An Analysis of conflicts undergone by Mia in Gayle Forman’s Novel If I Stay

This thesis discusses the conflicts undergone by Mia as the main character in If I Stay novel. This story tells about a young girl named Mia who faces conflicts in her life. The most influential conflict in her life is psychological conflict. In this story, Mia faces two choices since her coma. She must choose to stay alive or go to die. This research focuses on the characterization of Mia as the main character, the conflicts undergone by Mia, and Mia’s defense mechanism settle her psychological conflict. This research uses library based and applied qualitative research as a method. New criticism is used to analyze the characterization of Mia and also analyze about the conflicts undergone by Mia. Then, psychological approach in the form of defense mechanism is used to know the defense mechanism of Mia to solve her conflict. As the result of this analysis, there are some conflicts undergone by Mia: physical and psychological conflicts. The physical conflicts are: conflict between Mia and Kim, and conflict between Mia and Adam. The most dominant conflict is psychological. The psychological conflict that faced by Mia is the conflict with herself when she is in comma. She confuses to choose to stay alive or go to die. It makes her anxious. So, she copes her anxiety by some types of defense mechanism. They are repression, denial, fantasy, reaction formation, and displacement