The Analysis Of Leading Character Conflict In My Sister Keeper By Jodi Picoult

THE ANALYSIS OF LEADING CHARACTER CONFLICT IN MY

SISTER KEEPER BY JODI PICOULT

A THESIS BY

DARA SILVIA REG. NO. 080705058

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

FACULTY OF CULTURAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA MEDAN 2012

AUTHOR DECLARATION

I, DARA SILVIA DECLARE THAT I AM THE SOLE AUTHOR OF

THIS THESIS. EXCEPT WHERE REFERENCES IS MADE IN THE

TEXT OF THIS THESIS. THIS THESIS CONTAINS NO MATERIAL

PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE OR EXTRACTED IN WHOLE OF IN PART

FROM A THESIS BY WHICH. I HAVE QUALIFIED FOR AWARDED

ANOTHER DEGREE. NO OTHER PERSON’S WORK HAS BEEN

USED WITHOUT DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IN THE MAIN TEXT

OF THIS THESIS. THIS THESIS HAS NOT BEEN SUBMITTED FOR

AWARD OF ANOTHER DEGREE IN ANY TERTIARY EDUCATION.

SIGNED

:

COPYRIGHT DECLARATION

NAME : DARA SILVIA

TITLE OF THESIS : THE ANALYSIS OF LEADING CHARACTER IN MY SISTER KEEPER BY JODI PICOULT

QUALIFICATION : S-1 / SARJANA SASTRA

DEPARTMENT : ENGLISH

I AM WILLING THAT MY THESIS SHOULD BE AVAILABLE FOR

REPRODUCTION AT THE DISCREATION OF THE LIBRARIAN OF

DEPARTEMENT OF ENGLISH, FACULTY OF CULTURAL STUDIES,

UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA ON THE UNDERSTANDING THAT USERS ARE MADE AWARE OF THESIS OBLIGATION UNDER LAW OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA.

SIGNED :

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Alhamdulillah, in the name of Allah SWT, The writer would like to thank

God, the almightly for his blessing on the writer, for his guidance and the grace,

the power and the chance he had given the writer to accomplish this thesis.

The

writer‟s sincere gratitude also

goes to the dean of faculty of cultural

studies, university of sumatera utara,

Dr. SYAHRON LUBIS, M.A

, the head

and secretary of English Department,

Dr.H. MUHIZAR MUCHTAR, M.S

,

DR.Hj. NURLELA, M.Hum

, and all of the lectures and the staff of English

department, for all the facilities and opportunities given to the writer during the

study.

First and foremore, the writer would like to thank

the writer‟s

supervisor

and co-supervisor,

Dra. SWESANA MARDIA LUBIS, M.Hum

and

Dra. Hj.

ROHANI GANIE, M.hum

for their guidance support, advice and constructive

comments during the writing of this thesis.

The writer‟s special thanks are expressed to the writer‟s beloved parents,

Drs. Lukman Hassanudin

and

Dian Rizkiana

, beloved brother

SANY

JOESAN P

, and also for my beloved little brother

SYAFAAT AUDY M

, for

giving the writer support and attention.

The writer‟s special thanks for my best friend

SITI ARDIYANTY,

S.Ikom

,

RARAS NOVIANDRA HADI P

,

Adm

,

TRECIA DONITA

TESTIANI, S.E

,

NOVI SUSANTI, S.P

,

RACHMALINA PUTRI, Adm

,

GIZKA IDZNI KARTIKA GINTING, S.Ked

, and

YULIA DEWY, S.S

, for

the smile, laugh and tears, thank you so much for your support. Thank you to

partner in crime

DEVIE ARINA ZAYA, S.S

and

LAILA HASYIM, S.S

, for

the amazing years, we share everything and we can do it.

Last but not least, the writer‟s would like to express special thanks to

IRFAN FERIAL LUBIS, S.H, M.H

, for your love, support, attention, advice,

and be my best listener,Thank you dear. The writer would like to say thank you

to my boyfriend family, thank you for your attention, love, support, caring, and

everything I love you so much.

The writer‟s special thanks are also dedicated to

Bg.Amran

in

department of English, about all my needed. Thank you so much bg am.

Medan, 16 January

2013

The writer‟s

Dara Silvia

ABSTRAK

Skripsi ini berjudul

“

The Analysis of Leading Character Conflict In My Sister

Keeper by Jodi Picoult

“

. Analisis ini mengenai konflik baik proses bagaimana

terjadinya konflik yang terdapat pada cerita karangan

Jodi Picoult

yg berjudul

My Sister Keeper

. Di dalam skripsi ini saya ingin menunjukkan mengapa

konflik itu terjadi dan bagaimana perkembangan konflik yang ada di dalam

cerita ini. Adapun metode yang digunakan dalam penulisan skripsi ini adalah

metode analisis deskriptif. Hal ini dapat saya buktikan dengan menganalisis

proses konflik yang terdapat dalam cerita novel

My Sister Keeper.

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

AUTHOR DECLARATION ………v

COPYRIGHT DECLARATION ……….vi

ABSTRACT ………..vii

TABLE OF CONTENT ………..viii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background of the Study ... 1

1.2. Problem of the Study ... 4

1.3. Objectives of the Study ... 4

1.4. Scope of the Study ... 4

1.5. Significance of the Study ... 5

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1 Character ... 6

2.2 Definition of conflict... 7

CHAPTER III METHOD OF RESEARCH

3.1 Research Design ... 12

3.2 Data Collection ... 13

3.3 Data Analysis ... 14

CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS AND FINDING 4.1 Internal Conflict ... 15

4.1.1 Anna‟s Internal Conflict ... 16

4.2 External Conflict ... 23

4.2.1 Anna‟s External Conflict with Kate ... 24

4.2.2 Anna‟s External Conflict with Sara ... 25

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1. Conclusion ... 30

5.2. Suggestion ... 32

REFERENCE

APPENDICES

APPENDICES i : Summary of My Sister Keeper

ABSTRAK

Skripsi ini berjudul

“

The Analysis of Leading Character Conflict In My Sister

Keeper by Jodi Picoult

“

. Analisis ini mengenai konflik baik proses bagaimana

terjadinya konflik yang terdapat pada cerita karangan

Jodi Picoult

yg berjudul

My Sister Keeper

. Di dalam skripsi ini saya ingin menunjukkan mengapa

konflik itu terjadi dan bagaimana perkembangan konflik yang ada di dalam

cerita ini. Adapun metode yang digunakan dalam penulisan skripsi ini adalah

metode analisis deskriptif. Hal ini dapat saya buktikan dengan menganalisis

proses konflik yang terdapat dalam cerita novel

My Sister Keeper.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of The Study

Literature can be considered as a written imagination of what human thinking, it reflects the result as the value of an art work. Generally, literature can be divided into fiction and nonfiction. Novel, short story, drama, and tales included to the fiction works. On the contrary, the nonfiction works are essay, history, autobiography and diary. In this thesis a novel is used as the material of the discussion, which the novel itself belongs to the literary work. Richard (198: 1) state that:

“Literature primarily refers to the written or printed word. Literature is essentially an imaginative act; that is an act of the writer’s imagination in

selecting, ordering, and interpreting life experience. The writers build the story by using their own life experience. Experience about nature and social life may

emerge the ideas of the story. “

Novel is one of literary genre. Novel is a fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot that is unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of the characters. Novel has complicated intrigue, that present the changing of human character in a period of time, complex social situation, and other action happened. Peek (1983:1) state that:

“Explain that novel are often about the relationship between individuals and the society in which they life. A story of the novel often tells about the characters explained in his or her social life, and it relates with where the story takes

place.”

Conflict is an actual or perceived opposition of needs, value and interest. A conflict can be internal (within oneself) and external (with another one). Conflict as a concept can explain many aspects of social life such as social disagreement, conflicts of interests and fight

between individuals, groups or organization. When an interpersonal conflict does occur, its effect can be involved more than two individuals and can affect many associate individuals and relationship in some case.

Leading character is the centered individual very dominant. As an individual, the leading focused personality. Leading character emerged as long side the extraordinary character, a character that might be called prototypical. The prototypical character is not a stereotypical but a fully rounded, three dimensionanl characters.

This novel which is discussed in thesis written by Jodi Picoult entitled My Sister Keeper tells about little girl, she is age thirteen years old, her named is Anna Fitzgerald she is a youngest Fitzgerald child. She has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions to older sister to fight the leukemia that has to disturb her since childhood. This story to explain from diagnosis of preimplantation genetic, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate a life and a role that she has never questioned until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who is she in fact. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be impossible a decision that will tear her family and have fatal consequences for the sister which is she loves. My Sister Keeper examines what it means to be good parents, a good sister, and a good person.

Jodi Picoult have a tales of sad,humor, and love. As thirteen year old Anna Fitzgerald struggles to define herself as a person part of from her sister Kate, Picoult exposes the universal truths of human relationships. Life is full of choices and consequences. Love demands risks and sacrifice; self-examination and sharing. As the characters unfold, in their own words, the importance of communication emerges as a unifying theme. Picoult addresses the ethics of the situation. Ending of story is very fantastic, really interesting the reader into

the text. This is a cosmic tale about relationships, endurance, and the strong of love to change lives forever.

The writer choose this novel because after reading “ My Sister Keeper “ novel, conflict about emotions and actions of characters put into a family in which one of three children is battling a life threatening illness. The mother, Sara is torn between taking care of her cancer stricken daughter and parenting her other two healthy children. Time and energy are divided and their children healthyignored. The youngest child Anna has been a donor for her sister since the day she was born and the fight did not stop until he becomes mature.

For Anna, she is the sister of Kate. She has to help Kate, to stay alive. But when Anna

realizes that she suffers too many thing‟s for Kate. When her mother ask her to supply one of

her kidney for Kate. She thinks that she must do something to change her life and her family. Even though there must be a conflict between them.

1.2 Problem of the Study

Referring to the explanation of the background of the analysis above, there is some problems will be analyzed in this thesis. Therefore the writer finds and decides some problems that needed to be answer:

1. What are the types of leading conflict in the novel of My Sister Keeper written by Jodi Picoult?

2. What are the dominant conflicts in the novel of My Sister Keeper written by Jodi Picoult?

1.3 Objective of the Study

There are two objectives of the analysis can be found in this thesis.

1. Describe the types of conflict in the novel of My Sister Keeper written by Jodi Picoult. 2. Describe the dominant conflict in the novel of My Sister Keeper written by Jodi

Picoult.

1.4 Scope of the Study

Conflict is struggle between two or more force that creates a tension that must be resolved. There are two kinds of conflict internal and external conflict. Therefore the writer only focused on the internal and external conflict the leading characters found in this novel.

1.5 Significance of the Study

The analysis of this thesis is expected to be able to give significance for the readers.

1. This thesis will give information to the readers about literature and understand about this novel.

2. This thesis hope will enrich the knowledge of the readers about leading characters conflicts and types of conflict in this novel.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Character

Character is presumably an imagined person who inhabits story. Character is one of the most important elements in literature; character holds the main role in a story of literature such as drama, novel, poem, and tale. Character as the person that presented in literary work, that their appearance is interpreted by the reader as being endowed with desires, motivation and emotional qualities that are expressed in their saying and action in the story.

“In novel, a character may be defined as a verbal representation of a human

being. (Kennedy, 1983:131)

Every main character is challenged in some way. One way of looking at this challenge is

to see it as a situation in which a character‟s abilities and experience are in sufficient to solve

the problem at hand. It is by engaging in these challenges, overcoming some, succumbing to others that characters develops. They are changed as a result of what happened to them as they try to solve their problems and reach their goals.

Character is very important in real-made creation of literary works such as novel, drama or even some of poems. The nature of character presentation brings a positive impact for readers to find out what is going on and what is for. Since, the character mirrors quality of person. It can be traced to generalize opinion for man in general.

2.2 Definition of Conflict

Conflict is a struggle between opposing forces or the opposition between large groups of people, or between protagonist and larger forces such as natural objects, ideas, modes or

behavior, public opinion (Roberts and Jacobs 1995: 1694). Conflict is usually reflected or accompanied by the external and internal action. Conflict often forces characters to make a decision, to act or not to act, to behave according to a personal moral code or an external moral code, to compromise or to refuse, to grow and change or to remain more less or less the same. The point at which characters make this choice is usually the climactic moment of the story. The effects or implications of this choice usually represent the conclusion.

Conflict is also the opposition of two people. Their conflict may take the shape of envy, hatred, anger, argument, avoidance, gossip, lies, fighting, and many other forms action. Conflict may also exist between groups, although conflict between individuals is more identifiable and therefore more suitable for stories. Conflict may also be brought out in ideas and opinions that may clash.

2.3 Types of Conflict

There are type‟s conflicts in literature. The types of conflicts are: 1. Internal conflict

2. External conflict

Here is the explanation for each conflict:

1. Internal Conflict

Internal conflict also called man versus self conflict, and external which includes man versus man, man versus nature, man versus society and man versus fate. The way conflict is used and how the conflicts are resolved are determined by the type of story being told. Internal conflicts are that which exists inside the character. Struggles with morality, fate, desire and belief, to. This form conflict is central to the character or characters and must be

resolved by the character alone. Every good character suffers from the weight of internal conflict; it lends them an air of complex believe ability. Internal conflict is also known as man versus self or person versus self. While internal conflict is necessary for good characters, it is the least complicated form of conflict. Internal conflict is a private war within oneself. It could be anything from deciding between two or more choice, to deciding many things in our personal life. There is internal conflict between good and evil; strength and weakness; love and hate. Internal conflict refers to emotional or analytical struggles a character has due to his values, his role and society, or the company he finds with himself

Internal conflict is the conflict which goes on with in the mind of the hero and between him and goal he has set himself. Internal conflict provides as unstable basic for positive results in the outsides world, as him often choose some aspects of outer environment to match the group within themselves. People, who notice that they have repeated negative aspects, may find that understanding themselves is a basic for better result.

2. External Conflict

External conflict deals with the problems of the world. The story‟s characters will

struggle against the circumstances of external conflict, they may even suffer internal conflict resulting from the issues of external conflicts, but this is not as simple as internal conflict.

External conflict occurs when characters are involved in the world‟s woes, such issues as

community, nature, government and other characters are all examples of external conflict. External conflict manifests itself as man versus man, man versus nature, man versus society. Internal conflict is the issues a character faces; an issue that requires a personal opinion or decision. These difficult decisions must be concluded with a definite conclusive decision.

Man versus man is the most fundamental type of external conflict. This form of external conflict occurs when a character struggle against another character. These struggles may be born from moral, religious or social differences and may be emotional, verbal or physical conflicts. Man versus man is almost always the conflict present when a hero fights a villain. This form of conflict may present alone, or in conduction with other external conflicts. Man vs. man is when there is a conflict of two forms of like beings. An example is

the hero‟s conflict with the central villain of a work, which may play a large role in the plot

and contribute to the development of both characters.

There are usually several arguments/ disagreements before the climax is reached. The conflict is external. Person vs. person can usually be expressed by when a child is being ridiculed by a bully.

Man versus nature conflicts occur when character, or character, find themselves at odds with forces of nature. A character struck by lightning, characters whose boat sinks in a storm and a character who struggles against hypothermia in a snow storm are all characters man versus nature conflicts. Man vs. nature is the theme in literature that palaces the character against forces nature. Many disaster films focus on this theme, which is predominant within many survivals in remote locales. Sometimes all the characters in the book are the good guys and the conflict in the book is between all the people and forces of nature that are out of the characters conflict.

Man versus society is the form of conflict which often represented by a person who is an outcast or by a character who tries to break the normal rules of the society that has

established. Man versus society is also a theme in fiction in which a main character‟s group,

main source of conflict is social traditional or concepts. In this sense, the both sides are the protagonist, and society of which the protagonist included. Society itself is often looked at a single character; just an opposing party would be looked at in man vs. man conflict. Man vs.

Society conflict gives the playwright an opportunity to comment on positive/ negative aspects of society as whole.

Lewis Coser says that conflict can be a process that is instrumental in the establishment, acquisition and maintenance of social structure. Conflict may place and maintain the boundary line between two or more groups. According to Coser conflict can be divided into two terms, they are, realistic conflict, comes from the disappointment of the special demands that occur in relationship and estimate the possible benefits of the participants, and which aimed at the object which is considered disappointing, And this is non-realistic conflict, conflict which are not derived from the goals of antagonistic rivals, but from the need to ease the tension, at least from one side.

But Coser says that if the conflict develops in intimate relationships, then the separation would be more difficult to maintain.

CHAPTER III

METHOD OF RESEARCH

3.1 Research Design

Method of research must be suitable to the method of analysis. In the research there are two kinds of method, they are qualitative and quantitative method. The different of each method is, the quantitative is a method the data and the result is a number. The qualitative method is a method concludes the data and the result by words.

Qualitative research is based on individual, often subjective analysis. A general description of properties that cannot be written in numbers that cannot be reduced to something that can be enumerated. Relating to or based on the quality character of something, often as opposed to its size or quantity. A type of data used as a method of labeling and identifying. Qualitative data are classified as being either nominal or ordinal.

Quantitative or statistical comparison derived from systematic survey, observation or analysis of the subject this may include probabilistic evaluation. Quantitative research is based on measurable data gathered from a wide range of sources, often followed by objective analysis. A general description includes facts, figures and scientific observation that can be statistically analyzed and then can be reduced to something that can be enumerated. The collected data is often subjected to statistical tests to see if the results are internally consistent or representative of random chance. Typically, it describes patterns and trends in size and quantity. Quantitative data is often classified as being real.

According to the problem and the objective of the analysis, the method that the writer used in this analysis is qualitative method. Qualitative method is explaining the result by words not number. This data has been collected by interview, observation, and documentary

and the processed by writing, typing, editing, or composing a text. In this analysis the writer used qualitative method to analyze this novel. Because, the data that the writer used explained the result by words.

3. 2 Data Collection

In collecting the data the writer read the whole story of the novel to get more understanding about the novel. Underlined the important parts of the novel especially some information‟s about the leading character conflicts that found in the novel. Most of the data presented in this thesis is to support the analysis that is relevant to collected sentences for the novel. Other significant information is from literature books and some other books related to the topic such as the theory of literature by Rene Wellek and Austin Warren. The writer choose this book because I keep that the story of literature by Rene Wellek and Austin Warren could support any idea in case of discussing conflict on the novel since this biik related to the discussion of psychology in terms of internal approach by Renne Wellek and Austin Warren.

The primary source, the writer explains some sentences and conflict found in the novel. Secondary sources the writer collect the data from some book article and internet to collect the data.

3.3 Method of data analysis

The technique that the writer used to analyze this novel is qualitative method. qualitative method is a method of analysis by describing and analyzing the data and then giving some interpretation and explanation. All the selected data were analyzed to prove what are being written in objective of this thesis and finally the writer can draw the conclusion for this thesis. The writer use this technique because the data in this novel is sentences and

CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS AND FINDING

Conflict was defined as a social process between two individuals or more in which one individual has a desire to beat another individual by drop it off or create his opponent become useless.

Conflict can be divided into two kinds of it. It can be internal conflict and external conflict. Internal means himself external outer means with another one. In studying and analyzing of the leading character conflict, the writer only to discuss internal conflict and external conflict from major character in a novel.

4.1 Internal conflict

Internal conflict is a private war within oneself. It could be anything from deciding between two or more choice, to deciding many things in our personal life. There is internal conflict between good and evil strength and weakness love and hate. Internal conflict refers to emotional or analytical struggles a character has due to his values, his role and society, or the company he finds with himself.

4.1.1 Anna’s internal conflict

Anna is a little girl who has so many mystery of her life and why did she have to do all the supply for her sister Kate. Kate needs her blood because Kate is sick, leukemia, and really need her blood supply to stay alive. Anna internal conflict can be seen when Anna starts to think for something that she must do to change her life. Anna try to ignore how is she feels about Kate and planning something. It can be seen from the quotation below:

“You know how every now and then, you have a moment where your whole life stretches out ahead of you like a forked road, and even as you

choose one gritty path you‟ve got your eyes on the other the whole time, certain that you‟re making a mistake? Kerri approaches, holding out a strip

of paper with the number I‟ve asked for, but I close the door without taking

it and walk back to my desk. “No one can make you donate an organ if you

don‟t want to.” (Picoult, 2004:23)

From the quotation above the words “your whole life stretches out ahead” shows that Anna is try to get solution for her problem and take a risk for every plan she must do. Anna internal conflict can be seen when Anna decided that she must continue her plan and she ready to face the people. Anna tries to make her self stronger. It can be seen from the quotation below:

“I decided one day to force myself into imagining what it would be like

after Kate died. That way, or so tony vowed, when it really happened, I‟d

be ready.” (Picoult, 2004:215)

From the quotation above the words “I decided one day to force myself” shows that Anna feel strong enough to face the problem even tough she must fight against everybody. Anna internal conflict can be seen when Anna thinks that how her life without Kate. She thinks that her life must be so happy without Kate and blood supply anymore. It can be seen from the quotation below:

“DID YOU EVER WONDER how we all got here? On Earth, I mean. Forget the song and dance about Adam and Eve, which I know is a load of crap. My father likes the myth of the Pawnee Indians, who says that the star deities populated the world: Evening star and morning star hooked up and gave birth to the first female. The first boy came from the sun and the moon. Humans rode in on the back of a tornado” (Picoult, 2004:299)

From the quotation above the words “how we all got here? “shows that Anna thinks there must be a reason why she did have to do all the blood supply for Kate and wondering how is her life should be. Anna internal conflict can be seen when Anna thinks something after she supplies her blood for Kate and wondering that she must be in heavens for being so nice to Kate. It can be seen from the quotation below:

“HERE‟S MY QUESTION: what age you when you‟re in heaven? I mean,

if it‟s Heaven, you should be at your beauty – queen best, and I doubt that

all the people who die of old age are wandering around toothless and bald. It opens up a whole additional realm of question, too. If you hang yourself, do you walk around all gross and blue, with your tongue spitting out of your mouth? If you are killed in a war, do you spend eternity minus the leg

that got blown up by a mine?” (Picoult, 2004:327)

From the quotation above the words “what age you when you‟re in heaven? “ shows that Anna shows that she want to ignore to supply for Kate against but she cannot say it to her mother. Kate is Anna older sister. She does love Kate and love their family, but there is something that Anna feels that her life is not like the ordinary people. The blood supply, and kidney supply for Kate. Anna internal conflict with Kate can be seen when Anna supply her blood for Kate. Anna is a little girl who has a mystery why she has to give her blood to her sister Kate. It can be seen from the quotation below:

“It made me wonder, though, what would have happened if Kate had been healthy. Chances are, I‟d still be floating up in heaven or wherever, waiting to be attached to a body to spend some time on earth. Certainly I would not be

part of this family. See, unlike the rest of the free world, I didn‟t get here by

accident. And if your parents have you for a reason, then that reason better

exist. Because once it‟s gone, so are you.”(Picoult, 2004:8)

From the quotation above the words “if Kate had been healthy” shows that Anna feel that her life only to save Kate. Anna realizes when she is thirteen years old and for entire her life she has to supply blood for Kate. Anna internal conflict with Kate can be seen when Anna talk something to Jesse her brother. They realize that their parents did not care and only care about Kate, and how Kate can survive alive. It can be seen from the quotation below:

“My parents tried to make things normal, but that‟s a relative term. The

truth is, I was never really a kid. To be honest, neither were Kate and Jesse. I guess maybe my brother had his moment in the sun for the four years he

was alive before Kate got diagnosed, but ever since then, we‟ve been too

busy looking over our shoulders to run headlong into growing up. You

know how must little kids think they‟re like cartoon characters-if an anvil

drops on their heads they can peel themselves off the sidewalk and keep going ?well, I never once believed that. How could I, when we partially set a place for death at the dinner table?” (Picoult, 2004:10)

From the quotation above the words “My parents tried to make things normal“ shows that Jesse agree about Anna‟s opinion about their parents and he knows they can do nothing to change the situation Anna internal conflict with Kate can be seen when Anna comes to hospital to see Kate. Anna feel so worry about Kate she thinks that Kate really need her to survive but Anna feel that she cannot do the supply anymore. It can be seen from the quotation below:

“For a moment, my mother is caught between us, a soap bubble. She looks

from Kate to me and back again. My sister‟s in pain and I‟m relieved. What

does that say about me?

The last thing I see as I run out of the room is my mother pushing the

nurse‟s call button over and over, as if it‟s the trigger to a bomb.” (Picoult,

2004:61)

From the quotation above the words “What does that say about me?“ shows that Kate

is sick and she really need Anna‟s help but Anna try to ignore and did not care how Kate is.

Anna internal conflict with Kate can be seen when Anna come to see Kate. She feels so worry about Kate, Anna realizes that Kate is her only sister she has. Anna tries to make

everything‟s right. It can be seen from the quotation below:

“I crawl onto the bed, which is narrow, but still big enough for both of us. I rest my head on her chest, so close to her central line that I can see the liquid dripping into her. Jesse is wrong- I didn‟t come to see Kate because it would make me feel better. I came because without her, it‟s hard to

remember who I am.” (Picoult, 2004:168)

From the quotation above the words “without her, it‟s hard to remember who I am” shows that Anna feels sorry to see Kate and she told her apologize to her brother Jesse the only person she can talk about Kate internally. Anna internal conflict with Kate can be seen when Anna comes to see Kate in the hospital and Anna try to talk something to Kate. She told that Kate must strong to against the situation and stay alive. It can be seen from the quotation below:

“When I stopped talking to her, she figured she‟d done something wrong,

which she probably had, anyway. There were entire days where I did

nothing but cry; others where I felt like I‟d swallowed a lead plate; some

more where I worked really hard at going through the motions of getting dressed and making my bed and studying my vocal words because it was easier than doing anything else.” (Picoult, 2004:215)

The quotation above the words “she figured she‟d done something wrong” shows that whatever the situation is Anna still support Kate and she ask for Kate opinion about her. Kate is not hate Anna for what has Anna do. Anna internal conflict with Kate can be seen when Anna think she does love Kate but everything she do only to have wrights her own body and what is the mean of her life. It can be seen from the quotation below:

“There was a time when, like Kate, I‟d wanted to be a ballerina. But since

then I‟ve gone through a thousand different stages: I wanted to be an

astronaut. I wanted to be a paleontologist. I wanted to be a backup singer for Aretha Franklin, a member of the cabinet, a Yellowstone National Park ranger. Now, based on the day, I sometimes want to be a micro surgeon, a poet, a ghost hunter.

Only one thing‟s a constant. “Ten years from now,‟ I say, “I‟d like to be

Kate‟s sister.” (Picoult, 2004:488)

From the quotation above the words “I‟d like to be Kate‟s sister.” shows that Anna and Kate just like ordinary sister who spent time together and share their dream together. Sara isKate and Anna mother. Sara faces the difficult situation when Kate is sick and almost dies. Kate really needs Anna‟s help to supply her blood for Kate, but Anna won‟t do the supply anymore and Sara must face the lawyer and the judges. Anna internal conflict with Sara can be seen when the first time Anna is in jurisdictions Anna feel so nervous and really scare about her mother expression but she must face the judges. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Campbell : „I need to speak my client,” Campbell says.

Sara : “Right now she‟s my daughter, “my mother says, and she takes my hand and yanks me out of my chair. At the threshold of the door. I

manage to look back. Campbell‟s fuming. I could have told him it would

From the quotation above the words “Right now she‟s my daughter“shows that Anna

feels confuse about the condition. She must face her parent‟s against the judges and the

lawyer. Anna internal conflict with Sara can be seen when Anna is in the second jurisdiction and she fight her mother to Kate but Anna knows Sara is so confused. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Sara : “It seems remarkable that while one of our daughters is leading us into a legal crisis, the order is in the throes of a medical one but then again, we have known for quite some time that Kate‟s at the end stages of renal

failure. It is Anna, this time, who‟s thrown us for a loop. And yet- like

always- you figure it out; you manage to deal with both. The human capacity for burden is like bamboo- far more flexible than you‟d ever

believe at first glance.” (Picoult, 2004:236)

From the quotation above the words “one of our daughters is leading us into a legal crisis“shows that Anna feels so worry about Sara condition and she hope that her mother is not hate her and try to make everything is easy. Anna internal conflict with Sara can be seen when Anna supply her blood for Kate. Anna does the supply because Kate almost dies and

need Anna‟s help and the judges ask Sara how is the procedure of the supply. It can be seen

from the quotation below:

Sara : “We use EMLA cream, a topical anesthetic. The cream is supposed to keep her from feeling the prick of the needle, but she still yells. I wonder if it hurts as much as having your six-year-old stare you in the eye and say she hates you.” (Picoult, 2004:272)

From the quotation above the words “We use EMLA cream “shows how the procedure when Anna supply her blood for Kate and Sara knows that it hurt when the doctor take her blood much more than usual to save Kate. Anna internal conflict with Sara can be seen when the last jurisdiction the judges feel so confuse about Anna and family the judges ask Anna to decide. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Judge : “Make it quick,” the judge says.

Mr. Campbell : “Your honor, all of Anna Fitzgerald‟s life she has been

medically treated for her sister‟s good, not her own. No one doubts Sara Fitzgerald‟s love for all her children, or the decisions she‟s made that have

prolonged Kate‟s life. But today we have to doubt the decisions she‟s made

for this child.” (Picoult, 2004:351)

From the quotation above the words “the decisions she has made for this child” shows that the judges agree that Sara as the mother of Kate and Anna must be treat her child with honest. Anna internal conflict with Sara can be seen when Sara ask for Anna apologizes and ended the case to save them family and promise Anna not to have supply her blood to Kate anymore. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Sara : “Anna,” I tell her,” I love you. I loved you before I ever saw you,

and I will love you long after I‟m not here to say it. And I know that because I‟m a parent, I‟m supposed to have all the answer, but I don‟t. I

wonder every single day if I‟m doing the right thing. I wonder if I know my

children the way I think I do. I wonder if I lose my perspective in being your mother, because I‟m so busy being Kate‟s.” (Picoult, 2004:477)

From the quotation above the words “Anna I love you.” shows that Anna feels so confuse to see her mother than she decide to close the case to save their family and stay together.

4.2 External Conflict

External conflict deals with the problems of the world. The story‟s characters will

struggle against the circumstances of external conflict, they may even suffer internal conflict resulting from the issues of external conflicts, but this is not as simple as internal conflict.

External conflict occurs when characters are involved in the world‟s woes, such issues as

community, nature, government and other characters are all examples of external conflict. External conflict manifests itself as man versus man, man versus nature, man versus society.

4.2.1 Anna External conflict with Kate

Kate is Anna sister, they spent time together, and they share bed room together, just like the other sisters. But Anna feels that she must not do all the supply for entire her life for Kate, to make Kate stay alive.

Anna external conflict with Kate can be seen when Anna talks something to Kate and Anna ask for Kate opinion for her plants to have a lawyer for her case. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Kate : “Don‟t mess with the system, Anna,” she says bitterly. “We‟ve all

got our scripts down pat. Kate plays the martyr. I‟m the lost cause. And

you, you‟re the peacekeeper.” (Picoult, 2004:17)

From the quotation above the words “Don‟t mess with the system, Anna,” shows that Kate disagrees of Anna plan and told that Anna must keep the situation stay peace for their family.

Anna external conflict with Kate can be seen when Anna faces the judges in the first jurisdiction and tells her reasons to claim her parent. It can be seen from the quotation below:

There‟s way too much to explain, and so I do the best I can. “It‟s not god.

Just my parents, “I say.” I want to sue them for the rights to my own body.”

(Picoult, 2004:21)

From the quotation above the words “rights to my own body.” shows that Anna tell the judges that she only need the rights for own body weather she want to give supply or not.

When the first time Anna talks to the judges she told that she can‟t give her kidney to Kate. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Judge DeSalvo :”Anna?” Judge DeSalvo prompts, and then he sets that

stupid can of Mott‟s down on the table between us and I burst into tears.

“I can‟t give a kidney to my sister. I just can‟t.” without a word, judge

eyes and my nose. For a while, he‟s quiet, letting me catch my breath when

I look up I find him waiting. “Anna, no hospital in this country will take an

organ from an unwilling donor.”(Picoult, 2004:105)

From the quotation above shows that Anna finally tells her feeling in front of many people without scare to say what is in her mind.

4.2.2 Anna external conflict with Sara

Sara has two daughter, she is a Kate and Anna. Sara loves her children, but she must

face the most difficult situation. When Kate really needs Anna‟s help to be her blood supply,

Anna thinks that she must have rights for her own body. Sara must face the judges to solve the problem and save her family to stay together.

Anna external conflict with Sara can be seen when Sara received a letter from the judges. Anna already has lawyer to claim her parents and when Sara knows that she claim by her own daughter she really shocked. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Sara : “For god‟s sake, Anna,” my mother says. “Do you even realize what the consequence would be?”

My throat closes like the shutter of a camera, so that any air one excuses

must move through a tunnel as thin as a pin. I‟m invisible, I think, and

realize too late I have spoken out loud. (Picoult, 2004:63)

From the quotation above the words “do you even realize what the consequence

would be?” shows that Anna feels so sorry to see her mother but she already make a decision

and she must continue her plan.

Anna external conflict with Sara can be seen when the first jurisdiction Anna tells her opinion about the supply, she feels that her mother did not care about her self and only care about Kate. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Anna : “Oh, really? “She leans forward, counting off on her fingers. “The first time I gave something to my sister, it was cord blood, and I was a newborn. She has leukemia- APL – and my cells put her into remission. The next time she relapsed, I was five and I had lymphocytes drawn from

them the first time around. When that stopped working, they took bone marrow for a transplant. When Kate got infections, I had to donate granulocytes. When she relapsed again, I had to donate peripheral blood

stem cells.” (Picoult, 2004:24)

From the quotation above the words “it was cord blood, and I was a newborn” shows that Anna say that she already supply her blood to Kate from she is born to keep Kate stay alive.

Anna external conflict with Sara can be seen when Sara feel so confuse about the case she is the mother of Anna and Kate she must be fair to decide what is the best for her daughter. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Sara : “I have one child who‟s just signed her sister‟s death sentence, and

I‟m supposed to cool off?”

The kitchen gets so silent‟s we can hear the refrigerator whispering. My

mother‟s words hang like too-ripe fruit, and when they fall on the floor and

burst, she shudders into motion. “Kate, I shouldn‟t have said that. It‟s not

what I meant.” (Picoult, 2004:109)

From the quotation above the words “I have one child who‟s just signed her sister‟s death sentence, and I‟m supposed to cool off?” shows that Sara tells her opinion and asks for

the judge‟s decision for the case.

Anna external conflict with Sara can be seen when Anna‟s lawyer, Mr.Campbell asks something to Anna about her parents in front of the judges. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Mr. Campbell : “Did you ever tell your parents that you weren‟t comfortable with the choice they‟d made for you?”

Anna : Anna pushes away from the elephants and begins to

trudge up the hill. “I might have complained a couple of times. But they‟re

From the quotation above the words “I might have complained a couple of times. But

they‟re Kate‟s parents, too.” shows that Anna directly say the answer, that she is

uncomfortable with her parent‟s choice.

Anna external conflict with Sara can be seen when Sara angry to Anna for what Anna has do and ask for Anna opinion for all the things. It can be seen from the quotation below:

Sara : “My God, Anna, “my mother says, stunned. “What have we done

to you to deserve this?”

Anna : “It‟s not what you‟ve done to me.” Sara : “It‟s what we haven‟t done, right?”

“You aren‟t listening to me!” I yell, and at that very moment, Vern

Stackhouse walks up to our table. (Picoult, 2004:217)

From the quotation above the words “It‟s not what you‟ve done to Me.” shows that Anna tries to survive to against her mother and fight for her right for her own body and her life.

Anna external conflict with Sara can be seen when in the last jurisdiction the judges

ask for Sara‟s opinion about Anna‟s supply for Kate. Did Sara already plan to use Anna only

for Kate blood supply? It can be seen from the quotation below:

The judges : “At the time did you and your husband decide to conceive a child who would be genetically programmed to be an organ donor for

Kate, so that she could be cured?”

Sara : “Not the words I would choose, but that was the story

behind Anna‟s conception, yes. We were planning to use Anna‟s umbilical cord blood for a transplant.”

The judges : “Why didn‟t you try to find an unrelated donor?”

Sara : “it‟s much more dangerous. The risk of mortality would have been far higher with someone who wasn‟t related to Kate.” (Picoult, 2004:353)

From the quotation above the words “we were planning to use Anna‟s umbilical cord

Anna external conflict with Sara can be seen when the judges asks Sara if she ever ask

Anna‟s permissions to do to supply or not. It can be seen from the quotation below:

The Judges : “Mrs. Fitzgerald,” I step between her and Anna. “Did you ask her?” Sara : “Please don‟t do this, “Sara says. “We all know the history. I‟ll stipulate

to whatever it is you‟re trying to do in the process of crucifying me. I‟d rather just get

this part over with.” (Picoult, 2004:355)

From the quotation above the words” did you ask her” shows that Sara never asks the permissions to Anna for the supply because Anna is a little girl and Anna can not fight the rights for her own body.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

5.1 Conclusion

After portraying the leading‟s character conflict in Jodi Picoult‟s My Sister Keeper.

We can find some conflict that happened to the leading character. It can be the internal conflict and external conflict. This conflict usually happened because there is choice of life. Anna internal conflict and external conflict the writer found the internal conflict of Anna with herself and external conflict Anna with sister Kate and her mother Sara. Because Anna wants

to have rights for her own body and have rights to speak that she won‟t give her kidney to her

sister, Kate.

The leading character conflicts that faced by Anna is the most conflicted character. She has found it to be extremely heart wrenching and something controversial. Throughout the book the writer had a very hard time deciding whose side the writer was on, the writer was torn between Anna and Kate. The readers of the also felt so bad for Anna for having to undergo all of these surgeries even though she was perfectly healthy, as well as the writer became very sympathetic towards her because she felt as though she was born unnaturally and not out of love but out of her parents need and determination to keep her older sister alive. The conclusion is, in this story Anna faced some conflict in her life, and because of her parents does so many supplies for her sister. When Anna realizes that she must have rights

for her own body, Anna‟s parents must face the judges because Anna is claiming her own

parents to have the rights.

The writer discussed the leading characters conflicts in the novel and the source of those conflicts. Anna‟s internal conflict can be rooted back to her parents. The parents are

the other children in the house. Anna felt as though she was born for one reason and at the

young age of 13 after many surgeries and hospital “visits” decides that she wants to be the

one to decide what to do with her body. Even though the love for her sister is undeniable, Anna wants to secure the right to decide whether she wants to help her sister physically. The external conflict is the fact the Anna has been donating blood bone marrow and anything else her dying sister needs to stay alive, and never once have her parents asked her if she wanted

to they just assumed she‟d do it. Anna is mad at her parents because they make her donate her

5.2 Suggestion

The writer want to give suggestion. Especially for the students of English department to study conflict of leading character in a story, because it is very interesting. The analysis of

this thesis entitled The Leading Character Conflict in Jodi Picoult‟s My Sister Keeper can be

the sources to analyze conflict in different story. Although this thesis is not good enough, but the writer hopes the theory that use in this thesis can be used in analyzing another stories

Finally, the writer would like to recommend My Sister Keeper to be studied because this story is very interesting. The most interesting part in the novel is the character is unique and the leading character problem is not usual. In the family, we must respect our parents, our brothers, and sister. The leading character shows that everybody should have rights to decide weather the person wants to give supply or not. When one family have problem, it‟s better to solve the problem just between the members of the family that is what family are for. Share and talk everything, claim to with other is not the best solution.

REFERENCES

Wellek, Rene and Austin Warren. 1956. Theory of Literature. New York: Harcout,

Brace & World Inc.

Taylor, Richard. 1981. Understanding the Elements of Literature. London:

Macmillan Press Ltd.

Robert. Edgar. V, and Jacobs, Henry, E. 1987 Literature. An Introduction to

Reading and Writing. New Jersey: A Simon and Schuster, Comp.

Mozkowitz, Orgel. 1969. General Psychology. Boston: Houghton Miffin Company

Picoult, Jodi. 2009. My Sister Keeper ( Kakakku Penyelamat ). Jakarta: PT.

Gramedia Pustaka Utama

Horton, Paul and chester, L. Hurt. 1976. General Conflict. New York: Random

House. Inc.

Kasim, Razali. 2005. Introduction to Literature. Medan: USU press

Collin, William. 1984. Collins Dictionary Language. London: William Collins

Sons & Co. Ltd

Caulhon, Craig. 2007. Classical Sociological Theory. Great Britain: Blackwell

Damono, Sapardi Djoko. 1979. Sosiologi Sastra. Jakarta: Pusat Pengembangan

Bahasa Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan. Jakarta.

Hartoko, Dick. 1989. Pengantar Ilmu Sastra. Jakarta: PT. Gramedia Pustaka Utama

APPENDICES

i. Author’s Biography and Works

Jodi Lynn Picoult was born on May 19, 1966, in Nesconset on Long Island in New York. Picoult's family moved to New Hampshire when she was 13. Although she left New Hampshire for college and her early jobs, she settled there again as a married woman. She currently lives in Hanover, New Hampshire with her husband, Tim Van Leer, and their three children, Sammy, Kyle and Jake. Picoult studied writing at Princeton University, where she earned her bachelor's degree. She also earned a master's degree in education from Harvard University.

Jodi is a very interesting person. She wrote her first book, "The Lobster Which Misunderstood" when she was 5 years old and when she was a college student, Seventeen magazine published some of her short stories. Jodi also has had several of her novels turned into movies. Having a happy childhood has inspired Jodi to have kids of her own and to be a good mother and wife. Her son Jake was diagnosed with benign ear tumors that could have been fatal when he was 6 years old. After about ten surgeries, however, the tumors were removed and he was left with partial deafness until recently. Jodi uses this life changing event when she writes novels that deal with parents who confront

medical issues. She is very passionate about her writing. It usually takes her about nine months to write one book. This is so she can do as much research as she can and make it just right. Jodi has also taught middle-school English in Concord, Massachusetts. Something she loved about teaching was making the students think hard about what they believed and why they believed it. Jodi had a very loving and caring home as a child. She was quoted as saying,

“I grew up on Long Island with my parents and my little brother, the product of a ridiculously

happy childhood.” Her main activities, other than writing, include doing things with her

husband, Tim Van Leer, and their three children, Sammy, Kyle and Jake. Also, every

morning at 5:30 she goes on hikes with her friend. Jodi and her son, Jake, write a children‟s

musical every year that is performed to raise money for a charity that benefits orphans with

H.I.V. and AIDS in Zimbabwe. A quote that I found written in one of Jodi‟s books and that I

really feel summarizes her personality and her life is when she writes, “There's always going

to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing -- light trumps darkness, every time.

You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light.”

In her career as a novelist, Jodi Picoult has published at an extraordinary pace, releasing seventeen books in about as many years. Though panned by some critics for the commercial nature of her writing, she has earned a large and devoted following of readers. Nearly 14 million copies of her books are in print in the U.S. alone, and her work has been translated into thirty-four languages in thirty-five countries. Her novels cover a range of topics, from school shootings to teen suicide to death row inmates, yet many share a single theme: ordinary people in extraordinary and often morally complicated situations. All manner

of horrific things happen in the lives of Picoult‟s characters, and the choices her characters

make in response typically form the crux of her plots. Her books often explore the psychological consequences of wrenching incidents and decisions, and they deal largely in

moral gray areas, where the ethics of medicine, law, and society come into conflict with one another. Rarely, if ever, do her novels offer easy resolutions.

Born in 1966, Picoult attended Princeton University for her undergraduate studies.Seventeenmagazine published two of her short stories while she was still a student. After graduation, Picoult took on a series of different jobs to earn her living. She worked as a technical writer for a brokerage firm, wrote copy for an advertising agency, served as an editor at a textbook publisher, and taught English to 8th graders. Eventually she enrolled in Harvard, where she received her Masters in Education. She married Tim Van Leer, and while pregnant with her first child she published her first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale, which was released in 1992. But not until the release of her 1998 novel, The Pact, about the apparent murder of a seventeen-year-old girl by a boy she had known all her life, did Picoult begin to achieve wide-scale commercial success.

In 2004, Picoult published My Sister’s Keeper. Like most of her works, the novel takes on a range of morally complex issues, from the ethics of genetic engineering, to the right of terminally-ill patients to elect to die, to a minor‟s right to control her own body. Genetic engineering alone has been the subject of controversy since its very first uses to help infertile couples conceive via in vitro fertilization. As the potential uses of the method have grown, so have the moral questions that such genetic manipulation raises. Notably, the ethics of using science to create a so-called “designer baby,” meaning one whose physical traits are selected by the parents, has become the object of frequent and heated debates. These quandaries, and those regarding the rights of terminally ill patients and minors to determine what happens to their bodies, all intertwine in My Sister’s Keeper, which tells the story of one

family devastated by their child‟s battle with acute promyelocytic leukemia, an extremely

most controversial aspects, places ordinary people in the midst of them, and challenges readers to confront their own preconceptions about the subject.

The world of My Sister’s Keeperitalic brims with realistic medical and legal jargon. In fact, Picoult is renowned for diligently researching the topics she writes about, and she has said that her research can at times take even longer than the actual writing of the book. Her regular routine entails conducting numerous interviews with experts related to the issue at hand and spending time with real individuals and families who have been affected. The writing of her novel House Rules, for instance, about a teenage boy with the autism-spectrum

disorder called Asperger‟s Syndrome, involved several conversations with autistic children

and their parents. For My Sister’s Keeper, Picoult spent time with pediatric oncologists who treat children with cancer. Picoult also brings her personal experiences to her books. House Rulescame about in part because her cousin has autism, so she knew first-hand how autism can affect a family. With My Sister’s Keeper, Picoult drew on her experiences with her middle son, who at the age of five needed ten surgeries over three years to treat a tumor in his ear. Picoult says the desperation she felt sitting in the hospital beside her anesthetized son and knowing she could do nothing to help him informed her depiction of Sara, the mother in the Fitzgerald family of My Sister’s Keeper. That emotion, combined with the knowledge Picoult gathered in her research, imbues the book with a sense of realism.

ii. Summary of the Novel

My Sister’s Keeper alternates between first-person accounts by the novel‟s different characters. The bulk of the story takes place in the present, in a one-and-a-half week stretch of time. Sara Fitzgerald, a former attorney and current stay-at-home mom, narrates the remainder of the story from different points in the past but moving gradually toward the

present. One final chapter, the epilogue, occurs in the future. In 1990, doctors diagnose Sara‟s

two-year-old daughter, Kate, with a rare and aggressive form of leukemia. The news that their child might die shocks Sara and her firefighter husband, Brian, but Sara immediately resolves to begin Kate on treatment. Kate starts chemotherapy, and her oncologist, Dr. Chance, suggests she might eventually need a bone marrow transplant, preferably from a related donor. The Fitzgeralds test their four-year-old son, Jesse, but he is not a match. Dr. Chance mentions that another unborn sibling could be a match, and Sara suggests to Brian that they have another child.

Sara‟s passages, told at different points over the next fourteen years, focus largely on Kate‟s

struggles. She describes how scientists help them conceive another daughter, Anna, who is a perfect genetic match for Kate. Over the course of the next few years, Anna undergoes several procedures, including frequent blood withdrawals and a painful bone marrow extraction, to help keep Kate alive. Sara describes in great detail the pain and suffering Kate endures. Chemotherapy and radiation make her violently ill, and an emergency trip to the

hospital heralds each new relapse. Sara and Brian‟s marriage suffers as a result, to the point

where they begin to feel like strangers. In different ways, both Jesse and Anna act out at Sara because of her single-minded focus on Kate.

The present action of the story begins on a Monday. Thirteen-year-old Anna goes to see a lawyer named Campbell Alexander and asks him to represent her. Anna tells Campbell that

she wants to sue her parents for medical emancipation. Kate, her sister, is in the end stages of kidney failure, and Anna wants to file the lawsuit so she will not have to donate a kidney to Kate. Campbell, who has a service dog but gives a sarcastic explanation whenever someone asks why, agrees to represent Anna for free. When she is served with the papers for the

lawsuit, Sara becomes furious with Anna as she cannot understand Anna‟s decision. Brian, however, understands Anna‟s point of view to a degree and recognizes that she would not

have brought a lawsuit unless she were genuinely unhappy. Judge Desalvo, the judge for

Anna‟s case, decides to appoint a woman named Julia Romano as Anna‟s guardian ad litem, a person whose job is to objectively decide what is in Anna‟s best interests. When Julia goes

to see Campbell, it becomes clear they have a romantic past and have not seen each other in many years. Throughout all of these events, Jesse has been setting different abandoned buildings on fire. Jesse acts like a delinquent in other ways as well, such as drinking alcohol excessively, but much of this behavior stems from anger over his inability to save Kate and his feelings of being ignored by his parents.

Kate becomes seriously ill and must be hospitalized. Dr. Chance says she will die within a week. Anna refuses to change her mind about the lawsuit, however. At the hearing, Sara decides she will represent herself and Brian. Consequently, Brian takes Anna to stay with him at the fire station to give Anna some distance from her mother. He believes if they remain in the same house together, Anna may unwillingly cave to her mother‟s wish that she donate her kidney. Meanwhile, through flashbacks Campbell and Julia alternately recall scenes from their high-school relationship. They both attend a prep school populated by children from wealthy families. Julia feels and acts like the outsider, and Campbell falls in love with her despite the reservations of his friends and parents. Their relationship ends abruptly, however, when Campbell breaks it off without explanation. In the present, Campbell and Julia initially bicker with each other, but they end up sleeping together the night before the trial begins.

At the trial, both Sara and Campbell question witnesses, including one of the doctors familiar

with Kate‟s medical history, and both are effective at different times. Reluctantly, Anna takes

the stand and admits that she filed the lawsuit because Kate told her to. At the very moment she makes this announcement, Campbell has an epileptic seizure and collapses. When his seizure ends, he admits he has been having seizures ever since a car accident in high school.

He broke up with Julia because he didn‟t want his seizures, which limit him greatly, to limit

Julia as well. He also explains that the seizures are the reason he has a service dog, which can tell when another seizure is coming on. Julia and Campbell reconcile. Back on the stand, Anna explains that Kate asked Anna not to donate her kidney because she was tired of being sick and waiting to die. Anna also admits that while she loves her sister, part of her wanted Kate to die, too, so that she could have more freedom with her life. Judge DeSalvo decides to grant Anna medical emancipation and gives Campbell medical power of attorney over her.

On the way to the hospital, Campbell and Anna get into a serious car accident. At the hospital, the doctors tell the family that Anna has irreversible brain damage. Campbell tells

the doctors to give Anna‟s kidney to Kate. Kate narrates the epilogue, set in 2010. She

discusses the grief her family went through after Anna‟s death, and the fact that she blames

medical issues. She is very passionate about her writing. It usually takes her about nine months to write one book. This is so she can do as much research as she can and make it just right. Jodi has also taught middle-school English in Concord, Massachusetts. Something she loved about teaching was making the students think hard about what they believed and why they believed it. Jodi had a very loving and caring home as a child. She was quoted as saying, “I grew up on Long Island with my parents and my little brother, the product of a ridiculously happy childhood.” Her main activities, other than writing, include doing things with her husband, Tim Van Leer, and their three children, Sammy, Kyle and Jake. Also, every morning at 5:30 she goes on hikes with her friend. Jodi and her son, Jake, write a children‟s musical every year that is performed to raise money for a charity that benefits orphans with H.I.V. and AIDS in Zimbabwe. A quote that I found written in one of Jodi‟s books and that I really feel summarizes her personality and her life is when she writes, “There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing -- light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light.”

In her career as a novelist, Jodi Picoult has published at an extraordinary pace, releasing seventeen books in about as many years. Though panned by some critics for the commercial nature of her writing, she has earned a large and devoted following of readers. Nearly 14 million copies of her books are in print in the U.S. alone, and her work has been translated into thirty-four languages in thirty-five countries. Her novels cover a range of topics, from school shootings to teen suicide to death row inmates, yet many share a single theme: ordinary people in extraordinary and often morally complicated situations. All manner of horrific things happen in the lives of Picoult‟s characters, and the choices her characters make in response typically form the crux of her plots. Her books often explore the psychological consequences of wrenching incidents and decisions, and they deal largely in

moral gray areas, where the ethics of medicine, law, and society come into conflict with one another. Rarely, if ever, do her novels offer easy resolutions.

Born in 1966, Picoult attended Princeton University for her undergraduate studies.Seventeenmagazine published two of her short stories while she was still a student. After graduation, Picoult took on a series of different jobs to earn her living. She worked as a technical writer for a brokerage firm, wrote copy for an advertising agency, served as an editor at a textbook publisher, and taught English to 8th graders. Eventually she enrolled in Harvard, where she received her Masters in Education. She married Tim Van Leer, and while pregnant with her first child she published her first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale, which was released in 1992. But not until the release of her 1998 novel, The Pact, about the apparent murder of a seventeen-year-old girl by a boy she had known all her life, did Picoult begin to achieve wide-scale commercial success.

In 2004, Picoult published My Sister’s Keeper. Like most of her works, the novel takes on a range of morally complex issues, from the ethics of genetic engineering, to the right of terminally-ill patients to elect to die, to a minor‟s right to control her own body. Genetic engineering alone has been the subject of controversy since its very first uses to help infertile couples conceive via in vitro fertilization. As the potential uses of the method have grown, so have the moral questions that such genetic manipulation raises. Notably, the ethics of using science to create a so-called “designer baby,” meaning one whose physical traits are selected by the parents, has become the object of frequent and heated debates. These quandaries, and those regarding the rights of terminally ill patients and minors to determine what happens to their bodies, all intertwine in My Sister’s Keeper, which tells the story of one family devastated by their child‟s battle with acute promyelocytic leukemia, an extremely aggressive form of cancer. As in many of her novels, Picoult distills these conflicts to their

most controversial aspects, places ordinary people in the midst of them, and challenges readers to confront their own preconceptions about the subject.

The world of My Sister’s Keeperitalic brims with realistic medical and legal jargon. In fact, Picoult is renowned for diligently researching the topics she writes about, and she has said that her research can at times take even longer than the actual writing of the book. Her regular routine entails conducting numerous interviews with experts related to the issue at hand and spending time with real individuals and families who have been affected. The writing of her novel House Rules, for instance, about a teenage boy with the autism-spectrum disorder called Asperger‟s Syndrome, involved several conversations with autistic children and their parents. For My Sister’s Keeper, Picoult spent time with pediatric oncologists who treat children with cancer. Picoult also brings her personal experiences to her books. House Rulescame about in part because her cousin has autism, so she knew first-hand how autism can affect a family. With My Sister’s Keeper, Picoult drew on her experiences with her middle son, who at the age of five needed ten surgeries over three years to treat a tumor in his ear. Picoult says the desperation she felt sitting in the hospital beside her anesthetized son and knowing she could do nothing to help him informed her depiction of Sara, the mother in the Fitzgerald family of My Sister’s Keeper. That emotion, combined with the knowledge Picoult gathered in her research, imbues the book with a sense of realism.

ii. Summary of the Novel

My Sister’s Keeper alternates between first-person accounts by the novel‟s different characters. The bulk of the story takes place in the present, in a one-and-a-half week stretch of time. Sara Fitzgerald, a former attorney and current stay-at-home mom, narrates the remainder of the story from different points in the past but moving gradually toward the present. One final chapter, the epilogue, occurs in the future. In 1990, doctors diagnose Sara‟s two-year-old daughter, Kate, with a rare and aggressive form of leukemia. The news that their child might die shocks Sara and her firefighter husband, Brian, but Sara immediately resolves to begin Kate on treatment. Kate starts chemotherapy, and her oncologist, Dr. Chance, suggests she might eventually need a bone marrow transplant, preferably from a related donor. The Fitzgeralds test their four-year-old son, Jesse, but he is not a match. Dr. Chance mentions that another unborn sibling could be a match, and Sara suggests to Brian that they have another child.

Sara‟s passages, told at different points over the next fourteen years, focus largely on Kate‟s struggles. She describes how scientists help them conceive another daughter, Anna, who is a perfect genetic match for Kate. Over the course of the next few years, Anna undergoes several procedures, including frequent blood withdrawals and a painful bone marrow extraction, to help keep Kate alive. Sara describes in great detail the pain and suffering Kate endures. Chemotherapy and radiation make her violently ill, and an emergency trip to the hospital heralds each new relapse. Sara and Brian‟s marriage suffers as a result, to the point where they begin to feel like strangers. In different ways, both Jesse and Anna act out at Sara because of her single-minded focus on Kate.

The present action of the story begins on a Monday. Thirteen-year-old Anna goes to see a lawyer named Campbell Alexander and asks him to represent her. Anna tells Campbell that

she wants to sue her parents for medical emancipation. Kate, her sister, is in the end stages of kidney failure, and Anna wants to file the lawsuit so she will not have to donate a kidney to Kate. Campbell, who has a service dog but gives a sarcastic explanation whenever someone asks why, agrees to represent Anna for free. When she is served with the papers for the lawsuit, Sara becomes furious with Anna as she cannot understand Anna‟s decision. Brian, however, understands Anna‟s point of view to a degree and recognizes that she would not have brought a lawsuit unless she were genuinely unhappy. Judge Desalvo, the judge for Anna‟s case, decides to appoint a woman named Julia Romano as Anna‟s guardian ad litem, a person whose job is to objectively decide what is in Anna‟s best interests. When Julia goes to see Campbell, it becomes clear they have a romantic past and have not seen each other in many years. Throughout all of these events, Jesse has been setting different abandoned buildings on fire. Jesse acts like a delinquent in other ways as well, such as drinking alcohol excessively, but much of this behavior stems from anger over his inability to save Kate and his feelings of being ignored by his parents.

Kate becomes seriously ill and must be hospitalized. Dr. Chance says she will die within a week. Anna refuses to change her mind about the lawsuit, however. At the hearing, Sara decides she will represent herself and Brian. Consequently, Brian takes Anna to stay with him at the fire station to give Anna some distance from her mother. He believes if they remain in the same house together, Anna may unwillingly cave to her mother‟s wish that she donate her kidney. Meanwhile, through flashbacks Campbell and Julia alternately recall scenes from their high-school relationship. They both attend a prep school populated by children from wealthy families. Julia feels and acts like the outsider, and Campbell falls in love with her despite the reservations of his friends and parents. Their relationship ends abruptly, however, when Campbell breaks it off without explanation. In the present, Campbell and Julia initially bicker with each other, but they end up sleeping together the night before the trial begins.

At the trial, both Sara and Campbell question witnesses, including one of the doctors familiar with Kate‟s medical history, and both are effective at different times. Reluctantly, Anna takes the stand and admits that she filed the lawsuit because Kate told her to. At the very moment she makes this announcement, Campbell has an epileptic seizure and collapses. When his seizure ends, he admits he has been having seizures ever since a car accident in high school. He broke up with Julia because he didn‟t want his seizures, which limit him greatly, to limit Julia as well. He also explains that the seizures are the reason he has a service dog, which can tell when another seizure is coming on. Julia and Campbell reconcile. Back on the stand, Anna explains that Kate asked Anna not to donate her kidney because she was tired of being sick and waiting to die. Anna also admits that while she loves her sister, part of her wanted Kate to die, too, so that she could have more freedom with her life. Judge DeSalvo decides to grant Anna medical emancipation and gives Campbell medical power of attorney over her. On the way to the hospital, Campbell and Anna get into a serious car accident. At the hospital, the doctors tell the family that Anna has irreversible brain damage. Campbell tells the doctors to give Anna‟s kidney to Kate. Kate narrates the epilogue, set in 2010. She discusses the grief her family went through after Anna‟s death, and the fact that she blames herself. She knows, however, that she will always carry Anna with her.