Theoretical Framework REVIEW OF LITERATURE

given word depends upon its relation with other adjoining words. This relational aspect of language gave rise to a famous remark of Saussure‘s: ‗In a language there are only differences, without fixed terms‘. For Saussure, language constitutes our world; it does not just record it or label it. Meaning is always attributed to the object or idea by the human mind, and constructed by and expressed through language: it is not already contained within the thing Barry, 2002:41-43. So structurali st‘s thinking stressed on the structuralist‘s comments on structure, symbol, and design, become paramount, and are the main focus of the commentary Barry, 2002:52. Based on that reason, structuralism is the most suitable approach for this study since it attempts to see the object of the study through the symbolic meaning. The symbolic meaning in this novel leads to observe the words eating, prayer, and love as the indicators of happiness, correlated with the theory of happiness by Seligman. Seligman defines the happiness is reached as seen in the Eat Pray Love’s symbols, thus structuralism becomes the most suitable tool in this study correlated with Saussure‘s statement in structuralism ―Language constitutes the world‖ Barry, 2002:43. Language that is used in Eat Pray Love constitutes the deeper meaning about happiness that has been through by Gilbert. The appropriateness of structuralism as the approach also lies in the Selden‘s statement that ―At the heart of structuralism is the scientific ambition to discover the codes, the rule, the systems, which underlie all human social and cultural practices‖ Selden, 2005: 90. The codes discovered in the novel gives the larger meaning for the main character‘s life in searching happiness. That larger meaning for the main character is found through cultural practices that are done in the three countries. Selden‘s statement is also restated by Barry saying that structuralists regard the containing structure as the most important activity than the close analysis of the literary work itself since they believed that one must see a literary text ―in the context of the larger structure they are part of‖ to understand the text Barry, 2002: 39-40. For those reasons, structuralism is the most suitable approach for this research because it attempts to see the object of the study through the symbols in this novel which contains some indicators of the happiness‘ theory.

C. Method of the Study

This research is a library research because the writer uses the sources or references based on some printed or electronic sources without going to the field and collecting data using questionnaires. The primary source that the writer uses is Eat Pray Love novel by Elizabeth Gilbert and the secondary sources that are used are some books and websites related to this study based on the same topic of this research. There were five steps taken by the writer in this research. The first step was reading the novel as the object of the study in order to understand the novel deeply. The second step was finding out the symbols in Eat Pray Love novel from the first place Italy, India, and ended in Indonesia to examine the symbol of eating, prayer, and love. The third step was studying some related studies having Eat Pray Love as their object. This step was done to know which areas of study had been taken and which had not, thus the writer can emphasize on the new area which had not been studied before. The fourth step was collecting some theories about symbols from some books and websites that related to this study. Symbolism is used in this research to answer the first problem formulation stated above. After the theories of symbols were collected, this study needs to be completed with theories of happiness purposed by Seligman. The happiness theory was needed to answer the second problem formulation in this research. That theory was related with the symbols in the novel as the indicators of happiness. Each symbol in this novel was a sign of happiness life that is achieved by the main character. The fifth step was making the conclusion from the analysis of the two research question in the previous chapter.