appear in a certain setting and become the background for the major characters. Their actions are less important because they are not fully developed characters
and their roles in a story are just to support the development of the main character.
2. The Critical Approach
According to Rohrberger and Woods, Jr. 3 in their book, Reading and Writing about Literature, every literary work has an aesthetic value. After reading
a literary work, the readers will be able to respond to its aesthetic values. The response to literature as an art form is called as esthetic response. To find out the
aesthetic value, a critical approach has role to help the reader understand the nature, function, and positive values of the literary work. It facilitates the readers
to give reasonable judgment of the literary work. Rohrberger and Woods, Jr. 6-13 propose five critical approaches. They are
formalist approach, biographical approach, sociocultural-historical approach, mythopoeic approach, and psychological approach. The first approach is the
formalist approach. It focuses on the total integrity of the literary piece itself and its esthetic value. This approach also concerns with the harmonious involvement
of all the parts to the whole and pointing out the derivation of the meaning from its structure and the determination techniques of the structure.
The second approach is the biographical approach. In this approach, the author’s personality, life, and development have influence on his writing. It means
that the work of art is the reflection of author’s ideas and personalities. The readers can gain more understanding on the literary work by learning about the
life and the development of the author.
The third approach is the sociocultural-historical approach. In this approach, social, cultural, and historical aspect have contributions to the author in producing
the work. By using this approach, we will know the social condition and historical background at that time.
The fourth approach is the mythopoeic approach. It emphasizes on discovering certain universally recurrent patterns of human thoughts in the work
of art. They often concern about death and rebirth, guilt and sacrifices, primitive rites, and theological aspect of Christian doctrine, which are found in the ancient
myth and folk rites. Through this approach, the mystical relationship in a story can be explained.
The fifth approach is the psychological approach. This approach focuses on the human psychology. It is used to identify any aspects of psychology underlying
a certain element of a literary work. It involves efforts to locate and to demonstrate certain recurring patterns drawn from psychological knowledge.
Therefore, this approach gives a deeper understanding in analyzing character’s thought and how it influences the behavior pattern.
Not all the approaches will be applied in this study. In order to find out the description of the characters, the mother-children relationship and the motherly
love, this study will use the psychological approach. The problem formulation stated earlier is closely related to the psychology of human beings.
3. Love
