Theory of Characters and Characterization

12 talking and acting, and leaves the readers to infer what motives and dispositions lay behind what they say or do 21. Murphy in his book Understanding Unseens mentions nine methods to understand personality in characters. They are personal description, character as seen by another, speech, past life, conversation of others, reaction, direct comment, thoughts, and mannerism Murphy 161-173. The first one is personal description 161. It deals with physical appearances. The author describes a person’s character from his or her face detail and clothes that a person wears in the story. For example, a person wears cashmere and silk scarf can be identified as a rich person. A person with scars, whiskers and untidy clothes can be assumed as a criminal. The second is characters as seen by another 162. Using this method, a person’s character is described through the eyes and opinions of another character. Therefore the readers can get a reflected image of one’s character. The reader gets, as it were, a reflected image. This method can give the impressions of shape, cleanliness, firmness, smoothness, colour, and many other things. The third is speech 164. It is an important way that we can use to describe a character. The author gives us a description of the characteristic of one person in a novel through the words that come out from his or her mouth and the style of his or her speech. Whenever a person speaks, whenever he or she is in a conversation with others, whenever he or she puts forward an opinion, the person is giving us some clues to his or her character. 13 The fourth is past life 166. A person’s character is influenced by his or her past life. This is the reason why the author often gives hints to certain events in the characters past life in a literary work. The fifth one is conversation of others 167. We can take clues of a person’s character through the conversations of the other people and the things they say about him or her. People talk about other people and things they say describe other’s character in their mind. Through these saying people give clues to the character of the person spoken about. The next is reactions 168. Different characters will react differently if they face problems. Each reaction toward the problems shows the character’s tendency and this tendency give the readers a description about the character’s personality. For example, a story tells about two sisters who gets an accident one night. The first girl cries out because there is no one there to help them. The second girl directly calls the police to ask for help. These two girls show different characters from their reaction toward a problem. The seventh is direct comment 170. The description by direct comment is different from the personal description. In the direct comment description, it is the author who gives his or her personal reception and comment directly to the character that he creates. The eight is thoughts 171. By knowing a person’s thought, the author can give us direct knowledge of what a person is thinking about. Knowing a person’s 14 mind is one way to know the character of that person. Moreover, the author can give description to the readers that different people may have different ways of thinking. The last one is mannerism 173. A person’s character can be described through a person’s mannerisms, habits, or unusual behavior which may also tell us something about his or her character. The way a character acts can be a clue to understand the person’s character.

2.1.3 Theory of Motivation

People’s behavior is influenced by certain motives. These motives lead them to behave in their manner to get some achievement. Motivation seems to provide the “Why” of behavior. The term motive refers to an internal state of the organism which arouses activity and directs the organism’s behavior toward certain objects or conditions called goal Aiken 110. Since motives are always inferred from behavior, it is circular reasoning to argue that a motive explains the behavior from which it was inferred. According to Stanton, a character’s reason for behaving as he does is his motivation 17. Moreover, Kalish clarifies that motivated behavior is behavior set into motion by a need 29. A need indicates that some type of satisfaction is lacking and implies that the organism is activated to reduce the dissatisfaction. He believes that motivation is strong enough to activate goal-seeking behavior, which begins with curious feeling and ended with behavior that satisfied one’s need. 15 Theory of motivation plays an essential role in this study because it helps the writer to discover the narrator’s motivation in finding and bringing back his wife. It helps the writer understands the reason why the narrator decides to take such action. There are different theories of motivation stated by some theorists. The most widely known is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow believes, as mentioned in Braun and Linder, that human needs, or motives, are organized hierarchically 375. The hierarchy of needs is presented in appendix 3. Maslow in Goble’s The Third Force clarifies motivations in relation with human needs 38. He states, as explained by Petri, that human motivations are based on human needs and that people conduct an action to fulfill their needs 302. Moreover, Maslow theory, as mentioned in Schultz, states that the needs of love and possessing have to be fulfilled in order to get the satisfaction feeling and motivation arises because of such needs 94. This shows that motivation exists to fulfill the lacks that people feel inside them. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs consists of physiological needs, safety needs, belonging and love needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. The first two needs are considered primary or lower-order needs; the remaining three are secondary or higher-order needs. Maslow argues that usually the lowest need on the hierarchy has to be satisfied first before the higher needs on the hierarchy being satisfied Goble 38-43. The physiological needs are the fundamental needs for food, clothing, shelter, comfort, and self-preservation. Someone who faces death by starvation or any other 16 need of this level may resort to murder to meet fundamental, life sustaining need, despite what society might think. When a person lacks of food, self-esteem, and love, he is going to demand food first. He will ignore the other needs until the need of food is satisfied. The safety needs are the needs for stability, order and protection. An insecure person behaves as if a great tragedy is almost always impending. This person has an over need for order and stability, and tries hard to avoid the strange and the unexpected. In short, people need to feel secure, safe and out of danger. People are going to realize that higher needs become unimportant when their life is endangered. The next needs are the belonging and love needs. Love, according to Maslow, involves a healthy, loving relationship between two people which includes mutual trust Goble 41. We satisfy our love needs by establishing an intimate, caring relationship with another person, or people in general, and in these relationships it is just as important to give love as to receive it. In the proper relationship, there are lack of fear and dropping of defenses. The absence of love stifles growth and the development of potential. To defeat love needs is considered as a prime cause of maladjustment. Love hunger is a deficiency disease. Love involves research hunger for affectionate relationship with others and it requires both the receiving and giving of love itself, love from another and someone to love. According to Maslow, belonging and love needs are difficult to be satisfied in this modern world in which people move a lot. We no longer stay permanently in one place. We change houses,