25
novel and the Nazi’s situation in German, through a very romantic, love and struggle story. Hanna plays an important role in which she tries to escape from her
incapability of being illiterate to reach her best life. Struggle and love of a middle- aged woman named Hanna Schmitz who is searching for meaning in her life. In
the story, Hanna is a secondary character who is being retold by the main character, Michael Berg the 18 year old boy. Nevertheless, Hanna is an example
of a rounded character that plays big parts in the story.
3.2 Approach of the study
R. A. Kasschau 1995 in Understanding Psychology, psychology is “a scientific study of behavior and mental process” p. 7. Those are obviously quite
broad and imprecise. Indeed, psychology is usually classified as both biological and social science. When applied to humans, psychology covers everything that
people think, feel, and do. It is about humans’ soul, mind, self, and personality. Here, psychology differs in how much importance to place on specific types of
behavior. Therefore, many different approaches are necessary to understand the complex richness of human behavior. Most people like to understand other people
by spending time to observe them and form a conclusion about people from daily interaction.
In this study, the approach that I applied is the psychological approach. Specially, the study refers to Rohrberger and Woods 1971 Reading and Writing
about Literature that states, “Psychology approaches locate and demonstrate the psychological phenomena in the story of human life. The critics who apply this
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
26
approach to analyze literary work using psychological theories to explain and understand human’s life, motivation, personality, and behavior written in the
literary object” p. 12. It means that the character in the novel, Hanna, reveals the psychology theories of understanding about humans’ life, motivation, personality,
and behavior written in the novel The Reader. Hanna’s psychological condition is examined through the interpretation of
her thoughts, behaviors and feelings that is described implicitly and explicitly in the novel. Through the interpretation of Hanna’s character, personality,
motivation, and emotions it is known that Hanna has the reason for her suicide decisions and it remains the meaningful messages behind.
3.3 Method of the study
