ISSN: 2302-920X

Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud

Vol 16.1 Juli 2016: 257- 262

The Analysis Of The Main Character In Jodi Picoult’s Novel My Sister’s Keeper

Putu Janet Uspianov1*, I Gde Sadia2, Ni Ketut Sri Rahayuni3

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123English Department, Faculty of Letters and Culture, Udayana University

1[[email protected]] 2[.....] 3[[email protected]]

*

Corresponding Author

Abstrak

Judul studi ini adalah "The Analysis of The Main Character in Jodi Picoult’s Novel My Sister’s Keeper". Studi ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis aspek fisiologis, sosiologis dan psikologis dari karakter utama dan kemudian menemukan metode yang digunakan dalam menyajikan karakter dengan penulis.

Data penelitian dalam studi ini diambil dari novel berjudul "My Sister’s Keeper". Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan melalui studi kepustakaan. Metode ini diikuti dengan teknik mencatat, dan kemudian dikategorikan berdasarkan teori.

Data yang dikumpulkan dan diklasifikasikan secara kualitatif dan deskriptif dianalisis berdasarkan teori sastra oleh Rene Wellek dan Austin Warren (1962). Teori pendukung studi ini diperkenalkan oleh Egri (di Sukada, 1987: 75), yang menyatakan bahwa karakter memiliki tiga dimensi sebagai struktur dasar, yaitu psikologis, sosiologis dan fisiologis, dan karena itu karakter dianalisis berdasarkan ketiga dimensi tersebut. Penulis juga menggunakan teori dari Theory of How to Analyze Fictions (character) oleh William Kenney (1966: 34).

Berdasarkan analisis ditemukan bahwa karakter utama dalam cerita ini adalah Anna Fitzgerald yang secara fisiologis digambarkan sebagai seorang gadis berusia tiga belas tahun yang memiliki tubuh praremaja yang kurus dengan warna rambut gelap, tampilan tidak menarik, tanpa kemiripan dari orang tuanya dan dia suka memakai pakaian kasual. Anna juga seorang donor alogenik untuk kakaknya, Kate Fitzgerals. Dari aspek sosiologis Anna digambarkan sebagai seorang anak dari keluarga khas Amerika yang sangat mencintai keluarganya yang harus berurusan dengan pengadilan dalam upaya nya untuk mendapatkan emansipasi medis. Dari aspek psikologis Anna digambarkan sebagai orang yang cerdas, tetap pendirian, tenang, stabil, hati-hati dalam mengambil keputusan, dan gadis penurut, tapi ia juga dipengaruhi oleh perasaan tidak aman dan tertekan. Dalam mengungkapkan karakter utama penulis menggunakan metode campuran, yang meliputi metode dramatis di mana karakter mengungkapkan dirinya melalui kata-kata dan tindakannya, metode karakter pada metode karakter lain dimana kepribadian karakter utama disajikan oleh karakter lain dalam cerita, dan metode kontekstual di mana penulis menjelaskan karakter dengan konteks situasi dan lingkungan dalam cerita.

Kata kunci: Tiga dimensi karakter, metode karakterisasi, kesusasteraan.

  • 1.    Background of the Study

Literature is quite another way to express world around it through our imagination (Jones, 1968:1). Literature describes what human being has experienced in their lives. As in another kind of art, there are emotional expressions and the mediums that are used by people to express their feeling. Rene Wellek and Austin Warren (1962:229) stated that literature has three major genres, they are drama, poetry, and prose fiction. Literary work can be used as a reflection or condition when and where the literary work was made.

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, 2001:3). With literature, the author entertains people and makes the reader enjoy the story. Beside that, literary work gives information, understanding about life and moral teaching.

  • 2.    Problems of the study

The problems in this study could be stated as follows:

  • 1.    What are the physiological, sociological, and the psychological aspects of the main character described in Jodi Picoult’s novel My Sister’s Keeper?

  • 2.    What kind of methods of characerization are used to describe the main character in Jodi Picoult’s novel My Sister’s Keeper

  • 3.    Aims of study

  • 1.    To find out the physiological, sociological and the psychological aspects of the main character in Jodi Picoult’s novel My Sister’s Keeper.

  • 2.    To find out the methods of characterization that was used by the author to describe the main character in Jodi Picoult’s novel My Sister’s Keeper.

  • 4.    Research Method

In producing scientific writing, there must be an application of systematic steps called reseach method. Research method is defined as a systematic framework of structure and steps used to guide and conduct research. The methodology in this analysis is catagorized into three; they are; Data Source, Method and Technique of Collecting Data, and Method and Technique of Analyzing Data.

  • 5.    Result and Discussion

  • a)    Analysis of the three dimensions

More specifically the analysis deals with physiological, sociological and the psychological aspect of the main character.

  • 1.    Physiological dimension

Anna as a thirteen-year-old girl who was questioning the reason why people had babies. She had been questioning since she was a little kid. At the age of thirteen, she eventually found out that most of the reasons were not romantic at all. She descibed herself in a description that she had a thin body for a teenager. On the other way, her father, Brian, noticed her as she began to grow up into teenager. Anna’s body was beginning to get her curves, and she even began to behave like grown up women, moreover the secretary in Campbell Alexander had mistaken her for an adult because she got a voice of a grown-up. Anna described herself as having a hair with the color of dirt, it could be assumed that she had dark hair color. She felt like she was an unattractive young girl and she looked down on herself and thought that everyone would feel the same. Moreover, her look made her feel that she did not belong to her family. Anna thought that she was born without the resemblance of her parents. She also used to pretend that she belonged to other family. Anna had a healthy body; however her body experienced the same medical torture as she played her part in saving her sister, Kate. On the early pages of the first chapter, Anna explained the reason why she was

born; to be a live donor for Kate who was suffering from acute promyelocytic leukemia. The way Anna dress was not explained very elaborately. However, it could be imagined that Anna wears casual clothes like what teenagers generally wear. She was presented as a teenager who wore sneakers as daily outfit. Compared to the secretary, she paid less attention to what she wore and it seemed that she was not a fashion lover.

  • 2.    Sociological dimension

Anna was born into a typical middle class family, and with the cost of Kates medical treatment, the family had to face financial problem. Anna was very close to Kate, as Kate thought of Anna as her only friend and Anna had the same feeling with Kate. Anna and Jesse did not look alike, but they had similar way of thinking and emotion. Anna had a pretty close relationship to her father since her mother tended to devote her life for Kate. It might be assumed that Brian loved Anna more than he loved Kate or Jesse, since he supported Anna in the trial. Sara and Anna truly loved each other, however their relationship was flawed by Kates condition which demanded full time attention from her mother. Anna’s relationship with Champbell Alexander and Julia Romano is not just as a lawyer and a client or a guardian and a client, they also get to know each other personally.

  • 3.    Psychological dimension

Anna was a smart girl and she is also a determined girl. However, in the morning she went to her attorney and told him that she never changed her mind. Her brother, Jesse, said that she was the Peacekeeper. Anna was also a typically an obedient girl, she usually did what was told to her and especially did mostly what her mother told her. Anna was also a cautious girl. Beside the strong characters that were presented, the author also presented some poor characters from Anna. One of them is that the main character was

depressed. On the other hand, Anna felt quite insecure about herself. She thought that her parents would not have wanted her if it were not for Kate.

  • b)    Method of characterization

The author presented Anna’s character in several methods that made her as an outstanding and complex character throughout the story. It was mentioned in the previous chapter in the paper that a story was considered as using mixing method when the author uses combination of at least two methods in a story. It could be seen from the discussion that the author used the combination of four methods they are dramatic method, contextual metod and character on the other characters method. Therefore, it could be concluded that the method of characterization being used to shape the main character in My sisters Keeper is mixing method.

  • 6.    Conclusion

Based on the analysis and discussion of the main character in the previous chapter, two points of conclusion could be drawn as follows:

Through the physiological aspect, Anna Fitzgerald was described as a thirteen year old girl who had a skinny preteen body with the color of dirt hair, unatractive look, without the resemblance of her parents and liked to wear casual clothes. She was also an allogeneic donor for her her sister, Kate Fitzgerals. Next, based on sociological aspect, Anna Fitzgerald was described as a child from a typical American family who loved her family dearly who had to deal with the court in her effort to get medical emancipation. Third, psychologically, Anna Fitzgerald was described as a smart, determined, calm, stabil, cautious, careful and obidient girl, but she was also affected by insecure and depressed feeling.

The method of Characterization used by the writer is mixing method, which include the dramatic method in which the character revealed herself through her words and actions, character on the character method in which the personality of the main character was presented by the other characters in the story, and contextual method in which the author describes the character by the context of situation and the environment in the story.

The result of this study showed that there is a relation between the three dimensions of character and the method of characterization under concern. This relation shaped up the main character of the story.

  • 7.    Bibliography

Di Yanni, Robert. 1994. Literature Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Essay. 3rd Edition. Pleasantville: Pace University.

Kenny, William. 1966. How to Analyze Fiction. New York: Monarch Press.

K.L Knickerbocker and H.W. Reninger. 1963. Interpreting Literature. New York: Holt Renehart and Winston

Picoult, Jodi. 2004. My Sister’s Keeper. Atria Books: New York, 2004.

Sukada, I Made. 1987. Beberapa Aspek Tentang Sastra. Denpasar: Kayumas & Yayasan Ilmu dan Seni Lesiba.

Sukada, I Made. 1985. Pembinaan Kritik Sastra Indonesia. Bandung: Angkasa

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