Background of the study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Literature sprang up from the imaginative mind of people who had the talent to create stories. They perceived what was happening around them from natural phenomena to the lives of the people in their community. There have been three genres of literature known up to the present time: Drama, Poetry and Prose. Drama has subgenres such as: tragedy, tragi-comedy, melodrama, etc; Poetry has subgenres such as: ballad, elegy, pastoral, ode, sonnet, etc; and Prose has subgenres such as: short story, romance, novel, etc. To be more specific, this study merely focuses on a novel. Novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. Novel is a prose narrative dealing with human beings and their actions over a period of time and displaying varieties of human character in relation to life. Novel is a fiction, that is a world specially made in words by an author. It means that a novel is not a real life but it exists in the way and the author made it as a creation from imagination. Novel pictures the experiences of actual life and manners at the time it was written, but it does not present a documentary picture of life. It just a representation of life in which the characters look at the people in the society. Quoted from http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiNovel . The Lost Girl novel is a true story that tells about the author, Caroline Roberts’ experiences when she accepted a job at 25 Cromwell Street, the infamous address of Fred and Rose West, she was only 16. She realized that there was Universitas Sumatera Utara something very malevolent about the couple, so she left their employment soon after, glad to be rid of them. The story should have ended there, but a month, later she was abducted by the West and suffered violent sexual abuse at their hands before being told that she would be killed and buried. Through a combination of luck and quick thinking, despite the trauma of what had happened, Caroline managed to escape to freedom. This story is actually like a diary because it is written about the life experience of Caroline on each page. This novel has been translated into Indonesia. In this thesis I just analyze two characters, they are Fred and Rose West. This couple abduct, rape, torture, kill, and mutilate several young woman then bury them under Gloucester home included Caroline. When Caroline Back at 25 Cromwell Street, after initially making her welcome with the promised cup of tea, soon afterwards Rose started kissing her, bound her heavily with bondage tape, and both raped her. According to Roberts, Fred had remarked that her vagina was unusual and that he would have to change that. When she screamed, Rosemary smothered her with a pillow and she was bound even further around the neck. Fred threatened her that they would keep her locked up in the cellar and let Rosemarys black male visitors use her and that when they had finished they would bury her under the paving stones of Gloucester. Fred boasted that they had killed hundreds of young girls and the police would never find them. Quickly realizing that they would kill her, Caroline gave into them and let them sexually do whatever they wanted to her without a fight. Those criminal acts related to personality disorder which called psychopath. The title of this novel shows us there a girl who was lost in this story. Universitas Sumatera Utara For example: “Rose grabbed my hair and pulled me towards her while cursing me. They were both talking at the same time, calling me names. I thought they were going to kill me there and then, which would have been a relief at the time. To my horror, they spoke words to me that I will never forget:’we are going to keep you in the cellar and let our black friends use you and when they have finished with you, we will kill you and bury you under the paving stones of Gloucester. There are hundreds of girls there, the police haven’t found them and they won’t find you’.” Roberts, 2005:56 “I found out, much later, that Fred had already confessed to Heather’s murder before the police had interviewed me on the Saturday, and that he had been taken back to 25 Cromwell Street on the Friday evening, while Rose was being questioned at Cheltenham Police Station, to point out where he had buried Heather. The police had already started digging in another spot and Fred told them they were digging in wrong place.” Roberts, 2005:165 Psychopath currently labelled as antisocial personality disorder, but the term psychopath was replaced since 1952 with sociopath in the DSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder II 1968 and officially named sociopath. Harvey Cleckley in Wade 2007:343 describes that psychopath is a person who has absolutely no conscience, Likeable, Charming, Intelligent, Alert, Impressive, Confidence-inspiring, and A great success with the ladies but also, of course, irresponsible, self-destructive, and the like. It is a phenomenon that had always been considered dangerous and disturbing the public. The basic characteristic of psychopath is inability to feel the normal emotions. Even though the psychopath may use words to express emotions, there is no real sentiment behind these words. Consequently, psychopaths can commit acts that are harmful to others in “cold blood” without any accompanying emotion. The psychopaths do not have Universitas Sumatera Utara the sense of regret, and also they have no fear of punishment, shame, guilt, and empathy for the suffering caused by themselves to others. Most cases of antisocial personality disorder are far less extreme, yet all share a lack of concern for what is right or wrong. People with this disorder bring great disaster in their society, and for this reason they have been the focus of a great deal of research. Antisocial personality disorder is disturbingly common, with an estimated lifetime prevalence of 4,5 percent of the adult males and 8 percent of the adult females in the United States. I choose this title because nowadays many people who can not interact normally with their environment, maybe because they do not accept by society caused by their past which not good, consume drugs and alcohol or their trauma when they were child. Their bad habits makes them unacceptable in society, so it makes them do not care about what they do, they feel free to do anything without fear about the punishment. Beside that the story of this novel makes me interested in studying about psychopath through analyzed the background of the characters and their crimes.

1.2 Problems of The Study