Rebellious The Impacts of Inharmonious Relationship on Grayer’s Attitudes

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CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter presents the conclusions and suggestions. The first section covers the conclusions of the analysis in the previous chapter and contains the answers to the problems formulated. The second section presents the suggestions for further research and the implementation of teaching through this novel in Public Speaking II.

5.1. Conclusions

A family has a significant role on the child’s development. It greatly influences and shapes his characteristics and behaviors. Supports from his family also help him to overcome challenges and difficulties in life. If relationships between a child and his family are not established well, that child will be affected in negative ways. Because of bad relationships with his own family, he often searches for other people to love, such as his friends or nanny. Such inharmonious relationship and its influence on a child’s development are reflected by the characters of Mrs. X and Grayer Addison X in Kraus McLaughlin’s The Nanny Diaries . The first character described in the novel is Annie Braddock. She is the eighth and the last nanny in the X’s family. Annie is a loving and hard working person. She works diligently under Mrs. X’s suspicions. She tries to establish good relationship with Grayer, even though he hates her in the first time. She is also polite and honest. Despite all bad treatments she receives from the X’s family, she keeps her behaviors and manners in polite ways. She does not want to make trouble with them. Instead, she shows affection and care towards Grayer. In the novel, the second character is Mrs. X. She is described as a woman who comes from a prosperous family and married to a rich man. As a result, her life is so glamourous and she never lacks of anything. It is already her habits to go shopping all day long and back home until late night. That selfishness makes her does not care about her own son’s development. She is also proved to be a hateful and ungrateful person. As a rich woman, she considers herself more powerful and superior than other people. So she always acts as if she is the only perfect one. She does not want to hear criticisms towards her. That is why she hates Annie Braddock, despite all Annie’s efforts for helping Mrs. X of maintaining her family. The third character is that Grayer who is portrayed as a boy who comes from a rich family and whose mother does not show a great care towards him. He is a rude and arbitrary boy who enjoys making fun of other people, especially his nannies. However, actually Grayer is a lonely boy. His behaviors are just efforts to get attentions from his parents because they seem to be busy with their own business and do not care about him at all. When Grayer meets Annie, the only person who shows love and care for him, he gradually shows his love to her rather than to his own family. The Nanny Diaries tells that Mrs. X hands over all her responsibilities as a mother to Annie. Automatically Grayer does not get enough affection and care from his mother. Therefore it can be concluded that Mrs. X has inharmonious relationship with her son, Grayer Addison X, because she cannot do the first task of a mother that is to shape her unity with the child in a harmonious manner and to dissolve the unity harmoniously. The inharmonious relationship between Mrs. X and Grayer Addison X have three characteristic. First, their relationship is lack of communication. Mrs. X rarely gives some times to have conversation or even to talk properly like a mother and her son because she is so busy with her own businesses. The second is too much control from the mother. Mrs. X forces Grayer to obey the schedule arranged for him, which contains very strict rules and activities for Grayer. It is excessive for a mother to force such controls towards her own son. The third nature is considering a child as a marital status only. His parents want Grayer to grow like what they want. Grayer is considered as a symbol of the X’s family only. He is not a living being who has his own will and interests. Although they care about Grayer’s well-being, they do not care about his psychological health. It is apparent in their way to hire eight nannies to take care of Grayer rather than taking care of him by themselves. Actually, it is because they prefer their own businesses and interests rather than to take care of their own son. The situations make several impacts on Grayer’s attitudes. There are three impacts happening on Grayer’s attitudes. The first impact is that Grayer becomes a rude boy. It happens because he lacks of control and attention, so he is never told the appropriate manners and behaviors as a child by his mother. The second impact is that Grayer becomes selfish and arbitrary. Grayer feels lonely because his parents are always busy. It makes him to be a selfish child. It becomes a habit that whatever he wants must be satisfied by his nanny and parents. The third impact is that Grayer becomes rebellious toward his own parents. He gets only little affection and cares from his own parents. It is only the Nanny who shows her love and care for Grayer. Her treatments makes Grayer feel comfortable and accepted. That is why Grayer seems to love Nanny much more than he loves his own parents and he becomes rebellious towards his own parents. Grayer does not get enough love and care from his own family because they tend to ignore him. Rather, it is Annie who shows that she loves Grayer. Her treatments make Grayer feels comfortable and accepted. However, the relationship between Grayer and his mother can be saved finally. The resolution of this problem is through discussion to manage and resolve their conflicts. It can be seen from the changes of Mrs. X’s behaviors toward Grayer, after she watch the Nanny’s recording containing criticisms of Mrs. X for being a terrible mother. Gradually, she re-established her relationship with her own son through maintaining communications.

5.2. Suggestions

Mother-son relationship analyzed in this study is not the only thing that is interesting in the novel The Nanny Diaries. There are several topics suggested for further researches, namely Grayer’s relationships with Annie, Father, and other characters. The conflicts between Annie, Mr. X and Mrs X is also interesting to analyze. The researchers may analyze these topics for further researches using the psychological approach as applied in this study.