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The main character of this novel is Percy. He is twelve years old. He lives with his mother and his step father who never feel his existence. Percy never meets his
father since a baby. He really hates his father. Actually he never knows about his real father but there is a quest that he must face his father. Percy gets many
troubles during his school life and his miss father role in his life. It is because his father and his step father ignore him.
1. The Causes of Percy Interpersonal Conflict
According to the novel since Percy is a baby, he lives with his mother and his step father who never feels his existence. The only one his precious thing in
this world is his mother, he never wants to lose her. Because Percy does not live in condition of complete family, many things happen to him and he has to deal
with his conflicts relates to the truth of his father and his fate.
a. Living in Single Parent Family.
According to Erickson 1959 in child development stages, Percy is in adolescence stages which meant identity vs. role confusion. The age of this stage
around 12 up to 18 years old. In the novel, Percy is 12 years old p.1. He does not have many friends in school and he does not know how to socialize with his
friends. In this stage as a teenage, Percy does not have many friends. The only friend that he has is Grover.
According to Erikson 1959, each stage of development focuses on overcoming a conflict. Percy is in teen age which ismean that teenager always
curious about many things and like to join in the social community. However Percy does not have many friends because of that he does not join any social
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group. Despite that he suffers from dyslexia and could not concentrate well and hard to study. Percy is in stage of identity vs. role confusion Erikson, 1959.
Percy tries to find his identity and he still confuse of himself after he knows the truth that he is a demigod. In Percy’s life, he is lacks of parents’ role because his
father leaves him since he is a baby and his step father treats him like he does not exist. He only gets parent role from his mother. Percy lives in single parent family
condition and according to the Baxter et al. 2011 children living in two-parent families have better emotional outcomes than children living in one-parent
families. After controlling for demographic, socioeconomic and personal characteristics, children from single-parent families continue to display lower
emotional development. Percy always gets mad if his step father treats his mother like a slave p.30.
“Between the two of us, we made my mom’s life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I Got along… “p.30
Besides, he hates his real father because his father left him. He never knows how father’s love like every father always plays with his son. He also
never gets love from his step father. “I felt angry with at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resent him for
going on that ocean Voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He’d left us and now were stuck with Smelly Gabe”. p.39
This condition makes his emotional unstable and Percy has lower emotional development because he does not know how to share his feeling and what he
wants. As a son, Percy needs complete parents to support for his study, his social life and his personal development but in fact his father and his step father are not
