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Luke raised a hand to his forehead and the hand came away all wet; the sweat was pouring from his skin. And – God, he was walking, he’d
actually been walking round and round his room and he hadn’t even noticed he was doing it. He sat down on his bed and then jumped
straight up again; he couldn’t seem to keep still 120-121.
The lost of consciousness happens in Luke is likely influenced by his subconscious mind. It much affects the thinking process as it distracts his focus
on something, getting his mind wander everywhere. He hadn’t even made a start on it, not any start that you could see,
even though he’d spent whole nights in his room clenched up to the desk, struggling to think of something. The Writing Folder was due in
next Monday, less than four days away if you didn’t count the weekend 10.
Conger furthermore pointed out that the depressed adolescents may reveal their feelings through bodily complaints, such as waking up tired and
fatigued, difficulties in concentration and failing school performance 605. While Luke was talking to Mrs. Lewis, the thought of Naomi spontaneously came to his
mind, diverting his focus from Mrs. Lewis 66. It similarly occurs as Luke was having a serious conversation with Caro. He looked as if he was listening to her
for the sound of night train he might hear all at once, breaking the silence 124. Being caused by the chronic depression stuck to him mentally, Luke
possesses such serious problem in sleeping as well. Unlike common people, he has distinctive pattern of sleep; he always feels sleepy in the evenings, whereas at
night he begins to wide wake 12. Having such sleeping disorder, Luke is likely to suffer from insomnia, which sometimes put his half-conscious mind into an
abstract hallucination of people faces 128.
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Just lack of sleep, Margaret told herself. He hardly seemed to sleep at all; sometimes in the middle of the night she’d wake and hear him
roaming round the house, along the passages, down the stairs. Last night she was almost sure she’d heard the ‘ping’ of the telephone
receiver going down, and tonight she knew she had 132.
Worst of all, Luke seems to suffer from a kind of mental disorder, which mostly deals with anxiety. It is difficult for him to make such distinction
between hallucination and reality. “Psychological disturbance in an adolescent, thus, may be reflected in real or imagined physical symptoms like what is known
as hallucination” Conger 607-609. As dealing with the night train, he is completely doubtful whether it does really exist or only comes within his
disruptive mind since no one can hear the train except him 61, 93, 164. Unexpectedly, this hallucination brings Luke to determinedly find out the truth,
which at last even leads him to such tragic death 168.
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CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
In this last chapter, two sections are presented. The first one concerns with the conclusions of the analysis of the study. While as the closure, some
suggestions to future researchers and the implementation of Night Train in teaching Intensive Reading II are covered in the second section.
A. Conclusions
In the stage of human development, adolescence is obviously depicted as such turbulent period whereby an individual is being confronted to many
conflicting situations within his life. No wonder that such a period often carries out unsteady personality towards a child’s character in the face of self-concept
and social acceptance as well. Given this in mind, the fact stated above thus brings me to deeply analyze the characteristics of Luke, the representative figure
of common adolescents in Judith Clarke’s Night Train, using Murphy’s theory of characterization.
Having enormously looked at the personal description he maintains, Luke is seen as an indifferent boy. His sloppy appearance explicitly shows that
neither does he care about the way he looked nor dressed whenever and wherever he is. At some of the times, Luke also acts like a little kid, which is occasionally
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portrayed through his unconscious habit. The childish behavior he used to maintain merely depicts his innocence beyond. He is innocent about love, and not
many things he knows in terms of dating. Apart from the innocence and indifference towards his own
appearance, Luke is actually a type of sensitive person. Such “bad label” he acquires from the people living surrounds him, including his family, peers, and
teachers, has unconsciously been adhered to his mind, bringing his feeling to be easily offended thus. His sensitivity also creates self-awareness within, which
makes him aware of his own self; everything he thinks of, he feels, or even he does.
Furthermore, Luke is perceived to be an attentive person. He likes to pay attention to others and he does really care about the people he loves, such as
friends and family. His good intention to always do the right things describes his sincerity, besides the patience he has in terms of time and self-control. Luke’s
good characteristic is visible from his thoughtfulness either. Before doing something, he always makes such deep consideration, which sometimes brings
him to doubts in making decision towards something. In case of relationship with his social surrounding, Luke is a type of
loner. He seems to estrange himself from the society, liking his being solitary on his own. He hardly has any friends due to his difficulty to associate. Luke is an
introvert person instead. Seldom is he willing to share his problems with other people, he is rather managed to wrap up in himself.
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Apart from the characteristics pointed out above, Luke occasionally reveals such unusual personality which seems difficult for others to understand.
His unpredictable thought and manners makes him look mysterious as well. Unfortunately, the boy’s complicated personality precisely takes him to further
matter, which in some respects builds many problems throughout his life. As a matter of fact, the conflicts an adolescent might encounter in such
phase precisely brings different mental attitude one to another, as it diversely affects one’s state of mind in turn. In a positive way, those who possess self-
defense mechanism can use it as a shield to protect themselves from such psychological ‘assault’.
Yet in contrast, the social pressures Luke experiences from his family, peers and school even trace bad impacts towards his psychological life as a
whole. As a normal child, he cannot hide himself from the effects he obtains due to those pressures. Feeling of guilty and regret, negative self-esteem, self-
estrangement, changing of attitude, and psychological disturbance thus become the influences of the deep pressures found in Luke due to his failure towards such
social interaction after all.
B. Suggestions
This section is divided into two parts. The first part includes suggestion to future researchers, while the other one merely contains the
