Character and Characterization Elements of the Novel

2.2.1 Character and Characterization

There are human and non-human in a story. Characters include non-human beings because we often find the characters in the form of animals, plants, or even strange creature. Abrams in Koesnosoebroto 1988:65 defines character as a short, and usually witty, sketch in prose of a distinctive type of a person. He further quotes the definition of character as the persons, in a dramatic or narrative work, endowed with moral and dispositional qualities that are expressed in what they say 1988:65. Robert 1969:11- 12 defines character in literature as the author‟s creation, through the medium of words or a personality and consistent with it. A general definition about character is provided by Moore 1966:333. He states that the characters are people of a novel. The characters in a story can be divided into two groups. Koesnosoebroto 1988:67 says that in the basis of importance, we can distinguish two types of character, main or major character and minor character. Major character is the most important character in a story. Minor characters are characters of less important that those of the main characters. There are two types of characterization in fiction, telling method and showing method. From these types of method we will able to disclose every character in any story. These methods are based on Pickering and Hooper. They explain as follows; One method is telling, which relies on exposition and direct commentary by the author. In telling-a method preferred and practiced by many older fiction writers-the guiding hand of the authors is very much evidence. We learn and look only at what the author calls to our attention Pickering and Hooper in Albertine Minderop, 2005:8 The other method is the indirect, the dramatic method of showing, which involves the author‟s stepping aside, as it were, to allow the characters to reveal themselves directly through and their actions. With showing, much of the burden of characters analysis is shifted t the reader, who is required to infer character on the basis of the evidence provided in the narrative Pickering and Hooper in Albertine Minderop, 2005:22 To find the characterization, we can use both of the methods as the writer will use both of the methods in describing people or characters in the novel. The telling or showing method will appear in every character in a novel. It is because that the character will seem the same as that in the reality.

2.2.2 Plot