In the story, Sharon shows similar charaterization with Diane. She is nice toward Jenny, Diane, and Marianne, but she becomes unkind when she faces Elsie.
This description is shown since the beginning of the story. She does not like Elsie being her new classmate.
I had just started my new paragraph when the classroom door opened and a woman and a fat blond girl walked in. Sharon sits behind me and I heard
her say, “Ugh.” Diane sits beside me and she whispered, “I hope she isn’t going to be in this room.”....... DeClements, 1981: 4
Sharon says ‘Ugh’ when Elsie comes to the class. At that situation, everybody grumbles for Elsie’s appearance. On the same time, Sharon herself
shows her unpleasant expression. In onlineslangdictionary.com, ‘Ugh’ means “
exclamation of displeasure” Rader, 2010. This part shows that the first impression toward Elsie is displeasure.
........ Sharon was talking to Diane, who was holding her short black hair away from her face while she drank her milk from a straw. Elsie reached
out and poked Sharon in the side. “Are you going to eat you dessert?” she asked.
“Yes, I am,” Sharon answered and turned back to Diane. DeClements, 1981: 6
The unpleasant expression shown at the beginning of the story is continued in this part. She indirectly rejects Elsie by directly turning back to Diane when
Elsie asks her her lunch. By turning back to Diane, it means that Sharon does not want to see Elsie on a long time. This is like what happens on the time of “pulling
her tray closer to her chest” DeClements, 1981: 11. Elsie tries to get more meals by asking her classmate, but here Sharon does not like it at all. She is also keeping
her distant from Elsie by pulling her tray away from Elsie.
B. Social Bullying as Seen through the Doers of Social Bullying
After describing the characterizations of the characters, the writer tries to examine how the doers of social bullying reflect social bullying to Elsie. Bullying
happens since there are social interactions between the children. According to Patti Ghezzi “your child’s social life may be constantly changing—today’s best
friend is tomorrow’s enemy”. http:www.schoolfamily.comschool-family- articlesarticle10623-fifth-grade-social-changes-what-to-expect.
In the context of social bullying, the characters described will be divided into two sides, the doers of social bullying and the victim of social bullying. By
reading the text, the writer is able to decide that the doers are Jenifer Sawyer Jenny, Diane, Sharon, and other classmates such as Roy and Jack. Then the
victim is Elsie Edwards. Based on the theories written in Helen Cowie’s book about the type of aggression, the writer divides the bullying into two parts, direct
verbal aggression and indirect aggression. The direct physical aggression is not written since there are no proof in the story that the characters do physical
bullying. The bullying done in the story mostly done by the girls, Jenny, Diane, and
Sharon. The boys also do the bullying but the data found in the story is lee than the bullying done by the girls.
Helen Cowie and Dawn Jennifer state that “ boys
were more likely to report being bullied by one boy or several boys, whereas girls were more likely to report being bullied by one girl or several girls” Cowie and
Jennifer, 2008: 6. This statement shows that there is a tendency to bully person with same sex. It means the bullying happening in the story done because the
doers find stimulations to bully in the victim. The way Elsie is fat and she steals the class money stimulates the doers to bully. The bullying done is not based on
gender difference but based on the way Elsie’s physical appearance and actions.
1. Direct Verbal Aggression
In this part, the writer analyzes the verbal bullying happening. This part takes a big portion in the story. Direct verbal aggressions are done by Elsie’s new
classmate but Marianne. Helen Cowie states that “direct verbal aggression may take the form of yelling abuse at another, name-calling, using insulting
expressions or making verbal threats” 2008: 3. The verbal aggressions shown in the story are to show that Elsie’s classmates does not really like Elsie.
After that day the boys started calling Elsie “Scrounge.” And she was the class room reject. DeClements, 1981: 12
This part shows the way boys calling Elsie. In the dictionary Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English Fifth Edition, the word
‘scrounge’ has two meanings. As a verb, it means “to persuade somebody to give one something, or to take something without asking permission” Hornby, 1995:
1056, or, as a noun, it means trying “to borrow or obtain something by scrouging” Hornby, 1995: 1056. This word refers to Elsie’s behaviour that she likes to ask
the other students’ their lunch or meals. Elsie asks this because she has no enough meal in her lunch box and she still feels hungry for that, so she asks the other
students whether or not they want to give her their lunch or meals. The way the boys calling Elsie as a scrounge is a form of verbal bullying. The proof that it is a
form of bullying can be seen by the using of the word ‘started’. This word describes the way the boys say ‘scrounge’ is not only for once, but it can be
