FEMALE PROTAGONIST’S SELF-SEARCH IN THE NOVEL OF SHANGHAI BABY

Abstract

       This research intends to explore the female protagonist’s self-search. Textual analysis is mostly employed here along with the psyche’s theory of Sigmund Freud. Coco encounters her identity crisis throughout the story. She struggles with so many crises in her life: having sexual problems, lacking self-awareness, losing self-esteem and self-worth, being torn between the Chinese old tradition and the arrival of Western culture. Her self-search process, however, occurs without her realization. First, she turns to masturbation to release her sexual repression. Second, she becomes the materialist and is obsessed with consumer culture. Third, she retreats into her dreams. Fourth, she has the affair with the German man named Mark. Fifth, she visits the psychologist. Sixth, tries to express herself through her writing. Some of her self-search process, however, does not happen respectively but they are the ongoing procedures that overlap with some other self-identification. Apparently, Coco always lets her “id” overcome her “ego” which often leads to too much chaos in her life. The inability to control her mind especially her sexual instinct brings her the sense of shame and guilt which leads her to lose self-esteem and self-worth. Although she attempts various ways to find her identity, it seems like it is a failure since she still asks the same question of who she is at the end of the story. Nevertheless, among her self-search’s process, expressing herself through writing is the best way of all other methods during her journey of self-searching. Yet, her ultimate goal of becoming a famous writer does not come true yet. She is finished her first novel but still does not know its destiny.