Benefits of the Study

8 experiences intra-personal and interpersonal conflicts in the story, he also determines how the character solves her conflicts. Both of the work focuses on the characters of the novel, although they use different light to raise the focus. On her study, Ningrum discusses the practice of racism and how it reflects the real social condition of American at that time, while Saliro raises conflicts to describe the characteristics of Darby Shaw. However, there has not been a single study analysing The Rainmaker novel. Pringle 2007 also reviews the work of John Grisham in Revisiting John Grisham: A Critical Companion , a follow-up to John Grisham: A Critical Companion published by Greenwood in 1997. Though briefly, Pringle discusses that John Grisham focuses on heroes in a chaotic and meaningless modern world. Like much so- called serious modern literature, several of John Grisham’s novels —especially A Time to Kill, The Firm, The Rainmaker, and now The Brethren —lend themselves to existentialist readings. In The Rainmaker, Grisham targets corporate greed of a medical insurance company p. xx. By the time Grisham published The Rainmaker 1995, he seemed less assured that a single hero could put a dent in the world’s wickedness or bring down evil institutions. Discussing irony is not a new thing in the ground of English department, both in education or literature department. The latest study of irony is presented by Suzanna 2007. Raising the topic of Irony in the Main Characters Seen from Feminist Perspective to Reveal the Theme in Philippa Gregory’s Perfectly Correct , Suzanna raises the relation between the main characters, ironies and the theme of the novel. As for plot which the researcher will relate to the irony to, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 9 Estiningtyas 2015 explores it on The Significance of Dobby in the Plot of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Out of all the studies, the most similar study to the one the researcher discusses is the one written by Wibowo in 2001. Analysing irony of both the characters and story used in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Wibowo relates it to the messages the novel conveys which becomes the only difference compared to this study. This study is expected to be a complement to other studies for it discusses relation between irony and the plot of story. For this study is the first study in Sanata Dharma University focusing on The Rainmaker – this study offers new perspective and understanding of both the irony and the story. Therefore, in order to support the analysis, the writer uses theories of irony and theories on plot.

B. Review of Related Theories

In this part, there are the theories to be used in analysing the novel, namely theory on irony and theory on plot. The writer adopted several theories which are closely related to analysis.

1. Theories of Irony

In this section, the researcher discusses theories of irony brought forward by the experts. The researcher elaborates the definitions and types of irony which are discussed into separate headings. The two parts are both essential to further analyse irony in the story deeply.