11 rescued from his mother, he was successful in proving that he was able to survive
and regain his self-esteem p. xiii Meanwhile, the other study on Dave Pelzers true story is conducted by
Sarwono 2003. Her thesis entitled Dave’s View in Facing his Miserable Life as
Seen in Pelzer’s The Lost Boy mainly discusses how Dave regards his miserable life. Sarwono focuses on Daves view on his pain. Daves struggle to keep away
from his suffering is also described in her finding. The two studies reviewed above use the same novels. The first study uses
Dave Pelzers trilogy: A Child Called It, The Lost Boy and A Man Named Dave. The second study uses one of Dave Pelzers trilogy, namely The Lost Boy. This
study uses the same novels as two previous researchers. This study uses Dave Pelzers trilogy in which there is no
one ever discussed yet Dave’s personality development.
B. Theoretical Description
In this section, the researcher reviews the theory of critical approach, theory of character and characterization, theory of abuse and theory of personality
development.
1. Critical Approach
Rohrberger and Woods 1971 states that literature has an aesthetic value p. 10. The aesthetic value brings the aesthetic response in which the readers can
give an evaluate judgment to the literature work. The researcher needs to employ a critical approach in order to have reasonable judgment. According to Rohrberger
12 and Woods 1971, there are five approaches that can be used to analyze literary
works pp. 6-15. The approaches are the formalist approach, the biographical approach, the sociocultural-historical approach, the mythopoeic approach and the
psychological approach. The first approach named formalist approach. It focuses on the literary
work itself. The formalist approach criticizes only to the elements of the literary works. It focuses on the work without paying attention to other references, such as
psychology, sociology, and civilization. It also focuses on demonstrating the harmonious involvement of all parts to the whole and on pointing out how
meaning is derived from structure. The second approach is the biographical approach. In this approach, the
readers should appreciate the ideas and personality of the author and the biographical provisions of works. In order to understand the author’s writing, the
readers also need to know the author’s idea, personality and life of the author. The third approach is called sociocultural-historical approach. It focuses
on the civilization and its effect to the society and culture. This approach tells about how certain people act in certain period of time. The only way to locate the
real work is in reference to the civilization that produces it. The fourth approach is mythopoeic approach. Myth is used to analyze the
literary work. It also focuses on how myth can influence human mind. This approach discovers certain universally recurrent patterns of human thought.
The last is psychological approach. It is an approach that focuses on the psychological side of human beings. This approach uses psychological theories to
13 explain human motivation, personality and behavior. Psychological approach is
applied in this study t o analyze the changes of the character’s personalities. The
character’s thought and behavior can be understood appropriately by using psychological approach.
2. Theory of Character and Characterization
