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B. Approach of the Study
The focus of this study was to analyze the factors that make Kawashima suffer from paranoid schizophrenia and to prove that he has problems with his
psychological condition. The psychological approach was used in this study. This approach focused on the behavior of the main character like symptoms, and
reasons why he can be categorized as having a mental illness like paranoid schizophrenia.
To know deeper about the mental illness in the Piercing and relate it to the writer’s analysis, the writer applied the psychological approach by Mary
Rohrberger and Samuel H. Woods, Jr. in Reading and Writing About Literature. “Psychological involves effort to locate and demonstrate certain recurrent
patterns” which “draws on a different body of knowledge” 1971: 13. Psychological approach would help the writer to understand human
behavior such as problems related to learning, perception, emotions, motivations, and thinking. Those behaviors usually are written as an object. In short, the
psychological approach was used because it was related to the problems and factors that affect the main character in the novel.
C. Method of the Study
The data collection was done through a library research. In this study, the writer took the data from literary books, psychological books and dictionary, and
some internet sources. There were two parts of sources that the writer used in this study. The primary data is Piercing, written by Ryu Murakami in 2007 in English
version translated by Ralph F. McCarthy. The secondary source that would
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support the analysis in this study were taken from books related to the character, some previous undergraduate theses, psychology and literary books, and articles
from the internet In this study, the writer took some steps in the analysis. The first step was
to read and reread Ryu Murakami’s Piercing to gain a better understanding about the story until the author found an interesting topic to be studied. The second step
was to determine the problem formulation. The third step was to start to find out the previous undergraduate theses, literary books, such as theories and approach
to support the analysis, internet sources to find some reviews to get better understanding about the topic that would be analyzed.
The fourth step was to analyze the data by using those books and internet sources. From those books, the writer tried to prove and answer three problems
that have already been formulated. The last step was to report and make a conclusion until it became a good research and useful for other future researchers
that took the same topic. In this study there were some books that the writer used to gain better
understanding and to complete the information that was needed. The analysis of the character was taken from Glossary of Literary Terms by M. H. Abrams, and in
analyzing the characterization, the writer used M.J. Murphy’s theories about characters and characterization in his book entitled Understanding Unseens: An
introduction to English Poetry and the English Novel for Overseas Student. Other books that support the analysis were Abnormal Psychology: A
Clinical Approach to Psychological Deviants by James D. Page, Reading And
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Writing About Literature by Mary Rohrberger and Samuel H. Woods, Abnormal Psychology And Modern Life Fifth Edition by James C. Coleman Abnormal
Psychology An Experimental Clinical Approach by Gerald C. Davison and John M. Neale, APA Dictionary of Psychology by Gary R Vandenbos Phd, Abnormal
Psychology: The Human Experience of Psychological Disorders by Richard P Halgin and Susan K Whitbourne, Abnormal Psychology : Current Perspectives by
Lauren B. Alloy, Joan Acocella and Richard R. Bootzin, The Psychology of Human Behavior Third Edition by Richard A Kalish, The Language of Literature:
A Stylistic Introduction to the Study of Literature by Michael Cummings and Robert Simmons, Abnormal Psychology: Understanding Behavior Disorders by
Jack Roy Strange, Abnormal Psychology Integrating Perspectives by G. Terence Wilson, Peter E. Nathan, K. Daniel O’Leary and Lee Anna Clark.