Jack’s Inner Conflict in Mary Pope Osborne’s Dinosaurs Before Dark

This study aims to investigate the inner conflict experienced by the main character, Jack in the children’s novel Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne. The novel depicts the adventure of two children in the world of dinosaurs and highlights various emotional tensions, especially the fear and discomfort experienced by Jack. Therefore, this study seeks to answer the following research problems: (1) how is Jack’s inner conflict portrayed in Dinosaurs Before Dark, and (2) what defense mechanisms influence Jack’s inner conflict in the novel.This research uses a qualitative approach to obtain a clear and systematic description of the phenomenon being studied. A descriptive study in textual analysis is applied to examine Jack’s narration and dialogue throughout the novel. The data are collected through close reading and marking the texts that reflect symptoms of inner conflict, then analyzed using Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory on personality structure and defense mechanisms. The analysis continues by identifying the forms of conflict and the psychological strategies used by Jack. Finally, the collected data are connected with Jack’s emotional context and character development within the story. The results of the study show that Jack experiences inner conflict between the urge to explore and his fear of danger. To deal with this conflict, Jack uses several defense mechanisms such as denial, repression, and rationalization. This inner conflict becomes a means of emotional and cognitive development for the character and shows that children’s literature can serve as a medium for character education and emotional understanding for its readers.