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Revealing the Message Through the Development

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Revealing the Message Through the Development REVEALING MESSAGES THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE THREE MAJOR CHARACTERS IN COLLEEN McCULLOUGH’S THE THORN BIRDS AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters By RETNO PURWANTININGSIH Student Number: 984214083 Student Registration Number: 980051120106120082 ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2007 i CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study A novel is one kind of literary works besides drama and poetry. It can be considered as a literary work since it can give us pleasure as well as knowledge of human affairs. Murphy in his book says that the greatest novels reflect life and are compounded similarity of many elements, just as life is a mixture of joy, disappointment, hope, sorrow, humor, suffering, and success (1972:133). By reading a literary work such as novel, the readers expect that they can get something from it. Analyzing the novel helps to discover what the novel would like to tell. One of aspects that contribute the story that makes the story flows lively is character. Character is the doer of the story. The story becomes nothing when there is no character. In this writing, I intend to discuss the three major characters of the novel The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. I want to analyze three major characters: Fee, Meggie and Justine. They are three generations of the Cleary. A person’s character develops over the time. It could be by parents, family, environment, society, time, age, etc. The closest environment of a child is his family, especially his parents. From being born, a baby depends on his parents. Every parent wants to guide their child to be a “good person” but sometimes 1 parents forget that they are just human beings who have limitations. They are not angels for their children. No one can be perfect parent but at least they try. It is hard to tell the difference. And children become like their parents. They have a close relationship, a blood relationship. One of the reasons that two people decide to get married is having a baby. Those characters deal with marriage. For Fee and Meggie, they got marriage because of wrong reasons. Pierce Dufoyer in his book, The Choice of A Husband gives definition of a marriage as the following, “A marriage is the complete and harmonious communion of two human being of different sex” (1964:21). His opinion clearly says that marriage is a serious problem. The complete and harmonious communion of two human beings of different sex needs consequently a serious preparation dealing with a long process in advance to understand each other well. Prior to the final, it might be said that marriage is the last step of human relationship. According to Bowman, marriage on the other hand, is not something that “comes naturally”. It is not the product of inborn behavior pattern; it is a institution. It is a cluster of customs and group habits, of attitudes, ideas, and ideals, of social definitions and legal restrictions (1954:28). Marriage is hoped to be last for forever. It means that marriage is not something that we can play with. It is hoped to happen just once during a life time. A marriage should be based on love. It is a very important aspect, and it might lead to destruction if the couple does not have it. 2 What will happen if in a marriage there is no love? Love is the basic element in a marriage. If a family does not have a strong basic foundation how can they build up a house? The parents who are maladjusted in marriage find it difficult or impossible to be a good parent. When someone is still single he does not study in school how to be a good parent. There is no formal institution which teaches a person to be a good parent. But someone can learn to be a good parent by reading book, asking expert, or learning from our parents, etc. There is a relation between maladjusted parents and maladjusted children, who in turn tend to become maladjusted parents themselves. This is a vicious circle that tends to repeat itself. A child needs love and acceptance by others, at least his parents, he must feel free to establish himself to be different from others and grow; make changes which develop oneself, learn to solve problems, and explore his talent/ potential. Acceptance is like a fertile ground that possibly a small seed can grow to be a beautiful flower. Acceptance needs to be shown; for example by touching, smiling, etc. Children need encouragement to determine themselves and children get self-respect. There is nothing more important than a child feeling that he is loved and accepted. Because accepting what he is, is an act of love. After love and acceptance, the greatest need of a child is room to grow. He needs respect for his individuality and an area in which he can make his own decisions. Children need also training, guidance and supervision. If a child does not get what he needs, he may become rebellions or sink into becoming a mere appendage of his parents. Unhappiness in the home and the failure of effective 3 parental guidance makes a child turn away from home and look in other directions to satisfy his desire/wants/needs. I would say that a child should be respected especially for his individuality. If parents respect a child’s individuality, parents have built up his or her self-respect, without it he or she is nothing. By respecting him or her as a person parents put a value on him or her, which brings out all that is best in him or her. There is a power in every child for good or evil. By treating him or her with respect parents release the power for good. If this is combined with parental love and good examples from adults around him, a child can be guided toward maturity (http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/winter 95.Nadeu.html). From this novel, I learn that these three major characters have the similarity of what happened in their lives, especially to repeat the same mistakes of the previous generation. Experience is a good teacher. A good teacher should warn us to take the benefit of what happened toward our parents. It gives us signal to avoid the repeating mistakes. This novel tells us that parents, especially mother has a great influence towards her children. How a mother threats her children from infant to adultness gives influences in shaping the children’s characters development. If Fee respects Meggie as a worth child, it gives influences toward Meggie to raise her own daughter with respect too. But the first generation gives a wrong influence to the next generation; it drives the repetition of the mistake to the next generation. 4 B. Problem Formulation From the background of the research stated above, the problem in which the writer would like to analyze further can be summarized into some questions as follows: 1. How are the three major characters described? 2. From their character development, what are the possible messages of the novel? C. Objectives of the Study This objective of this study is to obtain satisfying answer for the questions raised in the problem formulation. Therefore, the first aim of this thesis is to discuss the character and the characterization of the three major characters in this novel. The characterization will be analyzed by using Murphy’s theory of characterization, it is a method to describe the three major characters in the novel either through direct description by the author or indirect description by other characters. The three major characters are Fee, Meggie and Justine. The last aim is to reveal the possible messages expressed by the three major characters. D. Definition of Terms There are some terms that are used in this writing that I want to define to make the reader easier in understanding this discussion because each term may have its own meaning and interpretation. Those terms are character development and message. 5 Perrin in Literature: Structure, sound, and Sense describes that all fictional characters can be classified as static or developing. The developing or dynamic character undergoes a permanent change in some aspects of his or her character, personality or outlook. The change may be for a large or a small one, it may be better or worse; but it is something important or basis (1974:71). Thus, when we combine this term and character, character development means the growth or the changing of a figure’s, thought, feeling, behavior, the mental or moral qualities in literary work through the environment and successive period as the result of his action to fulfill some motives regardless of the influence of other characters or his past. In New World of Literature, the word message is defined as the real meaning or some easy conclusion that can be simply stated or summarized inside a work of art (Beaty and Hunter.1989:899). The term leads to simplification and gives the illusion that a work of literature exists for its statement that tempts the readers with sweetness of the story to get the real meaning. Meanwhile John Sinclair in Collins Co build Essential Dictionary defines message as an idea that someone tries to communicate to people, for example in a play or a speech or the meaning (1988:490) 6 CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW In this chapter, the discussion is divided into three sections.
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