A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MAIN CHARACTER IN GREEN’S THE FAULT IN OUR STARS
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A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MAIN CHARACTER IN
GREEN’S
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS
By
MADE RATIH WIDYASTUTI
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND CULTURE
UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
Abstrak
Karya sastra merupakan hasil dari pemikiran atau imajinasi sang penulis. Salah satu karya sastra adalah novel. Dalam sebuah novel terdapat berbagai aspek yang membangun keseluruhan bagian menjadi kesatuan cerita. Salah satu aspek penting dalam novel adalah karakter. Karakter merupakan cerminan dari manusia yang diciptakan melalui imajinasi dan pengalaman sang penulis. Oleh sebab itu, menganalisis karakter mirip seperti menganalisis sifat manusia. Pengalaman atau rintangan (duka) yang dihadapi secara tidak langsung memeberikan dampak pada kepribadian atau sifat dari karakter utama itu sendiri. Tujuan dari studi yang berjudul “A Psychological Analysis of The Main Character in Green’s The Fault in Our Stars” ini adalah untuk membuktikan apakah ada hubungan antara kondisi psikologis karakter utama dan motifmotif dalam hidupnya.. Oleh karena itu selain menggunakan teori sastra, teori psikologi juga disertakan untuk menemukan penjelasan dan hubungan antara penngalaman yang dialami dengan kepribadian atau sifat-sifat yang terbentuk setelahnya.
Kata kunci: psikologi, karakter, motif
Literary work is imaginative or creative writing and novel is one kind of it. In a novel there are many elements which build the unity of the whole story. One of the elements is a character. It is a central point of a novel because the various characters are the ones who represent and enliven the story from the beginning until the end. Characters in literary work are a reflection of human being which is created by author’s imagination. That is why a character must have something similar to the people in life (life-likeness).
Then, this study added a particular analysis about the psychological aspects of the main character in the novel The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (2012).
Psychological analysis is about analyzing a person’s behavior by their psychological point of view. The topic of this study is interesting to be analyzed because it analyzed something beyond the story itself which was related to the author’s imagination of the relevance of lifelikeness.
Based on background above, the problems can be formulated as follows:
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1. How is the characterization method that the author used and which types of character that the main character belongs to in the novel The Fault in Our Stars?
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2. How does the author describe the main character in terms of Three Dimensional of Human Character theory (especially in psychological dimension of it)?
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3. How is the relation between main character’s needs and her psychological condition in affecting her behavior/personality along the story?
The aims of this study are focused:
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1. To identify the method of characterization and the type of character used by the author to describe the main character itself in this book.
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2. To explain Three Dimensional theory of the main character especially the psychological dimension of it, in order to analyze her behavior/personality in general and how it is developed for the rest of the story.
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3. To analyze and explain the relation between the main character’s psychological needs development according to Maslow’s motivational theory in facing her chronic illness and her psychological condition using Kubler-Ross’s theory in order to know which grief stages that the main character is going through along the story in correlation of her behavior/personality.
Data source is the source from where data are taken. The data used a primary written data. Primary data is a data collected by the researcher from the main resources directly (taken from the original source which is the novel itself). This study focused on a psychological analysis of the main character in the novel entitled The Fault in Our Stars written by John Green (2012) and was published by Duton Books- New York. The reason why this novel was chosen is because the uniqueness of the story is very heart-touching and is told by the main character itself as the narrator of this novel as well. All aspects of the story are shown through her perspective which shows obviously her minds, thoughts, actions and her feelings towards everything. Therefore, the data could be analyzed from the psychological point of view easier.
The method used of this study was library research method. Since the data were primary written data, this study was done by these following techniques. Firstly, the researcher focused on reading the novel carefully. Comprehensive reading is needed in order to understand the story and to identify the personality, habit, and behavior of the main character. After that, the promising data were highlighted in order to make the analysis step easier.
The data in this study were analyzed using qualitative or descriptive method. Qualitative method is a method which has purpose to explain or describe the object of researches deeply or more detail. The potential, important, and promising data which have been collected were identified by highlighting the related sentences. The next step was reducing the data in order to get the valid one. After that, the data were classified based on the theories from Maslow- A Theory of Human Motivation (1943) and Kubler-Ross- Five Stages of Grief (cited in Chapman, 2006). The data were analyzed descriptively by two theories of psychology to get the relation between main character’s psychological condition and needs which gave influence to the character’s building.
Some theories of literature and psychology were used in analyzing the main character in the novel named Hazel Grace Lancaster. Firstly, the method of characterization and type of character were identified using Kenney’s theory. Then, the psychological dimension of the main character was analyzed using Egri’s theory of Three Dimensional of Human Character. Furthermore, character’s needs or motives were analyzed using Maslow’s theory of Human Motivation. Last but not least, theory proposed by Kubler-Ross was applied in order to analyze The Grief Stages that the main character experienced along the story. Those theories were used to see the relation between them.
Here is a short synopsis of the novel The Fault in Our Stars to give a brief comprehension about the character in the story. Hazel Grace Lancaster as the main character and the narrator in this novel is suffered from horrifying illness which is stage IV thyroid cancer and is incurable. To support her life she must be attached by several life-support equipments which obviously show that she is a sick person. She does not like to do social interaction and prefers to just staying at home because she thinks it is a useless thing to do since she knows that she might be die sooner or later. She always sees everything in a pessimistic way. It changes after she meets the love of her life as secondary character named Augustus Waters. They are struggling hard in facing their obstacles together.
Hazel is the leading character in the novel, the plot and resolution of conflict revolves around her. She always presents in every circumstance or event and always appears from the beginning to the end of the story. Hazel obviously belongs to round or complex character because she can be seen from all sides. She satisfies the reader’s sense of the actual richness and complexity of human nature through her narrative and she has changed her way of thinking in the end of the story. In addition, Hazel as the main character and also the narrator of this novel belongs to dramatic method of characterization based on Kenney’s theory. The author did not show her traits directly. She reveals herself through her own words and actions.
Psychology is the third dimension after physiological and sociological dimension. Psychology, then, rounds out the three dimensions (Egri, 1960:34). Psychological aspect is anything which related to the psychological condition of the character or stated as the inside things in human being such as abilities, qualities, temperaments, attitude toward life, etc. There are some qualities of Hazel Lancaster Grace described by the author of this novel such as ambivert personality, like to be alone, lack of self-confidence, outspoken and independent girl. One example of those qualities can be seen in the following explanation:
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1.) Like to be Alone
As an ambivert person, Hazel likes to spend time by herself. This kind of personality has both characteristics from introvert and extrovert. The following evidence is showing that she has the typical of introversion which is prefers to be alone and feel comfortable to do so. She also gives a statement directly that she likes to have her own times as the quotation below shown.
Any attempts to feign normal social interactions were just depressing because it was so glaringly obvious that everyone I spoke to for the rest of my life would feel awkward and self-conscious around me. Anyway, I really did like being alone. (Green, 2012:47)
According to Maslow, this hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other advanced needs. This hierarchy is most often displayed as a pyramid consists of physiological, security, social, esteems, self-actualizing needs. The lowest levels of the pyramid are made up of the most basic needs, while the more complex needs are located at the top of the pyramid.
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1 .) Social Needs (No Motive To Reach for Love)
After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third level of human needs is interpersonal and involves feelings of belongingness, love, and affection from one’s relationship such as friendship and family. Yet, however, Hazel’s
safety and security needs are not fulfilled enough to be able to goes up into the next stage as the following explanation shown.
In Hazel’s case, it seems that she has no intention to love someone and never loved someone before, except for her beloved parents. Hazel states clearly about her intention to stay away from people because she does not want to hurt people who close to her. It means, she has no motivation to have normal social life. It can be seen in the quotation below about what she feels about herself.
“I’m like. Like. I’m like a grenade, Mom .I‘m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?“ “I’m a grenade,” I said again. “I just want to stay away from people and read books and think and be with you guys because there’s nothing I can do about hurting you; you’re too invested, so just please let me do that, okay? I’m not depressed. I don’t need to get out more. And I can’t be a regular teenager because I’m a grenade.” (Green, 2012:99)
Kübler-Ross explained the process of griefing in which now regarded as Five Stages of Grief consists of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance stage (cited in: Chapman, 2006). It is a series of emotional stages experienced when faced terrible facts/events or death of someone.
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1 .) Depression Stage
During the fourth stage, the grieving person begins to understand the certainty of death. This stage is characterized by feelings of sadness and regret, fear, uncertainty, etc.
Hazel describes herself as a girl who has a lot of thought related to death and dying. Somehow, her life really looks like an empty glass before she met her lover. This uncertainty feeling makes her not to live her best life as the following quotation shown:
Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death. (Green, 2012:3)
Psychology has a tight relation with literature because the central ideas of them are expressing the human beings and their problems. It can be concluded from the explanation in the previous chapter that the main character as the narrator of the story is belongs to complex/round type of character. The method of characterization that was used by the author is dramatic method. The result of this study shows that there is a relation between the character’s psychological condition and her needs or motivation in life. The relation itself also gives influences to the character’s personality indirectly.
Hazel has no social motivation which is caused by her chronic illness. The lack of social motivation is caused by her condition which is in the stage of depression. It affects her personality as well. She becomes a lonely girl who prefers to do home activities rather than do some social interaction with new people. It changes when she is at the stage of accepting herself as the way she is and it makes her moving up to another level of motivation which is social and esteems needs.
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7. Bibliography
Chapman, Alan.2006. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross -Five Stages of Grief. Available from:
http://www.businessballs.com/elisabeth_kubler_ross_five_stages_of_grief.htm (Downloaded on 21st January 2014)
Egri, Lajos.1960. ‘The Art of Dramatic Writing’.New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc. Available in:
http://www.itworkss.com/download/Books/Lajos/Egri/The/Art/Of/Dramatic/W riting.pdf (Downloaded on 15th May 2013)
Green, Christopher D.2000. A Theory of Human Motivation-A. H. Maslow (1943) Originally Published in Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.Ontario: York University. Available from: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm (Downloaded on 25th December 2013)
Green, John.2012.The Fault in Our Stars.New York: Dutton Books
Kenney, William.1966. How to Analyze Fiction. New York: Monarch Press.
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