34 Until she is going to be adult, she still can change her emotion and feeling
in the same time. She also easily influences by others feeling because she can feels others feeling but she can control herself. Like what she has felt when Paul
tells her that he was sad. Phoebe can feels Paul feeling. She is easily change to be sad but she can change to be happy then.
“well, you look sad.” “I am sad,” he said. “Actually, I’m very, very sad.”
She nodded, and for a moment she seemed to have joined him in his sadness, his expression clouding up and then, an instant later, clearing. p.
496
2. The Description of David Henry
In order to analyze David Henry’s character, the researcher uses Murphy’s methods which are past life and character as seen by another. In the novel, David
Henry is described:
a. Character based on His Past Life
Murphy stated that past life can help the reader to understand about person’s character. Therefore, by knowing someone’s past life we will know
someone’s characteristics. Based on this theory, David Henry is described as:
1 Mysterious
Since David Henry comes as a new doctor in a clinic in Lexington, he looks so mysterious. He never tells about his background to others. He only tells
about his study in Pittsburgh. “That aside from mentioning his time in Pittsburgh now and then, a fact already known from his resume and diploma, he never made
reference to the past. For Caroline, this reticence gave him an air of mystery,” p. 34 As his assistant, Caroline never knows about his family stories. She does not
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35 really know about David’s personality because of his mysterious. Caroline only
knows a part of his story and she does not know David well until she brings Phoebe, David’s daughter, to an institution in Louisville. “But then she was
beyond it all, and when she reached the split in the highway she chose to go north, to Cincinnati and then to Pittsburgh, following the Ohio River to the place where
Dr. Henry had lived a part of his mysterious past. David Henry becomes a mysterious since he graduated from his high
school. It is an incident when he received a scholarship in a university in Pittsburgh. There is a mistake in writing David’s name that he has not cleared.
“David Henry she had typed already, correctly. But the last name, McCallister, had been lost.” p. 330 In the scholarship letters, everything is written clear
except his name. “The address was right, and every other detail from his date of birth to his Social Security number – all these were correct.” p. 329 This
incident makes David comes to this world as a mysterious person. He keeps his identity from others so that no one knows about him.
“He had never told anyone. He had gone off to college and registered, and no one ever knew. It was, after all, his true name. Still, David Henry was a
different person from David Henry Mccallister, that much he knew, and it seemed clear it was as David Henry he was meant to go to college, a
person with no history, unburdened by the past. A man with a chance to make himself anew.” p. 330
2 Obedient
David is born as an obedient son. He rose in a poor family who only has money for their daily necessary. Therefore, to get money to pay his school bill he
has to find a snake and then selling it. “‘They helped to pay my way through
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36 school, those snakes,’ he said.” p. 153 He spent his playing time to get the
snakes in the forest. “Snake money. He was a boy, eight or nine, and it was one thing he could do.” 153
In his family, he also can be a good brother for his sister. His mother always asks him to take care of his sister, June, and he never rejects it. “That and
protect June. Watch your sister, his mother would caution, looking up from the stove.” p. 153 Besides, he also does a house work. He helps his mother in home
with pleasure because there is no one who helps his mother except him. “Feed the chickens and clean the coop and weed the garden.” p. 153 His father goes to the
town to get enough money to pay June’s medicine because June suffers Down syndrome.
One day when June has dead, his mother live in a grief and she does not do her daily job, he is a good son who replacing his mother to finish her job. “He
fed the chickens and milked the cow. He did these ordinary things ...” p. 154 David also obey what his mother want that he has to learn something that can help
the world. “Davy, his mother said, a long time later, from the shadows where she sat, You go off to school. Learn something that could help in the world.” p. 155
And finally, he decides to be a doctor in his future.
b. David’s Character based on Other’s Opinion about David
