eat. Hork-Bajir is

not very intelligence, the way they communicate to other race are difficult to

understand.

As stated before, originally Hork-Bajir are a race of peaceful alien,

unfortunately all of them are enslaved by the Yeerks. The Yeerks utilized the

Hork-Bajir as their main shock troops, thanks to the Hork-Bajir’s fearful

physiology.

4. Taxxons

Taxxons also serve as the Yeerks’ shock troops. Taxxons are a race of

insectoid alien, in general, Taxxons resemble huge centipede. Taxxons are very

carnivorous; they have a strong desire to consume meat. Taxxons’ strong desires

toward meat also make them a cannibal. Taxxons will eat other Taxxons when

they want to, sometimes they even eat their own body. Ax once cut a Taxxon in

half and it began to eat the other half of the body.

Taxxons unlike Hork-Bajir is a willing ally to the Yeerks. They are willing

to help the Yeerks just because they was promised by the Yeerks a lots of meat if

they agree to help the Yeerks.


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