Theory of Character Review of Related Theories

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter is divided into two parts. They are review of related theory and theoretical framework. Review of related theory elaborates theory of character, theory of characterization, theory of love, and theory of personality development. The theories are required to help the writer answers the formulated problems. Theoretical framework describes the application of the theories that are used to analyze Nicholas Sparks’ The Best of Me.

A. Review of Related Theories

In this part, the writer provides the theories related to the topic of this study. The theories are theory of character, theory of characterization, theory of love, and theory of personality development. Later on, these theories are used to analyze the answers of the formulated problems.

1. Theory of Character

Theory of character is a theory that elaborates how an author describes the characters in the story. This theory will be useful because the analysis mostly deals with a character in the story. Holman and Harmon 1986 describe character as a complicated term that includes the idea of the moral constitution of the human personality, the presence of moral uprightness, and simpler notion of the presence of creatures in art that seem to be human beings of one sort or another p. 81. It means that a character refers to an individual who has qualities and or features such as personality, moral behavior, and awareness. Moreover, according to Abrams 2009 in his book titled A Glossary of Literary Terms, character is described as follows. Characters are the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as possessing particular moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities by inferences from what the persons say and their distinctive ways of saying the dialogue and from what they do which is called the action pp. 42-43. From the definition of character above, a character is a person in a narrative work, who is interpreted by the readers as the persons who has special and unique qualities from the dialogues he or she says or the actions done through the story. Moreover, the interpretation of characters can be done by two ways. Abrams 2009 says that a character has two ways of how they are interpreted. The first one is showing and the second is telling. In showing, the author simply shows a character through the character’s dialogues and actions. In telling, the author directly describes how the portrayal of a character and even evaluates the motives and dispositional qualities of the characters, mostly in some statements. In addition, Abrams 2009 states that a character in a novel can be divided into two categories, which are major character and minor character. A major character is a person who takes the main role in a novel. The major character commonly becomes the focus in the overall story. Besides, a minor character is a person in the story whose main role or function is to support the main character p. 20. Even though the function of a minor character is only to contribute or support the major character, a minor character also has important role in developing the plot of the story through the character’s contribution and support. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Moreover, according to Robert and Jacob 1989, a character can be divided into two, namely round character and flat character. Dawson as the main character in the story is classified into a dynamic character because his personality changes and develops throughout the progression of the story. Robert and Jacob 1989 elaborate their theory related to dynamic or round character as follows. Round characters have many realistic traits and are relatively fully developed. To the degree that round characters have many individual and unpredictable human traits, and because they undergo or growth as a result of their experiences, they may be considered dynamic. As contrasted with round character, the flat character is undistinguishable from other persons in a particular group or class. Because they do not change or grow, they are static, not dynamic like round characters p. 145. As mentioned by Robert and Jacob 1989, a round character is relatively fully developed because it has realistic traits that change over time. It also makes the dynamic character unpredictable. Moreover, Dawson is also considered as a round character who mostly develops in the story because of the influences of his first love.

2. Theory of Characterization