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conflict or problem, the author gives the moral value behind the story so that the readers interpret it by themselves whether the character in fictional work behave
rightly or wrongly https:books.google.co.id, October 21, 2015. According to Kohlberg “the study of literature does more than merely
expand the range of our experience; it enables us to feel empathy for others in a way that enlarges our moral perspectives” 1982: 108. It means that the story in
such literary work is not only tell the experience but also give empathy to the reader. Therefore, the readers get moral perspective from certain story. In his
essay about moral psychology and the study tragedy, he admits that “literature
stimulates new stages, qualitatively new forms, of moral and aesthetic thought and feeling” 1982: 108. It means that in literary work, the author creates the story
with several elements of intrinsic value that can stimulate not only aesthetic and moral but also thought and feeling in a new form.
Moody explains that moral message always exist in a literary works that connect with human’s noble behavior and attitude. The moral value is seen in
character behavior, the way the character think and the way the character faces the problem. Besides a good character, the evil bad behavior sometimes is carried by
the antagonist character. The various degrees of goodness and badness for most human beings have at least some features 1971:48. The author creates various
characteristics to a certain character in order to notice that there is the diversity between the good character and the bad character especially to learn moral value
message in literary works. The society and the reality sometimes connect with author’s work to draw the moral value message. The author gives some message
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moral value in literary work such as plays, drama, and novel. Hence, the readers get the idea of moral valuemessage from literary work and understand them with
the character’s behavior inside of it.
C. Theoretical Framework
In this thesis, the writer uses several theories to answer the questions stated in problem formulation. These several theories are explained in the
following paragraph. Theory of character is used to analyse the main character of the novel. It is
applied to understand the character in the novel. The theory of characterization reveals Florens’s characteristics. The theory characterization is used to answer
Florens ’s personalities by using her act, her dialogue, her thought and her speech.
The experience of the past life, the conversation with the other and the manner of the character portrays in the novel. The theory of character and characterization is
used to answer the first problem formulation. The writer describes several bad experiences of the major character to
answer the second problem formulation. The theory of moral value is used to find out
moral values based on Florens’s bad experiences. Message and moral values in literature are used to explain literature that conveys message or moral values
reveal from such literary works. Somehow, message and moral values are aspects of intrinsic elements in the part of literary works. The theory of moral value,
message and moral values in literature is used to answer the third problem formulation.
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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The writer takes a novel A Mercy by Toni Morrison for her literary research. The novel tells about an African girl slave who gets bad treatment in
America in 17
th
century. This novel was written by Toni Morrison. Besides, she wrote several novels like: Love, Paradise, Jazz, Beloved, Tar Baby, Song of
Solomon, Sula, The Bluest Eye, The Dancing Mind, and Playing in the Dark, Whiteness and the Literary Imagination http:www.blackpast.org, September 1,
2015. She got the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Moreover, she also became an
editor and a professor. Appropriate with her background as an African-American novelist, she had made several viscous books with black character. Toni Morrison
is living in Rockland Country, New York, and Princenton, New Jersey. A Mercy was published in New York, 2008 by Vintage Books. The publisher was a
registered trademark and Vintage International. The colophon was trademarks of Random House, Inc. This fiction book is also international bestseller, first vintage
international open market edition on June 2009. This novel tells about the slavery in 1680 when America is still in a trouble
because of the revolution and civil war in several regions. Florens is the major character in this novel. She was sold because bad debt of the owner plantation of
Catholic Maryland , D’Ortega. Her mother permitted Florens to let her was sold by
their owner. She was bought by Jacob Vaark, he was an adventurer, a trader and a
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farmer. After that, Florens became a servant in t he Vaark’s house. Florens was a
smart slave. Although she was slave, she can read and write. In the Jacob Vaark’s
house, she had some friends. These were Lina, Sorrow, Williard and Scully. All of them were servant. Moreover, she ever loved with blacksmith, an African man
who ever helped Sorrow’s illness and Rebecca’s disease to heal them with his
medical treatment. At last, Florens was abandoned by him. Throughout her life in the novel, she experienced many things especially bad experiences that being
treated injustice by white people. Through Florens’s bad experiences, the writer
draws out the conclusion to analyse the moral values in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy.
B. Approach of the Study
The focus of the study is to analyse the major character’s moral value
through her bad experiences. The approach of this study is used moral philosophical approach. This approach is appropriate with the purpose of this
study which helps the writer to catch the moral values of the major character’s bad
experiences . “Moral philosophical approach is the approach which examine the
moral and philosophical issue in a text, focusing mostly on what it says, what is being taught in the text, not on its technique” Guerin, 2005: 70.
Moral philosophical approach is very old, it is equal with classical Greek and Roman critics era. In the same book, Guerin states that
In each instance critics working from moral bent are not unaware of form, figurative language, and other purely aesthetic considerations, but they
consider them to be secondary. The important thing is the moral or philosophical teaching. On its highest plane this is not superficially
didactic, though it may seem so. In the larger sense, all great literature teaches. The critic who employs the moral philosophical approach insists
on ascertaining and stating what is taught. If the work is in any degree significant or intelligible, the meaning will be there 2005: 61.
