appealing are very interesting to discuss. Hence, it is interesting to find out how experience and traumatic feeling may bring either favourable or unfavourable
influence to her adult emotional maturity. Although Mary’s life seems sorrowful, this novel has much to say about how
Mary inspires us to have hopes, dreams, and love. Mary tries hard not to get carried away in deeper sadness. She faces reality and struggles to deal with her limitation.
Thus, the researcher is interested in analyzing this novel because it tells us about how a woma n struggles in dealing with her traumatic feeling resulted from child abuse
and how her emotional maturity is seen through the major character, Mary, in the novel.
1.2. Objectives of the Study
This thesis tries to find out the positive side of a person’s growth after being abused in her childhood. A woman, in this case, has a traumatic feeling, which is
caused by physical and emotional abuse. Since traumatic feeling is very difficult to recover, the victims of child abuse have to try hard in accepting the reality and facing
problems that possibly occur because child abuse remains some impacts. Example of the impacts of child abuse can be depression. When a person is depressed, it
influences her emotion. Viewing this, she or he needs to control her or his emotion in order be mature emotionally.
That is why this thesis tries to identify the description of Mary’s character in the novel based on theories of character and characterization. Besides, the researcher
tries to analyze the way Mary, the major character, accepts the reality and the way she struggles in controlling her emotions as well.
1.3. Problem Formulation
In order to make the discussion specific, the thesis will focus on the problems formulated below:
1. How is Mary’s character described in Valerie Martin’s Mary Reilly? 2. How is Mary’s emotional maturity described in the novel?
1.4. Benefits of the Study
There are some benefits of the study that can be achieved by the readers, the students, the lecturers, and for the researcher herself. For the readers, particularly for
the victims of child abuse, this study is useful for them. Since this study analyzes the emotional maturity, it gives them description on how they should try to deal with
traumatic feeling caused by unpleasant experiences particularly child abuse and find the best ways to resolve the problems that may occur in the future.
For the students of English Language Education Study Program or the next researchers, hopefully this thesis can be used as a reference or consideration if they
want to study the same novel. For the lecturers, in order to be more beneficial, the lecturers may use the texts or the whole novel in the implementation of English
teaching. The texts can be used as materials for teaching Extensive Reading I and Speaking IV to the fourth semester students, particularly, of English Language Study
Program.
The last is for the researcher herself. By analyzing it, the researcher finds out description on emotional maturity that everybody needs to establish particularly for
them who have problems with traumatic feeling.
1.5. Definition of Terms
