Lois Lowry's Number the Stars As a Bildungsroman

LEXICON Volume 5, Number 2, October 2018, 167-179 Annemarie Johansen’s Stages of Growing up: Lois Lowry’s Number the stars as a Bildungsroman Dinar Tri Nugraheni*, Bernadus Hidayat Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia *Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT This research examines Lois Lowry’s Number the stars, focusing on the development of Annemarie Johansen’s self-awareness and personality trait from the stage of immaturity into maturity. In line with the topic of research, the formalist approach was used as the main theoretical approach. The library research was used in collecting the data. To point out every crucial stage of Annemarie Johansen’s growing up process, the definition of Bildungsroman proposed by Dilthey (1985) was applied. The results reveal that Annemarie Johansen goes through stages of growing up processes from her immaturity into maturity throughout violent and dangerous times. The results also show that during her self-growth, Annemarie Johansen gradually develops her self-awareness and personal trait of being a courageous girl in order to survive in the harsh reality and she manages to save her good friend, Ellen, from the plan of Nazi persecution of Jews during the German occupation. Finally, she transforms herself from an innocent and frightened girl into a brave girl in a brief period. Keywords: bildungsroman, growing up, formalist approach, Number the stars. producers basically ignores the idea of Bildungs- INTRODUCTION roman and rarely adapt it into their work. For Because of its aim to educate its readers, instance, Adit & Sopo Jarwo, a popular Indonesian bildungsroman qualities have become popularized animated children's series of shorts films, does not in other book genres that target youths and represent Bildungsroman qualities at all. adolescents. In western countries, a Ironically, this children’s series tend to put aside bildungsroman or a “novel of formation” (Boes, the idea of Bildungsroman proposed by Buckley 2006, p. 230) is important to be adapted for novels (1974), who states that Bildungsroman is a novel or others literary works as an education aid to focusing on the moral, psychological, and help children’s growing up process. Some people intellectual development of a main character. believe that J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and C. S. According to Buckley (1974), the main character Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia can be of Bildungsroman novel is a child protagonist who considered as bildungsroman novels as well. has to experience some form of moral develop- Because both novels have obtained much atten- ment required by the society. This idea of moral, tion and popularity around the world. As a result, psychological, and intellectual growing up process they have been adapted into films and have placed in children character is not represented on the themselves as prominent literary works for young main character of Adit & Sopo Jarwo. On the people. contrary, Adit, as the main child character, has On the other hand, the idea of already been depicted as a mature boy, who Bildungsroman does not receive much attention in teaches an adult, Sopo Jarwo, to learn about the our country. Indonesian authors and film values required by society. Other times, it Dinar Tri Nugraheni & Bernadus Hidayat / Annemarie Johansen’s Stages of Growing up | 167 168 | LEXICON, Volume 5, Number 2, October 2018 prevents children to get educated by this series notion of the innocent child in need of adult because children, as the audience, are unable to protection in order to expose it as a limiting, follow the protagonist from child-like simplistic, and, in the final analysis, inaccurate thoughts/feelings to more mature understandings view of childhood. Both works portray children as of the world around him/her. complex, multifaceted individuals who display courage, compassion, and resilience in the face of Unlike the story of Adit & Sopo Jarwo, adversity. which employs so much violence, the Bildungsroman traditionally allows the readers to Another study by Klavž (2013) focuses on clearly understand how children characters may the historical setting of the novels, The Boy in the depart from their period of youth to enter that of Striped Pajamas and Number the stars, that is, adulthood. If the reader does not see or during the Holocaust. Furthermore, she explains comprehend what the purpose of a literary work, how the authors, Boyne and Lowry, use a special s/he will not be able to get educated by its values. type of innocence in their works to highlight the As a result, reading about the protagonist’s self- horrors of Holocaust. An in-depth study of both reflection and personal recognition in a works revealed that innocence in their works is Bildungsroman permits the reader, especially embodied in the child protagonists and their children, to analyze more about the protagonist naïve, innocent, brave and sometimes ignorant dealing with similar situations like in real life, and views on the given situations. their own self-reflection and consciousness. Number the stars was also investigated by Some well-known novels have already been Nugraha & Saraswati (2016), focusing on the listed as the best bildungsroman books. Number concept of courage. He argued that the setting and the stars by Lois Lowry is considered as one of the the characterization of the novel as the formal best examples of Bildungsroman novels among elements work to define the concept of courage. classic and popular Bildungsroman novels Then, he related the concept of courage shown in (bildungsroman, n.d.) Thus, it is interesting to the novel with the meaning of courage in general. examine this novel to get a better understanding Despite all these studies, the present about Bildungsroman and about how the author, research is slightly different in the sense that it Lois Lowry, educates the reader through the deals with the protagonist’s character stages of growing up of the main child character. development or self-growth in Number the stars. Number the stars won some prestigious In other word, this study focus primarily on the prizes for young adult literature, including the intrinsic elements of the novel, including the plot, John Newbery Medal in 1990, the National Jewish setting, characters, and symbol, which support the Book Awards in 1990, and also the Dorothy analysis of the protagonist’s character Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award in 1991. development. Following its success in winning some prestigious awards for children literature, Publishers Weekly THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK (2001), an American weekly trade news magazine, This study adopts the formalist approach. nd places this novel as the 82 best-selling children's This theoretical approach emphasizes on the book of all time in the United States with sales formal elements of a literary work and focuses on above 2 million as of 2001. Because of these the text itself and pays less attention to other achievements, this novel has been considered as external input including authorship, notion of one of the most successful children books of all culture or societal influences. This understanding time and thus, has become an attractive topic for of formalist approach is also in line with Meyer literary research. (2008, p. 70), who argues: Some studies have been conducted to Formalist Criticism believes in investigate Lois Lowry’s work, Number the stars. literature as a form of knowledge with For example, Latham (2002) argues that Number intrinsic elements—style, structure, the stars and The giver invoke the Romantic imagery, tone, genre. What gives a Dinar Tri Nugraheni & Bernadus Hidayat / Annemarie Johansen’s Stages of Growing up | 169 literary work status as art, or as a great Even though Annemarie Johansen has been work of art, is how all of its elements living in a society surrounded by conflicts of war, work together to create the reader's she is still a 10 year old girl who traditionally acts total experience (thought, feeling, gut as other ordinary children her age. The current reactions, etc.) The appreciation of tension and situation of terror is hardly seen by literature as an art requires close her as a little girl. In the first chapter of the novel, reading—a careful, step-by-step ana- Annemarie is depicted as a girl who has a bright lysis and explication of the text (the character like cheerful, full-spirit and a dreamer. language of the work). Nevertheless, the feeling of fear is clearly shown while for the first time she encounters the soldier Thus, the formalist approach examines the in the middle of the street. Because Annemarie individual part of the text including the has not interacted directly with the German characters, the settings, the tone, the point of soldiers before, through this first sudden view and other intrinsic elements of the text encounter, Annemarie obviously feels nervous which come together to make it become a single and scared, as shown in the excerpt below. text. On the other hand, biographical information about the author, historical events outside of the “Halte!” the soldier ordered in a stern story, or literary allusions, mythological patterns voice. are excluded from the main focus of this approach. The German word was as familiar as it was frightening. Annemarie had heard it often METHODS enough before, but it had never been The method used in this paper is library directed at her until now. research. Two types of data were used: primary Annemarie stared up. There are two of and secondary data. The primary data source was them. That meant two helmets, two sets of the novel itself, Number the stars written by Lois cold eyes glaring at her, and four tall shiny Lowry. Other supportive materials were taken boots planted firmly on the side walk, from the definition of Bildungsroman genre in blocking her path to home.

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