do indeed implicate each other, each one finding itself enlightened, informed, but also affected, displaced, by the other Felman, 1977: 8-9
The quotation above implies that when some questions are formulated to a literary analysis related to the human mind, the researcher does not apply the
psychoanalytic approach to the text as a science, but the researcher explores both of them together because both the text and psychoanalysis implicate each other.
In this undergraduate thesis, the researcher uses a psychoanalytical approach because it is the most appropriate way to answer the problems. The
researcher uses psychoanalytic approach to answer the second problem formulation because psychoanalytic approach suggests the influence of human
psychology in literary work. The analysis of this study mainly focuses on the main character’s decision making process which is influenced by her unconscious
mind. The decision making of the main character, Mia Hall, is analyzed to show that although her body is in the comatose state, her mind is still awake, and she is
psychologically aware that she is capable to discover what she has to choose. Therefore, the psychoanalytical approach is applied in this study.
C. Method of the Study
This undergraduate thesis about the main characte r’s decision making
process is a library research method. The researcher collected data from the library to support the information about If I Stay. Besides from library, the writer
also gathered data from internet. The primary sources were Gayle Forman’s If I Stay
, Richard Gill’s Mastering English Literature, Carl Jung’s Personal PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Unconscious , Feist’s Theory of Personality, David H. Jonassen’s Designing for
Decision Making , Abrams’ A Glossary of Literary Terms, Roberts’ and Jacobs’
Fiction: An Introduction to Reading and Writing , Barry’s Beginning Theory: An
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory , and Kahneman’s Choices, Values,
and Frames. There are several steps that the researcher took in analyzing the text. The
first was reading and rereading the whole novel carefully to find some significant points about the characteristics of the main character, Mia Hall. The second step
was formulating the problems and finding the appropriate approach that was suitable for the analysis. There were two problem formulation created by the
researcher. Firstly, how the main character is described in the plot development of the story. Secondly, how the decision making process of the main character to
overcome her comatose state and choose to be alive is seen in the story. The third step was answering the problems. The first problem was the
characteristics of the main character. The applied theories were theory of character and characterization and theory of plot. The second problem was how
those characteristics influence the main character’s decision making process. The researcher applied the theory of the unconscious and the theory of decision
making. For the approach, it was found that psychoanalytic approach is the most appropriate approach to be applied in this study.
After the problems were answered, the final step was composing conclusions. This step contained the review of all of the discussions done in the
previous chapters which was about the analysis of the main idea of this study. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
27
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS
Mia Hall as the main character has the biggest impact of the story in the novel If I Stay. Her decision making to choose to live after being in a comatose
state is the main point of the discussion in this research. To reveal it, firstly, the researcher dis
cusses the description of Mia Hall’s characteristics. It analyzes Mia Hall’s traits by observing her thought, speech, and behavior in the plot
development before and after she gets the accident. Secondly, this study’s discussion is about the decision-making process of Mia Hall in her comatose state
to choose to be alive.
A. The Description of Mia Hall
The researcher analyzes the characteristics of the main character by observing the attitude of the character, the way other minor characters say about
the main character, and the way how the main character says and thinks about herself Roberts and Jacobs, 1987: 122.
1. Family-Centered
Mia Hall is a seventeen-year-old girl who loves her family. She is a family-centered person because she always prioritizes her family members, and
everything she thinks about is her family. Her family-centered characteristic is seen from her thought and action.
In the beginning of the story, when her parents want to use the day-off to visit Henry and Willow, their close friends, Mia hesitates to join. She prefers to go
back to bed. However, when his father mentions that they can also visit her grandparents for having an early dinner on their way back home, she directly says,
“I’m in” Forman, 2010: 10. She loves being together with her family, and it is shown in her monologue:
It isn’t the lure of BookBarn, or the fact that Adam is on tour, or that my best friend, Kim, is busy doing the yearbook stuff. It isn’t even
that my cello is at school or that I could stay home and watch TV or sleep. I’d
actually rather go off with my family Forman, 2010:10. That statement shows that Mia agrees to go not because of the lure to a bookshop or that her best friend
and boyfriend are busy, but because she prioritizes her family over anything else. This part of story is still in the beginning before they get the accident. In this part,
the author uses the showing way to present the readers about the family-centered characteristic in Mia Hall.
Both when she is alive and when she is in the comatose state, Mia Hall is family-centered because of her focus and love is first to her family members.
Firstly, this part shows how deep her love is to her parents. The first evidence is seen from the way she remembers her parents. She tells about how her parents
never call Teddy and her as accidents, surprises, nor any other calling; how her parents appreciate every process that they have while being with her and Teddy
Forman, 2010: 85. The acceptance that her parents do for their children makes Mia love her parents very much.
Then, after her family gets the accident, her parents do not survive, and when she is in the comatose state, she feels empty and frustrated to face this state
because her parents are not there for her. It is stated that PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
