transform back in time, he will be stuck in the form of flea for the rest of his life. This caused him to panic and made him unable to control his transformation even
further.
3. The Description of Rachel’s Characteristics
In term of appearances Rachel is depicted as beautiful, she always wears clothes which made her looks like a beautiful model.
Despite Rachel’s beautiful, model-like appearances, her personality is bold and reckless; Her friends
considered her as the type of person who always jumped into action. I guess most guys would say Rachel is prettier. Personally, I dont think of
her that way because shes my cousin. But Rachel does look like some kind of blond supermodel. Not that Rachel acts like Ms. Fashion. Just the
opposite if theres danger, Rachel is right there, usually a few steps ahead of anyone else. Animorphs 6, 1996:11.
From the quotation above, Rachel is described as the kind of person who prefer to challenge the danger or terror rather than running away from it.
Hammerheads I yelled. Hammerheads We drove down beneath the surface, and there they were: hammerhead
sharks. There must be ten of them Tobias said.
Ten of them against five dolphins and a tiger shark, Rachel said. We can handle it.
There are times when I really admire Rachels reckless courage. But PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
there are other times when I just want to slap her. We had fought sharks before. We had won, but it had been a close call. Very, very close. And
there were more sharks this time. Easy, everyone. We dont know theyre going to attack us. Jake said,
as calmly as he could with ten sharks heading straight for us. Animorphs 15, 1998:35
In book 15, The Animorphs encountered more than ten hammerhead
sharks while on a reconnaissance mission under the sea. Despite the overwhelming odd, Rachel prefers to fights all the sharks rather than run away
from them. She even shows disappointment when all of her friends decided to run away from the shark.
I have been afraid many times since becoming an Animorphs. But this was bad. There are few things as horrifying as watching a shark come at you.
Knowing he intends to eat you. 0kay, look, we dont need this fight, Jake said. Lets get out of here.
Just run away? Rachel asked in outrage. Youre welcomed to stay behind, Rachel, I said.
Animorphs 15, 1998:35 Rachel’s recklessness can be clearly seen from quotations above, she is the
kind of person who likes to face the problem head on rather than run away from the problem.
Aside from her bold and reckless characteristics she is also described as short tempered person. Even though she often shown to be brave in facing a
certain dangerous situation, whenever she deems the odd to be too overwhelming for her to handle, or she dislikes a certain situation so much she will be unable to
control her self esteem. Her inability to control her self esteem is shown through her outburst anger and showing an irresponsible attitude. She once decided to skip
school after being told that it is impossible to win the war against the Yeerks by an Omniscient creature called Ellimist. Her action causes an argument between
her and her teammates; they berated her for how she skips school and run amok in a morph form
. Rachel’s control toward self esteem is not as good as Jake’s control toward his. Rachel is unable to conceal her inner feeling. Another example is on
book 22, in which a boy named David angered Rachel so much that she wants to kill him.
I was going to hunt him down and destroy him. No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was
going to kill him. I felt sick inside. It might have been the morphing that was annihilating my internal organs and replacing them with the primitive
organs of a housefly. Or it might have been the feeling that comes from rage and hate.
Animorphs 22 1998: 13
The quotation above is told from Rachel’s perspective; in the quotation Rachel shows her desire to kill David. She questioned whether her desire to kill
David is because of her inner rage or not. Another example is from book 33, in this book Rachel loses her self control and wants to kill an enemy named Taylor
because Rachel can’t forgive what Taylor did to Tobias.
Rachels claws closed on Taylors neck, crushing her esophagus. She was turning blue, suffocating. Help she rasped pitifully. Someone help
me Rachel No. Rachel, dont do it
She dies, Tobias. For what she did to you, she dies. She moved as if to slam Taylor against the wall.
No I yelled. Rachel. No. Rachel turned to look at me, hesitated. Then dropped Taylor like a
crumpled candy wrapper. The sub-visser fell to the floor and scrambled for the door.
Animorphs 33 1999: 80 From the examples above, it is safe to assume that whenever Rachel is
angered enough, she will do irrational act without any second thought. The examples from book 22 and 33 shows that Rachel’s anger clouded her
judgment that she believes murder are the solution to the problem. Her decision to murder someone shows that she can’t control her self esteem, because she can’t
find any other solution other than murder whenever she is angered.
4.
The Description of Cassie’s Characteristics
The character of Cassie in the novel is depicted as the character that brings moral value to the team; and like Jake she shows great concern toward the well
being of her teammates. She is kind and empathetic; her caring nature may cause her to be
able to sense other people’s feeling. Because of this she often acts as the therapist of the team.
Several times in the story, whenever a certain character is put on a deadly situation, she will comfort that character. The perfect example of Cassie’s
kindness and concern toward her teammates is in book fourth when Marco nearly gets himself killed by a shark; Cassie came to Marco’s house the day after the
incident to make sure that Marco does not get terrorized by that scary experience. From the case above w
e can learn that Cassie cares greatly about her friends’ wellbeing, she can’t put her mind at ease until she truly sure that her friend is
alright Another instance is when Cassie helps Marco to morph back into human
in book twenty first. Marco is having some difficulty in morphing back from flea to human form, and he almost gets trapped in the flea form. She comforted Marco
through the process to help him morphed back into human form. Cassie’s kind
and caring attitude seems to be originated fro m her daily life; Cassie’s parents are
both vets, her mother worked as a doctor in a zoo, while his father runs a wildlife clinic in their barn. Cassie often helped her father on taking care of the injured
animal. It can be assumed that Cassie unknowingly creates a bond toward the animal, that bond perhaps what makes her care greatly about other creature’s life.
Her habit of to taking care an animal may affect the way she saw the life of other creature. Several times in the books Cassie often angry or became
irritated if she saw animal is being endangered or mistreated by human. In book fifteen Marco commented that Cassie is not the type of person who likes to create
a plan which could endanger themselves, but if it is about saving a mistreating an animal she will do anything to save it.
It was Cassies idea, oddly enough. Normally shed be the last person to ever cook up a harebrained scheme. But this involved mistreating animals.
And you dont want to mess with animals when Cassie is around. Animorphs 15, 1996:2
In summary, Cassie is the type of person who cares greatly about the well
being of her friends. She likes to comfort her friend whenever she feels that her friend is in danger or in some sort of trouble both physically and mentally.
Unfortunately, her kind and caring attitude make it hard for her to control her self esteem. Whenever Cassie is involved in something violence, she cannot
tolerate that action and she will run away from it. This is shown in book nineteenth, when she along with her team slaughters an army of controlled Hork-
Bajir. She is terrified by her action of killing the Hork-Bajir that she decides to quit the team, in order to avoid the violence war.
