Background of The Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of The Study

Literary works can be differentiated into two parts, fiction and nonfiction. And novel is one of the most well known fiction. The word “ Novel” is taken from Italian word, novella, Spanish novella, French Nouvelle means “new”, or “short story of something new.” 1 Novel is fictions prose narrative or table of considerable length now usually long enough to fill one or more volumes in which characters and actions representative of the real life of past or present time are portrayed in a plot of more or less complexity. 2 Novel is a kind of media that is used to express the idea of an author. The idea might come from many resources such as experiences either from the author, one’s experience or the condition when the book was written at the time. Usually the author will do it selectively and 1 www.wikipedia.org 2 Jeremi Hawthorn, ”Studying The Novel” ,New York: Oxford University,2001,P.102 from the story based on the purpose while on the same time the author will also include the element of entertainment information such as the human’s life to make novel looks interesting. 3 Novel offers various problems of human being and humanity because novel usually based on a true story, myth or even religious belief of the culture. Novel has many sub plot, therefore novel could not be read in one time but it’s need time even days to read for good understanding. In addition, studying a text novel, readers would know several aspects that built a novel. They are intrinsic and extrinsic elements. Intrinsic elements are the elements which develop the literary work from inside such as plot, theme, setting, character and characterization, and of course point of view. All of this make a story come to life. Beside the intrinsic elements that built a novel from inside, readers who want to analyze the novel also have to understand the background of the author, the social background where the novel has been created, the psychology of the characters of the novel, the world view about the novel itself and those called extrinsic elements. 3 Patrick Swiden, “The English Novel of History and Society”, London:Macmillan Press Ltd,1997. The extrinsic elements are the elements which built the novel from outside such as literature and society, psychology literature, feminism, genetic structuralism, and so on. Although novel is a kind of fiction, many advantages we can get when we read it. It is not only the pleasure but also the utility since it might consist of a special message to be delivered inside the text. 4 This thesis is to analyze the intrinsic elements of The Pale Horse. The Pale Horse is one of Agatha Christie’s novel. It tells about three old women who believe the supernatural and make the society believe that they are witches who are able to make someone dies. If the client comes to them, they will show the black magic equipment which can make the clients believes. They do their job by using thallium poison through the air scattered. They have an organization network which structured clean even the police cannot do anything without a proof. They are three old virgins’ women who are far away from the society. To add the mystical situation they named their old cottage “The Pale Horse” where name board has a picture of horses. 4 Drs.Burhan Nurgiantoro.Mpd., “Teori Pengkajian Fiksi”.,Yogyakarta: Gadja Mada University Press,2003,P.3 Like Agatha christie’s other novel, The Pale Horse is a murder mystery. Agatha Christie was born as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in Torquay, Devon. To an America father and an English mother. Her father was Frederick Alvah Miller, a rich American stockbroker, and her mother was Clarissa Margaret Boehmer, the daughter of a British army captain. Her father died when she was eleven years old. Her mother taught her at home, encouraging her to write at a very young age. At the age of 16 she went to Mrs Dryden’s finishing school in Paris to study singing and piano. Her first marriage, an unhappy one, was in 1914 to Colonel Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. The couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks, and divorced in 1928. it was during this marriage that she published her first novel in 1920, The Mysterious Affairs at Styles. Agatha Christie’s first novel The Mysterious Affairs at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 30 of Christie’s novels and 50 short stories. Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain in 1975. Following the great success of curtain, Christie gave permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976, but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. 5

B. Focus of The Research