Support The Meanings of Love to Her Dying Daughter for Sara

skill in sewing, Sara tells that she will learn how to sew in the very little time Picoult 380. Her willingness to learn and to sew in a very little time shows her struggle. She will work out for the happiness of her dying daughter in her first date with her beloved boyfriend.

4. Support

Besides the three meanings above, love for Sara can also mean support. Motherly love is not mainly in the form of caring that a mother gives for her child’s survival but it goes beyond it. In adolescent’s period, a mother’s love goes further by giving understanding that children should love their life. Fromm 41 says that the second aspect of affirmation for the child’s life is the attitude which instills in the child a love for living, which gives him the feeling: it is good to be alive, it is good to be a little boy or girl, and it is good to be on this earth. Referring to Fromm’s theory, one of the ways that Sara uses to instill the child a love for living is by giving her support. Most of mothers give more support to her child who gets serious illness and needs her encouragement. For Sara, support also takes a high place to show her love. In this case, support is related to sympathetic encouragement and help that Sara gives to her dying daughter. First of all, Sara gives her dying daughter support by accompanying and telling her proud of Kate’s bravery. Sara stays with Kate and calms her down when she regains consciousness from a post chemo infection. She instills her spirit by telling her proud of Kate’s bravery. Her eyes slit open. For a moment she struggles, unsure of where she is “Kate,” I whisper. “I’m right here.” As she turns her head and focuses on me, I lift her palm to my mouth, press a kiss in its center. “You are so brave,” I tell her, and then I smile. “When I grow up, I want to be just like you” Picoult 82- 83. Her other support is given when Kate feels very afraid of enduring umbilical cord transplant. Sara crouches herself down to hug her daughter and promises that she will not take her eyes off. Sara will not let her daughter undergo the transplant alone Picoult 125. As Fromm 32 defines that “mother is warmth, mother is food, and mother is the euphoric state of satisfaction and security”, Sara’s presence gives her child the feeling of secure. It means that her presence can lessen Kate’s burden and strengthens her spirit to undergo the transplantation. Another proof is shown when Sara praises Kate’s beauty to build her self - confidence. When Kate feels angry because she can not find a proper prom dress, she regrets for accepting Taylor’s invitation. She feels inferior about her appearance and thinks that she can not look good in her date without a good dress. Dealing with this situation, Sara instills Kate’s self confidence that she is not the only one who undergoes such appearance in the prom party. Sara praises her beauty and tells that no matter her appearance is, Taylor has thought what a beautiful girl she is Picoult 379-380. Fromm said that the second affirmation for the child’s life is the attitude which instills in the child a love for living that it is good to be alive, it is good to be a little boy or girl, and it is good to be on this earth Fromm 41. Thus, praising Kate’s beauty means that Sara instills an understanding of how precious of Kate’s life is. It gives support to build her daughter’s self confidence. From all the proofs above, we can conclude that for Sara, the meanings of her love to her dying daughter are sacrifice, care and responsibility, struggle, and support. She sacrifices her time, her feeling, and her own life and need for the sake of Kate’s health. Sara is always caring and responsible for her daughter whenever and wherever she is. To save Kate, Sara also struggles to provide a bodily organ donor and to fight against another daughter. She has to be a lawyer again to represent her party so that she can convince Anna to keep donating her kidney to Kate. Further, giving support is involved in her ways to prove love. She always accompanies and praises her daughter to support her so that she can be strong enough to fights her illness and to build self confidence in dealing with her appearance. 74

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter presents two parts. The first part is the conclusions. It deals with the answer of problem formulated in the first chapter. The second part is the suggestions. This part states the suggestions for future researches and the implementation of literary works in English teaching.

A. Conclusions

In this analysis, the problem which is formulated covers three parts. First is the description about the main and minor characters. Second is the description of the relationship between Sara and her children. Third is the analysis of the meanings of Sara’s love to her dying daughter. These conclusions wrap up all those analyzed in the previous chapter. The first conclusion is the description of main and minor characters. Based on the theory of character proposed by Abrams and by Henkle, there are three main characters in the novel. They are Sara, Kate, and Anna. They are called as the main characters because the story focuses on their life and their relationship over Kate’s illness. Jesse is described as the minor characters. He appears in a certain setting and becomes the background for the major characters. The second conclusion concerns with the relationship between Sara, as a mother and her children. There are three mother-children relationships to be discussed. They are the relationship between Sara and Kate, the relationship