family. Those three plays added up to a Trilogy of Chinese America as the author described.
Hwang’s third drama Family Devotions was first published in 1989 by Penguin Books Canada Ltd, Canada. This book consists of 51 pages and built of 2
acts. The analysis of the study will be focused on the character development. The analysis searches for the message from the author so that the readers could grasp
the meaning of them. The summary of the study is given as follows. It is about the main characters Ama and Popo, Chinese women, who
emigrated to Philiphines, then to America, and their little brother Di-Gou who is a resident of the People’s Republic of China. The play is set in an idealized house
with an enclosed patio and tennis court, representing a shallow, materialistic American Dream. The extended families of Ama and Popo are waiting the arrival
of Di-Gou whom they have not seen for thirty years. They really want to hear Di- Gou’s testimony and confession of miracles done by evangelist See-goh-poo.
Unfortunately, when he arrives he disavows ever being Christian and it makes his sisters be dissapointed and furious. Hence, the conflict begins to appear in this
family. The reason of choosing this play as the object of the study because there
are some moral reason message that can be found inside. The writer decides to focus only on the main character’s description, by their act or attitudes, dialogue,
and the conflicts in order to reveal the message.
B. Approach of the Study
In this research, the writer uses the formalistic approach to analyze the work. The approach would focus on the formal patterns and technical devices of
literature Abrams, 1981: 102. The approach also views literary language as “self-focused”, which functions to “offer the reader a special mode of experience
by drawing attention to its own ‘formal’ features—that is, to the qualities and internal relations of the linguistic signs themselves” 1981: 103.
The above statement is strengthened by Guerin, he says in A Handbook of Critical Approach to Literature that what the author did was to make the
readers see that internal relationships gradually reveal a form, a principle by which all subordinate patterns can be accommodated and accounted for. When
all the words, phrases, metaphors, images, and symbols are examined in terms of each other and of the whole, any literary text worth our efforts
will display its own internal logic. When that logic has been established, the reader is very close to identifying the overall form of the work Guerin,
2005: 95. From the explanation above, the writer knows and understands the
characteristics of the formalistic approach. Using the formalistic approach means to emphasize objective and literal interpretation which is in the internal elements.
The readers are not allowed to discuss the elements which are in outside, such as: the political or the historical issue or the opinion of the novel’s author.
In other words, when we apply formalistic approach, we analyze a literary work and look for elements that contribute to the unique quality of the work, such
as structure, shape, interplay, interrelationships, denotations and connotations, contexts, images, symbols, repeated details, climax, denouement, balances and
tensions, rhythms and rhymes that catch our attention, sounds that do the same, the speakers apparent voice, a single line--or even a word--set off all by itself
Guerin, 1999: 75-76. According to Rohrberger and Woods, formalistic approach is an approach
that assumes “total integrity of the literary piece” and “concentrates almost entirely on its aesthetic value” 1971: 3.
Since this study will discuss about the message and the conflict that are revealed thorugh the main characters of the play, the formalistic approach is
chosen as the suitable approach. With this approach, the writer assumes the autonomy of the work itself and judges it by the intrinsic elements, instead of
extrinsic elements like the authors biography, social condition at the time of its production, or its psychological and moral effects Wellek and Warren, 1956.
In this study, the intrinsic elements are the characters, the conflicts and the messages which considerably make the work unique. The analysis in this study is
completely based on the text itself.
C. Method of the Study
In completing this thesis, there were some steps that the writer took. The writer conducted library research to carry out this study. Library research means
that the research based on the data which were entirely gathered from books on
