understand his or her writing. Unlike the biographical approach which focuses on the importance of the author’s ideas and personal life, the sociocultural historical
approach focuses on social, cultural, civilization, and history as reference to analyze the novel. The next approach is the mythopoeic approach. It attempts to
discover the particular pattern of human thought that share the same universal belief to have an expression in certain community mind.
The last approach is psychological approach. It involves the theories of psychology as the references to analyze the characters in the story. Psychological
approach allows the researcher to discover the pattern of human personality and behaviour. Barnet states “a character is a figure with specific mental and moral
qualities; it is obvious that characters are observable through psychology in terms that they consist of unique mental qualities” 71. Based on the statement above,
it can be assumed that analyzing the characters deals with psychology. Therefore, this study applies the psychological approach to discover and analyze Anne’s
personality traits.
2. Theory of Character and Characterization
This study focuses on Anne’s personality traits. Therefore, the theory of character and characterization is important to be applied in order to analyze the
problems of this study. Holman and Harmon state “character means a complicated term that includes the idea of the moral constitution of the human personality, the
presence of moral uprightness and the simpler notion of the presence of creature in art that seem to be human beings of one sort or another” 81. Based on the
description above, it can be assumed that a character in a novel is a complex creature like human being. A character has personality traits and physical
appearance. In a novel, there must be a character who leads the reader to know the story.
There are some types of characters in a novel. Holman and Harmon 400 mention that a character can be determined by analyzing the character’s role.
There are two roles of characters; it can be antagonist and protagonist. A protagonist is the character that has an important role in the play and has an ability
to enlist the reader’s sympathy and interest. In contrast, antagonist character is the character who directly opposes the protagonist Holman and Harmon 27. From
the description above, it can be assumed that protagonist character faces major conflicts in a story.
While Holman and Harmon define characters based on their roles in a novel, Henkel 87 defines character in another way. He states that characters can
be divided based on the function and the prominence. They are major and secondary character. Major character is a character that deserves to get attention
from the readers and other characters. On the other hand, secondary character is the one who performs more limited function in the story. Secondary character also
appears less often than major character. Furthermore, Forster 46 introduces new terms in determining the
characters. He defines a character as a flat character and a round character. A flat character is presented without much individualizing detail, and static. For example
is prince. In our mindset, if we hear a word of “prince”, we imagine a handsome, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
gentle, and rich man. In contrast, a round character is presented with personality, like most people. This character is capable of surprising in the story.
After we know about the types of character based on the role, the function, and the prominence, we need to know more about the character’s personality.
Therefore, characterization methods are needed to describe a character’s personality of a novel. Characterization methods allow the writer to reveal the
character’s physical appearance and personality traits. Based on Rohrberger and Woods 180, characterization is a process by
which an author creates the character with particular type of person. It means that every character in a story is different, both mentally and physically appearances.
Murphy 161 states that characterization is the way an author conveys the characters and personalities so that the readers understand and know the
characters. To avoid subjectivity in analyzing a character of a novel, this study needs
methods of characterization. This study uses two theories that are proposed by Sylvan Barnet and Murphy.
Barnet 712 determines four ways to understand the characteristics of a character. They are; what the character says, what the characters does or acts,
what other characters say about the character and the last what others do. Similar to Barnet who proposes four ways in determining a character,
Murphy 161-173 explains about nine principals in the process of characterization. Those principals are:
a. Personal
description The author can describe a character in personal description; the author
may draw details about the character’s appearance and clothes. For example: eyes, clothes, skin, face, height, appearance.
b. Character as seen by the others. The author can describe a character through other characters’ eyes point
of views and opinions so that the readers can get a reflection image about the character’s personality and appearance.
c. Character’s speech
The author can give the readers an insight into character through character’s speech and words. The reader may know the personality of the
character by the character’s opinion or statement. d. Past life
The author can give a clue of personality through past life. It is done in order to let the readers learn something from character’s previous life and
know the shape of a person’s character. e.
Conversation of others The readers can take clues of person’s character through the
conversation of other characters and the things they say about him. It can help the readers understand better about the character and get a clue about the
character’s personality. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
f. Reaction
The author gives a clue to the reader based on the reaction of the character to various situation and events in the story.
g. Direct comment The author can describe or comment a character in a novel directly. The
author can give his or her personal comment to the characters he or she creates directly.
h. Thought The author can give the readers direct knowledge of what a character is
thinking about. With this clue, the author wants to give a description of a character for the readers through the character’s mind. By knowing the
character’s thoughts and minds, the readers can learn his or her characteristics. i.
Mannerism The author can describe a character’s mannerism, idiosyncrasies and
habits. It can lead the readers learn the person’s characteristics. This study focuses on analyzing Anne’s personality traits. Therefore, this
study applies the theory of personality in order to find out about the personality traits of Anne.
3. Theory of Personality
