Analysis of the Portrayal of the Protagonist of Jodi Picoult's House Rules.
ABSTRACT
Penggambaran dari sebuah karakter dalam karya sastra muncul sebagai
hasil imajinasi sang penulis. Inspirasi penggambaran karakter dapat berasal dari
mana saja. Hal tersebut dapat juga muncul dari imajinasi dari sebuah karakter
yang memiliki karakteristik unik yang sebelumnya belum pernah terpikirkan atau
jarang ditemukan.
Penggambaran karakter semacam ini dapat ditemukan dalam karakter
Jacob Hunt pada novel House Rules karya Jodi Picoult. Jacob Hunt adalah
seorang remaja pengidap Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) yang merupakan semacam
kelainan autistik tetapi masih belum banyak diketahui oleh banyak orang.
Kelainan ini menyebabkan Jacob dipandang sebagai pribadi yang kaku, tidak
sensitif, agresif dan obsesif oleh orang-orang normal di sekelilingnya.
Karakteristik-karakteristik
ini
diberikan
kepada
Jacob
oleh
orang-orang
sekelilingnya karena mereka tidak cukup tahu tentang Asperger’s Syndrome dan
apa penyebab sebenarnya serta bagaimana cara menghadapinya. Jacob
dianggap memiliki karakteristik-karakteristik yang negatif dan berpotensi
menimbulkan bahaya karena pada saat itu Jacob menjadi tersangka dalam
kematian Jess Ogivly. Jacob dianggap tidak bersikap kooperatif dan kecurigaan
bermunculan yang bermula dari serangkaian investigasi yang dilakukan oleh
pihak yang berwenang sampai pada persidangan sehingga menimbulkan
prasangka buruk dari orang-orang di sekitarnya. Sang Novelis memberikan
ilustrasi nyata bahwa sistem peradilan akan menemukan kesulitan saat mereka
ii
Maranatha Christian University
berhadapan dengan seseorang dengan Asperger’s Syndrome. Minimnya
pengetahuan tentang kelainan ini menyebabkan kesulitan dalam memproses dan
memutuskan apakah seseorang dapat dianggap bersalah atau tidak.
iii
Maranatha Christian University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................
i
ABSTRACT ......................................................................................... ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ................................................................
Statement of the Problem ...............................................................
Purpose of the Study ......................................................................
Method of Research .......................................................................
Organization of the Thesis ..............................................................
1
3
3
3
4
CHAPTER TWO: ANALYSIS OF THE PORTRAYAL OF THE PROTAGONIST OF JODI PICOULT’S HOUSE RULES .................... 5
CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSION .................................................... 17
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................. 21
APPENDICES
Summary of House Rules ............................................................... 22
Biography of the Author ................................................................. 23
i
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Jodi Picoult is an American novelist who is famous for her writings which
mainly discuss issues which involve human emotion and complex problems in
their relations. Her first novel, Songs of Humpback Whale, was published in
1992. Other famous works are My Sister’s Keeper (2004), Handle With Care
(2009), Second Glance (2003), Perfect Match (2002), Keeping Faith (1999) and
House Rules (2010). Jodi Picoult has received praises from senior writers like
Stephen King, who states that “Picoult writes with unassuming brilliance” (“Jodi
Picoult”) and they are often listed as best sellers in famous newspaper reviews
such as the USA Today and the New York Times review.
The book discussed in this thesis is one of Picoult’s bestselling novels,
House Rules. House Rules is a novel which tells about a boy named Jacob Hunt
who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a highly functional form of
autism that limits social interaction. In order to make Jacob able to live normally
with other people and be accepted, his mother, Emma Hunt, hires Jessica “Jess”
Ogivly to improve Jacob’s social skills. Unfortunately, things are getting
complicated for Jacob and his mother when Jacob is accused of murdering Jess.
With his limitation in reading social cues, Jacob tries to understand the situation
1
Maranatha Christian University
and fights his way to get approval and understanding from his neighbors who
generally have negative image on him. Picoult manages to bring the reader to
understand the situation the main characters face by writing this novel in the
perspective of all the main characters. She also gives detailed emotion of each of
the characters, especially Jacob, a person with Asperger’s Syndrome.
The main reason for me to choose this novel is that the novelist manages
to tell the reader and explain to them about Asperger’s Syndrome, which is
classified as an “Autistic spectrum disorder which has intellectual capacity within
the normal range, but has a distinct profile of abilities that has been apparent
since early childhood . . . such as a qualitative impairment in social interaction, in
subtle communication skills and restrictive interests” (Attwood). This means a
person with Asperger’s Syndrome has the same intelligence as a normal person
but lacks social ability such as to communicate and understand emotion well as
can be seen in the daily life and behaviour of Jacob Hunt.
The strength of this novel is the way the author describes Asperger’s
Syndrome through the portrayal of Jacob Hunt, the protagonist. A protagonist is
“simply the central character, the one whose struggles we follow with interest,
whether he or she be good or bad, sympathetic or repulsive” (Perrine 44). In this
analysis, I want to show the characteristics of the protagonist and also the
purpose of the author in creating such characters. That is why I am interested in
analysing the portrayal of the protagonist in House Rules.
The character of Jacob is far from the ideal image of a good normal person
because he is suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome. The author creates such a
character to make the reader understand more about people with Asperger’s
Syndrome. Although Jacob seems normal, sometimes he behaves differently
from normal people. This makes Jacob as an interesting character to be
analyzed. The protagonist or the main character of a literary work is the most
2
Maranatha Christian University
attractive one. “Maybe the protagonist does not always have the good virtue but
he/she needs to have compensatory value to his/her mistakes or bad behaviour
so that the readers can imagine themselves in the position of the protagonist and
satisfy their ego" (67-68). Although the character of Jacob is far from the image of
a perfect person, by reading the story from the beginning to the end, the reader
develops the feeling of sympathy towards Jacob because of his disability which
makes him unable to interact well with his surrounding.
Statement of the Problem
The problems that I am going to discuss in this thesis are as follows:
1. How does the author portray the protagonist in the novel?
2. What is the purpose of the author in creating such a character?
Purpose of the Study
The analysis of the protagonist of House Rules in this thesis has two purposes:
1.
To show how the protagonist is portrayed in the novel
2.
To show the purpose of creating such a character
Method of Research
To analyze the novel, I use library research. First, I read the novel, House
Rules and then I start to analyze the novel using formalism. I take some
references and resources from the books in the library and from various sources
as well as from the Internet to support my analysis of the novel and finally present
my conclusion.
3
Maranatha Christian University
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of three chapters preceded by the Table of Contents
and the Abstract. In Chapter One, I present the Background of the Study, the
Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research and
the Organization of the Thesis. In Chapter Two, I analyse the portrayal of the
protagonist of House Rules. Chapter Three is the Conclusion of the thesis. It is
followed by the Bibliography and the Appendices, which include the summary of
the novel and the biography of the novelist.
4
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER THREE
CONCLUSION
After analysing Jodi Picoult’s House Rules, I come to some conclusions.
From the beginning, the novel tells a story about Jacob Hunt, a boy who suffers
from Asperger’s Syndrome which makes him different from other boys of his age.
Jacob is seen as a rigid, insensitive, agressive and obsessive person by his
surrounding because of the syndrome which causes him to have problems with
his social skills so society tends to misjudge him. His limitation as an Asperger’s
also brings him to the situation which makes his life more complicated, namely as
the suspect of Jess’s murder.
People have seen the rigidity of Jacob through the fact that Jacob obeys
the rules and concentrates on things he loves. It is caused by the brain defect in
every Asperger’s Syndrome’s sufferer. According to Jacob, he himself is not a
rigid person. For him, every action is basically about obeying the rules which
have been taught earlier. For a person with Asperger’s Syndrome, obeying rules
is easy as for them the world is simply black and white without any exaggerated
expressions including the House Rules which may place him in difficult situations.
In relation to his rigidity, his surrounding sees Jacob as an insensitive
person. He is only sensitive to the things that really affect him. He measures
17
Maranatha Christian University
everything from his own perspective and through his inability to understand and
express emotion which is caused by impaired ability to identify social cues.
Jacob’s wrong expression makes people think that he is insensitive and capable
of committing a murder as we can see through his laughter while Dr. Nussbaum
seriously explains the autopsy of Jess’s death in the court and also when he does
not show his sadness when his mother says that Jess is dead. However, this
characteristic actually comes as a result of his inability to sense any emotion and
his brain is incapable of interpreting it. He simply does not understand what is
emotion. Only few people around him who understand his limitation in
communication.
Jacob is also seen as an aggressive person since he cannot express
himself properly in his communication especially when the plans are changed
and when he faces things that he cannot stand. For example, when Jacob
assaults Mimi, his classmate, because he feels that she breaks the rules, and
when he shows his tantrum because of he cannot watch CrimeBuster TV shows
which Jacob regularly watch or when he is touched by his cellmate who has red
head while in the prison. On the other hand, he is not aggressive. For Jacob, it is
just a normal response towards a set of things he dislikes and whenever a rule is
broken. His being aggressive does not mean that he is violent; he just reacts to
the rules and the routine that has been changed or whenever he feels that people
break the rules.
Jacob is also seen as an obsessive person when his surrounding notice the
notes that are found as the evidence of Jess’ death. Jacob writes down the
analysis of the crime scene which is similar to Jess’s crime scene and he puts the
notes into practice by re-arranging Jess’s crime scene based on one of the
episodes of CrimeBuster TV show. Jacob does all these things without drama; he
simply loves such things very much. What makes people regard him as an
18
Maranatha Christian University
obsessive person is his focus on detail instead of the big picture of a thing which
means he only thinks about detail such as the crime scene without thinking of the
consequences as the big picture. Because of his obsession, Jacob’s surrounding
considers him a cold-blooded murderer.
Jacob’s impairment makes people assume that Jacob might have killed
Jess. The author creates such a protagonist to show to the reader the real
condition of a child with Asperger’s Syndrome. Due to his illness, he will always
be blamed by society. Thus society who does not have enough knowledge on
Asperger’s will consider Asperger’s Syndrome as a mental illness instead of
physical disfunction. The fact is that Asperger’s can also caused by birth defect
whereas mental illness is emotional disfunction triggered by pressure from
outside and can happen on normal people who have normal brain function.
The author succesfully fulfills her purposes of writing this novel. The first
purpose is to give the reader a clear description of the characteristics of a person
with Asperger’s Syndrome by using multiperspective points of view to explain
Jacob’s feeling and the people around him in detail and the second purpose is to
give illustration of what will happen to Asperger’s if he or she is involved in a
situation dealing with law enforcement community such as the police and the trial
through Jacob’s story. Picoult wants to convey to the reader that one will have
prejudice when one do not have enough undertstanding of Asperger’s, one tends
to blame them because they do not understand them.
In the end, after reading and analysing this novel, I would like to say that
we can learn much about Asperger’s Syndrome from this novel. People with
Asperger’s cannot interact well with society because of their limits through
emotional understanding while emotion is important in socializing with other
people. People with Asperger’s Syndrome will only react to unambiguous things.
They have patterns and rules inside their heads and they live according to the
19
Maranatha Christian University
rules which have been taught to them which they will hold firmly. It is not easy for
them to face pattern changes. If the patterns change suddenly, they will respond
by, for example releasing tantrum. Tantrum is a normal form of response that
appears when they cannot control the situation.
In a bigger picture, Jacob simply lives differently from normal people and
they should not be perceived as bad or wicked people because they can hardly
understand emotion which are essential in social life and as the novelist reveals
“being different is not synonymous with being bad” (547).
20
Maranatha Christian University
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Text:
Picoult, Jodi. House Rules. New York: Atria International, 2010. Print.
References:
“About the author – her life & work.” JodiPicoult.com. 2015. Web. 28 Jan. 2015.
“Aggressive.” Longman Dictionary. 2nd ed. 2001. Print.
Attwood, Tony. “What is Asperger’s Syndrome?” Oasis @ MAAP. MAAP Services,
2005. Web. 28 Feb 2014.
“Insensitive.” Oxford American Dictionary. 3rd ed. 2011. Print.
“Jodi Picoult.” Book Stephen King Recommends Discussion. Goodreads Inc,
2014. Web. 19 May 2014.
Koss, Melanie D. “Young Adult Novels with Multiple Narrative Perspective: The
Changing Nature WA Literature.” The ALAN Review (2009). 74.
ViginiaTech eJournals. Web. 7 Dec 2014.
“NYT Bestselling Author.” Biographical Sketch. Jodi Picoult, 2014. Web. 6 May
2014.
“Obsessive.” Oxford American Dictionary. 3rd ed. 2011. Print.
Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. 4th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Inc. 1974. Print.
“Rigid.” Oxford American Dictionary. 3rd ed. 2011. Print.
21
Maranatha Christian University
Penggambaran dari sebuah karakter dalam karya sastra muncul sebagai
hasil imajinasi sang penulis. Inspirasi penggambaran karakter dapat berasal dari
mana saja. Hal tersebut dapat juga muncul dari imajinasi dari sebuah karakter
yang memiliki karakteristik unik yang sebelumnya belum pernah terpikirkan atau
jarang ditemukan.
Penggambaran karakter semacam ini dapat ditemukan dalam karakter
Jacob Hunt pada novel House Rules karya Jodi Picoult. Jacob Hunt adalah
seorang remaja pengidap Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) yang merupakan semacam
kelainan autistik tetapi masih belum banyak diketahui oleh banyak orang.
Kelainan ini menyebabkan Jacob dipandang sebagai pribadi yang kaku, tidak
sensitif, agresif dan obsesif oleh orang-orang normal di sekelilingnya.
Karakteristik-karakteristik
ini
diberikan
kepada
Jacob
oleh
orang-orang
sekelilingnya karena mereka tidak cukup tahu tentang Asperger’s Syndrome dan
apa penyebab sebenarnya serta bagaimana cara menghadapinya. Jacob
dianggap memiliki karakteristik-karakteristik yang negatif dan berpotensi
menimbulkan bahaya karena pada saat itu Jacob menjadi tersangka dalam
kematian Jess Ogivly. Jacob dianggap tidak bersikap kooperatif dan kecurigaan
bermunculan yang bermula dari serangkaian investigasi yang dilakukan oleh
pihak yang berwenang sampai pada persidangan sehingga menimbulkan
prasangka buruk dari orang-orang di sekitarnya. Sang Novelis memberikan
ilustrasi nyata bahwa sistem peradilan akan menemukan kesulitan saat mereka
ii
Maranatha Christian University
berhadapan dengan seseorang dengan Asperger’s Syndrome. Minimnya
pengetahuan tentang kelainan ini menyebabkan kesulitan dalam memproses dan
memutuskan apakah seseorang dapat dianggap bersalah atau tidak.
iii
Maranatha Christian University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................
i
ABSTRACT ......................................................................................... ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ................................................................
Statement of the Problem ...............................................................
Purpose of the Study ......................................................................
Method of Research .......................................................................
Organization of the Thesis ..............................................................
1
3
3
3
4
CHAPTER TWO: ANALYSIS OF THE PORTRAYAL OF THE PROTAGONIST OF JODI PICOULT’S HOUSE RULES .................... 5
CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSION .................................................... 17
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................. 21
APPENDICES
Summary of House Rules ............................................................... 22
Biography of the Author ................................................................. 23
i
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Jodi Picoult is an American novelist who is famous for her writings which
mainly discuss issues which involve human emotion and complex problems in
their relations. Her first novel, Songs of Humpback Whale, was published in
1992. Other famous works are My Sister’s Keeper (2004), Handle With Care
(2009), Second Glance (2003), Perfect Match (2002), Keeping Faith (1999) and
House Rules (2010). Jodi Picoult has received praises from senior writers like
Stephen King, who states that “Picoult writes with unassuming brilliance” (“Jodi
Picoult”) and they are often listed as best sellers in famous newspaper reviews
such as the USA Today and the New York Times review.
The book discussed in this thesis is one of Picoult’s bestselling novels,
House Rules. House Rules is a novel which tells about a boy named Jacob Hunt
who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a highly functional form of
autism that limits social interaction. In order to make Jacob able to live normally
with other people and be accepted, his mother, Emma Hunt, hires Jessica “Jess”
Ogivly to improve Jacob’s social skills. Unfortunately, things are getting
complicated for Jacob and his mother when Jacob is accused of murdering Jess.
With his limitation in reading social cues, Jacob tries to understand the situation
1
Maranatha Christian University
and fights his way to get approval and understanding from his neighbors who
generally have negative image on him. Picoult manages to bring the reader to
understand the situation the main characters face by writing this novel in the
perspective of all the main characters. She also gives detailed emotion of each of
the characters, especially Jacob, a person with Asperger’s Syndrome.
The main reason for me to choose this novel is that the novelist manages
to tell the reader and explain to them about Asperger’s Syndrome, which is
classified as an “Autistic spectrum disorder which has intellectual capacity within
the normal range, but has a distinct profile of abilities that has been apparent
since early childhood . . . such as a qualitative impairment in social interaction, in
subtle communication skills and restrictive interests” (Attwood). This means a
person with Asperger’s Syndrome has the same intelligence as a normal person
but lacks social ability such as to communicate and understand emotion well as
can be seen in the daily life and behaviour of Jacob Hunt.
The strength of this novel is the way the author describes Asperger’s
Syndrome through the portrayal of Jacob Hunt, the protagonist. A protagonist is
“simply the central character, the one whose struggles we follow with interest,
whether he or she be good or bad, sympathetic or repulsive” (Perrine 44). In this
analysis, I want to show the characteristics of the protagonist and also the
purpose of the author in creating such characters. That is why I am interested in
analysing the portrayal of the protagonist in House Rules.
The character of Jacob is far from the ideal image of a good normal person
because he is suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome. The author creates such a
character to make the reader understand more about people with Asperger’s
Syndrome. Although Jacob seems normal, sometimes he behaves differently
from normal people. This makes Jacob as an interesting character to be
analyzed. The protagonist or the main character of a literary work is the most
2
Maranatha Christian University
attractive one. “Maybe the protagonist does not always have the good virtue but
he/she needs to have compensatory value to his/her mistakes or bad behaviour
so that the readers can imagine themselves in the position of the protagonist and
satisfy their ego" (67-68). Although the character of Jacob is far from the image of
a perfect person, by reading the story from the beginning to the end, the reader
develops the feeling of sympathy towards Jacob because of his disability which
makes him unable to interact well with his surrounding.
Statement of the Problem
The problems that I am going to discuss in this thesis are as follows:
1. How does the author portray the protagonist in the novel?
2. What is the purpose of the author in creating such a character?
Purpose of the Study
The analysis of the protagonist of House Rules in this thesis has two purposes:
1.
To show how the protagonist is portrayed in the novel
2.
To show the purpose of creating such a character
Method of Research
To analyze the novel, I use library research. First, I read the novel, House
Rules and then I start to analyze the novel using formalism. I take some
references and resources from the books in the library and from various sources
as well as from the Internet to support my analysis of the novel and finally present
my conclusion.
3
Maranatha Christian University
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of three chapters preceded by the Table of Contents
and the Abstract. In Chapter One, I present the Background of the Study, the
Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research and
the Organization of the Thesis. In Chapter Two, I analyse the portrayal of the
protagonist of House Rules. Chapter Three is the Conclusion of the thesis. It is
followed by the Bibliography and the Appendices, which include the summary of
the novel and the biography of the novelist.
4
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER THREE
CONCLUSION
After analysing Jodi Picoult’s House Rules, I come to some conclusions.
From the beginning, the novel tells a story about Jacob Hunt, a boy who suffers
from Asperger’s Syndrome which makes him different from other boys of his age.
Jacob is seen as a rigid, insensitive, agressive and obsessive person by his
surrounding because of the syndrome which causes him to have problems with
his social skills so society tends to misjudge him. His limitation as an Asperger’s
also brings him to the situation which makes his life more complicated, namely as
the suspect of Jess’s murder.
People have seen the rigidity of Jacob through the fact that Jacob obeys
the rules and concentrates on things he loves. It is caused by the brain defect in
every Asperger’s Syndrome’s sufferer. According to Jacob, he himself is not a
rigid person. For him, every action is basically about obeying the rules which
have been taught earlier. For a person with Asperger’s Syndrome, obeying rules
is easy as for them the world is simply black and white without any exaggerated
expressions including the House Rules which may place him in difficult situations.
In relation to his rigidity, his surrounding sees Jacob as an insensitive
person. He is only sensitive to the things that really affect him. He measures
17
Maranatha Christian University
everything from his own perspective and through his inability to understand and
express emotion which is caused by impaired ability to identify social cues.
Jacob’s wrong expression makes people think that he is insensitive and capable
of committing a murder as we can see through his laughter while Dr. Nussbaum
seriously explains the autopsy of Jess’s death in the court and also when he does
not show his sadness when his mother says that Jess is dead. However, this
characteristic actually comes as a result of his inability to sense any emotion and
his brain is incapable of interpreting it. He simply does not understand what is
emotion. Only few people around him who understand his limitation in
communication.
Jacob is also seen as an aggressive person since he cannot express
himself properly in his communication especially when the plans are changed
and when he faces things that he cannot stand. For example, when Jacob
assaults Mimi, his classmate, because he feels that she breaks the rules, and
when he shows his tantrum because of he cannot watch CrimeBuster TV shows
which Jacob regularly watch or when he is touched by his cellmate who has red
head while in the prison. On the other hand, he is not aggressive. For Jacob, it is
just a normal response towards a set of things he dislikes and whenever a rule is
broken. His being aggressive does not mean that he is violent; he just reacts to
the rules and the routine that has been changed or whenever he feels that people
break the rules.
Jacob is also seen as an obsessive person when his surrounding notice the
notes that are found as the evidence of Jess’ death. Jacob writes down the
analysis of the crime scene which is similar to Jess’s crime scene and he puts the
notes into practice by re-arranging Jess’s crime scene based on one of the
episodes of CrimeBuster TV show. Jacob does all these things without drama; he
simply loves such things very much. What makes people regard him as an
18
Maranatha Christian University
obsessive person is his focus on detail instead of the big picture of a thing which
means he only thinks about detail such as the crime scene without thinking of the
consequences as the big picture. Because of his obsession, Jacob’s surrounding
considers him a cold-blooded murderer.
Jacob’s impairment makes people assume that Jacob might have killed
Jess. The author creates such a protagonist to show to the reader the real
condition of a child with Asperger’s Syndrome. Due to his illness, he will always
be blamed by society. Thus society who does not have enough knowledge on
Asperger’s will consider Asperger’s Syndrome as a mental illness instead of
physical disfunction. The fact is that Asperger’s can also caused by birth defect
whereas mental illness is emotional disfunction triggered by pressure from
outside and can happen on normal people who have normal brain function.
The author succesfully fulfills her purposes of writing this novel. The first
purpose is to give the reader a clear description of the characteristics of a person
with Asperger’s Syndrome by using multiperspective points of view to explain
Jacob’s feeling and the people around him in detail and the second purpose is to
give illustration of what will happen to Asperger’s if he or she is involved in a
situation dealing with law enforcement community such as the police and the trial
through Jacob’s story. Picoult wants to convey to the reader that one will have
prejudice when one do not have enough undertstanding of Asperger’s, one tends
to blame them because they do not understand them.
In the end, after reading and analysing this novel, I would like to say that
we can learn much about Asperger’s Syndrome from this novel. People with
Asperger’s cannot interact well with society because of their limits through
emotional understanding while emotion is important in socializing with other
people. People with Asperger’s Syndrome will only react to unambiguous things.
They have patterns and rules inside their heads and they live according to the
19
Maranatha Christian University
rules which have been taught to them which they will hold firmly. It is not easy for
them to face pattern changes. If the patterns change suddenly, they will respond
by, for example releasing tantrum. Tantrum is a normal form of response that
appears when they cannot control the situation.
In a bigger picture, Jacob simply lives differently from normal people and
they should not be perceived as bad or wicked people because they can hardly
understand emotion which are essential in social life and as the novelist reveals
“being different is not synonymous with being bad” (547).
20
Maranatha Christian University
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Text:
Picoult, Jodi. House Rules. New York: Atria International, 2010. Print.
References:
“About the author – her life & work.” JodiPicoult.com. 2015. Web. 28 Jan. 2015.
“Aggressive.” Longman Dictionary. 2nd ed. 2001. Print.
Attwood, Tony. “What is Asperger’s Syndrome?” Oasis @ MAAP. MAAP Services,
2005. Web. 28 Feb 2014.
“Insensitive.” Oxford American Dictionary. 3rd ed. 2011. Print.
“Jodi Picoult.” Book Stephen King Recommends Discussion. Goodreads Inc,
2014. Web. 19 May 2014.
Koss, Melanie D. “Young Adult Novels with Multiple Narrative Perspective: The
Changing Nature WA Literature.” The ALAN Review (2009). 74.
ViginiaTech eJournals. Web. 7 Dec 2014.
“NYT Bestselling Author.” Biographical Sketch. Jodi Picoult, 2014. Web. 6 May
2014.
“Obsessive.” Oxford American Dictionary. 3rd ed. 2011. Print.
Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. 4th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Inc. 1974. Print.
“Rigid.” Oxford American Dictionary. 3rd ed. 2011. Print.
21
Maranatha Christian University