THE REPRESENTATION OF PHALLIC FIXATION THROUGH CAMILLE CHARACTER IN GILLIAN FLYNN’S SHARP OBJECTS

The study examines the main character in Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects, Camille. It analyzes her personality influenced by the situation with her parents during her childhood. Accordingly, the issues that will be discussed are how Camille’s fixation to the phallic stage which consists of the penis-envy and female Oedipus complex fixations is portrayed in the story, and how the phallic imageries in the novel represent Camille’s desire or conflict with her parents. This study uses the Freudian psychoanalysis theory specifically regarding; the phallic stage, fixation, the phallic symbolization, and Eros and Thanatos. This study is a qualitative descriptive research. This study finds that Camille’s behaviors are influenced by her phallic fixation. Her penis-envy highly supported by her libido attachment to her absent father and her fail identification with her mother makes her look for boys or man who are similar in attitude with her father, yearn for someone with fatherly figure, hostile towards her mother, and affects her femininity traits. The study finds that the phallic imagery such as elongated and sharp objects and her pull into it symbolizes the conflict and the desire with her parents in which she still channels her libido towards her father to gain “penis” substitute and her inability to identify with her mother. Her gravitation towards the phallic symbols also affects her Thanatos. The eventual resolved issue to her phallic fixation makes her focus on her Eros.