Madame Wu’s personality development, as stated in the first question in the problem formulation.
The theory of critical approach helps the writer to choose the best approach to analyze the character’s personality and how the character’s
personality develops through the story. 22
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section is the object of the study. The object of the study reveals about the object of the study and the
aims of discussing the literary work. The second section is the approach of the study. It will discuss about the approach used in analyzing the novel. The last
section is the method of the study. In the method of the study, the steps of analyzing the novel and how the approach was applied to answer the questions
formulated in the problem formulation are described.
A. Object of the Study
The literary work that will be analyzed in this study is Pearl S. Buck’s Pavilion of Women
. It has 419 pages and is divided into 15 chapters. Pavilion of Women
was first published in 1946. It tells the readers about Madame Wu’s life. Madame Wu’s life reflects the Chinese people’s life at that time. She was a very
rich and smart woman. She had six sons and one daughter, but unfortunately, her two sons and the only daughter passed away. She really obeyed Chinese culture at
that time, considering Chinese has a very complicated and unique culture. When she was 40 years old, she decided to take another girl to be her husband’s
concubine. All members of her family disagreed with her decision, but since she was a very smart and wise woman she knew how to make them agree with her
decision. At that time there were also many foreigners coming to China. One day,
23 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Madame Wu knew a foreign priest, named Andre. Andre was her third son’s teacher. He taught her son about many things, including about life. Madame Wu
was interested in his teaching, and then she decided to learn with the priest. Madame Wu liked to learn many things from Andre, she admired him. Priest
Andre taught her not only knowledge, but also love, forgiveness, and humans’ relationship. She became a more open-minded and tolerant person, even she often
ignored some rules in Chinese culture. Her life was totally changed. Her relationship with the members of her family and other people was also recovered
since she changed. In this novel, the readers can see how Madame Wu’s personality changes
from the beginning of the story until the end of the story, and how the Western Catholic Priest influences Madame Wu’s personality development as a traditional
Chinese woman.
B. Approach of the Study
In this study, the writer uses the psychological approach and sociocultural- historical approach. The approaches are used to explore Madame Wu’s
personality development. The writer uses psychological approach because this study
analyzes someone’s
personality development
which deals
with psychological aspects, while sociocultural-historical approach is used because this
study deals with the condition of a culture in one place giving influence to the person living there. The approaches are proposed by Mary Rohrberger and
Samuel Woods 1971: 6-15. 24
