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7 Personality Lyons and Langille also explain that personality traits such as optimism
and self-efficiency contibute to the lifestyle choice. Those who have optimism have different choice of lifestyle than those who are pesimists 2000:26.
From the explanations we can conclude that there are many things that influence a person to choose certain kinds of lifestyles. Nowadays, people are
influenced mostly by the culture and norms of their society. The culture that is obtained from mass media affects people most in their social life and consumption
patterns.
B. Criticism on The Crocodile Bird
The author of this novel, Ruth Rendell, is one of most prolific crime writers. Some critics say that she is “The Queen of Crime” after Agatha Christie.
She was born on February 17
th
1930 in London. She studied in Essex University, where there, she also started her writing career by working at Essex newspaper as
a reporter and subeditor in 1948-1950. She started her first novel with the character of Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford, the protagonist of her police
procedural novel http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiRuth_Rendell. Not only famous with her novel series of Wexford, she has been known
for her psychological crime novels wherein she explores themes such as sexual obsession, the effects of misperceived communication, chance and the humanness
of criminals. The novel analyzed in this thesis, The Crocodile Bird 1994 is one of Rendell’s psychological crime novels. It brings the theme of the side effects of
secrets kept and crimes done. To support the data about the novel and the writer, I attach some critiques
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about the novel taken from http:www.greenline.co.nzbooksThe-Crocodile- Bird.htm. Stuart Whitwell from BookList writes that Rendell is doing a sort of
resemblance when the readers are told about the story of a child named Liza who is brought up in an idyllic setting. She is given the attention she needs and an old-
fashioned but thorough education. He calls it a resemblance because Liza’s life story is similar to Rousseau’s book, one of the books Liza’s reads. He also shows
another resemblance on showing how Liza is similar to Scheherazade, the princess who tell stories to the King. Whitwell also adds that this novel is a
cunning, subtle, and extraordinary book. He writes that Rendell, who has already been one of the bests, seems to get better and better.
Patricia Craig, a critic from The Times Literary Supplement also gives her praise to this novel: She says that the novel is a picturesque novel which has
considerable suspensions of disbelief. The readers have to accept that a mother can keep her daughter born in 1975 from contact with all but a few human
beings. That same mother also, in most ways an intelligent and agreeable young woman, is secreting a murderous impulse. She says that Rendell is presenting a
kind of fairy-tale unreality informs her narrative, since the description seems impossible to present-day thinking. She states that this novel is written in careful,
straightforward, almost childlike prose; and it keeps the readers addicted to it, once they have surrendered to the atmosphere of the novel.
Susan R. Farber, from Chappaqua Public Library New York, believes that readers, especially teens, will be intrigued by this dark and multilayered story.
The brainteaser is whether Liza is someone to be pitied because she have been raised in total isolation by a half-mad mother, or is she the feminist ideal-
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intelligent, independent, and resourceful? She states that The Crocodile Bird provides much food for thought for mature teens who have a taste for the
unexpected. Rendell is also said to be one of the finest practitioners of the craft in the
English-speaking world by The New York Times Book review. She also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. As Barbara Vine, she also writes crime and
psycological novels.
C. Theoretical Framework
In conducting the study, I utilize some references for analyzing the novel. I employ the psychological approach proposed by Rorhberger and Woods. Jr. to
analyse the main character in the story. Pickering’s and Murphy’s theories of character and characterization are
going to be employed in this study. The theory of characterization is needed to determine the characters’ type. It is important for me to understand the ways of
characterization because they are the basis of all literature analysis. The theory of motivation is used to know the motivation of the main
characters in choosing their lifestyles. Since characters in the novel are similar to those in real life, we can employ this theory. While the theory of motivation deals
with the forces behind the choosing, the theory of lifestyles is employed to analyze the types of lifestyles that the characters choose. It is also employed to
find out the determinants of lifestyles that the characters in the novel have chosen. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
