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Rees 1973:106 says, “ Novel is a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length in which characters and action representative of real life are
portrayed in a plot of more or less complexity. Novel has some kind of genres, such as: Picaresque Novel, Epistolary
Novel, History Novel, Regional Novel, Satyr Novel, Bildungsroman, Thesis Novel, Roman Noir Gothic Novel, Roman Fleuve, Roman Feuilleton, Science
Fiction, New Roman, and Fact Fiction. From all that kind of novels, we can conclude that the novel is divided into fiction and true story.
Watson 1979:3 says, “Novel is the name of a literary kind, and there is a story tell about how, over the centuries, its substance has widened and its
conventions changed.” It means that novel is literary work of prose fiction, longer than a short story or a medium-length fiction, called a novelette or novella.
2.2 Character
Characters is the actor or character in a work that moves the story by fellow character and nature interact. Depiction of character that may be made
directly or indirectly by the authors through action, speech, or related temperaments.
Robert and Jacobs 1993:131 says, “in fiction, a character may be defined as a verbal representation of a human being. Through action, speech,
description, and commentary, authors characters who are worth caring about, rooting, for, and even loving, although there also characters you may laugh at,
dislike, or even hate.
Universitas Sumatera Utara
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The element of character is one of the important elements in narrative as well as other elements. The character term is usually used in two contexts. The
first context, character refers to individuals who appear in the story. The second context, character refers to the mixing of different interest, desired, emotions, and
moral principles of those individuals. Abrahams 1981:20 says that character is presented in a narrative or
dramatic work that is interpreted by the reader ha s a certain moral qualities and tendencies as expressed in speech and what is done in action.
In the terms of role or level of importance of character in a story, there are two types of characters. They are main characters and peripheral characters.
Nugriyantoro 1995:165 said the characters are people who appear in a work of narrative, or drama, which is interpreted by the readers has a certain moral
qualities and tendencies as expressed in speech and what is done in action. In this case a figure closely associated with his personal qualities in admissions readers.
Character in fiction has always had personality traits, attitudes, behaviors or certain temperamental.
Taylor 1981:62 says that a character in a novel or play is not real human being and has no life outside the literary compositions; however well the
illusions of reality has been created by the author.
2.3 Theme
