Fame and wealth are not the most important things in life

In The Time Keeper, Albom described Sarah Lemon as an insecure teenage girl. One of the reason she feels insecure is because of the divorce of her parents. After the separation, she has been alienated from her father. Thus, having failed getting attention from her father, she release her stress by eating which makes her fatty. The unattractive body she has is another reason she feels insecure. Looking herself through the mirror, has created a disgusted feeling into her mind. For that reason, she restricts herself from having friends in the school and having conversation with Lorraine. Even though she only sees her weaknesses which then leading her to commit suicide, she has her own strengths. Her intelligence and responsibility is far above everyone else in the school. But for her, it may looked too common because, as people say, the grass is always greener. Often, she compares herself to another people above her who looks pretty and popular. It becomes worse as she meets Ethan whom she considers as her lover. Getting closer to Ethan creates a feeling of proud to her. She tries to look pretty in front of Ethan by using make ups so that she thinks she is equal with other popular girls in school. When Ethan makes fun of her on his facebook, suddenly Sarah feels like her world crumbles. She is not meant to be with Ethan because, however, she is still the same old Sarah Lemon. She will never be pretty and popular because she always be the geeky Sarah no matter how hard she tries. Therefore, despite using her strengths to move on, she lets her weaknesses filled her mind and commits suicide. The suicidal action that Sarah takes is not a spontaneous act. Before meeting Ethan, she already had that thought once when being alienated. But the alienation is not a good reason for her to commit suicide so she delayed it. The society tend to prefer the popular ones instead the smart ones. This way of thinking will next lead to bullying. And Sarah Lemon finally felt the impact of bullying through Facebook. The society of her age mocks her for getting a close relationship with Ethan. Therefore, the bullying she receives is a trigger of why she has to commit suicide. Luckily, she is shown flashes of future if she is to commit suicide. From those views, she finally understands that she is valuable to some people such as her mother and people from the shelter. She would never thought Lorraine and the people from shelter miss her so much if she is gone. She realizes that committing suicide is not a solution for her problems. She needs to overcome her weaknesses by sharpen her strengths more. Thus, in a near future, she becomes a scientist who finds a cure for cancer. Thanks to Victor Delamonte, Sarah gets a chance to study medics in a college and reaches her goal. Sarah also notes that this would never have been possible if not for a benefactor named Victor Delamonte, who, back when she was applying to colleges, had generously bequeathed her entire tuition costs to an Ivy League university-undergraduate, medical school, as far as she could go-in his last will and testament, a document that was changed drastically just before he died from the very disease for which Sarah had now found a cure Albom, 2013:235. Thus, the moral value from Sarah experiences is just be ourselves no matter what weaknesses people see in you and develop our strengths to reach our goal.

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION

The Time Keeper written by Mitch Albom is a story about two characters who have colliding ways of perceiving time on earth they have been given. One of the discussed character wants to shorten the time on earth, while another one thinks the time on earth should be able to be prolonged. Sarah and Victor’s experiences elaborate some moral lessons the readers might learn from their stories. In order to focus the analysis about these moral lessons, two problem formulation is pointed out. These problem formulation is important to be used as a guideline in understanding Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper deeper. The first problem formulation talks about the characters’ characterization and how the alienated characters, Victor and Sarah, perceive time. In defining both Sarah and Victor’s characterization, the writer scrutinizes some significant dialogs, character’s mannerisms, other characters’ opinions about Sarah and Victor, their speech, their past memories, and their own thoughts about their lives and situations. The characters’ alienation is elaborated by observing the character’s thoughts and views about who they are, why they are unable to conform to the society, and how they are different from the people around them. Some theories and thoughts on parental, adolescent, and social alienation are also employed to see how their different experiences on alienation influence their different views about their life time. Sarah Lemon is a young girl in her seventeen who is bright in school and excels in all subjects. In addition of being smart, she is also responsible and independent. These characteristics can be seen from the other characters’ dialogs, expressions, and thoughts about Sarah. It is also derived from her own thoughts about how she is doing at school. Despite her intelligence, Sarah cannot cope with her surrounding teenage world. This isolation has brought a sense of alienation to her life, both at school and home. This is confirmed by illustrated relationship between Sarah and her mother, and Sarah and her friends. Some descriptions about Sarah’s everyday life also shows that she is being isolated from her surroundings and even herself. How Sarah Lemon tries to deal with this alienation is depicted through her suicidal attempt by locking herself in a car with started engine. The same characterization method is done to reveal Victor’s characteristics. He is a wealthy businessman which spends most of his time working. His hard work is depicted through the possessions of his, which are pictured all over the story. How he attempts to improve his life is also elaborated through the dialogs, thoughts, and views of her wife about him. Victor’s own thoughts and point of views also show his values of life. How this man finally gets isolated from his world because of his kidney failure is also emotionally depicted through his monologues and thoughts. Some alienation theories and reasoning explain why this alienation makes him decide to have his lifetime prolonged, although he has to pay for a very expensive cryonics. Both Sarah and Victor’s experiences of being alienated convey moral lessons which are expected to be learnt by the readers. These moral lessons consist