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to whom he dedicated it. According to Green, Esther’s biggest contribution to the novel was that he truly liked her and was genuinely angry when she passed away.
For him, writing the novel was a way of working through his own grief and anger and coming to terms with the loss of a loved friend, who taught him a great deal
about the truths, horrors, and clichés that are a part of living with cancer.
E. Previous Research Findings
There are two literary types of research that focus on psychological analysis and socio-emotional development. The first thesis is Eka
Setiawati’s thesis entitled
“The Psychological Effect of World War II on Ira Hayes and John Bradley’s Character in James Bradley’s Flags of Our Fathers” in 2011. The
thesis focuses on describing the psychological matter experienced by the main character after the world war and how the character deals with the traumatic
experience related to Adler’s individual psychological theory. The results of the
research show that there are two crises suffered by the main characters according to Adler
’s individual psychological theory; those are inferiority feeling and style of life.
The second thesis is Dwi Purwaningrum ’s thesis entitled “A Struggle for
Love in F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby: An Individual Psychological Approach
” in 2006. This research focuses on identifying the condition experienced by the main character in the novel and the impact of the crisis toward
the character’s psychological development related to Adler’s individual psychological theory. The result of the research shows that there are three
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problems occurring on the main character in the novel; inferiority, striving for superiority, and style of life.
This research investigates The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, as it pointed to identify the steps in the process of seeking perfection and the struggle
to get it in the main character in the novel as the effects of life perfection using Adler’s psychological development theory. Psychological development is applied
in the research to show the causes and the impacts of the life perfection toward Hazel, the main character in The Fault in Our Stars. There has not been a research
on Green ’s The Fault in Our Stars conducted by either students or lecturers in the
English Department of Yogyakarta State University. This research reveals some points about the effects of inferiority feeling
toward the main character ’s psychological development. Hence, the finding of this
research will give the results to the students, especially for those who use psychological theory in their research.
F. Conceptual Framework
Seeking perfection of life is an idea of constructing the goals of a person’s will. It related to human psychology and their consciousness to sum all their
experiences and decide which one they want to chase. Their decision is based on their awareness and self-understanding of their own body and mind. The
awareness creates the unique motivation of creating their own perfection, and the self-understanding idea constructs the hint to achieve that certain perfection.
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The researcher applies Maslow’s theory of needs to answer the first research
questions. Maslow believes that people possess a set of motivation systems
unrelated to rewards or unconscious desires. People are motivated to achieve certain needs when one need is fulfilled a person seeks to fulfill the next one, and
so on. Each person is capable of planning and guiding his actions with a full
awareness of their meaning for his own self-realization.
The second research questions use Adler’s individual psychological theory,
this theory believes that each person is ordinarily aware of the reason for hisher behavior. Heshe is a conscious of hisher inferiorities and conscious of the goals
for which heshe strives. The more an individual resolves hisher life planning successfully, the happier hisher life will be.
