feels in Ireland due tothe oppression and religion on its head which leads to an revolution in his inside regarding his future life based on the experience
from hispast and family troubles suffered during the first nineteen years. Later, Emilia Stopar in her essay titled
Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes: A Picture of an Irish Childhood
aims to investigate how Frank McCourt pictures Irish childhood in
Angela’s Ashes and then decide whether this is a realistic and true picture, or whether McCourt exaggerates in his
descriptions. Stopar focuses on aspects of childhood that McCourt brings up, relates and critizes those aspects. In the investigation, Stopar also really
concerns to the role of Catholicism in Irish and what life was like in Ireland during the period.
Stopar divides her focus into four stages. Firstly, the focus on Ireland and Irish childhood in a historical and cultural context, where historical facts
will be compared with how Ireland is described in the novel. Secondly, attention paid to Catholicism’s influence on various institutions and on
people. Thirdly, the positive aspects of Irish childhood brought up. Lastly, the negative aspects of such a childhood as well as McCourt’s criticism of these
aspects dealt with. In this research, the writer purposes to examine the novel
Angela’s Ashes
by using Orientalism of Edward W. Said to understand, analyze and explain how Novel
Angela’s Ashes 1996 by Frank McCourt depicts the relationship of East and West between Ireland and America through the
conversation, actions, perceptions of the main character, Frank McCourt and phenomenon that occurs to him within the text.
B. Character and Characterization
By definition, character means roles. Characters can be a person, community, race, mental and moral attitude, the quality of reason, famous
people, figures in literature, reputation, signs or letters.
17
As a literary term, a character is a person created for a work of fiction.
18
As Kennedy said that a character is a person. Though several of literary works are using animal or plant as a character, the character still
describes human personalities.
19
Meanwhile, Robert Diyanni states on his book that characters posses the kind of reality that dreams have a reality no
less intense for being imagined.
20
Abrams also defined that character is the person presented in a dramatic or narrative work who are interpret by the
reader being endowed with moral, dispositional and emotional qualities are expressed in what they say.
21
Robert Diyanni has classified the character into two classification. They are major and minor character.
22
The major character is an important figure at the center of the story’s action or theme. Major character is
17
Albertine Minderop, Metode Karakterisasi Telaah Fiksi. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 2005 p. 2
18
Jane Barchman Gordon Karen Kuehner, Fiction The Elements of the Short Story New York: McGraw Hill Glencoe, 1999, p. 95
19
X. J. Kennedy, An Introduction to Fiction: Third Edition United States of America: Little, Brown and Company, 1983, p. 45.
20
Robert Diyanni, Literature Approach to Fiction, Poetry and Drama New York: McGraw Hills, 2004, p. 54
21
M.H. Abrams, A Glosary of Literary Terms New York: Holt, Rinehart Winston, 1971, p. 22
22
Diyanni, Op. Cit., p. 54
sometimes called a protagonist. The term protagonist refers to the main or central character in fiction.
23
The protagonist may also be the most sympathetic
character. It means that the protagonist can arouse your concern and sympathy. Rather, a more neutral and accurate word to describe the
opponent of protagonist is antagonist. An antagonist is a character whose conflict with a protagonist may spark the story’s conflict. The antagonist may
also represent a major threat or obstacle to the main character by their very existence without necessarily actively targeting him or her. Together, the
protagonist and antagonist comprise the major characters or forces in fiction. Meanwhile, minor character is a character whose function is partly to
illuminate the major character.
24
Their degree of importance depends on their function. Minor characters primarily function as foils, stereotypes, or pieces
of furniture. The role of minor character enable us to discover what the major character thinking or planning. Some of minor characters are typically
contrast physically and or in personality with the main character. The contrast can emphasize the characteristics of the main characters.
Furthermore, minor characters are often static or unchanging, they remain the same from the beginning of a work to the end.
There are other classification of characters. They are round and flat character. Round character is a three-dimensional character complex enough
to be able to surprise the reader without losing credibility.
25
Because the round characters exhibit many characteristics, some of which may be
23
Gordon Kuehner, Op. Cit., p. 96
24
Diyanni, Op. Cit., p. 54
25
Gordon and Kuehner, Op. Cit., p. 95
contradictory and being called “incalculability of life”. Such characters are said to be fully and well developed. In contrast, flat character is deemed
incapable of surprising the reader because flat character only has some simple characteristics.
Approaching a character is similar as how we approach a human. We need to observe their actions, to listen to what they say and how they say it, to
notice how they relate to other characters and how other characters respond to them, especially to what they say about each other. Furthermore, to analyze a
character, we can concern on the action, the speech or the physical detail of the character. To recognize characters in a fiction an author does many efforts
to bring readers into the story and it will ease readers, later, to catch personalities of characters. This effort of author called characterization.
Characterization is the means by which writers present and reveal character.
