1. Sarah Lemon
Sarah Lemon is a seventeen-year-old girl whose parents divorced when she was twelve years old. The divorce happened two months after her birthday.
Afterwards, Sarah stays with Lorraine, her mother, instead with Tom, her father. Sarah used to have a warm, friend-like relationship with her mother which after the
divorce, turns into a mother-teenage daughter gap. The absence of her father—who Sarah thinks does not want her any longer after the divorce—influences not only
Sarah’s personality, but also her previously-healthy relationship with Lorraine. Sarah feels like being trapped in a strange household with the mother, who keeps
talking negativities about her former husband, without knowing that her teenage daughter expects her father in a quite different way from her.
After the split, Sarah stayed with Lorraine, who would blame Tom, her absent ex, for every wrong thing in their lives. Sarah would nod sympathetically. But
each of them, in a way, was still waiting for the man; Lorraine to admit he was wrong, Sarah to have him rescue her. Neither thing happened Albom,
2013:14.
It is clear that Lorraine expect Tom to come back and apologize for mistakes he did to the family while Sarah hopes Tom to come to rescue her and bring happiness in
their home again—which never happens. Her parents’ divorce and her mother’s negative talks about her father, has
brought a sense of alienation to Sarah’s life. Sarah’s mother always complains to her friends about how her husband “was never good enough” and that he is the
cause of their divorce Albom, 2013:35. In Sarah Lemon’s case, however, her mother attempt to alienate her from her father in fact, does not cause hatred toward
the father. Instead, it causes isolation in the relationship between the two of them.
Sarah doesn’t want to open herself to her mother as she did when she was in eighth grade. Her mother tries to speak to her and restore their relationship, “but the door
is always closed” Albom, 2013:74. Their different opinion makes both of them no longer share stories nor do manicure together any longer. Even Sarah does not want
to tell where she is going or what problems she has when her mother asks about it. Thus, the Mother-Daughter connection is getting distant between them.
Lorraine eyes the bed. She sees options laid out: two pairs of jeans, three T- shirts, a white sweater.
“Where are you going?” “Nowhere.”
“Are you meeting someone?” “No.”
“You look good in the white—“ “Mom”
Lorraine sighs. She lifts a wet towel from the floor and leaves 2013:9. Not only at home, Sarah’s sense of insecurity also occurs when she is at
school. There, she is described as a smart girl who is really bright in science and excels in almost all of the subjects in class. She can easily master all lessons and
get a high rank. Due to all these easiness, she even describes the class as something with “no challenge” and is more suitable to be considered as “boredom”. This
confirms the statement once pointed out by John Horton, an American sociologist, that in current time, alienation is used to refer to feelings such as powerlessness,
boredom, and dissatisfaction qtd.in Weinstein, 1974:209. “She gets the third rank in the class and is waiting for an early admission to a nearby state university”
Albom, 2013:49. Regardless of being a smart, responsible student at school, Sarah does not have sufficient ability to get along with her friends. She is detached
from the majority of students at the school, who describe a high-school girl like her
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