CONFLICT ANALYSIS OF MAIN CHARACTER IN STEEL’S IRRESISTIBLE FORCES
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CONFLICT ANALYSIS OF MAIN CHARACTER IN STEEL’S
IRRESISTIBLE FORCES
By
MADE EVIDIANA PUTRI AGNESWARI
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LETTERS UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
ABSTRAK
Konflik merupakan suatu keadaan yang sering sekali terjadi di dalam kehidupan maasyarakat. Sumber dari munculnya konflik ini biasanya berawal dari kesalahpahaman di dalam suatu hubungan, ini terjadi karena adanya pilihan yang tidak memuaskan pihak tersebut. Hal ini menarik untuk dibahas bahkan dalam karya sastra sendiri karena karya sastra tidak akan pernah lepas dari masyarakat. Hal yang akan dibahas adalah konflik internal dan eksternal yang di hadapi oleh karakter utama pada Novel yang berjudul Irresistible Forces yang ditulis oleh Danielle Steel.
Dari analisis konflik, dapat disimpulkan bahwa Meredith adalah karakter utama. Karena kurangnya komunikasi dengan suaminya, pernikahan yang sudah empat belas tahun mereka jalani harus berakhir dengan perceraian. Salah satu kunci agar hubungan tetap harmonis adalah kejujuran. Sumber dari permasalahan yang dihadapi karakter utama adalah kurangnya rasa ingin memiliki anak dalam pernikahannya dan kesalahannya sendiri dalam menutupi perselingkuhannya dengan atasannya. Dalam menyelesaikan masalah ini strategi untuk menyelesaikan masalah sangat dibutuhkan sehingga tercipta suatu hubungan yang lebih harmonis. Ringkasan cerita dan biografis penulis disajikan untuk memudahkan pembaca memahami skripsi ini.
Kata kunci : Konflik, Karakter, Internal konflik
Literature means writing valued as work of art. Taylor (1981:81) states: “Literature, like other arts, is essentially an imaginative act of the writer’s imagination in selecting, ordering, and interpreting life experience”. Literature is also based on the life experience. It also gives us explanation that literature cannot be separated from life. It can be concluded that literature is one of the bridges to make someone communicable with the society about life’s condition by his works.
Diyanni states (2001:7) that there are three major types of literary work such as: poetry, drama, and fiction. Meanwhile fiction can also be divided into the novel, novelette, and short story.
Literary work is fundamentally developed by two elements, such as intrinsic and extrinsic elements. The function of intrinsic element is to build up the literary creation itself such as theme, plot, setting, character, conflict, point of view, etc.
Kenney (1966:19) states: “the conflicts with which fiction concern itself are of many kinds. A story may deal with a conflict within a single man, a conflict between man and society, between man and nature, and so on”.
With reference to what Kenney says about the conflict above, it was found that conflict referred to a person which dealt with life situation. It is only situation that offers a conflict. The focus of this study is the main character’s conflict as portrayed in Irresistible Forces.
The conflict is about how the main character faces her conflict; her conflict with herself, her conflict with another individual and also her conflict with society. It is conflict that makes a story full with intense. How it is started, faced, and solve it for better solution in order to get wisdom living.
Based on the background above, there are two problems in this study, those are:
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1. Who is the main character of Irresistible Forces?
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2. What conflicts are faced and solved by the main character?
The aims of the study in this research are based on the problem formulated above. There are two aims in this study, those are:
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1. To find out the main character of the novel Irresistible Forces.
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2. To analyze how the main character faces the conflict and eventually solves the conflict, internally and externally.
The process used to collect information and data is usually in steps for the purpose of making a decision. It includes:
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1. Data Source
The data source of this study is a novel entitled Irresistible Forces by Danielle Steel (1999). The data source was chosen because it could provide much information related to the conflict on characters which is very interesting to be analyzed.
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2. Method and Technique of Collecting Data
Documentation method was used to collect the data. Firstly, the data were collected by reading the novel Irresistible Forces (1999) intensively, repeatedly and was underlined the important information from the sources which explained about the conflict in the story. Secondly, the writer used some books and several other resources about conflict as references related to the subject matter being analyzed.
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3. Method and Technique of Analyzing Data
The method and technique of analyzing data means how all the data were analyzed to find out the solution to the problem. In this step, firstly the writer determined the main character by classifying the character based on the theory proposed by Diyanni (2001). Secondly, the writer grouped the conflict and the motive of conflict, in order to ease the writer to analyze the data. After the data were collected then all the selected data were being
analyzed to achieve the objective of this study and finally a conclusion was drawn.
The Analysis of the Main Character
Character is a representation of human being, the inner itself that determines thought, speech and behavior. Diyanni (2001:55) states that characters in fiction can be conveniently classified as major and minor, static and dynamic. The main character of this story is Meredith and she has dynamic character.
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a. The Major Character
The novel Irresistible Forces written by Danielle Steel, has several characters which have their own positions and roles in the story. Based on the degree of the involvement of the characters in various events in the story, it could be determined that Meredith Smith Whitman is the major character in the Irresistible Forces. She is considered the major character because she functions to determine where the story goes. The major character is the most important figure in the centre of the story. From the beginning until the end, Meredith Smith Whitman dominantly plays an important role and determines the flow and progress of the story.
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b. Dynamic Character
At the beginning of story she is described as a married woman and very faithful with her husband named Steve. When she must work away from his husband who is in New York and she herself in San Francisco makes an affair with another man. But
after she meets Callan who is her co-worker as well as her boss, she becomes fall in
love with him. They have an affair. The reason she love Callan is that they always spend more time together and she feels comfortable with Callan. In the beginning of the story she does not want to have any child from her husband, but when she meets Callan she wants to have a child with him. She does her affair without being known by Steve. Problems also arise due to her affair. Her changes in attitude make her husband want to divorce. After her divorce, she does not take a long time to open her heart to Callan. She has loved Callan more than she loves Steve. And after she is divorced she quickly accepts Callan’s desire to marry with her.
The Analysis of Conflict
External Conflict
In this novel the analysis of external conflict is between the main character (Meredith) and the supporting characters (Steve Whitman, and Charlie McIntosh), the conflict between the main character with society, and the conflict between the main character with the natural forces.
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a. The conflict between Meredith and Steve Whitman
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1. The source of her conflict is that they have different opinions (incompatible goals) about the desire of having a child.
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2. The strategies of management conflict she used are avoidance, by inviting him to discuss the presence of a child in another time and compromise, by putting jokes joke in every conversation about a child.
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b. The conflict between Meredith and Charlie McIntosh
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1. The source of her conflict is that they have different opinions (incompatible roles) about the Dow Tech firm which goes public.
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2. The strategies conflict management strategies are avoidance, by talking about that firm repeatedly with Charlie as well as competition, by making Dow Tech firm go public by herself without Charlie.
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c. The conflict between Meredith and Society
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1. The source of conflict is there incompatible roes are trying to cover her affair with her boss, named Callan Dow.
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2. The conflict Management Strategies used is avoidance, keeping her attitude in public as well as pacification, by she realizing the public that she is a married woman and Callan is just her friend.
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d. The conflict between Meredith and Nature
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1. The source of her conflict is Incompatible roles as a snowstorm comes abruptly.
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2. The conflict management strategies used are avoidance; cancelling all her plans including her flight as well as compromise, telling Steve immediately that she cannot meet him
Internal Conflict
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a. The conflict between Meredith and her own mind about having a child (Conflict of someone with her own mind)
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1. The source of her conflict is incompatible goals, about the desire of having children just on Steve’s mind.
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2. The conflict management strategies used are avoidance; reducing the intensity about the presence of a child as well as compromise; telling Steve that he will not be too old when she is ready to have a child.
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b. The conflict between Meredith and a new relationship with another man
(Conflict of someone with her own mind)
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1. The source of her conflict is incompatible roles; what she wants in fact about her affair is different from her own mind.
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2. The conflict management strategies used is avoidance; she considers that Callan is just her friend as well as pacification; she tries to be honest with her feeling that she loves Callan.
In this study, the main character of Irresistible Forces is Meredith Smith Whitman. Because it seems that she dominates almost the whole story and she gives spark of conflict in the story. The other characters in this study are also analyzed based on their function, such as protagonist and antagonist characters. In this novel, Meredith Smith Whitman is categorized as an antagonist character. The supporting characters such as Callan Dow and Anna Gonzales are also included in the antagonist characters. The protagonist character in this novel is Steve Whitman because he shows something which agrees with the reader’s view and hope. The antagonist characters are often present in the story because they are always associated with the conflict. Those conflicts brought by the antagonist character could make the story appear to be more attractive.
In this novel, the main character faces two kinds of conflicts, the first one is external conflict and the second one is internal conflict.
From the analysis of conflict above, it can be concluded that Meredith is a woman who is ambitious in her career. Besides due to a lack of communication with her husband, their fourteen years marriage finally comes to an end. The sources of her conflict are her lack of having children from her husband and her own mistake in covering her relationship with Callan and it causes her to be divorced with Steve. In this situation, conflict management is needed to resolve the conflict whether it is right or wrong.
Deetz, Stanley. A and Sheryl. L. Stevenson. 1986. Managing Interpersonal Communication. New York: Chapter & Row Publisher.
Diyanni, Robert. 2001. Literature Reading, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. McGraw-Hill International Edition.
Nurgiyantoro, Burhan. 2012. Teori Pengkajian Sastra. Gadjah Mada University press.
Steel, Danielle. 1991. Irresistible Forces, New York: Dell Publishing.
Taylor, Richard. 1981. Understanding The Elements of Literature. New York: The
Macmillan Press.
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