C. Theoretical Framework
In order to answer two problem formulation encountered in this study, some reviews and theories are required to form a thorough analysis. Two different
previously-written reviews about the literary work—The Time Keeper and its author, Mitch Albom are referred to. The first one is composed by Cynthia
Laurensia that sees deeper to the characteristics of Sarah Lemon as a teenage girl, emphasizing on her struggles to face life that finally leads to her decision of
committing suicide. The next study is written by Alisa Mutiara, concerning about similar topics—life and death, and moral lessons learned from both events.
The writer also work based on some theories which can be used to provide answers to formulated problems in this study. Those theories are the theory of
characters and characterizations, the theory of moral and morality, and the theory of alienation. These three theories will be used to first, characterize the characters
in The Time Keeper and to show how these characters are alienated; and also, to study how these alienated characters perceive time they have in life differently; and
second, to see moral lessons concerning life and death are described through these alienated characters. The author also pays attention to the relation between literature
and moral. In order to find out how alienated characters are described in the novel, the
writer uses the theory of character and characterization by elaborating each character’s personal characteristics. Two characters with opposite characteristics
will be discussed in answering the first formulated problem. By considering some principles of characterizing the characters, the writer will comprehensively try to
reveal the two characters’—Victor and Sarah’s personal traits, which have contributions to the way they perceive the time they have given in life.
In order to find the fact that these characters are alienated from their surroundings, the theory of character and characterization will be combined with
the theory of alienation, which explains characteristics of people having social estrangement. Theory of alienation will reveal why these two people have different
ways of perceiving death and time. Moreover, to find out moral lessons on life and death the characters convey,
theory of moral and morality is employed. This last section of the study will examine how the characters’ experience in life contribute to revealing conveyed
moral lessons about death and time, which can be elaborated using moral theory. As literary works are closely related to the real world, there must be some moral
values the author is trying to come up with when writing the literary work. Hence, these moral lessons, which can be a great lesson for the readers will be scrutinized
in details.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
This research in conducted by analyzing a novel written by Mitch Albom entitled The Time Keeper. It was first published by Hyperion in the United States
in 2012, as well as by Sphere in the Great Britain in the same year. The novel was a big success in 2012, as it debuted 1 on the New York Times Bestseller List which
was the reason why Sphere reprinted the paperback edition four times in 2013 and twice in 2014. The paperback edition is divided into 81 short chapters and consists
of 238 pages. This thesis will focus its study on the moral lessons contained in the novel through Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte, the two alienated characters in
the novel. The Time Keeper is telling a story about Father Time formerly known as Dor
who is banished and cursed for measuring the time before other humans do. Before becoming Father Time, he was an ordinary man lives with his beloved wife and
their three children in a distant time. But he was too passionate with his childhood ambition, counting everything surround him. Until one day, he found a way to mark
time by inventing a sundial. Later on, he became more and more obsessed with his counting and forgot about his family until a disease took Alli’s life. Full of hatred
and anger, Dor swore that he would stop the time to save Alli. But then he was locked out in a dark cave. An old man came and told him that living forever in a
cave to hear humans’ voices complaining about their time was his punishment and finding two humans, one who wants too much time and one who wants too little, in
order to teach them to value the time was his redemption. The old man promised him that he will be freed from the purgatory once he fulfills the task. After hearing
his task, Father Time goes back to the Earth with an hourglass. By turning it upside down, the time will nearly stop. Father Time uses this ability to catch up with this
new modern world. He learns everything to get familiar with modern humans and technologies. He decides to apply a job in a clock shop because he is very good at
handling the time. An old man in the mid of his eighties comes to a clock shop in 143 Orchard
Street. The Frenchman who is one of the richest man in the world has tumors in his kidneys. He does not have any children but his wife, Grace Delamonte, still support
him in his weakest moment. Time is running out for him and yet he does not want to die soon because he has always been the winner. He cannot accept the fact that
he would lose his life to the cancer he suffered from; therefore, he seeks for immortality in form of cryonics, the technique based on modern science to save
lives that incurables at the moment by preserving a patient’s body in extremely low temperature until a medication is found in the future so the patient can be fully
cured. And now Victor has only one purpose in the clock shop, to find the oldest pocket watch as a symbolic souvenir from the time before he goes into cryonic state.
A teenage girl wants to buy a special watch in a clock shop in 143 Orchard Street. The smart girl named Sarah Lemon is raised by her single mom, Lorraine
Lemon, because her mom and dad divorced few years ago. She falls in love with Ethan, a young charismatic boy in the school. They have met couple times and
Sarah decides to give him a Christmas present to show her love to him. It is just
recently, Sarah learns the fact that Ethan likes a watch worn in a movie titled Men in Black. And that the reason why she is in the clock shop now. But she does not
know the fact that her heart will be broken and she will try to end her life because of the boy she adores so much.
B. Approach of the Study
In order to analyze how the alienated characters in Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper appreciate their given lifetime in different ways and to reveal what moral
lessons are depicted through these characters’ experiences, the writer uses moral philosophical approach. This approach is employed in the study because as stated
by Mary Rohrberger and Samuel H. Woods in Reading and Writing about Literature, “behind every art form there is also a philosophy of life which can be
expressed and viewed in moral terms” 1971:10. This statement is confirmed by Wilfred L. Guerin et.al in A Handbook of Critical Approach to Literature about the
function of literary work, which is “to teach morality and to probe philosophical issues 1979:60.
Since the characters in a novel represent those one in the real world, their experiences also convey moral values which can be learned by the others. This is
as defined by Elizabeth Langland in her book, Society in the Novel, that society consists of people and their classes, together with their customs, conventions,
beliefs and values, their institutions, and their physical environment 1984:6. Referring to Guerin, authors working on moral bent consider figurative
language and other aesthetic aspects of a literary work as secondary aspects of the
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