CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The writer would like to employ a novel written by Walter Dean Myers to be the object of this study. The title of the novel is Scorpions and its first
publication was in 1988. Yet, this study refers to the first Harper Trophy edition in 1990 that contains 216 pages.
The novel Scorpions is categorized into a young-adult fiction that tells the story of a poor young black kid named Jamal who lives in Harlem. The story itself
gets much impact from the author’s own life experience of growing up in Harlem. It explains how Myers can create good depictions of the setting. Myers is also
good in creating a strong character of Jamal who is able to attract the readers’ attention because of his effort to survive for living in this black poverty society.
Jamal Hicks, as recited in the novel, was asked by Randy, his brother who got in jail, to replace him in leading the gang, Scorpions. Once Jamal did not want
to hang out with this gang, but Randy’s best friend, Mack convinced him by telling him that the Scorpions could make money for Randy’s appeal. Mack even
gave Jamal a piece. Jamal planned to throw it away after shooting it, but he always delayed to do that since he figured out that people would not mess up with him as
long as the piece was with him. Unfortunately, that piece brought him and his best friend, Tito, into a tragedy in the night when Jamal would like to give his position
as the leader to Indian, one of the Scorpions. Indian and Angel messed up with PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Jamal. Tito, who was hiding and observing the fight, shot Angel suddenly. After realizing what had just happened, both Jamal and Tito ran away without looking
back. There are many valuable things from this novel that can be learnt by the
readers, especially children, since the story is very close with the society. Finally, Myers’ talent in writing such a wonderful story that shows his concern toward
social problems brought him to receive a Newbery Honor recognition in 1989. It is only one of his various great achievements in writing.
B. Approach of the Study
It is necessary to apply an appropriate literary criticism in analyzing and evaluating a literary work. Since this study would like to analyze the intrinsic
elements of the fiction that are character, conflict, and message, the appropriate approach chosen by the writers is the formalistic approach. This approach, as
explained by Marry Rohrberger and Samuel H. Woods in Reading and Writing about Literature
, examines the literary work without any reference to the facts of the author’s life, to the genre of the work or the place in the development of the
genre in literary history, and to its social milieu 1971: 7. Guerin in his book A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature also
mentions about this approach. He affirms: “As its name suggests formalistic criticism has its sole object the
discovery and explanation of form in the library work. This approach assumes the autonomy of the work itself and thus the relative
importance of extra literary considerations such as the author’s life, his time, sociological, political, economic, or psychological implications
1999: 70.” PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Both explanations above show that formalistic approach refers to the literary work itself as the main source of the study. By applying this approach,
the writer does not need additional texts that come from outside the novel because all the information and evidences needed are explored from the
fiction work.
C. Method of the Study
There are some steps that can be applied as the method in composing this thesis. The writer used library research that would supply two sources, primary
and secondary sources, to support the analysis of the chosen topic. The primary source was the novel itself, Walter Dean Myers’s Scorpions. Meanwhile, the
secondary sources were some internet sites and some books such as Abrams’ A
Glossary of Literary Terms , Murphy’s Understanding Unseens, Rohrberger and
Woods’ Reading and Writing about Literature . The first step the writer did was to read the novel for several times. After
that, the writer formulated the problems that enabled the writer in achieving the main purpose of this study. The next thing to do was conducting the library
research to collect all the supporting data that were needed such as the theories and the approach.
Doing the analysis was the next step. Here, the writer would pay attention thoroughly to the text. The analysis that was done was the answers for each
problem mentioned in the problem formulation. Therefore, the first analysis was to describe the main character physically and psychologically. The writer then
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