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A Study on the three main character's ways in dealing with the psychological problems as the effect of the death of their beloved in Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen

In this thesis, I am interested to take one of the Japanese novels by Banana
Yoshimoto, because she is a talented and interesting young writer. Her style of
writing is considered to be magical realism. Meaning that there is a miracle in our life
and it may happen everyday. I choose Kitchen than the other work, because of the
outstanding theme in that novel. Kitchen itself is a story about dealing with death of
the beloved. In dealing with death, we will be able to appreciate the sacredness of
life. That is why, I am interested in discussing about this topic, "dealing with death of
the beloved". How people deal with this problem is very important. Moreover, they
even experience psychological problems as the effects of their beloved?s death.
Therefore, in my analysis, I pay attention on what are the psychological problems of
the three main characters? -Mikage, Yuichi, and Eriko- and how they overcome their
problems. To answer these statements, I use psychological approach, by applying
four psychological theories. They are depression, anxiety, gender dysphoria, and
defense mechanisms. In my analysis, the two main characters use defense
mechanisms, namely repression and displacement, in order to overcome their
psychological problem that is depression. Meanwhile the third character, Eriko
chooses to change his anatomical gender to deal with his problem, gender dysphoria.
I find out that these three main characters use different ways in order to deal with
their psychological problem. Mikage, the main female character, chooses
displacement to shift her needs of the presence of family and affection into the
kitchen and sofa. Then, Eriko uses transitioning to deal with his guilt and worthless
feeling after the death of his beloved. Eriko decides to become a transsexual parent by
a plastic surgery. The last one is Yuichi does repression because he is afraid of having
and then losing someone he loves. Through this analysis, we will understand that for
some people, it is not easy to deal with the beloved?s death, although death is a
natural thing. When people try to seek the way out, sometimes, they do not realize
that their chosen way does not overcome their problem and just create another new
problem.