Character and Characterization Review of Related Theories

7 story. Usually the acts of the story are focused on this character from the beginning to the ending parts 20. Furthermore, Abrams states that as people presented in the story, characters have the same characteristics as real human beings. They have temperament and moral nature. Their temperament will be the basis of their speeches and actions. In the story, characters may remain constant or stable or may undergo a radical change through its development or as result of an extreme crisis in the story itself 20. In An Introduction to Fiction, Stanton states 23 that characters are the individuals who appear in the story and these individuals are resulted from mixture of interests, desires, emotions, and moral principles. He also divides a character into two: central character and minor character. A central character is a character who dominates the whole story and is presented frequently to develop. The minor character is presented to explain and to help other characters, especially the major character. While, Jacobs, in Fiction: An Introduction to Reading and Writing 501, states that character is an extended verbal representation of human being, the inner self that determines thought, speech and behavior. A character is then a person in the literary work. Murphy in his book Understanding Unseen points out nine ways in which an author attempts to present the character in the story understandable and feel like the characters are alive for the readers 161-173. They are from the personal description, the way in which the character is seen by others, the character’s speech, his past life, the conversation of others, the figure’s reactions, direct 8 comments given by the author, the character’s thought and mannerism. The explanation of each point given as follows: It is about personal description. It is the way that the author describes the physical appearance or attributes of the characters. It includes their clothes, accessories, face, skin, eyes, and look. The first is by seeing a character as seen by another. The author describes a character through the eyes and opinion of other characters and the readers will get such reflected image of the character. The second point is the speech. The readers have an insight about one’s character through his or her conversation with the other character, in which the readers are eventually able to uncover his or her opinion or view. The next point is by identifying the past life of the character. The author describes or tells the past life of a character. This information, in turn, helps the readers to know and understand the events that have helped to shape the character. Using conversations of others in the novel is the other points. It is the way in which the author gives the readers clues about one’s character through the conversation of the others about him or her. The next point is the reactions which occur in the novel. By describing the reaction of a character to various situation or events, the author gives the readers clues to know his or her characters. Direct comments and thoughts are also considered as the points to reveal the characterization. Direct comments show that the author describes or comments on one’s character directly. While by seeing thoughts, we can identify that the author gives the readers direct knowledge of what a character is thinking about. 9 The last point is Mannerism. It gives us explanation that the author portrays a character’s mannerism, habits, and idiosyncrasies, which may tell the readers his or her character. In Reading and Writing About Literature, Rohrberger and Woods 81 explain that characterization is the process by which an author creates character, the devices by which heshe makes the reader believe that a character is a particular type of a person heshe is.

2.1.2 Theory of Critical Approach

Reading a novel can make us know about life, human beings, and their development. When we read a novel, we cannot ignore the elements of the novel such as, characters, plot, setting, theme, dialogue, symbolism, language style and the other elements, which can guide the reader to know the real theme of the story. That is why understanding these elements is very important. Rohrberger and Woods 6-15 state that there are five critical approaches which can be implemented in analyzing the work of literature. We need to employ these approaches in order to have a reasonable point of view. It is because by using these approaches, we can understand better on how the literature is shaped and what the literature means. The first is formalist approach which is based on the total integrity of the work of art. It focuses on the aesthetical value. They concern on demonstrating the harmony’s involvement of all the parts to the whole and on pointing out how meaning is derived from structure and how matters of technique determined structure 6-7. 10 The second is biographical approach, which has the main idea that a work of art is a reflection of the author personality. Therefore, readers need to know about the author’s life and development to understand the author’s writings. Biographical materials also provide useful facts that could put readers in a better position to understand and appreciate the literary objects 7-8. The third approach is Sociocultural-Historical approach. Rohrberger and Woods 9 state, “Critics whose major interest is the Sociocultural-historical approach insist that the only way to locate the real work is in reference to the civilization that produced it”. It means that in order to analyze and understand a literary work we need to analyze and to understand the social background and the historical background when the literary works are produced. What happens in the society, in the time the literary work is produced, influence the understanding of the story. By knowing the Sociocultural-historical and historical background, the proponents will get the meaning of the story and can give the esthetical response to it. The next approach is mythopoeic approach. This approach tries to discover certain recurrent patterns, to find expression in significant works of art. The universal recurrent patterns are found in first expression in ancient myths and folk rites of human thought that have meaning for all men 11-12. The last is psychological approach which involves the efforts to locate and demonstrate certain recurrent pattern. This approach uses various theories of psychology in order to understand and explain the character’s personality in a