Conclusions CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS

61 school. After his best friend’s suicide, Toru is unable to open up his heart and he decides to distance himself from others as well. Toru is also portrayed as an ordinary guy that is shown from his appearance and reaction when the student strike happens. Besides, Toru is a caring person who cares about his friends namely Naoko, Storm Trooper, Hatsumi, Midori and even Midori’s father. However, Toru is also considered as a self-doubted person. Toru always thinks that he does not deserve of what he has and he feels not confident of himself as well. It leads him into pessimism and it makes him do not have specific goals for his future life. The second analysis is about the causes of loneliness as experienced by Toru Watanabe. The first cause is Toru lacks of companionship. Toru’s lack of companionship is caused by his decision to distance himself from others and his difficulties to open up his heart after his best friend’s death. As a result, it leads him into the sense of loneliness since his friendship is limited to some people. Moreover, when his friends are gone, Toru does not have anyone else as his companion. The second cause of Toru’s loneliness is that Toru is unable to attain his desired relationship with Naoko. Toru falls in love with Naoko and he wants to be in a relationship with her. Unfortunately, Naoko is unable to love him back and she finds it is impossible to love anyone else besides Kizuki. In conclussion, his loneliness is a feeling which appears whenever a person is unable to attain his desired relationship. 62 The third cause is Toru lacks of belongingness and love needs, self-esteem needs and self-actualization needs. The facts that Toru lacks of companionship, Toru has the desires to have an elder sibling and Toru has never been in love prove that Toru lacks of belongingness and love needs. Moreover, Toru also lacks of self-esteem needs. His character as an unconfident and self-doubted person shows that he lacks of self-esteem needs and it leads him into his loneliness. He often believes that he is unworthy of the friendship he has with Kizuki and Nagasawa. His lack of confidence also makes him think that he is not capable to interact or get along with person who has higher status. Furthermore, Toru is also failed to fulfill his self-actualization needs because he does not even know his own potential and talent. Thus, he is unable to exploit his capabilities and it makes him do not have goals for his future life.

B. Implications

The theme of this study is about loneliness, which is experienced by Toru Watanabe as the main character in Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. In the novel, Toru is depicted as a loner person who prefers to spend most of his time by himself. He also does not form close friendship with those around him because of his best friend’s suicide. Besides, Toru is an unconfident and self-doubted person. He always thinks that he does not deserve of what he has and he has low self- confidence as well. Moreover, Toru does not have specific goals for his future life and he turns to be a pessimistic person. 63 In the field of education, Toru can be seen as a representative of a student. Each student has different character, whether it is positive or negative. Some examples of negative characteristic are loner, self-doubt, and low self-confidence. Besides, loneliness as the theme of the study can also be found at school and experienced by the students. Loneliness is a psychological problem which can be experienced in our daily life and it can happen among the students at school as well. Teachers’ roles are highly needed to overcome loneliness at school or classroom. Thus, a teacher is expected to master not only about the learning material but also the various characteristic of the students as well. There will be probabilities for teachers to have students with the same characteristic as Toru Watanabe who is loner, unconfident, and self-doubted. Loneliness in the classroom which is experienced by the students can be a big problem and it will affect student s’ learning process. According to Perlman and Peplau 1984, factors that can cause loneliness are moving to a new school or neighborhood, losing of an important person through death or breaking up, and experiencing the divorce of parents. Students also will experience loneliness when they have less social contact than they have expected before. They might also feel lonely because of being ignored or rejected by their friends in school or college. Moreover, Perlman and Peplau 1984 also state that shyness, low self-esteem, introversion and lack of social skill are the characteristics which associated with loneliness. Those characteristics lead to loneliness because it makes a person incapable of making and keeping friends.