23 Kizuki. He
falls in love with Naoko, Kizuki’s girlfriend who is damaged by Kizuki’s suicide and struggling with her depression. The death of Kizuki affects
Toru and Naoko deeply. Both of Toru and Naoko decide to attend college in Tokyo where they can escape from their past memories. Moreover, Kizuki’s death
also makes Toru experience loneliness during his college time. The further information about the author and the summary of Norwegian Wood can be seen
on Appendices I and II pp. 70 - 74.
B. Approach of the Study
The study is focused on the causes of loneliness as experienced by Toru Watanabe, the major character in Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. Therefore,
psychological approach is applied in this study. This approach aims to examine and analyze the novel from psychological point of view of human beings. In this
approach, psychological theories are used to know human behavior and motivation
that may affect someone’s personality in the literary works. The psychological approach is suitable in this study because it analyzes the
psychological condition, such as the characters’ behavior, thoughts, personality, and motivation. Thus, the approach helps to reveal the characteristic of Toru
Watanabe and the causes of loneliness.
C. Method of the Study
Library research was applied in this study in order to identify the sources which provide important information for this study. The sources of the study were
24 divided into two, namely primary source and secondary sources. The primary
source was a novel entitled Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Meanwhile, the secondary sources of this study were books, journals, and online references
that contained the related theories about character, characterization, and human needs and reviews of loneliness. The data collected from the secondary sources
were used to support the analysis. This study was conducted by following several steps. The first step was
reading the novel thoroughly for several times for the sake of gaining a better comprehension of the character and the story as well. In this step, a number of
quotations from the novel were marked to collect the data. The second step was collecting theories and reviews related to the study in order to support the analysis
part. In the next step, the related theories and reviews were applied to analyze the problem formulation. The character and characterization theories were applied to
discover how Toru Watanabe is described in the story. Meanwhile, theory of human needs and review of loneliness were implemented to identify the causes of
loneliness. After discovering the causes of loneliness, the conclusions were drawn. In order to verify the result of the study, a verification process was taken
after the analysis was finished and the conclusions were drawn. An expert in the field of psychology was requested to comment on the result of the study which
concerned with the psychology of human being, i.e. Toru Watanabe. Lastly, the last part was revising the study to get the final version of the study.
