The Women’s Struggles For Their Ambitions As Reflected In Sidney Sheldon’s Nothing Lasts Forever

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THE WOMEN’S STRUGGLES FOR THEIR AMBITIONS AS

REFLECTED IN SIDNEY SHELDON’S NOTHING LASTS FOREVER

A THESIS

SRI SEVENTINY

REG. NO. 070721019

NORTH SUMATERA UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF LETTERS

ENGLISH LITERATURE DEPARTEMENT

MEDAN

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the almighty God for his mercy that enables me to write this thesis to fulfill one the requirements to obtain a Sarjana Sastra from the English Department, Faculty of letters, North Sumatra University. This thesis looks at the women’s struggle for their ambitions depicted through some characters in Nothing Lasts Forever written by Sidney Sheldon.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis supervisors and also as the chairman of the English Department Dra. Swesana Mardiah Lubis, M.Hum, for her careful attention and valuable ideas during the completion of this thesis. I also owe sincere gratitude to my co-supervisor, Drs. Parlindungan Purba, M.Hum, for his willingness to share his knowledge and precious time during the writing process of this thesis.

I would like to thank Drs. Yulianus Harefa, Med TESOL, as the secretary of English Department, for his kindness and help.

I am also indebted to the Dean of the Faculty of Letters and all lecturers and staff of the English Department for their contribution of knowledge during my study in English Department and improving my intellectuality and thought.

My only special thank is due to my beloved parents, Drs. E. Siagian and M. Br. Hutagaol who have given their moral and material supports and my husband, Victo Junaidi Silalahi for his ideas and the spirit he gave me finishing my thesis.

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And finally, I also owe my special thanks to my friends, Ida, Junita, Eva, Nella, Dian, Maria, Dina, etc, for their moral supports and exiting times we shared together during I wrote this thesis.

May God bless all of us forever.

The writer,

Sri Seventiny 070721019

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ABSTRAK

Skripsi ini menelaah tentang kekuatan wanita dalam memenuhi ambisi- ambisi mereka yang diangkat dari sebuah novel yang berjudul Nothing Lasts Forever karya penulis novel Amerika yang terkenal Sidney Sheldon.

Novel ini mengisahkan tentang kehidupan wanita-wanita dalam memperjuangkan

cita-cita atau ambisi mereka, dimana ketiga wanita dalam novel ini memenuhi ambisinya dengan cara yang berbeda-beda. Ada yang menempuh jalan yang baik tetapi ada pula yang menempuh jalan tidak baik.

Karena ambisi itu pula para wanita ini mengalami banyak persoalan didalam menjalani kehidupannya. Adapun persoalan-persoalan itu seperti dalam memenuhi ambisinya dia rela untuk menjual diri dengan kata lain sex adalah menjadi senjatanya untuk memenuhi ambisinya, penghianatan dan pemerkosaan juga salah satu dari persoalan yang akan dibahas dalam novel ini

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKKNOWLEDGMENTS……… i

ABSTRAK………... iii

TABEL OF CONTENTS……… iv

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION……… 1

1.1 The Background of The Analysis……….. 1

1.2 The Problem of The Analysis……… 2

1.3 The scope of The Analysis………. 3

1.4 The Objective of The Analysis……….. 3

1.5 The Significance of The Analysis………. 4

1.6 The Method Of The Analysis……… 4

1.7 The Review Of Related Literature………. 6

CHAPTER II: THEWOMEN’S STRUGGLES IN SIDNEY SHELDON’S NOVEL, NOTHING LASTS FOREVER. ………. 8

2.1 General Concept of Woman……….. 8

2.1.1 Definition of Woman……… 9

2.1.2 Feminism……… 14

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CHAPTER III: THE ANALYSIS OF THE WOMEN’S STRUGGLES FOR THEIR AMBITIONS

REFLECTED IN SIDNEY SHELDONS’S

NOVEL, NOTHING LASTS FOREVER. 26

3.1 Paige Taylor’s Ambition……….. 26

3.2 Kat Hunter’s Ambition………. 29

3.3 Honey Taft’s Ambition……… 32

CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION………. 38

4.1 Conclusion……… 38

4.2 Suggestion………. 40

BIBILIOGRAPHY……… 41

APPENDICES: THE BIOGRAPHY OF SIDNEY SHELDON, HIS LITERARY WORKS AND SUMMARY

OF THE NOVEL………. 1

1. SIDNEY SHELDON’S BIOGRAPHY ……… 1

2. SUMMARY OF NOTHING LAST FOREVER………. 7

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ABSTRAK

Novel ini mengisahkan tentang kehidupan wanita-wanita dalam memperjuangkan

cita-cita atau ambisi mereka, dimana ketiga wanita dalam novel ini memenuhi ambisinya dengan cara yang berbeda-beda. Ada yang menempuh jalan yang baik tetapi ada pula yang menempuh jalan tidak baik.

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INTRODUCTION

1.1The Background of The Analysis

Literature springs from human inborn love of telling a story, of arranging words in pleasing pattern of expressing in words some special aspect of human experience. It is usually set down in printed characters for the reader to read, though some forms of it are performed on certain social occasions.

There are a number of different branches of literature such as drama, poetry, and prose. Prose itself can be divided into novel, short stories, romance, etc. In this thesis; my main object to be discussed is novel. A novel is a story of book length written in prose. It is about imaginary people and events. Novel also is a part of literature or art. In general, novel reflects the author’s experience or true story combined with author’s imaginary to make the writing more alive, artistic, and interesting.

From the explanation above it can be summarized that novel is a reflection of man’s life experience through the novelist’s skill in expressing the ideas. These ideas could be social, political, economic, or even cultural matters. To say simply, those matters are related to human matter in wider scope. The matter I choose in this thesis is female character’s ambition as portrayed in Sidney Sheldon novel: “Nothing lasts forever”.

I found three female characters, which are very dominant. They are Paige Taylor, Kat Hunter, and Honey Taft. Each of the female character is portrayed to reach their ambition with personal reasons of being a doctor.

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The word “ambition” itself is always closely connected with the achievement of success, and the word “struggle” is related to subconscious mind psychologically. It is an effort to get free; to make great effort under difficulties; to be content with or against act, and to be confused. To quote oxford dictionary of current English. Thus, struggle may mean choices of action to do an effort, whether the way is true or wrong.

In the word, it is clearly portrayed that each of the female characters is having her own way of materializing her ambition. One is ready to lose her self-identity in order to get success. Although, she sells “herself” in order to get success.

The other is related to family background that has been successful being a doctor. It is a hereditary factor that makes her fight for her ambition. And the last one is because of being degraded by man. The feeling of disappointment has raised the spirit to get success for fulfilling the ambition.

The three phenomena above have given me to choose my analysis about women’s struggles for their ambition through Sidney Sheldon’s “Nothing Lasts Forever”. They are both my reasons as well as my background in analyzing the novel in this thesis.

1.2The Problems of The Analysis

The problem of this thesis is focused on female characters as described in Sidney Sheldon’s “Nothing Lasts Forever” and the problems I would like to put forward is:

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1. What makes Honey Taft ready to sacrifice herself in order to fulfill her ambition?

2. Why does Paige Taylor follow the family tradition to struggle for her ambition?

3. What makes Kate Hunter awake struggle for her ambition after being disappointed by a man?

1.3The Scope of the Analysis.

In completing the thesis, I limit my analysis in describing the female character, which is represented by Paige Taylor, Kate Hunter and Honey Taft. The three characters are all women who are portrayed to materialize their ambitions differently. So I just analyze the three of them as expressed in the novel with description of their personal reasons to achieve their ambitions. They are restricted to personal sacrifice of being ready to be object of sexual fulfillment, disappointment and family background.

1.4The Objectives of The Analysis

The objectives of the analysis are:

a) To identify the personal reason why Honey Taft is ready to be an object of sexual desires by sacrificing herself in order to reach her ambition.

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b) To clarify the reason why Paige is ready to be a doctor only because of the family reason.

c) To find out the reason why Kate is also to reach her ambition after being disappointed by a man.

1.5The Significance Of The Analysis

I hope my analysis could give contribution to the development of literature analysis scientifically. Thus, the significance of the analysis is to add vocabulary of literary study in terms of novel. This analysis can be made useful as reference for further analysis especially about novel and its woman content or matters.

In addition, the other significance of the analysis is to prove that literature can be studied intern disciplinary. Thus, student of literature can look that the connection of literature and psychology in the same manner as would like studied in this thesis. Thus, I hope this analysis can encourage students of literature to make wider development of literary study by looking at this thesis as example.

1.6The Method Of The Analysis

In the present thesis, my source or data analysis is taken from Sidney Sheldon’s novel “Nothing lasts forever”. I have read the novel several times in order to grasp what it is about. Throw understanding the story as a whole has directed me to make up an analysis. In doing so, I selected some quotations as my

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data to prove my analysis to be true. The selection of the quoted text from the novel is meant to strengthen my idea for the analysis. And the selection is taken randomly and selected for what is needed in the analysis.

Since the text of literature is mostly connotative, the interpretation is needed for the accuracy of the analysis. The way I interpreted is connected with what I think right in the text of the novel. Thus my interpretation goes together with the analysis based on the quotations I have selected. After that, I describe my analysis is reference to one topic I chose in the Thesis.

Basically, in completing this analysis I applied both intrinsic and extrinsic approaches. Intrinsic approach is meant to deal with internal elements of literature such as plot, setting, character or point of view. While extrinsic one is related to external element of literature. In this thesis, I have focused on the character. That is female character and psychological problem of ambition through the female character. So, in discussing the contents of this thesis I use both of approaches to make the analysis.

The way I applied the approaches is through description of one character. I describe my analysis the way I think right as proved by the quotations. Thus, the method of my analysis is better known as descriptive method of analysis.

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1.7The Review Of Related Literature

The data of investigation will be all the events, which are described in the novel that have the relationship with the psychological aspects of the main character, such as: the main character’s personality, ways of thinking and of making decisions, and his behavior.

The sources of data can be divided into the primary sources and the secondary sources. To support my analysis, I have consulted and used some books, which are absolutely relevant to this topic. The following books have contributed a lot in writing the thesis.

 Theory of Literature by Rene Welleck and Austin Warren (1977)

This book describes how literature as a social institution. Using language as its medium in creating social relationship and the novelist himself becomes the member of the society. Literature and society are closely related.

 The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy (1989)

Dr. Joseph Murphy presents the difference between positive and negative motivation.

 Nothing Last Forever by Sidney Sheldon (1989)

This book is as the main source of the required data as it is the text of the novel itself. From this novel, I can find the women’s struggle to get their ambitions reflected through the aspects of the novel.

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 How To Study A Novel by John Peck (1986)

This book describes about how to write a novel, the real meaning of a novel, and the part of literature.

 The study of personality by Brand Howard (1984)

This book describes personality, social position, and social psychology.

 The Little Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1989).

In collecting the data, I also find the materials from Internet. In doing the Internet research, I looked for articles are relevant to the topic, then I studied the material and jotted down the appropriate materials as the evidence to the topic.

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CHAPTER II

THE WOMEN’S STRUGGLES IN SIDNEY SHELDON’S NOVEL,

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER

2.1 GENERAL CONCEPT OF WOMAN

. During the United Nations Decade for Women (1976-1985), women from many geographical, racial, religious, cultural, and class backgrounds took up organizing to improve the status of women. The United Nations-sponsored women's conferences, which took place in Mexico City in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980, and Nairobi in 1985, were convened to evaluate the status of women and to formulate strategies for women's advancement. These conferences were critical venues at which women came together, debated their differences and discovered their commonalties, and gradually began learning to bridge differences to create a global movement. In the late eighties and early nineties, women in diverse countries took up the human rights framework and began developing the analytic and political tools that together constitute the ideas and practices of women's human rights.

Women's lives involved much more than legal systems, work, and religious life, of course, but it is as impossible to cover all aspects of their lives in a relatively brief article, as it would be those of men's lives. In fact, including a separate article on women—without a corresponding article on men—goes to some degree against recent research, which has emphasized the diversity more

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than the commonalities in women's experience across Europe. Even the experience of the relatively small group of women who held political power was diverse. Elizabeth It’s situation was very different from that of queen mothers in France such as Marie de Médicis, female rulers of eastern Europe such as Maria Theresa, tsarinas such as Catherine the Great, or mothers of the sultans (known as the valide-sultan) in the Ottoman Empire. Thus perhaps the only generalization safe to make is that gender shaped the lives of all early modern Europeans in complex ways, and that every development of the period was shaped by, and in turn shaped, ideas about or structures of gender.

2.1.1 Definition of Woman

According to “The concise oxford dictionary of current English” by H.W.Fowler and F.G. Fowler (1951), Woman is adult human female, queen’s or great lady’s female attendant, lady in waiting, and the feminine emotions.

According to the Merriam- Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, Woman is an adult female person, feminine nature, and a female servant or attendant.

According to literature and language dictionary, that woman is:

1. Female human being past adolescence.

2. An adult female human.

3. Women considered as a group; womankind: “Woman feels the invidious

distinctions of sex exactly as the black man does those of color” (Elizabeth

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4. An adult female human belonging to a specified occupation, group, nationality, or other category. Often used in combination: an

Englishwoman; congresswoman; a saleswoman.

5. Feminine quality or aspect; womanliness. 6. A female servant or subordinate.

7. Informal.

a. A wife.

b. A female lover or sweetheart. See Usage Note at lady, man, person

According to Saint Jerome, Woman is a temple built over a sewer. It is contrary to the order of nature and of the law for women to speak in a gathering.

According to Plato, Woman are those who fell prey to their irrational, emotional side, and are therefore incapable of reason and making rational choices. Moreover as irrational beings, women may not always know what they really want, and so it is the man’s domain to decide for them.

According to Aquinas, woman is defective and misbegotten.

According to Truth, 1870 by Jules Joseph Lefebvre

A woman is an adult female human being. The term woman (irregular plural:

women) usually is used for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a

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identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "Women's rights".

According to Pope Innocence III, said that the wickedness of woman is greater than all other wickedness. A dragon is more curable than the familiarity of a woman. Avoid them like poisonous animals.

According to King James, said that to make women learned and to make a fox tame works out to the same end, educating a woman or a fox simply makes them more cunning.

There are some opinions about woman from many sources:

Do not admire your wife’s beauty . . . from the time women are fourteen years old they think of nothing and aim at nothing except going to bed with men. (Epictetus).

Even the most virtuous of women is a witch. (Oral Jewish Law).

The courage of a man is shown in his ability to command. The courage of a woman is found in obeying. (Aristotle).

By all means get married. If you get a good wife, you will be happy. If you get a bad wife, you will become a philosopher. (Socrates).

Because of you we are punished by death… because of you, women, the Son of God had to die. (Tertullian).

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Men should not listen to a woman even if she says admirable things or if she says saintly things. They are of little consequence since they come from the mouth of a woman. (Origen).

A man may marry again if he has divorced his sinful wife because he is not restricted in his right as is the woman, because he is her head. (Ambrose).

We have courtesans for our sex and pleasure. We have young slave prostitutes for our physical use and we have wives to bring up legitimate children. (Demosthenes).

By herself woman is not of the image of God. The man, on the other hand, alone, is the image of God. (Agustine).

For a man to go to a woman for advice is like going to the lowest kind of animal to seek advice. (Chrysostom).

There is no gown or garment that worse becomes a woman than when she would be wise. (Martin Luther).

All women are born that they may acknowledge themselves as inferior to the male. (Calvin).

Womanhood is the period in a female's life after she has transitioned from

girlhood, at least physically, having passed the age of menarche. Many cultures have rites of passage to symbolize a woman's coming of age, such as confirmation

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in some branches of Christianity, bat mitzvah in Judaism, or even just the custom of a special celebration for a certain birthday (generally between 12 and 21).

Currently in the English language there is no commonly used word for a woman who has passed menopause, although historically a woman in the third part of her life was known as a crone, which was originally not a pejorative term. The three ages of woman were historically known as "maiden, matron, and crone" and are sometimes quoted as "maiden, mother and crone". This could perhaps be rendered in modern English as "little girl", "woman of reproductive age" and "older lady".

The word woman can be used generally, to mean any female human, or specifically, to mean an adult female human as contrasted with girl. The word girl originally meant "young person of either sex" in English; it was only around the beginning of the 16th century that it came to mean specifically a female child. Nowadays girl sometimes is used colloquially to refer to a young or unmarried woman. During the early 1970s feminists challenged such use, and use of the word to refer to a fully-grown woman may cause offence. In particular, previously common terms such as office girl are no longer used.

There are various words used to refer to the quality of being a woman. The term "womanhood" merely means the state of being a woman, having passed the menarche; "femininity" is used to refer to a set of supposedly typical female qualities associated with a certain attitude to gender roles; "womanliness" is like "femininity", but is usually associated with a different view of gender roles;

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"femaleness" is a general term, but is often used as shorthand for "human femaleness". "Distaff" is an archaic adjective derived from women's conventional role as a spinner, now used only as a deliberate archaism. "Multiversity" is a "neologism" (derived from the Latin) meant to provide a female counterpart of "virility", but used very loosely, sometimes to mean merely "womanhood", sometimes "femininity", and sometimes even as a collective term for women.

2.1.2 Feminism

Feminism is a relatively recent term for the politics of equal rights for

women. It came into use in English only in the 1890s, and many languages do not have this noun at all. It is also a system of critique and has as its central focus the concept of patriarchy, which can be described as a system of male authority, which oppresses women through its social, political, and economic institutions. Feminism is therefore a critique of patriarchy, on the one hand, and an ideology committed to women's emancipation on the other.

Feminist theology is a movement that reconsiders the traditions, practices,

scriptures, and theologies of religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the goals of feminist theology include increasing the role of women among the clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting male-dominated imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to career and motherhood, and studying images of women in the religion's sacred texts.

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The most far-reaching social development of modern times is the revolt of women against sexual servitude (Margaret Sanger, 1920). While feminism takes many forms and cannot be characterized in any seamless way, it nonetheless encompasses the struggles of women to secure their economic and political agency. From the Women's Suffrage Movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, feminism is typically associated with particular historical moments when a coalition of women succeeds in bringing issues of gender equality, sexual oppression, and sex discrimination into the public arena. Whether it takes the form of an explicit demand for the vote (as did the Suffrage Movements) or a more generalized demand for women's freedom (as did the Women's Liberation Movement), feminism is invariably engaged in resistance to prevailing notions of women’s’ nature’.

Feminism often consolidates into a political movement as a result of women's participation in other radical, reformist, or revolutionary activities. For example, women were active in the anti-slavery movements of the nineteenth century. Yet, at a World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were forced to sit in the gallery because the convention's organizers had determined that women could not be delegates. Eight years later, Mott and Stanton convened the Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention, which adopted a platform explicitly revising the US Declaration of Independence to accord women the same guarantees that it granted to men. (‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal …’)

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In addition, it specified a set of grievances regarding the usurping by men of women's political, legal, and economic autonomy. It would not be the last time that the hypocrisy of demanding rights for some while denying them to others would initiate a women's movement. Women's experience as coffee makers, typists, and sexual attendants to men in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s similarly activated both the demand for women's full participation in the public sphere and denunciation of masculine sexual prerogatives.

The Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the backdrop to contemporary feminism, is characterized by two intersecting trajectories. On the one hand, in spite of the liberalization of non-marital sex (occasioned in part by the wide distribution of the birth control pill), women remained men's sexual subordinates. Feminists challenged ‘sexist’ images of women in popular culture and in the pornography industry in relation to a growing understanding of “women's political subordination under patriarchy”. Women's bodies, then, became the ground on which the struggle for liberation was waged. On the other hand, a connection was made between women's ‘consciousness’ and their sexual subordination.

While feminists like Margaret Sanger had long before identified women's complicity in perpetuating their own subordination, the concept of ‘consciousness raising’ as an instrument of liberation emerged only in this later period. Consciousness raising, a collective activity of mutual support and critique, encouraged individual women to see the ways in which their habits of thought

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conformed to a particular set of ideological presuppositions about women's nature and women's roles.

Though this characterization of consciousness raising might appear a parody of the concerns of middle-class married women, the fact that such women were drawn into the movement in large numbers was crucial to the widespread recognition that women were no longer content to sit on the sidelines of political/public life. The slogan ‘the personal is political’ captured the Movement's insistence that what goes on behind the closed doors of the domestic sphere has everything to do with what goes on outside it. On this basis, despite serious differences among feminists as to whether the goal was equality with men or freedom from them, a broad agenda for change could be articulated.

The women's health movement demanded everything from an increase in the number of women doctors, to access to abortion and contraception, to freedom from sterilization abuse, to a full understanding and celebration of women's bodies in feminist terms. (Our Bodies/Ourselves, still the principal women's health handbook, was first published in 1971) More generally, women demanded ready access to the political arena, to economic self-sufficiency, to childcare, to freedom from male violence, to divorce, and to workplaces free from sexual harassment

While feminism must be seen as an activist demand for political and economic reform, it has always been informed by serious reflection on the nature of sexual difference and the mechanisms by means of which sexual difference is enmeshed in, even created out of, relations of power and oppression. Mary

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Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792), John Stuart Mill (The Subjection of Women, 1869), Margaret Sanger (Women and the New Race, 1920), Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex, 1949), Betty Friedan (The Feminine

Mystique, 1974), and bell hooks (Ain't I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism,

1981) are among the many feminists who have endeavored to understand the causes and forms of women's oppression, and to reconceptualize sexual difference.

Contemporary feminism has achieved more systematic interventions into the arenas that authorize representations of sexual difference, in large part because feminists have secured a greater presence in academia (and in elite domains of business, politics, medicine, science, and the mass media). For example, feminist historians have unmasked the assumption that history is determined by great wars and great men, and have succeeded in drawing attention to the ways in which women's work has significantly affected historical developments.

At the heart of feminist social and political analysis is the challenging of the public/private divide in politics, which has historically denied women access to the public political space and therefore representation of their interests. Starting from a point of unity—‘sisterhood is global’—feminism today is an ideology with many practitioners that have situated themselves on various theoretical intersections—Marxist feminists, anarchist feminists, radical feminists, liberal feminists. Feminism, however, is a critique or an extension of, traditional

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ideologies but has also made a significant contribution of its own in the field of theory and praxis.

Feminist methodology, which arose from a tradition of ‘consciousness raising’ in the women's movement and by drawing upon women's subject experience to extend the boundaries of theory has, for example, found an important place in the field of methodological analysis. Issues such as race, sexuality, class, and ethnicity have served to disperse the idea of an essential ‘woman’ in which all women would recognize as themselves. Critiques of first- and second-wave Western feminism by black and Third World women, and lesbian groups, have introduced a diversity of approaches to appear within the feminist discourse.

This tendency has been further reinforced by feminism's encounters with post-structuralism and post-modernism. Feminism today is not simply an ideology but a growing academic discipline. While this is making issues of gender accessible to women in education in a systematic way, its incorporation into academic curricula is also causing concern among many women who see the cutting edge of feminism—its political activism—being blunted in this process.

Feminism In France has shared many features familiar to the Anglophone world through the feminist movements in the United Kingdom and the USA: on the one hand, the desire and the struggle to attain equal rights for women; on the other, involvement with political movements that contested the republican state and believed that women's oppression would only end with the end of patriarchy.

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The influence of feminism on socialism, or the effect of socialist feminism on women's lives and status, is harder to gauge, as it cannot be judged by concrete achievement. The struggle of socialist women meant that they engaged with the Republic, which oppressed them as workers and as women, with the theory of Marx, which ignores gender, and with the misogyny of their socialist brothers. This multiple struggle continues within all the parties of the Left on the level of theory and in daily practice.

Feminist epistemology has asked whether different ways of knowing, for instance with different criteria of justification, and different emphases on logic and imagination, characterize male and female attempts to understand the world. Such concerns include awareness of the ‘masculine’ self-image, itself a socially variable and potentially distorting picture of what thought and action should be. A particular target of much feminist epistemology is a Kantian or Enlightenment conception of rationality, which is seen as a device for claiming mastery and control, and for refusing to acknowledge differing perspectives and different relations to life and nature. Although extreme claims have been made, such as that logic is a phallic and patriarchal device for coercing other people, it is still unclear how capacities, training, and culturally reinforced aspirations, work together in explaining how people acquire knowledge. Again there is a spectrum of concern, from the highly theoretical to the relatively practical. In this latter area particular attention is given to the institutional biases that stand in the way of equal opportunities in science and other academic pursuits, or the ideologies that stand

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in the way of women seeing themselves as leading contributors to various disciplines.

However, to more radical feminists such concerns merely exhibit women wanting for themselves the same power and rights over others that men have claimed, and failing to confront the real problem, which is how to live without such asymmetrical powers and rights Disagreements between feminist reformers and radicals were present from the beginning. At first these conflicts were more over lifestyle than politics. Reformers observed existing social codes (dress, comportment, family obligations, respectability).

Although "feminism" is a nineteenth-century neologism, it is now generally accepted in Anglophone historiography as a shorthand label for discourses that criticize misogyny and male dominance, argue for an improvement of the female condition, and demand a public voice for women speaking on behalf of their sex. A large corpus of writings, published all over Europe from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, can be considered "feminist" in this sense.

The first systematic feminist treatise is probably Christine de Pizan's Le

livre de la cité des dames (1404–1405; Book of the city of ladies." Women's

reason and sense of justice were in no way inferior to those of men”, she

contended. Pizan's City of Ladies, built on "the field of Letters" and consecrated by the Virgin Mary, is an allegory of the female voice in history, which, once raised, will never be silenced. The opposition of feminine piety, virtue, and refinement to male profanity, vice, and vulgarity is found in much feminist

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literature. Another popular genre, found all over Europe from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, is the galleries of illustrious women, proving by historical example that they could equal men in every respect.

Finally, different feminisms and "feminist moments" should be interpreted in the context of struggles over particular practices, such as literary authorship and taste, elite sociability, female networks, university politics, forms of religious worship, marriage laws and customs, and social and political issues. Many feminist utterances that seem outlandish at first sight only disclose their real meaning and significance when read in their specific context. The feminism of the early.

Feminist theory is an extension of feminism into theoretical or philosophical fields. It encompasses work in a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, economics, women's studies, literary criticism, art history, psychoanalysis and philosophy. Feminist theory aims to understand gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations, and sexuality. While providing a critique of these social and political relations, much of feminist theory also focuses on the promotion of women's rights and interests. Themes explored in feminist theory include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, and patriarchy.

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2.2 GENERAL CONCEPT OF AMBITION

Ambition is the possession of motivation for power. Ambitious persons seek power either for themselves or for others. People can wield their acquired power in the name of a vague or clear ideal or multiple ideals. When ambition is used to seek a clear ideal, it develops a close relationship to extremism. In the history of human kind many examples can be found of people who were extremely ambitious, for better and for worse. The notorious Greek Herostratus had the ambition to become famous by destroying the Temple of Artemis.

We realize that having an ambition is an important thing in human life. Ambition is an eager or strong desire to achieve something such as fame, fortune, or success. To achieve something worth in life, it is necessary to set a high goal. There is a proverb, which says that, a person without ambition has a failure in life. Ambition makes someone becomes apathetic, pessimistic, and easy going.

Definition of Ambition according to English Dictionary and Thesaurus:  Ambition is an eager or strong desire to achieve something, such as fame

or power.

 The possession of motivation for power. Ambitious persons seek power

either for themselves or for others.

 The act of going about to solicit or obtain an office, or any other object of desire; canvassing.

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superiority, and power.

 Desire for success: a strong feeling of wanting to be successful in life and achieve great things attainment of something.

 Objective or goal: a goal or objective that somebody is trying to achieve. According to Niccolò Machiavelli

Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

According to Thomas Otway

Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.

According to Oscar Wilde

Ambition is the last refuge of failure. According to Henry Wheeler Shaw

Ambition is like hunger; it obeys no law but its appetite. According to Joseph Conrad

All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of humankind.

According to Philip Sidney

To be ambitious of true honor and of the real glory and perfection of our nature is the very principle and incentive of virtue; but to be ambitious of titles, place, ceremonial respects, and civil pageantry, is as vain and little as the things are which we court.

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According to William Shakespeare

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. According to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambition.

According to Charles Caleb Colton

Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.

According to Sir Henry Taylor

Wisdom is corrupted by ambition, even when the quality of the ambition is intellectual. For ambition even of this quality, is but a form of self-love.

According to Sallust

It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. According to Oscar Wilde

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CHAPTER III

THE ANALYSIS OF THE WOMEN’S STRUGGLES FOR THEIR

AMBITIONS REFLECTED IN SIDNEY SHELDON’S NOVEL, NOTHING

LASTS FOREVER

The character in any short story or novel initiates the action and develops the plot: as soon as this happens, readers naturally begin to question the motives and personalities of the certain characters, comparing them to other characters. Generally the protagonists are round characters. That is the character changes and changes. Therefore, the characters will not be the same individuals at the end of stories.

There are three protagonists in this novel, Nothing Lasts Forever. They are Paige Taylor, Kate Hunter, and Honey Taft. I will show the ambitions and the struggles of main characters and how do they achieve their ambitions in order to reach their goals.

3.1 Paige Taylor’s ambition

Paige Taylor was a tall, slender, attractive young woman, with her eyes were dark brow, and she was friendly, intelligent looking, and self-confidence. Her father, Dr. Curt Taylor was a medical cadre of WHO to Third World Countries, fighting exotic and virulent diseases. Her father was a popular doctor in the country. Since Paige was born, she and her mother had accompanied Dr. Curt

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Taylor, and then she began to help her father to care for patients. She loved and adored her father and wanting to be like her father was her faith. Because of that Paige decided to be a doctor like her father.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Paige informed to her uncle. “I’m going to be a doctor”. (Sheldon, 1985, pg.77).

Paige thought that a woman doctor to be equalized to a man doctor. And then Paige and the other women doctor fighter for it. As the result, they were finally successful in their struggles.

“Meanwhile, if you don’t want to dress with the nurses….” “I’m not a nurse, “Paige said firmly. “ I am a doctor.” “Of course, of course. Well, we’ll do something about accommodation for you, doctor”. (Sheldon 1985, pg.54)

None can accept that decision. Several of them disagreed, and that made them angry with Paige and hated her.

“ On Friday when Paige went into changing room to put on her scrubs, the world ‘bitch’ had been written on them with a black maker pen”. (Sheldon 1985, pg. 84)

They tried many ways to make Paige down. They decided to steal her book and all her lab work notes, which contained the important details of her patient’s electrolytes, and other cases, and of course she couldn’t work perfectly without them. One day, when Paige got off duty and went to get into her car, two of the

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tires had been slashed. She suspicious to them. Many of senior doctors jealous to her, because of Paige were a good woman, clever, and friendly.

Some of the doctors tried to tempt and make a date with Paige, but Paige refused the all men. Because Paige didn’t feel congenial with them and she wanted to focus with her job as a doctor. Paige had assisted in hundreds of operations, and she has ambition to be a cardiovascular surgeon. But her ambition hadn’t been reached yet. Paige became frustrated because she did not do operation by herself. With patience and no complain she kept doing her job as well as she could, working hard every shift.

Finally, according to George Englund the chief of surgery gave to her the opportunity to do an operation by herself.

“I ‘m going to do my first operation! I’m going to hold a human being’s life in my hands. What if I’m not ready? What if I make a mistake? Thing’s can go wrong. By the time Paige was through arguing with herself, she was in state of panic”. (Sheldon 1985, pg. 145).

The above quotation points out that Paige did not have a strong self- confidence and she worried too much about her reputation. She really seemed to be very doubtful of her self- competence.

Anyhow, she tried her best to handle her hesitate. Before the time of the operation came, she spent much of her time practicing applying all the devices and tying the surgical knots on table legs and also the lamps used for the sake of the operation. By doing this, the result was that she was able to do her work very successfully at the time the operation was carried out. And due to her successful

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work, she had the opportunity at the hospital to replace the position of Dr. Lawrence Barker, one of the most famous cardiovascular surgeons in the world. And finally she became a very competent and brilliant doctor.

From the above, I think that it is a natural thing if someone wants to achieve his/her ambition, desire, or even dream. And later on he/she must be successful if she/ he struggle hard and patiently to fight through any challenges or difficulties that might arise in the time of achieving the ambition.

3.2.2 Kat Hunter’s ambition

The other woman doctor was Kat Hunter. She was a beautiful black woman, tall, large boned, intensely graceful, and her carriage was cool. Kat Hunter had a terrible childhood, because her stepfather raped her when she was thirteen years old. Kat runs away when she realized that she was pregnant. She ran to her aunt’s house and had abortion.

Her life began to change completely after she had run away from home. Her aunt’s admonition was that she had to stop running away and hiding. Her aunt suggested that Kat be able to stand up for herself and decided to be someone important.

“ By knowing that you’re important. First, you get and image in your mind of who you want to be, child, and what you want to be. And then you go to work, becoming that person”. (Sheldon 1985, pg. 67).

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These words built up Kat’s spirit and she became an ambitious woman. She decided to take school and spend her days on a lot of books. As the result of Kat’s hard work, she managed to be the top one in her class. One day in her school library, she read Agnes Cooper’s” Promises to keep”, and “woman surgeon” by Dr. Else Roe. And it opened up a whole new world for Kat. “I’m going to be a doctor. A famous one”, she said to herself. Kat Hunter also got experience about the sexual harassment. The men doctors were flattering Kat and Paige and treating them as sexual objects. Kat and Paige’s feelings were hurt and ignored.

Kat Hunter had a pressure from Margaret Spencer, she was a nurse chief. She had the power to assign an inept scrub nurse to assist on a complicated surgery, or if she liked to the doctor she would send the most competent nurse to help him with a simple surgery. Margaret Spencer was an antipathy to black women doctors. Kat Hunter was one of the black women.

Margaret Spencer had planned to get rid of Kat Hunter by making her life so miserable. By doing so, she hoped that Kat would be forced to quit, regardless of Kat’s dedication and her ability.

“I’m not going to let that bastard beat me down. I’m not.” Kat said. (Sheldon 1985, pg.178).

Kat Hunter made the real breakthrough. It happened because what to be known around the hospital as the famous pig blood. One day she got patient, Mr.

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Levy. He was in an automobile accident and lost great deal of blood, needs immediate transfusion. But the hospital is short of blood and try t find from his family, but his family already made they mind to refused to donated because they afraid will infection with AIDS or another infectious dieses. None doctors or nurses could change their minds. But after Kat told to his family that she will give pig blood on him as the way out. Finally they agreed to make a blood donation. Kat solved the problem just in fifty minutes. The story became an instant legend around the hospital.

After a few years, Dr. Curtis went into private practice and affiliated with the prestigious North Hospital. Unfortunately, the destiny played a dangerous and bad game for Kat Hunter. Handsome and attractive playboy doctor, Ken Mallory, touched her heart. She was so in love with Ken that she even had a baby with him. Luck was not on her side; Ken was not serious with her. He even killed her because she forced him to marry her.

In here I look that Kat Hunter always disappointed by man. The first she was pregnant because of her stepfather violence her when she was thirteen. And then she was killed by a man, he is Ken Mallory because she falling in love to him whereas he wasn’t serious love to Kat. Actually Kat is a woman who has strong ambition, she is an ambitious woman. Because she able to awake from her problem and she has spirit to reach her ambition to be a doctor. But because of her love to a man, she became killed by the man, because her love is blind she love a bad man. So Kat died because of her love blind.

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3.2.3 Honey Taft’s ambition

The last woman doctor was Honey Taft. She was a young woman, with a thin, curly hair, gray eyes, and has not so beautiful face. Honey had the bad fortune to have been into family of overachievers. She was not as brilliant as her parents and didn’t have face as beautiful as her twin sister, didn’t smart and popular.

“ Honey was our little accident.” Her mother would tell their friends. “ I wanted have an abortion, but Fred was against it. Now He’s sorry.”

We call her ‘the dummy’. Her father would laugh. Honey is the ugly duckling of the Taft family. Only I don’t think she’s going to turn into a swan.” (Sheldon 1985, pg.105).

From this we can understand that consciously or unconsciously, the family had implanted in her a feeling of deep inferiority. This case caused her greatest desire to please her parents, her sister, and make them love to her.

One day when Honey was in high school, she found the way to get her parent’s attention to make her ambition to come true. She discovered that making love was a way to lease a man. Starting from that she began to learn a dozen books on eroticism, which showed hundred ways to make love. Since then, many boys were asking Honey for dates, and then she started going out every night. The boys were happy and made Honey very happy too.

Honey grades improved dramatically, and she was suddenly even more popular than her sister in their school. Her hard work made Honey’s parents delighted particularly by their daughter’s sudden popular and then they gave full

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attention to her.

“It took our girl a little while to bloom.” Her father said proudly.

“But now she’s turned into a real Taft.”(Sheldon 1985,pg.111)

Honey didn’t only to gain her popularity, but also to make her subjects passed in her school by seducing her teachers because she knew that she was not intelligent enough, and the most important thing was that she didn’t want to see her parents disappointed and later her parents would turn to ignore her again.

Having graduated from her college, Honey and her parents discussed Honey’s future, but her father disagreed on what she wanted to be:

“……….. I want to be a nurse.” Her father’s face reddened.” You mean a doctor.” “No, father. I ………”

“You’re a Taft. If you want to go into medicine, you’ll be a doctor. Is that understood?”

“Yes Father.” (Sheldon 1985, pg.111).

Her parents really didn’t care about what her daughter wanted and needed. They just thought about their reputation and dignity. Honey knew it when she told her father she wanted to be a nurse. She loved taking care of the people, helping them and nurturing them. She was terrified by the idea of becoming a doctor and being responsible for people’s lives. But on the other side she knew once again that she must not make her parents disappointed and she didn’t want to lose their attention and care.

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Because of that, she threw away her desire. She took medical school in Knoxville and even Honey’s college grades were not good enough to get her into medical school, but her father’s influence was a heavy contributor to that medical school that made Honey able to pass the test of entrance. Honey did fairly well in medical school, but she lacked dedication. She was there only to please her father. Ironically, she was particularly weak in several subjects, and it made her confronted with some difficulties. As a result, she failed in some subjects, and Finally it made her drop out.

“I can’t fail, Honey thought. I can’t let my father down. What would Baccaccio had advise?” (Sheldon, 1985, pg.114).

Realizing her weakness, she began to use love affair as her weapon in order to pass the subjects. Before Honey finished her study at the Medical school, she seduced some of her professors. She was graduated from there by seducing her Dean, Dr. Jim Person, and then she got a glowing recommendation from him. And later Honey went to Embarcadero Hospital and she planned to go into internal medicine.

To be a woman doctor was not easy. Honey had some difficulties, intimidation, and pressure. As a woman doctor she was not provided with sufficient facilities. Honey Taft had a difficult situation. With the best recommendation, the highest medical school grades that Embarcadero Hospital had ever seen made Honey get special attention from senior doctors and Benjamin Wallace as the chief of hospital administrator. Especially when some doctors

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seemed to like her a great deal, reliable resident and nurse kept reporting to Dr. Wallace that Honey was incapable and incompetent of doing her job, and that she also misdiagnosed cases and made serious mistakes. This report caused a big question about her extraordinary high grades and glowing recommendation.

They tried to find an answer from her ex-dean of medical school, Dr. Jim Pearson. But of course he couldn’t answer. He was more worried if what he had done with Honey revealed his secret that could make his reputation down and his marriage broken.

“Ben Wallace was thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Saymor. Who’s the meanest son of a bith on your staff?”

“Ted Allison”

“Alright.” Tomorrow morning send Honey out of rounds with Dr. Allison. Have him gave you a report on her. If she say’s incompetent. I’ll get rid of her”

Saymor was saying to Dr. Allison. “I meant you to keep close eye on Honey Taft. If she can’t cut it out, she’s out. Understood?”

“Understood”. (Sheldon 1985, pg.130).

Honey Taft knew that she would face a serious problem, as the way out, by seducing Dr. Allison; he was a senior assistant she could pass through that problem.

“I’ll be dammed if I understood it.” He said. “In the morning, the complains about Honey Taft keep pilling up. She keeps making mistakes……….”

“Well, that is Honey Taft. But in the afternoon she’s absolutely brilliant. Her diagnoses are correct, her notes are wonderful and she’s as sharp as hell. She must be taking some kind of miracle pill that only works afternoon.” (Sheldon 1985, pg.159).

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In that statement we could see that her act made Honey become an enigma to most of the doctors at that hospital. During the morning rounds, she appeared to be unsure of herself. But in the afternoon rounds, she seemed to be a different person. She was surprisingly successful in her work toward each patient, crisp and efficient in her diagnoses.

They didn’t know what Honey had done. She was able to know which patient she would meet and what kind of diagnoses of patient she had to make first and then she managed to learn whom the one that she should seduce; the senior doctor or the assistant of the senior doctor got ready to help her make correct diagnoses.

One day Honey had the misfortune to be assigned to her team. Honey had already made very dangerous mistakes on her diagnoses.

“Dr. Ritter said,” This is your patient?” “Yes”

“And what was your diagnoses?” “Stomach flu”

“Did you take a stool sample?” “No, what for?”

Because your patient has cholera, that’s what for?”

He was screaming, “We’re going to have to close down the fucking hospital!” (Sheldon 1985, pg.246).

Cholera is one of infectious dieses. But after fifty hours his treatment began, the patient was nearly back to be normal. Everyone could breath again that case almost got an entire hospital to be close down. It was the law that all cases of

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infectious dieses must be immediately reported to the state health board and the hospital must be closed.

“Ben, you’d better get rid of her before the hospital gets

into real problem again, and before she kill a patient or some “Dr. Ritter said.”

“Right. She’ll be cut here.” (Sheldon 1985, pg 249).

And again, by seducing Dr. Wallace, she could get rid of the trouble. From that happening Honey realizes that she could no longer be a doctor. She also realized that she already put everybody around her into a difficult situation just to support her ambition. And love from her parents and the other members of the family. Fortunately, at the same time Honey met her true love. The love, which she had expected for a long time from her family, was not really found. So, she made up her mind to marry him and then retired from being a doctor and became a nurse, which had been her desire and goal since the past.

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CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

4.1 CONCLUSION

After analyzing the characters in the previous chapter, now I will make a conclusion from what has been analyzed. From what I have read in the novel and what I have analyzed, I find that this novel also describe about a moral lesson. Moral is related to his social condition to the social approach.

The characters that are depicted in Nothing Lasts Forever had played different ways. Paige Taylor as an attractive young woman, intelligent looking, and friendly has a dream to be a doctor. She wants to be a doctor because her father was a popular and professional doctor. She loves and adores her father, and wanting to be like her father is her faith. Kat Hunter is a beautiful black woman, cool, and graceful but she had a terrible childhood because her stepfather raped her when she was thirteen. She awake from her problem and decide to be somebody important. Kat’s spirit return and she became an ambitious woman. And finally Kat decides that she wants to be a doctor. And the last woman is Honey Taft. She is an ordinary – looking young woman and an unenviable figure. Honey Taft comes from overachiever’s family but she has bad fortune, because she was not as brilliant as her parents and not as beautiful, smart, popular as her twin sister. Her family had implanted in her feeling of deep inferiority. Because of this case Honey Taft has a greatest desire to please her parents and her sister in

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order to they love to her. Honey Taft has ambition to be a popular woman, but her through the wrong way. She began to learn a dozen books on eroticism, which showed hundred ways to make love. One day her father forces her in order to her to be a doctor. Her parents really didn’t care about what her daughter wanted and needed. They just thought about their reputation and dignity. Realizing her weakness, she began to use love affair as her weapon in order to pass the subjects. She seduces her dean and lecturers. And finally Honey Taft can to be a doctor, but when she started to working as a doctor in a hospital, she had some difficulties, intimidation, and pressure, because she didn’t have ability and intelligent. She throws the way wrong to achieve her ambition in order to make pleasure her family.

From analyze the novel I can conclude that as human beings may have ambition, because it is an important thing, but we must done with the true way. In this novel we can find the three women as main characters have same ambition that is want to be a doctor. But they throw the different way. According to my analysis the character of Paige Taylor and Kat Hunter are not deviate, it means they achieve their ambitions with the true way. But Honey Taft is a bad character, she throw the wrong way for achieve her ambition so that she has some difficulties finally. Goals, which are achieved by illegally and immorally, will never bring happiness and peace in mind. We will have bad days, always be worried, and not get satisfied, and then at last it will destroy in our life.

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4.2 SUGGESTION

On this occasion, I would like to provide a suggestion expected to be some use for the readers. Setting goals for us is not easy. First of all, we must take a look at ourselves to estimate our capacities and limitation, or otherwise we will be frustrated. Of course, everybody likes to have an ambition, but it must be a good ambition. Our goals must be realistic so that it is possible to be achieved.

So this novel is worth reading. Throw this novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Sidney Sheldon; we can gain some worthy knowledge and the knowledge of life. We should realize that dreams obtained through the wrong ways will never bring happiness and peace in mind, but failure and destruction will happen and cause us to have some serious burdens of live. This thesis reveals all these, even though any constructive critical opinion will be accepted for the improvement of this thesis.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clay, Richard. 1989. The little Oxford Dictionary of English. New York: Oxford. F. Calhoun, James and Acocella Joan Ross. 1978. Psychology of adjustment and

human Relationship. London: McGraw-Hill.

H. Maslow, Abraham. 1954. Motivation and Personalities. New York: Harper and Row Inc.

Howard, Brand. 1984. The Study Of Personality. New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc.

Murphy, Joseph. 1989. Power of Your Subconscious Mind. London: Prentive-Hall Inc.

Peck, John. 1986. How To Study A Novel. London: Macmillan education Ltd. Sheldon, Sidney. 1985. Nothing Last Forever. New Delhi: Harper Collins India

Pvt.Ltd.

Stonyk, Margaret. 1976. The Nineteenth Century English Literature. London: Macmillan education Ltd.

Taylor, Richard. 1981. Understanding The Elements of Literature. London: The Macmillan Press.

Tillotson, David. 1953. England in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Wallace, Rains, David. 1987. Live in Balance. New York: National Audubon Society.

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Wellek, Rene and Austin Warren.1977. Theory of Literature. London: Penguin Book.

http://www.education.yahoo.com, downloaded on 10/22/2008 at 10:30 a.m. http://www.women.google.com, downloaded on 11/2/2008 at 11:30 a.m.

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/human/ambition/htm, downloaded on 11/6/2008 at 02:00 p.m.

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APPENDICES

BIOGRAPHY OF SIDNEY SHELDON, HIS LITERARY WORK AND

SUMMARY OF NOTHING LASTS FOREVER

1. BIOGRAPHY OF SIDNEY SHELDON AND HIS LITERARY WORKS

Sidney Sheldon was widely regarded as a master of modern storyteller, whose works were mostly charted on the list of best- seller novel. He was born during the depression in Chicago on February 11, 1917; with his parents were Otto Sheldon and Natalie Marcus.

His first works was wrote a song and gave it to the orchestra leader at Bismarck Hotel, where he had been working as a checkroom boy. It was then arranged and performed in several nights’ time.

At the age of seventeen, he left Los Angeles because he had made up his mind to enter on career as a screenwriter. Afterwards, he attempted to write and submitted a synopsis of Stein beck’s, of Mice and Men, to the entire main studio. Within three days, they gave him a reply and Sheldon then started to work for Universal Studios, where he was paid $17 a week. During the occasions, he met Ben Robert who became his collaborator in working on their own original stories in their spare time, eventually writing a number of ‘B’ pictures for Republic Studio.

When World War II broke, he joined the USA Air Force and earned his pilot’s wings. In 1942, upon his discharge, he began to write for Broadway, and by the age of 25

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revised ‘Merry Window’, ‘Jackpot’, and ‘Dream With Music’. Next, he wrote a play ‘Alice in Arms’, starring Kirk Douglas in his first Broadway appearance, and later ‘Redhead” with Gwen Verdon which rewarded him a Tony Award.

Living in Hollywood, Sheldon established a tremendous track record over the next 12 years as a successful screen – writer at both MGM Studios and Paramount Picture. Having won a Academy Award for ‘The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer’starring Cary Grat, he wrote over 25 movie scripts including ‘Easter Parade’ with Judy Gartland and Fred Asteire, ‘Annie’, ‘Get your Gun’, ‘Jumbo’ and ‘Anything Goes’ with Bing Crosby, on March 28, 1951. He got married with Jorja Cartwright.

After leaving MGM as a writer / director / producer, he got involved in the fledging television industry when ABC asked him to create a show for a new actress called Patty Duke. The show was titled ‘ The Patty Duke Show’ for which he wrote 78 scripts over two years. Then he created, wrote, and produced “I Dream of Jennie’ in 1964, and at one point he was keeping up two script in the day the two shows schedule were overlapped in the course of 1965-1966. In 1967, ‘Jeannie’ gave Sheldon an Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Comedy. It ran in ABC for five years. He also created the extremely popular series: ‘Hart to Hart’.

Turning to be an author, his first novel’ The Naked Face’ was sold to William Morrow after being rejected by five publishers. The novel described by The New York Times as the first best mystery novel of the year. It got a critical success and presented him and Edgar Allan Poe Award. Sheldon had an idea to write a story that was so introspective that you really had to know what the protagonist was thinking. I decided

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His second novel, “The Other Side of Midnight”, was a huge hit and it firmly established him a best selling author. Each of his next successful novels ‘A Stranger in The Mirror”, “Bloodline”, “Range or Angels”, “Master of the Game”, “ If Tomorrow Comes”, “Windmills of the Gods”, “Memories of Midnight”, “ The Sand of the Time”, “The Stars Shine Down”, and “Nothing Lasts Forever” were mega seller ones in both hard cover and paper back. They have solidified his position as one of the top best selling authors alive today. With nearly 200 million books in print, his novels had been published in 56 languages in 100 countries worldwide.

Nevertheless, during 15 years of domination, his books once were banned, banned and branded as ‘immoral’ by Reverens Jerry Falwen, Reverend Tom Williams and their followers. Sheldon is also a national spoke man for The Freedom To Read Foundation and has helped launch the student newspapers at Erasmus Hall, a Brooklyn High School, and at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Bronx. He is a major contributor and an active participant in charities related to literacy and in helping the homeless.

Considering his method of writing, Sheldon admitted working in an unusual way. When he began a novel, he didn’t have plot in mind but only the central characters. Dictating his draft to his secretary. He worked six days a week from early morning to late dinnertime. Making each of his books in great detail, he would very often spend a year traveling in foreign countries, observing their customs and actives.

Sidney Sheldon admitted that the books got harder to write all the time. However, each of his books had been done 25% better than the one before it. In 1985, he suffered from the passing of his wife of over three decades, Jorja Cutwright. As prominent interior

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and acting film.

Their only child, Mary Sheldon, followed her father into the literary world. A published poet 16, her first novel, “Perhaps I’ll Dream of Darkness” was published by Random House. She was an Oxford graduated. She was also completed “Rosemary is for Remembrance” and “ The Tennessee Waltz” and has succeeded in winning the Brandles University Library Association Award. In 1989, Sidney Sheldon married Alexandra Kostoff. They lived in Southern California.

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SOME OF SIDNEY SHELDON’S NOVELS

1. 1970: The Naked Face

It gained an Edgard Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America and was filmed by Cannon, Staring Roger More.

2. 1975: The Other Side of Midnight

This is what marked Sheldon’s explosive debut on the best- seller list. Frank Yablans film version of it.

3. 1976: A Stranger in The Mirror

Aaron Spelling is currently producing the best- seller in both hardcover and paperback for ABC.

4. 1977: Bloodline

Paramount pictures made a film version of it, staring Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, Michele Philips, and Omar Shariff.

5. 1980: Rage of Angels

NBC TV ran the mini series of it and was the number one show in the Nielsen Rating the week it was broadcaster. It remained in the first position on the New York Times list more than 40 weeks. Later, CBS TV would broadcast the mini series adoption.

6. 1985: If Tomorrow Comes

The hardcover list put it into the first place for 18 weeks and CBS made its mini series.

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French, Tunisia, Yugoslavia, and the USA.

8. 1988: The Sands of Time

Even before its official release date, the order had exceeded one million in advance.

9. 1990: Memories of Midnight

Published by William Morrow, it is a follow-up to Sheldon’s first black buster hit, the other of Midnight. It debuted on number three in the New York Times best selling lists.

10.1991: The Doomsday Conspiracy

It is an international thriller, published in September 1991. Warner Brothers has chosen this novel to be produced.

11.1992: The Stars Shine Down

It is a magnificent story of passion, intrigue, ambition, and revenge. 12.1994: Nothing Lasts Forever

Paramount pictures ran the mini series of it series of it with one of staring is Brooke Shields.

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2. THE SUMMARY OF NOTHING LASTS FOREVER

San Francisco 1990. Surviving in 1989’s earthquake, Embarcadero County Hospital was the oldest hospital in San Francisco and one of the oldest in the country, with thousands of employees.

As the new resident doctors; Paige Taylor from Boston; Kate Hunter from Minneapolis; Honey Taft from Memphis, were the only women doctors. The hospital administrator, Dr. Benjamin Wallace greeted them. Each of them had a different background and reason for being a doctor. They agreed to share a furnished.

Three-bedroom apartment in Marina District, on Filbert Street, but none of them told her background of life to each other.

Paige Taylor’s father was a medical cadre for WHO that traveled to third world countries to fighting erotic and virulent diseases. Paige and her mother accompanied their father Dr. Taylor who headed the team, and Paige adored her father. The only friend of her was Alfred Turner, son of a doctor in the team.

When Paige was fifteen years old, her mother disappeared with the owner of a large cocoa plantation in Brazil. And some years later, when Paige was seventeen, her father was killed when in the jungle was attacked by the tribes. This terrible thing took place when they were in South Africa. And because of this, she was sent to her uncle in Chicago. When she was with her uncle, she decided to take the medical school, and kept in touch with Alfred who promised to marry her.

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he raped her. Kat told her mother about it, but her mother didn’t believe her even she scolded her. Kat awarded that she got pregnant. So, finally she escaped from her house, and going to her aunt’s house in Minneapolis. She aborted the baby and decided to be a doctor, and became a famous one.

Honey Taft was the youngest daughter of a prominent family in Memphis. She knew that her wasn’t enough clever and didn’t have ability to make it in medical. Therefore she used sexual affair to smooth her purpose. She seduced the Dean of her medical school, Jim Pearson and got a glowing recommendation from him.

One day in the morning, when the new residents checked in to the hospital Paige, Kat, and Honey were approached by senior resident who would guide them to their new assignments; Honey in internal medicine; Kat in microsurgery and Paige in Cardiac surgery. Paige and Kat were surprised when the resident said that Honey had the highest medical school grades the hospital and ever seen.

Alfred Turner’s telegram arrived in summer. With Kat and Honey’s help Paige prepared an elaborate dinner to welcome him. Unexpectedly, Alfred showed up with his wife. This made Paige very upset and disappointed but she thought that Alfred was making mistakes and that he would soon come back to her.

Honey’s rounds with Dr. Charles Isle didn’t go on very well. Because of her outstanding record at medical school. Dr.Charles kept asking Honey to diagnose every

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doctor’s. Later, she told Dr. Charles that she couldn’t concentrate well because of the excitement she felt. Knowing she would be working with him, Dr. Charles worried about her. And then he went to see Dr. Wallace and asked him to call the Dean of the medical school, Dr. Jim Pearson. Dr. Charles wants to know that Honey was really the brightest student in medical school.

Meanwhile across the town, in another part of the city, Lou Dinneto was once again freed from a murder charge. On his way home, a small accident happened and one of his two loyal bodyguards was hurt. So they took him to the nearest hospital, Embarcadero Hospital. Kat was on duty in the emergency room when they arrived. Lou Dinneto was attracted to her because of her boldness, and planned to use her to be their doctor.

Kat got many troubles because only she was a black woman doctor. Margaret Spencer, as the chief nurse had worked at Embarcadero Hospital for twenty years. She was the one who decided which of nurses would be assigned to the various surgeries. She had an antipathy and against to the black women doctors. Kat was one of them, but she had good skill, and impressed well to patients. This made Margaret Spencer interested in her.

Paige had troubles with Dr. Arthur Kane who called himself a lady-killer. Actually he was a disgusting man. He asked Paige to go out with him, but Paige refused. Paige was in dread of the occasions. She watched him perform unnecessary surgery and take out healthy organs. In a kidney- surgery case, Dr. Arthur Kane took out the healthy kidney and left in the diseased one. Paige couldn’t stand it anymore and then went to see Dr. Wallace. Considering the hospital’s reputation a priority, Dr. Wallace refused to take

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accident.

Lou Dinneto helped Kat’s brother, Mike. So he threatened Kat that if she refused to treat his wounded- criminal friend, her brother would be in trouble. After four years of assisting in hundred of operations, Paige was finally assigned to do a surgery by herself. She was nervous at first, but she convinced herself that she had enough practice by assisting doctors in many kinds of operations before. The operation went on very well, and they scrub nurse praised her in the end.

Dr. Ben Wallace once again received a report from Dr. Nathan Ritter about Honey Taft’s incompetence. Dr. Ben Wallace promised to Dr. Nathan that he would get rid of Honey Taft, but Honey with her special way was able to make him change his mind. Being fourth –year residents, Paige and Kat were assigned to carry out new performance operations on regular basis. While Kat refused to date any doctors in the hospital. Paige went out with some of them, but she still hurt by what Alfred had done to her. She refused to get romantically involved with any of them. She was starting her operation especially in cardiovascular surgery that year and was surprised to be assigned to work with the famous cardiovascular surgeons in the world, Dr. Lawrence Barker and his team.

New residents arrived at the hospital. There was a transfer from an exclusive private hospital in Washington D.C named Dr. Kane Mallory, a handsome and tall man with athletic body and blonde hair. Soon he became popular among nurses who were fighting for his attention. The other residents got jealous of his popularity and charms. Then they challenged him to take Kat – known as a thought lady to be dated to bed. The limit day

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Paige, Kat, Honey heard about the amount of bet from a fellow resident and Paige suggested giving Dr. Mallory a lesson. Never realizing the danger, Kat agreed on it. Kat fooled him for three times, and Kat admitted to Paige that she enjoyed the time with him. Until last day, Dr. Mallory decided to trick Kat by confessing about the bet. He said that the money meant nothing to him. Kat fell to his trick and slept with him.

Alfred Turner visited Paige, saying he had already divorced his wife and then asked Paige to come with him to New York where he wanted to practice as a private doctor. Never thought Alfred would be thinking about money instead of helping people, Paige turned him down. Paige called Jason and answered his proposal.

Paige was resting in her room when she was called to operate one of Dr. Barker’s patients. Because of the emergency, Paige had no time to arrange for the operation team. She was worried about anesthesiologist assigned in the team. Her feeling was right, the patient died on the operating table because the anesthesiologist gave over anesthetized to him. Dr. Barker who arrived later said that Paige killed him.

Honey met an artist named Sean Reilly, a man with black hair and black eyes, good looking Irish man in his early forties. He was scheduled for a gallbladder operation. Because of the blood- bank staff’s fault, HIV was infected on Sean from the operation. Honey comforted him; saying that not all HIV infected people would have AIDS. Then, Honey reminded him of their date and his promise to take Honey to Ireland.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ken Mallory was in trouble. Kat had taken his proposal very seriously and she was even pregnant. But Dr. Ken Mallory was more attracted to the daughter of the San Francisco, Fidelity Bank Owner. He wanted to save her life for money. To show

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Honey’s rounds with Dr. Charles Isle didn’t go on very well. Because of her outstanding record at medical school. Dr.Charles kept asking Honey to diagnose every patient who they visited. But Honey’s answer didn’t sound like an outstanding medical

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accident.

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honor and Alex Harrison offered to finance his private practice. So Dr. Ken Mallory decided to kill Kat because Kat refused to abort the baby in her womb.

Paige remembered one night, getting home from an exhausting day at the hospital. At that time the hospital called Paige that John Cronin asked her to come. Thinking that he was one of kind the emergency, Paige came to hospital and John Cronin asked to end his life that night. Paige refused and she had report to Dr. Wallace first. John Cronin begged her to make decision for his life. Paige agreed and she went home after injecting insulin in John Cronin’s body.

Paige was surprised when she was told that John Cronin left her million dollars. Dr.Arthur Kane tried to blackmail her into breaking her engagement to Jason, because Dr. Arthur knew that John Cronin died not because of heart failure but of the overdose of insulin, when Paige refused to do what he wanted. Dr. Arthur Kane went to see Dr. Wallace and Paige got arrested.

The last day of the trial when both defense and prosecuting attorney to made their summation to the jury. But in the middle of Gus Venable’s summation, Dr. Lawrence Barker came to testify so everyone surprised. Judge young determined to let him testify. It turned out that Dr. Lawrence Barker didn’t only made everyone surprise by his appearance, but he also testified to Paige’s favor. He criticized the trial, saying Gus Venable had used the testimony of a lot of biased, jealous people to attack Paige. Paige never done before, he praised Paige in front of people.

After a quick break following Dr. Lawrence Barker’s testimony, Judge told thank to the jury for their time and patience, and dismissed the trial. It means that Paige was free from all charges. Paige and Jason were married the following day. Dr. Lawrence

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Barker was their best man. Paige went to private practice affiliated to the prestigious North Shore Hospital. She set up a medical foundation in her father’s name in Africa with John Cronin’s money.

Dr. Lawrence Barker shared an office with Paige as a surgical consultant. Dr. Arthur Kane had stopped from Medical Board of California. Honey Taft moved to Ireland with Sean Reilly, who was successful artist and until now there was not show symptoms of AIDS. Honey worked as nurse in Dublin. Mike Hunter was sentenced in the prison. Dr. Benjamin Wallace was fired from his position as administrator of Embarcadero Hospital.

Lou Dinneto was sentenced for fifteen years in the penitentiary for tax evasion. Dr.Ken Mallory was sentenced to life imprisonment because of he had killed Kat. One week after Lou Dinneto arrived at the penitentiary, Dr. Ken Mallory was found stabbed to dead in his cell.

The Women’s Struggles For Their Ambitions As Reflected In Sidney Sheldon’s Nothing Lasts Forever