masculine man—and fulfilling his desire to be transgender, or even to be a transsexual.
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As a human, Liam indifferently born as an ordinary man. Even so, there are many occurrences that eventually lead him into switching his identification in
sex typing, which at first has to be male, but he chooses to be a girl. This novel, Luna, has a main character that is very interesting to be
analyzed through the point of view of psychoanalysis regarding to his sex-typing and identification process. With the theory, there can be found the cause of Liam’s
changing direction in identification which exactly has relation to his condition as a transgender. Therefore, in this research the writer will try to analyze Luna’s main
character with psychoanalysis theory by Sigmund Freud in order to unveil Luna’s main character psychological aspect.
B. Focus of the Research
The focus of the research is to analyze the story and the character of Liam O’Neil Luna through psychoanalysis theory by Sigmund Freud
so that the cause of his identification in sex-typing that eventually leads him into a transgender could be revealed.
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Transsexual people identify as, or desire to live and be accepted as, a member of the sex opposite to that assigned at birth. Transsexual people indicate whether they have had, or are
planning to have sex reassignment surgery. These physical changes are collectively known as gender reassignment therapy and often but not always include hormone replacement therapy and
sex reassignment surgery. Unlike Transgender people who feel that they convict themselves to have inappropriate sex, Transsexual people are beyond that.
C. Research Question
Based on the background of the study and the focus of the research, found a research question:
How does Liam O’Neil in Luna novel identifies himself as a girl in his sex-typing process?
D. Significance of the Research
The significance of this research is to found out Liam O’Neil’s sex- typing process through Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis theory by analyzing
his psychosexual development stage and occurrences that have correlation which happened during his life, that made him into a transgender. This
research will also bring about comprehension about sex-typing term, the identification process as part of psychosexual development stage, the concept
of absent mother, the womb envy as the contrariwise of penis envy, and the definition of transgender which expectantly can be treated as a new topic of
discussion, besides add new knowledge among the readers.
E. Research Methodology
1. Method
The method that is used in this research is qualitative descriptive method. Qualitative descriptive method describes about the Liam’s
psychoanalysis and its attribute relate to the theory.
2. Data Analysis
The writer use descriptive technique to confer the character and its experience that correlate with the research question by reading,
studying, examining, understanding, scanning and interpreting the novel in order to make the comprehension of the narration or the
selected sentences that could be regarded as the evidence or data support to answer the research question. The writer determines to uses
the collected data to explore the psychoanalysis aspect in character Liam O’Neil. To give more support, data also will be taken by reading
related websites and papers.
3. Instrument of Research
The instrument of the research is the writer himself who acts as a mean to gain the qualitative data and also read other data to help the
research. The writer collected the data by reading the novel, jotting down important discourses that associated to the theories. In addition,
the writer assemble excerpts from many sources to be treated as
footnotes and reading references, along with doing interview to some experts or people with appropriate background of study of
psychoanalysis matters and theories related.
4. Unit of Analysis
Unit of analysis that is used in this research is a novel Luna by Julie Anne Peters which was published by Little, Brown and Company in
2004.
5. Place of Time
The research has studied in Jakarta, Tangerang and Yogyakarta. It has begun from April 2008 and ended in February 2009.
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
