Background of the study

1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of the study

This analysis deals with the problems of the process of love and type of love which exposed in Cecelia Ahern‘s novel Love, Rosie. Cecelia Ahern was born on September 30, 1981 in Dublin, Ireland. She is the daughter of the former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. On 14th December 2009 it was announced that Cecelia had given birth to her first child with partner David Keoghan, a girl named Robin. She was secretly married on 11 June 2010 in County Kildare, Ireland. Her older sister, Georgina Ahern is married to Nicky Byrne of Irish pop group Westlife. Cecelia was a member of the Irish pop group Shimma who finished third in the Irish national for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2000. She attended Griffith College Dublin and obtained a degree in Journalism and Media Communications. Cecelia Ahern wrote her first novel, PS. I Love You when she was twenty-one. It was published in 2004, the number 1 bestseller in Ireland for 19 weeks and sold in over forty countries. The book was adapted as a motion picture directed by Richard La Gravenese and starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler and released in 2007 in the United States. Her second book, Where Rainbows End US title: Love, Rosie or Rosie Dunne won the German CORINE Award in 2005. Love is composed of a single soul in habiting two bodies Aristotels. Love represents a range of human emotions and experiences related to the senses of affection and sexual attraction. The word love can refer to a variety of different 2 feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction. Harry Harlow 1958:32 defines that love is as an affectional feeling for others. Love is a commitment to find the meaning of life from two different human genders. In other words, love is not only a series of beautiful words but an expression of soul and emotion based on responsibility regardless of background, status and condition. Arthur 1986: 64 groups pure love into one kinds or types of love besides ludus, storge, manic, pragmatic, eros, and agapic. These types of love are made different from the intention of love itself. In other words, the classification seems to identify the certain goal of love implication; of how the love is implemented in order to reach the achievement. Mifflin 1987: 80 defines that love is a strong affection or deep concern for another person. Love can be communicated in many different ways. It is expressed through words, for example, or through touch or other actions that show admiration and concern. Love often grows with time. The ability to love is one of the most pleasurable parts of living. All people have the ability to give love and need to receive it. Friendship is a simple example that human beings need in their lives. It is one form of love which link loyalty toward each other and shares interest and support. Such feelings and behavior are a form of love. The caring among parents, children, brothers and sisters is an implementation of love human beings may reciprocally. Yet, what love may give is the same as what love may take. It is equally implied for the benefit to mankind to link the feelings of equality and belongingness. However, if the implication of love is wrongly interpreted will tend to destroy the good side of friendship and togetherness that human beings eternally dream for. 3 Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between two or more people. Characteristics are present in many types of friendship. Such characteristics include affection, sympathy, empathy, honesty, altruism, mutual understanding and compassion, enjoyment of each others company, trust, and the ability to be oneself, express ones feelings, and make mistakes without fear of judgment from the friend. Friend tends to share common backgrounds, occupations, or interests. Friendship is a feeling of comfort and emotional safety with a person. It is when you do not have to weigh your thoughts and measure words, before keeping it forth before your friend. It is when someone knows you better than yourself and assures to be your side in every emotional crisis. It is when you can sleep fighting and get another morning with a better understanding. Friendship is much beyond roaming together and sharing good moments, it is when someone comes to rescue you from the worst phase of life. Cecelia Ahern postulates love as the theme in her novel, Love, Rosie. The central idea of a novel usually is called as the theme. Yelland 1983:189 says, ―Theme is the central thought in a literary work.‖ The theme may be directly stated or be most obliquely concealed within the literary work. To find the theme in a story, we have to read and understand the whole dialogs and the plot inside the story. After it was done we can conclude what the theme that delivered by the novelist in a story of the novel. According to Kennedy 1991:203 that novel is a book-length story in prose, whose author try to create senses while we read, we experience actual life. The author of novel of course has a certain purpose why he or she writes a novel. It means that the author has some messages to the reader 4 through his novel. That is why an interpretation must be done to find out the meaning of novel. Novel contains many aspects that reflected based on the human real life. This aspects commonly concern with emotion, feeling, problems, etc. This novel focus with love in social life. Because of this novel talks about social, the writer relates it to sociology of literature. Sociology of literature means reviewing the literature by plugging the social aspects that exist in peoples lives. The term was essentially no different from understanding the socio-literary, sociological approach, or socio-cultural approach to literature Damono 1978:2. As we know in modern era nowadays, the process of love is now often in society, moreover a boy and a girl is close friends from childhood until they are grown up. Love influenced by friendship when they spend time together. Love is a strong feeling for someone, it is so important in our life and it is impossible for us to live without communicate with that person. And in this analysis, the writer uses Postmodernism theory, especially about the problems of love which then appear into a postmodern position in its views about love. This is which appear the characteristics about the postmodern love story itself, later. Those characteristics about friendship who love each other, miss communicated, fear of relationships experienced by modern people. Today, novel has attracted interest and attention for many people, especially in teenagers, and other young generation. Novel entertains to read very much. Novel presents characters and actions as representation of real life condition and situation of the human. The characters or the people in the real have ambition, desire, joy, sadness, egoism, feeling, thought, and many things that deal 5 with fact of human life. In other words, the novel is the combination of the real life experiences and the imagination of the author. We can approach the novel through the characters. And this novel is about process of love in friendship between Rosie and Alex. This story begins by two young children who are the best of friends. As they grow older it is obvious they are meant for each other and everyone seems to see this except for the most important ones, the ones who are meant for each other, Alex and Rosie. Love, Rosie is a story told through letters, emails and instant messaging about the ever changing relationship between the two main characters Rosie Dunne and Alex Stewart. Rosie and Alex are close friends from childhood but one day they are suddenly separated when Alex and his family move from Dublin to Boston. Their friendship is tested by time and circumstance, and situations become even more difficult when love starts to tangle things up. It seems that denial and impossibility are overwhelming, but Rosie and Alex are faced with the decision of giving up everything for love, or living in silence for the rest of their separate lives. Misunderstandings, bad luck and troublesome circumstances keep them apart until finally Rosie and Alex presented with the ultimate opportunity to be together again. Love is more than a feeling. It is also a motivational force that compels us to do an action. The experience of love is unique for every person, and one might use that feeling to measure the success of a relationship. Explanation above becomes the reason why the writer chooses this novel as the object of analysis. Actually, many topics can be discussed from this novel but the process of love portrayed in Cecelia Ahern‘s novel Love, Rosie is very interesting for the writer. 6

1.2. Problem of the study