CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Character development is an important element that we can find in the literature, one of them is in the film. Character development will change slowly time by time depends where they are and from good or bad things you learn, one of the factor is a dog, as a pet. For some people, dog is just like an animal and did not have a meaningful value. For dog lovers, dog is everything for their life. Dog is a true friend and friendship for some people. The writer is interested to analyze this topic because the writer has a dog. The writer has a lot of experience with dogs since her childhood. One of these experiences is her dog change her behavior. When she was a kid, she was rude to the people, but time by time because of the influences of dog’s behavior, she could to be more caring to the people. Not only that, her dog could make her more sympathy to other people. For the writer, dog is not like a just a pet, animal, or another something but, dog is a friend and family. This is not only physically that she loves her dog, but emotionally too. The writer so take care of her dog. No one can hurt her dog. She always wants to be near with her dog. Her dog teaches a big affection for her. Character development of the writer who did not know what the meaning of affection before, she can get from a dog. Because of her love and relationship to her dog, the writer also has stuffs such as doll, bag, watch, necklace, etc that 1 2 concerns with a dog. The writer likes all pages that has a relation with the dog, including “Dog Whisperer” , the reality show that gives a lot of input, advice, lesson, and the most important is taught me how the relationship between the dog and the person’s character (the owner). Based on my own experiences, the writer wants to explore a film having similar plot with my developing behavior by a presence of a dog with a thesis entitled “Impact of The Presence of Dog To The Development of John’s Character in “Marley & Me” Film As Seen Through Liberal Humanism Views.” David Frankel is the director of this film. Frankel is an American director, screenwriter and also producer. He makes many films such as: Miami Rhapsody, Dear Diary, Just Like You Imagined, The Devil Wears Prada, Marley & Me, The Big Year, Hope Springs, One Chance and Magyk. He won many awards from his film. Dear Diary is a film which won Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. Besides that, Marley & Me, The Devil Wears Prada and Hope Spring are the film that won the successful studio films. Frankel makes “Marley & Me” film because he enjoys the book and cries at it. He also has five dogs and he loves them. The story of “Marley & Me” is a real story that happens to him and he wants to capture it to this film. He chooses dog because he thinks that dogs are easy than the babies. Dogs act what they want yet if they are trained, they can be obedient. Besides that, Frankel also wants to show the relation between dog elements and human elements. Frankel feels the same with John Grogan (real person in real story), in house, they have the furniture half- eaten and there are many things that are chewed by dog. In the end, Frankel realizes that dog helps to give us a source of humor and also solace. 3 Scott Frank and Don Roos are the script writer of this film. Frank is an American screen writer and director. He makes many scripts of film, one of them is One of Sight. It was nominated for an Academy Award and received an Edgar Award, a National Society of Film Critics Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award. Don Roos is also an American screen writer and director of film. He won Best First Feature Independent Spirit Award, for The Opposite of Sex. Frank and Roos make the script and give to Frankel. For the first time, Frankel ignored and did not want the script because he did not know about the story or the movie. After that, Frankel read the draft of the script from Frank and Roos. Frankel found there was no plot to speak of and it had an emotional narrative. That is why Frankel accepts this script and makes this script into the film and it is succesful film that can be in box office for two weeks. “Marley & Me” tells about a relationship between a dog (Marley) and 1 family, John’s family. “ Marley & Me” film is a good choice for all those who want to watch even watched with family. “ Marley & Me” got a positive response from goodreads.com, most of the people in comment. They like the story and really touching their heart and 53% positive rating on Metacritic . Since the film opened, “Marley & Me” film grossed much money over the four-day weekend and maintains for 2 weeks at box office placed number 1. “Marley & Me” film also won awards such as: BMI Film & TV Awards with category BMI Film Music Award and Teen Choice Award with category Choice Movie: Bromantic Comedy. In “Marley & Me”, the main character was John Grogan and his dog Marley. John had been married with Jenny Grogan. John and Jenny have a 4 similar job, a journalist. After marriage, John saw Jenny that she wanted a child. John told to his best friend about that and then his best friend suggested him to give John’s wife a dog because of John was not ready to have a child. John gave a dog to Jenny that John named him Marley (from Bob Marley singer). Time by time, Marley grew up and getting very naughty. In the process of handling Marley’s naughty, John got many lessons about life. John become more understand about the meaning of love, one of them is love to his family. One day, John had an argument with his wife because of Jenny has been saturated with Marley’s bad behavior. This is a hard time for John because he has to choose between Marley or his family. For John, Marley is a member of family and not just a dog. In the end, Marley getting older and he got a disease. Jenny has been able to accept Marley again along John and Jenny’s kid were grown. For the first time, when Marley got that disease, he can be helped by a doctor. But for the second time, Marley cannot be helped. John was so sad because a doctor gave John 2 choices: let him go or let him still alive with suffer. John does not want to see Marley suffer, so John let him go and buried Marley in his backyard. From Marley, John gets many lessons life. For example is when John was not ready to have child, but after the presence of Marley, John was ready to have children and develop his family. In this research, the writer uses a previous study from Nadhrah (2010) thesis about “A Psychological Analysis on Two Main Characters’ In the Film of “Marley & Me”, there is an explanation about two characteristic between Jenny & Marley. This will help the writer more understand about Marley how it 5 develops, the problems, methods, analysis, and the results. Besides that, the writer wants get a role model about the structure in writing thesis. In this research the writer used Liberal Humanism theory. Liberal Humanism is a theory that focuses of the language of it. Text of language on the literature is an important point to be analyzed in Liberal Humanism. So, in analyzed Liberal Humanism, it likes when you tells about interpretation text according to the text. Interpretation text here is a text you analysis use own text according to the text (literary work that you want analysis). Liberal Humanism is also known as Formalism. Formalism is the theory that focuses on intrinsic element like plot, setting, theme, character and symbols through the text. The writer will analyze the development of the character through the intrinsic elements and focus on text analysis. In Liberal Humanism, the writer also used ten tenets theory by Peter Barry. The writer explained each point of ten tenets related to character development of John in “Marley & Me”. The relation between people and dog is a reason why the writer interested to find the impact of how a dog can have an impact of development character of John in “Marley & Me” film directed by David Frankel. 1.2 Problem Formulation 1. How is the impact of the dog presence to the main character? 2. What lessons are learned by the main character after the presence of dog in his life? 3. How is the influence of a dog to the development of the main character’s in relation to his family? 6 1.3 Scope and Limitation The scope of this study is a film entitled “Marley & Me” directed by David Frankel. The limitation of this research is the main character, John and Marley. 1.4 Goals and Function The goals of this research are: 1. To find out John’s changing behaviour before and after the presence of Marley to study about the character and characterization; 2. To find out the lesson learned got by John related to the presence of Marley in his life through Cesar Millan’s theory; 3.