Henkle are applied to determine what a sort of character Carla is, and the methods of characterization by Murphy are also used to obtain the complexity of Carla’s
characters revealed in the novel. The second objective is to find out the causes of Carla’s quest for the
meaning of life, her motivation, and her actions to find the meaning of life. The theory used is logotherapy by Frankl. I would like to apply the theory to analyze
what Carla does to find the meaning of her life. Therefore, those theories will help me in analyzing this novel.
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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter contains the methodology of the study, which is divided into three parts. The first part is object of study. It describes the novel
God’s Callgirl and the focus of the study. The second part is the approach. It states the approach
that is used in the study. The third part is the procedure. It explains the steps conducted in analyzing the novel.
A. Object of the Study
The object of this study is a novel entitled God’s Callgirl. It was written
by Carla Van Raay. It was first published by Harper Collins Publisher in Australia in 2004. Printed in paperback, this novel consists of 441 pages which are divided
into 29 chapters. The novel
God’s Callgirl by Carla Van Raay starts with the story of Carla’s childhood. Carla is born as a Catholic girl child in Tilburg, a little Dutch
town. In her childhood, Carla always wants to give the best for her parents but unfortunately she precisely often finds disappointing and hurting responses from
her parents. Her father hurts her when he does sexual abuses to her. She cannot forget what her father does which makes her feeling pent up through her life.
These experiences make her think that her parents do not really love her. At the age of twelve, Carla and her family move to Australia. At the age of
eighteen she decides to become a nun, an ultimate lover of Jesus for she finds that
only Jesus who loves her. She turns her thoughts to Jesus and transfers her will to meaning for Jesus. She feels that she has a meaningful life at the beginning of
becoming a nun. But then everything in her life changes when she faces many conflicts in the convent that bring her in suffer. It causes her to feel meaningless
and apathy that she decides to quit and leave the community at the age of thirty three.
After leaving the convent, Carla’s life as an ordinary person starts. The will to meaning directs her to do something. She looks for a job and gets married
with a man. From her marriage, she gets a daughter. Unfortunately, she fails her marriage so that she gets a divorce from her husband and then just lives with her
daughter Caroline. In no time, she gets a relationship with a man named Hal and has another daughter named Victoria. Unfortunately, Hal leaves her and then
marries with another woman. Carla continues her life with Victoria because Caroline wants to live with her father James. She looks for a job to earn money to
finance their needs. It is difficult to find a job with high payment so that Carla decides to be prostitute for good money and has fun as well, but life is getting
worse when she finds the existential frustration of life that makes her have a feeling of guilt, meaningless, emptiness, and apathy. Because of having the will to
meaning, Carla always directs herself to do something to find the meaning of life. Finally, she can find the meaningful life after solving her existential frustration of
life. Carla Van Raay as the author tries to share her experience in how she finds
the meaningful life. She tries to point out that people must have the will to
meaning so that they find the meaningful life. Moreover, people can find the meaning of life in all conditions but they can also lose it. It is hoped that the novel
inspires people in general to find the meaning of life in all conditions so that they finally find the meaningful life.
B. Approach of the Study
A certain approach to analyze a literary work is needed to give a border of aspects to discuss in a study. The approach gives background of knowledge on the
study and it is very helpful to develop the analysis based on the work to discuss. In Reading and Writing about Literature, Rohrberger and Woods, Jr. 3 say that a
critical approach to literature necessitates an understanding of its nature and positive values. One must know what literature is, how to read it, and how to
judge it. In relation to the topic, the writer applies the psychological approach in analyzing the main character of the story.
The approach for the analysis of this study is the psychological approach. Since the study is related to the theory of psychology, logotherapy is applied to
dig out the main character’s motivation, personality, and behavior patterns. It is in line with Rohrberger and Woods, Jr. 13 that the psychological approach
demonstrates effort to locate and demonstrate certain recurrent patterns, but from different body of knowledge that is psychological theory as to explain human
motivation, personality, and behavior patterns written in the literary objects. The psychological approach used in the study is
to find out what Carla’s personality is like as reflected in her thoughts and actions mentioned in the novel through.
