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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS
This chapter consists of two parts. The first part is the characteristic descriptions of Sheila as the major character in Torey Hayden’s One Child before
and after learning with Torey. The second part is Torey’s teaching style and its influence on Sheila’s personality development.
A. Characteristics Description of Sheila
Based on Murphy 1972, there are nine ways of characterization to understand the characters in the novel, namely, personal description, character as
seen by another, speech, past life, conversation of others, reaction, direct comment, thoughts, and mannerism. Some of them will be applied to find out the
Sheila’s characteristics description. Sheila is the main character in the novel. She appeared in the story from
the beginning to the end and played an important role. She was a six-year-old girl. Sheila was a child of emotionally and behaviorally disturbed. She caused a lot of
destructions everywhere she was. She expressed her feeling through aggression. Sheila’s aggression was the best way to avoid further rejection. According to
Freud as cited in Bandura p. 13, aggression is a result of the antagonistic influence of the life instincts.
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1. Sheila’s Characteristics before Learning with Torey Hayden
In revealing Sheila’s characteristics, the writer applied the theory of Characterization from Murphy 1972 and the theory of Aggression from Bandura
1973. The following section is Sheila’s characteristics before learning with Torey:
a. Sadistic
The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines sadist as “a person who gets pleasure, sometimes sexual, by being cruel to or hurting another
person”. Sheila was a sadist little girl. She kidnapped and almost killed a three- year-old boy. She tied him in a tree and burned him. Sheila was punished by the
court for her behavior. Sheila’s sadistic character was seen by Torey who read an article in a newspaper about the incident of killing a boy.
It told of a six-year-old girl who had abducted a neighborhood child. On that cold November evening, she had taken the three-year-old boy, tied
him to a three in a nearby woodlot and burned him. The boy was currently in a local hospital in critical condition. The girl had been taken into
custody p. 5.
Sheila’s behavior was so bad. She did not only do crimes to people, but also destroyed things or objects. She burned the migrant camp where she lived
and smeared feces in the restroom of a bus station. She was caught by the police three times.
In addition to the burning incident, she had been reprimanded for setting fires in the migrant camp and for smearing feces in the restroom of a bus
station. By six-and-a half, Sheila had encountered by the police three times p. 34.