The Analysis of Three Dimensions of The Main Character in Percy Jackson
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https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/linguistika/
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24843/ling.2023.v30.i01.p04
LINGUISTIKA, MARET 2023
p-ISSN: 0854-9613 e-ISSN: 2656-6419
Vol. 30 No.1
The Analysis of Three Dimensions of The Main Character in Percy Jackson
Gres Rewung Kadmaerubun1, I Gusti Ayu Gede Sosiowati2, I Komang Sumaryana Putra3 English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Udayana University, Bali, Indonesia 1,2,3 e-mail: 1valenthinagrace14@gmail.com, 2sosiowati@yahoo.com, 3sumaryana_putra@unud.ac.id
Abstract— The aim of this study is to analyze the three dimensions of the main character in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief movie. The data which are used in this study are taken from a movie entitled Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. This study applied a theory proposed by Egri (1960) to analyze the three dimensions of the character and a theory proposed by Kenney (1966) to classify the method of characterization into five methods: Discursive Method, Dramatic Method, Contextual Method, Mixing Method, and Characters on the other Characters Method. The data were collected by using documentation method and note taking technique. Descriptive and qualitative method were used to analyze the data. Based on the analysis, it shows that the main character in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief movie is Percy Jackson. The findings of this study indicate that in the movie, it shows all of the three dimensions of the character. There is also method of characterization used by the author in the movie.
Keywords: main character, three dimensions, methods of characterization
Abstrak— Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menganalisis tiga dimensi karakter utama dalam film Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini diambil dari film yang berjudul Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Penelitian ini menerapkan teori yang dikemukakan oleh Egri (1960) untuk menganalisis tiga dimensi tokoh dan teori yang dikemukakan oleh Kenney (1966) untuk mengklasifikasikan metode penokohan menjadi lima metode: Metode Diskursif, Metode Dramatis, Metode Kontekstual, Metode Pencampuran, dan Metode Karakter pada Karakter lainnya. Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan menggunakan metode dokumentasi dan teknik catat. Metode deskriptif dan kualitatif digunakan untuk menganalisis data. Berdasarkan analisis, terlihat bahwa tokoh utama dalam film Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief adalah Percy Jackson. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa dalam film ini, terdapat ketiga dimensi karakter. Ada juga metode penokohan yang digunakan oleh penulis dalam film tersebut.
Kata kunci: karakter utama, tiga dimensi, metode karakterisasi
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Literature is a set of artwork or the art of language and usually used as a medium to express an emotion or feelings of a human being. It is the inspiration of life expressed in an artistic form. Literature is quite another way to express world around it through our imagination (Jones, 1968). There are many different forms of literature such as poetry, plays, or novels. According to Rene Wellek and Austin Warren (1962), literature has three major genres, they are drama, poetry, and prose fiction. Through reading a wide variety of stories someone could enter many different imaginative worlds, in the process of enlarging and deepening their perception of the world (Di Yanni, 2001). Literature could affects the feelings and outlook of a person which comes from information, understanding about life and moral teaching from the literary works. In addition, with literature, the author can entertain people and make connoisseurs enjoy the literary work. Lately, movie become popular and it is loved by many people. Movie is one of the literary works because it could give the audience a sense of satisfaction when watching movies, which is also a function of literary works. Movie also contains a series of stories of a person's life with people in the surrounding environment and accentuates the character and nature of each character.
In this study, the researcher is interested in analyzing between the characterization and methods of characterization of the main character in movie because that becomes one difficulty in analyzing literary works. In order to minimize the difficulty, the researcher analyzed and focused only on the characterization and methods of characterization of the main character in a movie because it is more essence and easier to be analyzed. The movie that was analyzed is one written by Rick Riordan entitled Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. The movie will be analyzed based on the character, in this case, the main character. The reason to analyze the main character was because the main character takes an important part as the main focus from the whole story which therefore makes it occupy the central position in the story. This movie is interesting to be analyzed because the author puts
sensitive issues related to physiological, sociological, and psychological aspects in which they appear to build the characterization of a character.
Based on the background of the study, the problem of study are:
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1. What are the physiological, sociological, and the psychological dimensions of the main character described in the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief?
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2. What characterization method are used to describe the main character in the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief?
The aims of this study are:
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a. To describe the physiological, sociological, and the psychological dimensions of the main character in the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
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b. To analyze the methods of characterization that was used by the author to describe the main character in the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
The movie that was analyzed and used as the data source is one written by Rick Riordan entitled Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. This is an adaptation of The Lightning Thief, the first book in the Percy Jackson & The Olympians novel series. The movie was released on 12th February 2010, which tell us about the adventures of a young man named Percy Jackson, who is a demigod, half human and half god, in which he is the son of the god Poseidon and is accused of being Zeus's thief of lightning. He must face an adventure he never imagined to find and return the sacred object and prevent the war that almost broke out on Mount Olympus. The movie will be analyzed based on the character, in this case, the main character.
The data of this study was collected using documentation method. The step of method in collecting the data was by observing, collecting, categorizing and analyzing the physiological, sociological and the psychological dimensions of the main character and the methods of
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characterization which presented the main character. These was the steps of technique in collecting the data such as: 1) Watching Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief movie thoroughly in order to find out words, phrases, or sentences which contain the information of the physiological, sociological, and psychological dimensions of the main character and the methods of characterization that presenting the main character. 2) Marking the expression in which the words, phrases, or sentences are found and considered as the information of physiological, sociological, and psychological dimensions of the main character and the methods of characterization that presenting the main character. 3) Note taking technique was used to gather the data information of physiological, sociological, and psychological dimensions of the main character and the methods of characterization that presenting the main character. The method of analyzing the data was descriptive qualitative method based on theoretical basis for characterization. All the data was classified into certain categories. To determine the data belonging to certain point of analysis, the data was copied from the movie and categorized into physiological dimension, sociological dimension, and psychological dimension. And the data was analyzed based on the characterization theory available.
This research focused on the analysis of physiological, sociological, and the psychological dimensions of the main character and the methods of characterization that was used by the author to describe the main character in the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. The analysis was done by some theories that was adopted as the theoretical framework for this study. The theory of character dimensions proposed by Egri (1960:33) and the methods of characterization proposed by Kenney (1966:20).
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1. The Analysis of Physiological Dimension of the Main Character
A. Percy has a good looking appearance Percy's father has an appearance that is no less good than Percy, he is also handsome so anyone who sees him could easily fall in love with him. This of course affects the physique of Percy as a descendant of his father, God Poseidon. Not only that, on his way to find the lightning bolt thief, he met an evil serpent goddess named Medusa who has the ability to turn anyone into stone just by looking at her. In this scene, Medusa also admitted that Percy does have a good appearance with blue eyes, young, and handsome face.
(54:04-54:54)
MEDUSA: I hear you have the lightning bolt. May I see it?
PERCY: I don't have it!
MEDUSA: Let me see your eyes. I hear they're bluer than the Circassian Sea. Open them, or my hungry babies will have to open them for you. But it would be such a pity to destroy such a young and handsome face. Stay with me, Percy. All you have to do is look
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2. The Analysis of Sociological Dimension of the Main Character
A. Percy relationship with Grover Underwood
Grover is the only supporting character who appears in almost every scene at the same time where Percy also appears from the beginning to the end of the movie. In this movie, Grover is introduced as a good friend of Percy who always accompanies him on every adventure. Not only as a schoolmate and Percy's best friend, unbeknownst to Percy, Grover is also a man-goat or known as a satyr. Grover turns out to be given the task of always accompanying and looking after Percy
(14:56-15:22)
PERCY: Look, man, what's going on?
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GROVER: Look, don't trust anyone, okay? Don't look at anybody, just keep walking!
PERCY: Why did Mr. Brunner ask you to watch me?
GROVER: Because I'm your protector. PERCY: Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. My protector? Are you kidding?
GROVER: What, you think because I'm like this, I'm not capable of keeping you safe?
PERCY: Maybe you're not seeing what I'm seeing. You have crutches!
GROVER: Look, I would give my life to secure your well-being.
PERCY: What are you talking about?
What's going on?
GROVER: We got to warn your mom. Come on, Perce. Come on!
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3. The Analysis of Psychological Dimension of the Main Character
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A. Percy is a caring person
Percy is the type of person who has a very high sense of concern for people around him, both to his mother and also his close friends. For several times Percy always wants to stand up for his mother, Sally, as could be seen in the following data.
(08:25-09:09)
GABE: Woman!
SALLY: Hi, Gabe.
GABE: Where's my beer?
SALLY: It's in the fridge.
GABE: So, what, it's supposed to magically float from the icebox and into my hand? Hustle.
PERCY: Come on, man. You have to do that right here? It's disgusting. We're in a kitchen. Yeah, real charmer you got there. Really. Show some respect, all right?
That's my mom right there.
GABE: This is my house. You show some respect.
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1. Dramatic Method
In the dramatic method, characters are allowed to reveal themselves to the reader through their own words and actions. This is an alternative method to the discursive method because it shows rather than tells. This method is called ‘Dramatic’ because it is like the way the characters are revealed to people in dramas.
(7:51-8:11)
PERCY: Hey, Mom.
SALLY: How was school today?
PERCY: The usual. I think this dyslexia thing is getting worse.
SALLY: Why do you think that?
PERCY: I don't know. Maybe it's the ADHD. You know, I thought this school was supposed to make things better.
As shown above, ADHD is a psychological condition experienced by Percy and is often discussed in the movie. The author used Dramatic Method to show Percy's condition to the audience.
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2. Characters on the other Characters Method
Characters on the other characters method is a method of having one character in a story talk about another. This is the method which one character is presented or described through other characters. It means that one character or more describe or talk about another character in the story.
(22:47-23:54)
GROVER: Yep, you're a demigod! Two points for Percy Jackson! Look, don't worry. But you're not alone. There's hundreds in the world. Some lead normal lives, and some, I'm not allowed to divulge their names, are very famous. I'm
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talking about, like, White House famous. See, man, this place right here, this is the place where you'll learn to harness your powers. You'll train to become leaders, warriors and heroes.
PERCY: I think you have the wrong guy, all right? I'm not a hero. I'm a loser. I have dyslexia, ADHD.
GROVER: And those are your greatest gifts. When you try to read, the words float off the page, right? That's because your brain is hardwired for Ancient Greek, not English.
PERCY: Like at the museum, I could read.
GROVER: Yeah. And your ADHD? You're impulsive, Percy. You can't be still! Those are your natural battle reflexes, man. They kept you alive in your fight. Look, no pitiful loser can defeat a Minotaur. Your blood is special. It's the blood of a god.
PERCY: This is a lot to process.
As shown above, we could observe that the author used the characters on other character method to describe that Percy is not a regular person but he is special because he is a demigod. It was explained through Grover’s point of view. It also showed that Percy is dealing with ADHD which caused him to behave as an impulsive person and why he could not really focus in school. The reason is because beside it is the illness he has, it is also a gift at the same time in which making him to be able to understand ancient Greek.
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3. The Mixing Method
The mixing method is a method which use more than one method in presenting a character. The author presented Percy’s character in several methods that made him as a character who takes an important part as the main focus from the whole story which therefore makes it occupy the central position in the story. It
could be seen from the above discussion that the author used the combination of three methods which are dramatic method and characters on the other characters method. Therefore, it could be concluded that the method of characterization being used to shape the main character in the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is mixing method.
This study observed the characterization and methods of characterization of the main character in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. The main character is Percy Jackson. There are two topic discussions in this study: firstly, analysing the physiological, sociological and the psychological aspects of the main character, and secondly, analysing the methods of characterization that was used by the author to describe the main character in the movie. There are 2 theories that adopted as the theoretical framework for this study. The first theory used to analyze the character dimensions is a theory proposed by Egri (1960) and the second theory used to classify the method of characterization is a theory proposed by Kenney (1966).
Firstly, there are 29 total data found from the movie in which for the three dimensional character there are 23 data and for the method of characterization there are 6 data. The analysis based on the three dimensional character found out that for the physiological dimension, Percy has a good looking appearance. For the sociological dimension, he has a connection with some of the other character such as with Grover Underwood, Sally Jackson, Gabriel “Gabe” Ugliano, Mr.Brunner, Luke Castellan, Annabeth Chase, and Poseidon. Meanwhile, for the psychological dimension, Percy is a caring, honest, smart, and stubborn person. He is also has trouble with his eyesight which found out that he has an ADHD or Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Secondly, for the 6 data of the method of characterization, it is found that the author of the movie used 3 out of 5 method to portray the
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characterization of Percy Jackson. Those methods are dramatic method, characters on the other character method, and mixing method.
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