Meena's anxiety as seen in meena Kandasamy's when i hit you novel

This study used Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis theory, focusing on the types of anxiety, factors causing anxiety, and the defense mechanisms performed by the main character in the novel. Descriptive qualitative methods were used in this study to collect and analyze the data to answer the research questions. The result of this study found that Meena as the main character in the novel experiences three types of anxiety which are neurotic anxiety, moral anxiety, and realistic anxiety. The types of anxiety experienced by Meena can be seen by; the feeling of tense and restless, the feeling of shame, guilt and worry, and also the fears of her abusive husband. Furthermore, the writer found several external factors causing the anxiety of Meena which comes from the marital abuse, pressure from her closest people, Meena being underestimated, and Meena’s lack of social life. In the final result, the writer found that the main character uses five types of defense mechanisms to reduces her anxiety which are; sublimation, reaction formation, isolation, idealization, and fantasy.