CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study

Society is comprised of the individuals and groups who live in it and produce a

culture. Society come from the Latin word societas, which in turn was derived

from socius used to describe a bond or interaction between parties that are

friendly, or at least civil. According to J.L Gillin and J.P Gillin (in

Kuntjaraningrat, 2000: 146), society means “the largest grouping in which

common in custom, traditions, attitudes and feeling of unity are operative". While

Kuntjaraningrat also clarifies society:

Masyarakat adalah kesatuan hidup manusia yang berinteraksi menurut suatu

sistem adat istiadat tertentu yang bersifat berkelanjutan (continue) dan yang
terikat oleh suatu rasa identitas yang sama.

The society is not only a member of individual. A society consists of a group of

people who come from the same identity, with particular custom and interact

continuously. The society and the human are mutually dependent, one grows and

develops with the help the other. The human live and act within society, they need

it for their existence or survival and it cannot exist without members.

Human life and society cannot be separated and almost go together because the

development of human mind and behavior is influenced by society with the

socialization process such as the way they learn and remember information, and

using the information to create new innovation and to make their life to be better

and longer, how they are thinking to solve problems, categorizing, reasoning and

making decision. In the process of thinking, the people or human beings also

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creates not for himself but also motivated by other society, that all are only

developed in human society. All this developed throught interaction with others.

They can never develop his personality, languange, culture and inner deep by

living outside the society. They cannot live alone or isolate their life without

society.

The society and individuals are the materials in writing a piece of literary work.

Literature represents a language or people: culture and tradition. But, literature is

more important than just a historical or cultural artifact. Literature introduces the

leaders to new worlds of experience. They can learn books and literature; even

enjoy the comedies and the tragedies of poems, stories, and plays; and even grow

and evolve through their literary journey with books.

Here is definition of literature according to Terry Eagleton in her book entitled

Literary Theory:

Literature is highly valued kind of writing is an illuminating one. But it has one
fairly devastating consequence. It means that we can drop once and for all the
illusion that the category literature is objective, in the sense of being eternally
given and unalterably and unquestionably literature – Shakespeare, for example
– can cease to be literature (1996:9).

From this definition the writer finds the point that Literature is creative,

wonderful art and imaginative writing in the sense of fiction. Literature is a result

of someone thought, experience, imagination. Literature transforms and

intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech.

Literature is important to us because it speaks to us, it is universal, and it affects

us, with the literature people can say what they thing and understand their

problems. Literature and society are always dependent on each other. The most
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important reason of this interdependent relationship is that literature is the social

institution and it uses the medium of language, a social creation.

Realizing that literature has deep meening and can stir the viewer emotion. In

this thesis, the writer would like to analyze a movie entitle The Equalizer by

Antoine Fuqua. Fuqua was born January 19, 1966 and raised in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, graduating from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1983. Fuqua

attended West Virginia University and West Virginia State University but did not

graduate. After Fuqua went school for electrical engineering, with the hope of

going on to fly jets in the military. He married actress Lela Rochon in April 1999.

He is an American film director. He directed the film Training Day as well as The

Replacement Killers, Tears of the Sun, King Arthur, Shooter, Brooklyn's Finest,

Olympus Has Fallen and The Equalizer.

The Equalizer is a story about Robert McCall was a retired black opsir

government operative who lived in Boston, Massachusetts. He was a man with a

mysterious past, who currently has OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). He

worked at a Home Mart hardware store, where he was friends of his co-workers

and also tried to help a security guard trainee named Ralphie to pass his

qualification exam. McCall had promised his recently deceased wife that he had

left his old life behind, but was compelled to act after his teenage friend Teri

whose real name was Alina, she was seen being mistreated by her pimp. Alina's

life was destroyed at the age of five or six when she was a victim of sex

trafficking by the Russian Mob and then become their sex slave and forced into

prostitution.
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Robert McCall’s compulsive obsessive disorder symptoms can be seen from

his daily activity. As the organize and the arrange person, he always does

everything by tidy up and work is by the time. He puts all the things in the same

place continuouly, he reads the book “The Old Man and The Sea” everyday. He

will open and close doors again and again until he is satisfied with it. He is being like

this since he lost her wife because of dead, a part of him also dead.

On the other hand, Ralphie’s mother family restaurant was set on fire by

corrupt policemen as an act of extortion. McCall confronted the corrupt policemen

and forced them to pay back all the money they have gotten through extortion.

Teddy determined McCall was the culprit; surprised by his skills, Teddy tried to

capture him used those skills instead of killing him. McCall, however, outsmarts

his pursuers and escaped, while completing more acts of vigilantism. McCall then

captured Frank Masters, a corrupt Boston policeman who had been aiding Teddy.

Frank relented and helped McCall destroyed one of Pushkin's money laundering

operations in Boston. Later, McCall pledges to bring Pushkin's empire down, and

soon destroyed a container ship used by Pushkin to smuggle goods.

In the next scene, Teddy and his men attack Home Mart and the workers of

Home Mart hostage, threatening to kill them if he did not surrender. McCall

entered the store and disabled most of the lighting and then killed Teddy's

henchmen one by one. McCall sets up a number of chemicals in a microwave; the

electricity turned it on, causing an explosion that killed the last of Teddy's men.

McCall finally killed Teddy with a nail gun.

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In the end of the movie, McCall killed Pushkin's guards, and set up an

electrical trap to kill Pushkin himself. All the violance influenced McCall doing

retaliation, vigilantism and inspired to continue using his skills to help people in

needed and posted an online ad, identifying himself as "The Equalizer". He soon

received another please for help and agreed to answer it.

The analyzing this movie the writer used two approaches, the writer discuss the

movie from sociological and psychological approaches. Regarding to that

problems the writer will analyze social interaction, vigilance, violance and

revenge.

B. Problem Formulation

Based on the movie of The Equalizer, the writer would like to focus on three

problems. Those two main problems are about the sociocultural and psycologycal

condition that have influenced social life. The writer frame the problem such as :

1. What are the influences of social interaction towards Robert McCall

personality in doing the retaliation against Russian gangster in the movie The

Equalizer ?

2. What are the impact of Robert McCall’s obsessive compulsive disorder in the

movie The Equalizer ?

From the question above, the writer gets some information about the problems

that occurred in this movie. And according to those question the writer is going to

analyze the movie by using two approach.

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C. Objectives of Study

The first purpose of this thesis is to describe about the influence of social

interaction towards Robert McCall personality to do the retaliation against

Russian gangster. Firstly, the influence of interaction in the social life against the

personality. The writer is going to analyze about the social life of main characters,

Robert McCall and also his personality which is makes him do the retaliation

against Russian gangster for helping and releasing the young girl Alina from the

prostitute. Robert McCall’s violance obsession to find the Vladimir Pushkin is the

trigger of conflic between him and the Russian gangster. In complited his action,

he kills the leader and the member of the Russian gangster, he posts online ad to

someone needs his help for retaliation.

The second purpose of this thesis is to explain about the impact of Robert

McCall’s obsessive compulsive disorder. His obsession leads him to do both,

good and bad things and action. All the human beings have the same of right in

the law. Everyone is entitle to justice, unbalanced of justice resulted the vigilance

in the society. The police as protectors of the people should be able to provide a

security and a justice, but in this movie the reader can see Frank Master a corrupt

Boston policeman is taking bribes to protect crimes such as prostitution,

corruption, money laundering, extortion and violence. The obsession of Robert

McCall begin when he sees Aline and civilians being the victim of the Russian

gangster. To help them, he destroyes one of Vladimir Pushkin's money laundering

and kills Vladimir Pushkin a leader of Russian gengster and the man. All his

action without the legality and he is doing the retaliation and vigilance for getting
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the equality of social. If the writer observes the movie more deeply, the impact of

obsessive compulsive disorder are repetitive though when something is not as

expected by him, the desire of killing repeatly and lose control mind and behavior.

D. Definition of Terms

The title of this thesis is The Obsession of Robert McCall In Getting Equality

of Retaliation And Doing Vigilante in American Society. Here, the writer is going

to define and clarify some important terms which are needed to be defines

correctly of the title to get the same perception between the writer and the reader

in understanding.

The first term of this thesis is Obsession. Based on oxforddictionary.com

Obsession is the state of being obsessed with someone or something constantly or

frequently especially in a way that is not normal. In this thesis Robert McCall’s

obsession is stimulated by the death of his wife which makes him have double

personality. Is is signed by his desire to find and to kill the leader of gangster, his

persistent thought and orders to arrange his things around him. Double personality

is a dissociative disorder that is characterized by the presence of two

distinct and complex identities or personality states each of which becomes

dominant and controls behavior from time to time to the exclusion of the

others abbreviation.

The second term is Retaliation. The meaning of retaliation according to

freedictionary.com is to do something in response to an action done to oneself or

an associate, especially to attack or injure someone as a response to a hurtful

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action. satisfaction of justice. Based on to this movie, Robert McCall’s retaliation

is an illegal action to take revenge of the victim of crime and violence, by doing

the destroy one of Vladimir Pushkin money loundring and kills Vladimir Pushkin

and the man.

The third is Vigilance, As explored by Oxford Advanced Learned’s Dictionary

of Current English Fifth edition Vigilance is a member of group of people who try

to prevent crime and disorder in a community, especially because prevent the

police are not dealing adequately with it. American vigilance originally arose as a

frontier response to the threat and reality of crime. The meaning of vigilance in

this movie is the way of Robert McCall revange to Russian gangster. It happens

because the policeman and the justice system fails.

The forth term is American Society, According to J.L Gillin and J.P Gillin (in

Kuntjaraningrat, 2000: 146), society means “the largest grouping in which

common in custom, traditions, attitudes and feeling of unity are operative". The

background of this movie is in America in 1980 where the society needs earned

status, individualism, self-reliance and independence. That are all necessary

values for those who wanted to survive and prosper in the American.

E. Urgency of Study

The Equalizer is an action movie story about Robert McCall, a man who

believes he has put his mysterious past behind him and dedicate himself for

beginning a new quite life. But when he meets Alina, a young girl under the

control of ultra-violent Russian gangster, he can’t stand idly by – he has to help

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her. There is lesson of life and moral message of the movie for the viewers. It

depends on point of view of the viewers, how they think and analyze the movie, it

can be different between one and another.

For institution, the writer wishes this thesis can be used as further reference and

give little contribution for students in analyzing & literary work by combining the

application of sociological and psychological approaches.

For students of STBA Pertiwi, the writer hopes that this analysis can be

advantageous and useful for the readers, especially to the students of English

Department or who are interested in literature. It can be a little guidence for

processing and accomplishing a thesis and how to apply the theories to analyze

the good movie.

For the writer, this thesis is very important and special. This thesis is the one to

determine of graduation, to describe the writer ability in the composing an

academic writing and to get new knowledge about social and psychology

problem.

F. Theoretical Grounds

For getting an accurate and complete analyze, the writer uses some theories to

give information to the viewer. To analyze The Equalizer movie, the writer

choose sociological and psychological approach, because there are many

problems of social matter which related to environment such as prostitute, money

laundry, bribe, black market, violence, extortion, and others. Those illegal action

are protected by people who have power, the impact from their power are many
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people of the social environtment become victims. Psychological effect from their

action made people become vigilante, because of this factor, the writer is going to

analysis deeper about the influence of society toward the obsession of Robert

McCall.

Sociology is the scientific study of man and his society, social actions and

interactions, social institutions and processes, and the structure and system of

society. Max Weber defined sociology is, “the interpretative understanding of

social action in order thereby to arrive at causal explanation of its courses and

effects.” Action in Weber’s analysis is all human behavior to which an actor

attaches subjective meaning. According to Weber “Action is social, in so far as by

virtue of the subjective meaning attached to it by the acting individual it takes

account of the behavior of others and thereby oriented in its course.”

Sociology as the science of social relations studies the society and gets its

subject matter from different sources, literature being one of them. As a social

product, literature reflects human society, the human relation and the world in

which they live, interact and move. Literature, like sociology, critically examines

the realistic picture of human life. So it has been called as the mirror and

controller of the society. Sociology tries to study the literary facts and their impact

on social relations.

The new generation of thinkers and scholars has invented new concepts and

methods of sociological research. As a result, we get new branches of sociology.

Sociology approach which studies literature for understanding society and its

forces is one of them. The sociology approach is a specialized area of study which
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focuses its attention upon the relation between a literary work and the social

structure in which it is created. It reveals that the existence of a literary creation

has the determined social situations. As there is a reciprocal relationship between

a literary of phenomena and social structure, sociological approach proves very

useful to understand the socio economic situations, political issues, the world

view and creativity of the writers, the system of the social and political

organizations, the relations between certain thoughts and cultural configurations

in which they occur and determinants of a literary work.

Sociology is based in two words from sucius and logos. Sucius means group of

people and logos means conversation. Sociology learns about social. Sociology is

the systematic study of social behavior and human groups. It focuses primarily on

the influence of social relationships upon people’s attitudes and behavior and on

how societies are established and change. As a field of study sociology has a very

broad scope. It deals with families, gangs, business firms, computer networks,

political parties, schools, religions, and labor unions. It is concerned with love,

poverty, conformity, technology, discrimination, illness, alienation,

overpopulation and community. According to Anthony Giddens (“Sociology”,

1989) provides the following general definition that :

Sociology is the study of human social life, groups and societies. It is a

dazzling and compelling enterprise, having as its subject matter our own
behaviour as social beings. The scope of sociology is extremely wide, ranging
from the analysis of passing encounters between individuals in the street up to
the investigation of world-wide social processes.

The second approach taken by the writer is psychological approach. To find

correlation between social life and personality in this movie, the writer uses
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Psychology to look for an answer. The word psychology comes from two Greek

words, psekhe, meaning breath or soul, and logos, meaning word or reason. The

modern meaning of psycho is mind and –logy is science. Psychology is the

science of mind and behaviour. According to Reber (1995), Dictionary of

Psychology that “ Psychology simply cannot be defined; indeed, it cannot even

be easily characterized. Psychology is what scientists and philosophers of various

persuasions have created to understand the minds and behaviors of various

organisms from the most primitive to the most complex ones. It is an attempt to

understand what has so far pretty much escaped understanding, and any effort to

circumscribe it or box it in is to imply that something is known about the edges of

our knowledge, and that must be wrong.” (p. 617)

As a science, psychology has five central goals ; to describe how people and

other species behave, to understand the cause of these behaviours, to predict how

people and animal will behave undercertain conditions, to influence behavior

through the control of its causes, to apply psychological knowledge in ways that

enhance human welfare.

Psychological approaches assume that many disorders result from mental,

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

and environmental conditions. Psychology is one of the studies of human beings, while

literature studies an imaginary world resulted by human being. According to Jatman (in

Endraswara 2003: 97), that literature and psychology have the same functional

relationship because both of them clarify the psychological aspects of human. They are

different in term of human themselves: psychology explains the real condition of human

psychology, but literature portrays human being imaginatively. Psychology can be used
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to explain the fictitious character of literature. It can explain the psychological condition

of a character as a created human being. It provides numerous instances from life which

clarify the actions and reactions of created character that might be puzzling or

implausible. Characters have their own world as human being in the real life with the

problems and complexity of life to be solved. Literary text needs psychological science

because in literature, the characters also have the problems like human beings in the real

life. “The authors often use the psychological laws to make their characters alive. In this

case, they have applied the theory of psychology silently” (Endraswara, 2003: 99).

G. Research Methodology

In order to support her research, the writer used qualitative method. Qualitative

method was a process to obtain an understanding of the principles of a particular

methodology that is able to explore the social problem or human personality.

The primary data used in this thesis is from a movie entitled The Equalizer

directed by Antoine Fuqua as the main material, from the movie, the writer would

analyze its main character, Robert McCall. The writer got the information and

problem. From this movie the writer analyzed society and personality of main

character.

The secondary data of this thesis are literary criticism, social interaction from

sosiological and psycological theories. The writer found many resources in library

to support the work and borrowing the books that contained the science of mind

and bahaviour, and also searching in internet and reading e-book, aiming to

equalize the source theory and analysis that the writer’s created. Because this
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method made in accordance with the similarity based on the movie and that was it

the literary work.

Data analysis techniques were used to analyze the data in The Equalizer

Antoine Fuqua’s work was descriptive technical analysis. This technic was used

to describe the picture character in the movie was done by conversations

involving the main character and other characters in the movie. The procedures of

data analysis in the study were follow :

a. Watching a movie

The writer watched this movie more than six times and much attention with

every scene on this movie. The writer found some problems from this movie

and tried analyze using sociological approach and psychological approach.

b. Determine the problems formulation

c. Finding, determining and analyzing the problems of the movie using reseach

method especially qualitative method based on the technique of approach

and the theory of motivation and right.

d. Summing up the role of main character

In the method of study, the writer gave an explanation of what she did in

order to finish this research. Methods adopted for this study were taking a very

common sociological and psycologycal approach.

H. Systematization

This thesis consisted of five chapter. In every chapter had their own sub

chapter. The writer explained more explanation and information of every chapter.
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The first chapter was Introduction. It contains backgroud of study, problem

formulation taht consist of three questions, objective of study, definition of term,

urgency of study, theoritical ground, and systematization.

The second chapter was Literature Reviews which explained further about the

approaches and theories that were applied in this thesis.

The third chapter was the the influence of social interaction towards Robert

McCall personality in doing the retaliation against Russian gangster.

The fourth chapter is the analyze. It will explain the impact of Obsessive

Compulsive Disorder of Robert McCall. It is research finding or discussion.

The last chapter contained of the conclution and suggestion of the writer. In

this chapter, the writer conclude and give her advices on how to have analysis

about analysis that may be useful for the reader.

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CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEWS

This thesis discribed about Robert McCall personality and his interaction in

social life. The writer chose to analyze the problems in The Equalizer by Antoine

Fuqua used sociological and psychological approach. The writer uses some

theories to solve the problem that related to the title on this thesis. Before using

the theories in this thesis, the writer is going to explain the background of

sociology and psychology of main character.

A. Sociological Theory

A sociological theory is a set of ideas that provides an explanation for human

society. Theories are selective in terms of their priorities and perspectives and the

data they define as significant. As a result they provide a particular and pertial

view of reality. Sociological theories can be grouped together according to a

variety of criteria. The most important of these is the distinction between

Structural and Social action theories.

1. Social Interaction
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Social interaction refers to the ways people behave in relation to

another, using language gestures, and symbols. Much of what the

people do each day involves social interactions, which can have

profound significance or be quite trivial in their consequences. Human

interaction appears to be unique, however, in the degree to which it uses

complex symbols, including language. These symbols, especially

language, can transcend time and space and allow people to

communicate with others far away or still unborn. The term symbolic

interaction is often used to refer to interactions that rely on share

symbols, such as a thumbs up sign or a wave and smile. A second

unique feature of human interaction is that people attach symbolic

meanings to virtually vary widely.

According Wallace and Wolf (1980) that “During the rallies of

the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley (in the 1960s), [Herbert]
Blumer could be observed mingling with the crowds, observing from
upper level window, and later talking at length with student involved.
As a symbolic interactionist, his approach to explaining students’
involvement was to find out how individuals perceived and interpreted
events and how they had made the decision to become involved. An
illuminating contrast can be found in the work of sociologists such as
[Amitai] Etzioni, who are more concerned with “social structure”. They
approach such an event not by looking at individual decisions and
actions that went into making up the Free Speech Movement, but by
looking for general social phenomena that explain why the sixtiies was
a period of campus turmoil. (Persel C.H. (1987) Understanding Society.
P-66)

Types of Social Interaction

In keeping with their interest in finding and explaining pattered

social behaviours, functionalists have indentified and described several

major types of interaction, including coorperation, exchange, conflict,

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competition, negotiation, and coercion. Each type can be considered

separately, even though they frequently blend together in social life.

a. Coorporation. Coorperation refers to a collaborative effort between

people to achieve a common goal. It seems to arise most frequetly

when working with others can produce a desired end more

effectively and efficienly than can working alone.

b. Exchange. Exchange represents a more formalized system if

coorperation, in which individuals trade valued objects or

sentiments. Exchange is commonly noted in economic activities,

but occurs also in love and friendship relationships. Social

exchange usually involves intangibles of a family assist one

another, knowing that they can count in the help of other members

when they need it. Exchange creates and reinforces social bonds

between individuals and groups.

c. Conflict. Conflict involves direct struggle individuals or group over

commonly valued resources or goals. Conflict theorist stress that

conflict is significant and frequent in social life.Conflict may

involve a relatively insignificant object or a quite important one.

Conflict may have positive sociological result, as Simmel (1905)

and Coser (1956, 1967) have pointed out. Groups that have a

common enemy are drawn closer together. Conflict can also clarify

values and issues. Labor and management may not realize until
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they are in open conflict that their interests are essentially

dissimilar.

d. Competition. Competiton is a form of conflict in which there is

agreement on the means that can be used to pursue an end. More

rules and limits are imposed on the interaction than in open

conflict.

e. Negotiation. In negotiation, two or more competing parties reach a

mutually satisfactory agreement. People may negotiate the terms

under which they agree to social exchange, social coorperation, or

competition. When the negotiaton break down, conflict or coercion

sometimes occurs.

f. Coercion. Coercion refers to the process of making someone do

something through the use of social pressure or force. At first

glance coercion appears to be one-sided. But every act of coercion

is at least partially deteminedby the expected reaction to it. In this

sense there is relationship between the coercer and the coerced.

Coercion often occures through the use of physical force . Coercion

can involve the use of social sanctions such as ridicule, guilt,

excommunication, withholding of live, or failure to grant

recognition.

2. Social Action Theory

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Max Weber considered sociology as a science of social action. For

him, social and historical situations should be understood looking at

concrete acting persons. Defining action as any human behavior to

which individuals attach subjective meaning, and social action as

behaviors oriented to the behaviors of others.

Social action refers to any action oriented to influence or

influenced by another person of persons. It is not necessary for more

than one person to physically present for action to be regarded as social

action. It is concerned with the interpretive understanding of human

social action and the meaning people attach to their own actions and

behaviour and those of others.

Weber appears to equate "action" with the concept of simple

movement in the environment. Action is sociologically relevant when it

is "social" or "meaningfully oriented to that of others" (Weber, 1978:

23). Moreover, as is typical of Weberian sociology, a typology is

offered to denote the ways the action can be oriented: Max Weber

distinguished four types of social action :

a. Instrumentally rational action involves analyzing objects and

people in one’s surroundings and using that analysis to try to

attain one’s own goals.

b. Value-rational action is based on an ethical or religious belief

in the value of behaving a certain way, regardless of its chance

of success.
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c. Affectual action is based on a person’s feelings.

d. Traditional action rests on long-standing habits or social

patterns. Weber believed virtual all human action could be

characterized as one or more of these four types. (Persel, C.H.

Understanding Society, P12)

3. Vigilance

Under a governmental system the government is the highest power,

because it has the ability to enforce laws and punish those who break

them. When government fails to enforce the law, there is no other to

attain justice except through the citizens of that society. The highest

power that asserts its power on the citizen has failed, the vigilante is

justified in enforcing the law. There is no means to attain justice and the

vigilante is filling in this gap.

According to Ray Abrahams, who looks at vigilante groups as an

international phenomenon, concludes that “vigilantism is rarely simply a

popular response to the failure of due legal process to deal with breaches

of the law. ‘The people’ and ‘the community’ are on inspection, complex

concepts, and the populism of much vigilante rhetoric conceals… a self-

satisfied-elitism.” (Vigilante Citizens: Vigilantism and the State,

Cambridge 1998, p. 158).

According to Richard Brown in an earlier study of vigilantism on

the frontier argued that “again and again, it was the most eminent local

community leaders who headed vigilante movements… the typical

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vigilante leaders were ambitious young men from the old settled areas of

the East. They wished to establish themselves in the upper level of the

new community, at the status they held or aspired to in the place of their

origin.” (Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence

and Vigilantism, New York 1975, pp. 97 and 111).

Many times the vigilantes were seen as heroes and supported by

the law-abiding citizens, seen as a necessary step to fill a much needed

gap. Though this was usually the case, sometimes the vigilance

committee began to wield too much power and became corrupt

themselves. At other times, vigilantes were nothing more than ruthless

mobs, attempting to take control away from authorities or masking

themselves as "do-gooders" when their intents were little more than

ruthless or they had criminal intent on their own minds.

One of the first vigilante groups formed was the San Francisco

Vigilantes of 1851. After several criminals were hanged the committee

was disbanded. However, when the city administration, itself, became

corrupt, a vigilante group formed once again in 1856. There were

literally hundreds of these groups formed in the American West, such as

the Montana Vigilantes who hanged Bannack Sheriff Henry Plummer in

1864. Controlling the press, the sheriff was made out to be the leader of

an outlaw gang called the Innocents.

4. Violence
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People get into bar fights because someone spills beer on them. Police

officers beat up suspects who insult them. Terrorists blow up planes and

vehicles to achieve political goals. Mothers hit their children because

they misbehave. Youth gangs attack members of other gangs to defend

their turf. Soldiers shoot enemies to stop them advancing. Husbands hit

their spouses because they disagree about family finances. State officials

execute offenders as a form of punishment. Adolescents get into

schoolyard fights over rude remarks. Drug-dealers kill rivals to protect

their businesses. Disgruntled employees go on shooting sprees in their

workplaces because they are made redundant.

Violence comes in many forms and occurs in many different

circumstances (see McClintock 1963; McClintock and Wikström 1992;

Wikström 1985, 1991) for many different reasons (see Curtis 1974;

Wolfgang 1958). We define violences as acts intended to bring about

physical harm to other beings. Acts are bodily movements under the

guidance of a person example speaking or hitting. Acts intended to cause

harm, because excluding intention from the definition would mean

accidents which (unintentionally) cause harm would classify as acts of

violance for example accidentally shooting someone when cleaning a

gun, while unsuccessful attempts to harm someone would not for

example shooting to kill someone but missing. We have also restricted

the concept of violence to acts intended to bring physical harm, that is,

acts intended to cause pain, bodily injury or death.

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When explaining acts of violance, the most important fact is not that

they intend to bring about physical harm but that they are moral action

guided by rules about what it is right or wrong to do in a particular

circumstance. There is principally no difference in explaining the causal

processes that make a person hit someone, lie to someone or steal

someone’s belongings. Violence takes many forms, one of the reasons it

has proven difficult an effective general theory, there is considerable

variation in the moral rules which regulate different kinds of violence

indifferent setting.

Moral rules regulate not only whether the use of violence is right or

wrong in a particular circumstance, but also what kinds and levels of

violence are permitted. Act of violence differ from other types of moral

action because they occur when people with weak personal moral rules

and emotions opposing the intentional harming of other (people who do

not think intentional harming others is wrong in a given circumstance, or

do not care much about doing so even if they think it is), or strong

personal moral rules and emotions supporting the intentional harming of

others (people who think intentionally harming other is the right thing to

do in a given circumstance and would feel justified in doing so)

encounter opportunities or frictions which may temp or provoke them to

act violently in setting which have a violence-conductive moral context

(setting in which rules promote violence or in which tules prohibiting

violence are weakly enforced). The intersection of such people and such
 25

setting may lead those people to perceive intentionally harming others as

an alternative (and possibly the only alternative) which they choose to

pursue.

B. Psychological Theory

Psychology is a scientific study of behavior and mental process. Psychology

included mind and personality; how can a person become emotional and desperate

in some situation and personalities. Each person has characterization in

psychological when he/she gets many problem.

1. Personality

Personality as one appears to others created in the mind of audience is an

impression of the character depicted on the stage. According to Allport’s

definition, stated on Psychology of Child Development, personality is

dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems

that determine the individual’s unique adjustment to environment.

(1978:524).

In the Carlson & Buskist’s book “Psychology - The Science of

Behavior”, Sigmun freud devided personality into three separate but

interacting structure: id, ego, and superego.

a. The id is the innermost core of the personality, the only structure present

at birth, and the source of all psychic energy. The id has no direct

contact with reality and functions in a totally irrational manner.

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b. The ego is the self; it controls and integrates behaviour. It act as a

mediator, negotiating a compromise among the pressures of the id, the

counterpressures of the superego, and the demands of reality. The ego’s

functions of perception, cognition and memory perform this mediation.

The ego is driven by the reality principle, the tendency to satisfy the id’s

demand realistically, which almost always involves compromising to

delay gratification of a driver until an appropriate goal is located.

c. The superego is the moral arm of the personality. Super ego is

subdivided into the conscience and the ego-ideal. The consciense is the

internalization of the rules amd restrictions of society. It determines

which behaviours are permissible and punishes wrongdoing with

feelings of guilt. (P.464)

2. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive are repetitive and unwelcome thoughts, images, or impulses

that invade consciousness, are often abhorrent to the person, and are very

difficult to dismiss or control. Compulsions are repetitive behavioral

responses - like the woman’s cleaning rituals – that can be resisted only with

great difficulty. Compulsions are often responses that function to reduce the

anxiety associated with the intrusive thought (Clark & O’Connor 2005; De

Silva & Rachman, 1998)

Behavioral compulsions are extremely difficult to control. They often

involve checking things repeatedly, (for example, whether the door was
 27

looked off), cleaning or hand washing, and repeating the tasks endlessly. If

the person does not perform the compulsive act, he or she may experience

tremendous anxiety, perhaps even a panic attack. Like phobia avoidance

responses, compulsions are strengthened through a process of negative

reinforcement because they allow the person to avoid anxiety (Jenike,1998).

Several causes have been suggested for obsessive compulsive disorder.

Unlike simple anxiety states, this disorder can be understood in terms of

defense mechanisms. Some cognitive investigators have suggested that

obsessions serve as devices to occupy the mind and displace painful

thoughts.

a. Cognitive Cause

Cognitive researchers also point out that persons with obsessive-

compulsive disorder believe that they should be competent at all times,

avoid any kind of criticism at all cost, and worry about being punished

by other for behavior that is less than perfect (Sarason and Sarason,

1993). Thus, one reason people who have obsessive-compulsive disorder

may engage in checking behavior is to reduce the anxiety to avoid

others’ criticism that they have done something less than perfectly.

If painful, anxiety-producing thoughts become frequent, and if

turning to alternative patterns of thought reduces anxiety, then the

principle of reinforcement predicts that the person will turn ti this

patterns more frequently. Just as an animal learns to jump a hurdle to

escape a painful foot shock, a person can learn to think about a “safe
 28

topic” in order to avoid painful thoughts. If the habit becomes firmly

stablished, the obsessive thoughts may persist even after the original

reason for turning to them, the situation that produced the anxiety,

arousing thoughts, no longer exists. A habit can thus outlast its original

causes. One effective approach to threating people with this disorderis to

change their patterns of thinking.

b. Genetic Cause

Evidence is beginning to accumulate suggesting that obsessive-

compulsive disorder may have a genetic origin. Family studies have

found that this disorder is associated with neurological disorder called

Tourette’s syndrome, which appears during childhood (Pauls et al.,

1986). Tourette’s syndrome is characterized by muscular and vocal tics,

including making facial grimaces, squatting, pacing, twirling, barking,

sniffing, coughing, grunting, or repeating specific words (especially

vulgarities). Paul and his colleagues that the two disorders are produced

by the same single, dominant gene. It is not clear why some people with

the faulty gene develop Tourette’s syndrome early in childhood and

others develop obsessive-compulsive disorder later in life.

Not all cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder have a genetic origin.

The disorder sometimes occurs after brain damage caused by various

means, such as birth trauma, encephalitis, and head trauma (Hollander et

al., 1990). As we shall treated by psychosurgery, by drugs, and by

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behavior therapy. These treatments are sometimes effective, but the

disorder often persist despite the efforts of experienced therapists.

3. Revenge

Webster’s Dictionary defines revenge as “to inflict damage, injury or

punishment in return for (an injury, insult, etc.).” The revenger may be

motivated primarily by hatred of the perceived wrong doer, a wish to see

him suffer, or any other form of malice or ill will. Indeed, such emotions

may be the sole reason for the revenge act. The reasons which motivate

the act of revenge will be relevant to the morality of the desire to seek

revenge; not whether the act is an act of vengeance. Revenge need not be

motivated by any other “higher” ideal such as acting because one believes

that all wrong doers should be punished, or any of the Utilitarian reasons

such as deterrence or rehabilitation. Groups or legally constituted

governmental bodies, as motivated by a desire to seek retribution.

All human societies practiced retaliation at one stage or another.

Practices of retaliation evolved over time. In the early phase of discretionary

retaliation, there were no formal or legal controls on the victims behavior.

Early customs of retaliation ranted victims some degree of discretion over

the severity of punishment imposed on wrongdoers. The early conceptions

of retaliatory justice, however, often imposed qualitative limits on

punishment. Retaliation contained the idea of punishment in-kind B

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captured by the etymology of the word talio (retaliation), which comes from

the word talis (equal in kind) B without imposing any limit on the measure

of punishment. In other words, early norms of retaliatory justice embedded

the notion of “kind-for-kind” punishment without imposing the additional

constraint of “measure-for-measure”.

Although no rational departure from the peaceful equilibrium would be

expected under a kind-for-kind regime, given that a disturbance of the

peaceful equilibrium could prove very costly, an involuntary shock could

trigger a medium-term feud with considerable dissipation of wealth. These

problems were subsequently mitigated by the emergence of norms of

proportional retribution, which led to an ex post scrutiny of the private

retaliation carried out by the original victim. At this stage, retaliation was

still privately carried out and thus was influenced by the victim’s subjective

instinct for revenge, but in case of blatantly disproportionate retaliation, the

unequal harm done to the parties could be brought into balance by imposing

in kind punishment on the overreacting party. We refer to this regime as

kind-for-kind retaliation.
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CHAPTER III

THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL INTERACTION TOWARD ROBERT

MCCALL’S PERSONALITY

In this chapter, the writer analyzes the social interaction Robert McCall as

someone who has obsessive compulsive disorder. The writer explores the relation

between interaction and personality.