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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS
This chapter elaborates the answers of the problem formulated in chapter one. The analysis is divided into two parts. The first part discusses about Richard
Winters’ characteristic. The second part discusses about the meanings of Richard Dick Winters’ actions during his military service.
A. The Description of Richard Winters’ Characteristic
Character and characterization are some of the important parts of the novel. Based on the theory of Abram 1985, the character is a person who seen in the
book that is takes action and dialogue. After that, according to Henkle 1977 theory, the writer inferred in Band of Brothers Richard Dick Winters is the major
character who had an important role, and the readers build and expect him to lead his men well during the war. Winters become the main character, although the
novel does not mainly focus on him, but in each chapter his roles appeared. Some theories are used in this study to understand and help the writer in
going deeper analyze the character of Richard Winters. One of the theories employed is characterization theory to elaborate. As explained in the chapter two
before, Murphy 1972 believes that there are nine ways for showing the characters of the novel. Richard Winters has many characteristics; namely hard-
working, kind, humble, self-confident, spiritual, wise, caring and decisive. Based on the book, basically Richard Winters is a good person. The kindness has been
reinforced by the conflict between Winters and his ranking officer. The conflict
25 makes Winters to be more independent and affects Winters to be a good leader
and know better how to solve conflicts.
1. Hard-working
Richard Dick Winters is a hard-working soldier, although he is only a volunteer for the army in World War II. He has a great his willingness to serve his
country. He joins the army in order to gain the positive experiences on it. So, he joins the Easy Company during in World War II as a paratrooper. Luckily, Easy
Company is handled by a strict commander, who forces Winters to give his maximum ability during the basic training. This condition enables Winters get to a
great experiences. Each man in his own way had gone through what Richard Winters
experienced: a realization that doing his best was a better way of getting through the army than hanging around with the sad excuses for soldiers
they met in the recruiting depots or basic training. They wanted to make their army time positive, learning and maturing and challenging experience
p. 16.
The text above shows that he is hardworking a soldier. He joins the army without compulsion. During his career in the army, he does his best as he could.
This character is analyzed based on Murphy’s 1972 theory of characterization. It is derived from the speech p.164.
2. Kind
One of the interesting points of Winters’ character is his kindness. Kind, in this context, does not mean that he is a weak person. However, it refers to the way
he handles himself, who at the time has a conflict with his ranking officer. The conflict between Winters and his company commander, Capt. Sobel, makes the
condition of Easy Company unstable.