19 three black-skinned women. He forces Lily to back home. However, at the end of
the story Lily may live in Pink House. She gets what she needs there.
B. Approach of the Study
In this study I use the formalist approach in analyzing the object of this study. The using of formalist approach is the most suitable one in identifying the
symbols in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. Guerin 2011 states that
formalist abandons historical and biographical information. He says that “formalist focuses on the text as a discrete object” p.121. It also looks for the
relationship of form in a literary work. This approach also allows the reader’s imagination in interpreting the meaning as the interaction of b
etween the reader’s view and what the writer presents. Therefore, the formalist approach is the most
suitable approach since it focuses on the text and the interpretation of the reader’s view.
C. Method of the Study
In this study, I applied library research to conduct the study. Gorge 2008 states that library research involves identifying and locating sources. The
identifying and the sources here mean the expert opinion on a research question. Therefore, I also used some sources to complete this research. The sources were
classified into primary source and secondary source. The primary source here is the novel entitled The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. The primary source
was main base for the researcher needs. The secondary source here is some books
20 and articles that are related with the study. The secondary source supported the
first primary source to make the study more convincing. There are some steps in library study. The first step started with reading
the novel. I read the novel repeatedly because it helps a lot in understanding and imagining the story. After that I continued with choosing the topic. I was
interested in collecting the words, expressions, sentences, things, signs and also the phenomena that happened in the story. Then, I decided to do brainstorming
before I formulated down research questions. The second step was to read information from related references. It helped
to find the theory of literature that is suitable with the study. The information from articles, books, dictionaries and also encyclopedia that are related with the study
gathered to support the explanation of symbol. Reading and analyzing the novel were the third step was the third step in
the research. Reading carefully was important thing to clarify and accurate the data with the study. Finding the theory became crucial because in that part the
theory could answer the problem formulation or not. The theory should be relevant to answer the research problems.
The last step was to summarize all the findings in the conclusion. All explanations served with description. It was caused by the study that used the
formalist approach so that the study was a qualitative study.
