every character in each novel has their own reasoning and background regarding how they face their lives. In this thesis, the writer is going to concern about the
characterization of Victor Delamonte and Sarah Lemon to reveal moral lessons conveyed by the author. These two characters have different points of view about
time they have in their lives, and how they wish to treat this time. However, despite their different concepts of time, the writer has discovered another phenomenon in
the novel, which is alienation. These two characters are alienated from their own lives, and hence, this alienation contributes to their ways of perceiving time in life.
Since this alienated characters are going to reveal some important lessons in life, some previously-done undergraduate thesis and writings mentioned before can be
used as references.
B. Review of Related Theories
In order to answer the problem formulation previously stated in Chapter II, the writer includes some theories to analyze the answers. In this subsection, the
writer explains what theories are being used one by one and where they are taken from.
1. Theory of Character and Characterization
This theory is the mostly used theory in undergraduate thesis because characters hold an important role in a literary work where the reader will interpreted
the messages they bring through their actions and dialogues. As stated by M.H. Abrams, characters are the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work who
are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with particular moral, intellectual,
and emotional qualities from what they are saying and what they are doing 1999:32-33.
Robert Stanton in his book, An Introduction to Fiction states that in literary works, the term “character” commonly refers to two things. It can be the
“individuals appearing in the story” or the “moral principles that makes up each of these individuals” 1965:17. Thus, in defining the term “character”, we may refer
to the person as an individual who is included in a society in the novel, as well as the characteristics of these people.
In most stories, he adds, there are what-so-called as “central character, who is relevant to every event in the story” 1965:17. This central characters convey
variety of things within the story and through their experiences, the events depicted become relevant. According to Stanton, an author uses several methods to make the
readers “understand his characters and their motivations”. The author may explicitly describe a character’s traits or elaborate it through the speech, actions,
and behavior 1965:18. All characters in a literary work have characteristics. Abrams includes “the
character’s temperament, desires and moral nature for their speech and action” 1993:191 as the characteristic of a character. The ‘particular ground’ of those
things is called ‘motivation’ 1993:191. It can be assumed that the motivation makes a character in the story act in a particular way so that character can be
distinguished one from another. Another term used in this theory is characterization. According to Rohrberger
and Woods, “characterization is the process in creating a character” 1971:20. In
describing a character, the author applies some ways in order to make the reader fully understand about the character and his or her characteristics. Related to that,
M.J. Murphy stated that there are several ways in which an author attempts to make his characters or her characters understandable to, and come alive for his readers or
her readers so the readers can know what kind of a person he or she is. They are personal description, character as seen by another, speech, past life, conversation of
others, reaction, direct comment, thoughts, and mannerisms 1972:161-173. However, in this study, the writer only applies some of the ways stated before as
Mitch Albom, the author of The Time Keeper, uses only some of the ways in describing all characters in the novel. Below are the elaboration of ways of
describing a character: a.
Personal description: the author describes physical appearances and clothes of a character through direct explanation.
b. Character as seen by another: the author defines a character from the eyes and
opinions of another. c.
Speech: the author describes a character through what he or she says. d.
Past life: the author describes a character by giving a clue about his or her past life.
e. Conversation of others: the author defines a character from the conversation of
others and what they say about the character. f.
Reactions: the author describes a character by through his or her reactions to various situations and events.
g. Direct comment: the author defines a character through direct comment.
