AMIR’S DOMINATION OF SUPEREGO AND HIS EGO DEFENSE MECHANISM AS SEEN IN HOSSEINI’S THE KITE RUNNER

Abstract

The aim of this research is to uncover Amir’s domination of superego and to identify Amir’s ego defense mechanism. This research is a qualitative research. The source of data of this research was taken from Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner published in New York, 2003. The data taken from the novel were in the form of particular expressions related to Amir’s domination of superego and the defense mechanism. During this research, the researcher read the text, collected the data, categorized the data, and analyzed the data taken from Khalled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. The data was analyzed by using Freud’s psychoanalysis theory, focused on the imbalanced system of personality, especially in the domination of the superego. To obtain the trustworthiness of the data, the researcher used peer- debriefing method. The findings of the study show that Amir’s imbalanced system of personality is caused by the domination of his superego. The domination of superego in Amir is triggered by the responses when he gets many conflicts in his life. The results of Amir’s domination of superego are having over anxious feeling, having too high jealous feeling also having too much guilty feeling. There are two products of Amir’s ego defense mechanism such as denial and displacement. Amir denies many things he feels and he knows. He tries to be an ignorant person who does not want to be involved deeper in several cases he experiences. Furthermore, Amir decides to displace his feeling into other objects because he has no capability to express it directly to the real object he should express for.

Keywords: The Kite Runner, psychoanalysis, the domination of the superego, ego defense mechanism, denial, displacement