Moral lessons revealed through the Alienated Characters in Mitch Albom`s the Time Keeper.

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ABSTRACT

VALENTINUS JAROT BUDI W. Moral Lessons Revealed through the Alienated Characters in Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2016.

This study analyses one of the novels written by Mitch Albom entitled The Time Keeper. The writer sought for implied moral lessons which are revealed through the alienated characters. To discuss the topic, the writer focuses on two main characters undergoing the sense of alienation, Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte. The novel itself is about the characters who tell the readers to appreciate time by seeing through their life experiences.

To analyze the novel, two problems are formulated. The first problem deals with how Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte, who are alienated, appreciate their lifetime. The second one is about the moral lessons which are revealed through their experiences of being alienated.

In conducting the study, moral philosophical approach is employed. A library research, in addition, is used for collecting the data gained from various books, encyclopedias, and other printed references. Theory of Characters and Characterization, Theory of Moral Values, and Theory of Alienation are also required in discussing the two problems.

Referring to the problem formulation, the result of the study is divided into two parts. The first one deals with each character’s characterization, their experiences of being alienated, and how this alienation influence the way they appreciate their lifetime. This result shows that because of the alienation, Sarah tries to end her suffering by cutting off her lifetime by committing suicide, while Victor refuses to die of the kidney failure and choose any possible methods to prolong his lifetime. Their ways of dealing with the alienation they are experiencing imply some moral lessons readers might be able to draw from the story. The first moral lesson is about how life should be appreciated before it is too late. Both Sarah and Victor’s experiences depict that they are too busy trying to seek for something in the future, while in fact, they should be able to cherish their present moments. The writer also finds out that the story convey the lesson to avoid putting fame and wealth as the most important things in life. There might be some invisible things which are in fact, more valuable than these two, such as family. Moreover, every individual is expected to be the way they are, without attempting to change any of it to be liked by other people. This way, everyone can be thankful for what they have and are able to appreciate what they are given.

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ABSTRAK

VALENTINUS JAROT BUDI W. Moral Lessons Revealed through the Alienated Characters in Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2016.

Skripsi ini membahas salah satu novel karya Mitch Albom yang berjudul

The Time Keeper. Penulis menganalisa pesan moral yang direpresentasikan oleh tokoh utama yang mengalami alienasi. Dalam pembahasan topik, penulis fokus pada dua tokoh utama yang mengalami alienasi, yaitu Sarah Lemon dan Victor Delamonte. Novel ini mengarahkan pembaca untuk menghargai waktu setelah membaca pengalaman hidup kedua tokoh yang digambarkan.

Ada dua rumusan masalah yang digunakan dalam menganalisis novel ini. Permasalahan pertama membahas tentang pandangan mengenai waktu yang disampaikan melalui Sarah Lemon dan Victor Delamonte yang teralienasi. Permasalahan kedua membahas tentang pesan moral yang didapatkan melalui pengalaman alienasi kedua tokoh tersebut.

Dalam skripsi ini, penulis menggunakan pendekatan moral filosofis. Untuk mendapatkan data dari buku, ensiklopedi, dan berbagai sumber tertulis lainnya, digunakanlah metode kepustakaan. Teori Penokohan, Teori Nilai Moral, dan Teori Alienasi juga dipergunakan dalam pembahasan kedua rumusan masalah.

Sesuai dengan perumusan masalah, hasil pembahasan juga dibedakan menjadi dua bagian. Hasil analisis yang pertama memperlihatkan penokohan kedua karakter, pengalaman alienasi mereka, serta bagaimana alienasi tersebut mempengaruhi cara pandang kedua tokoh tersebut terhadap waktu hidup mereka. Dari hasil tersebut terlihat bahwa Sarah memilih untuk mengakhiri hidupnya dengan berusaha membunuh dirinya sendiri, sedangkan Victor berusaha menghindari kematian dengan mengupayakan segala cara untuk sembuh dari penyakit gagal ginjal yang dideritanya. Melalui pengalaman kedua tokoh sebagai orang-orang yang teralienasi, pembaca dapat menarik beberapa pesan moral. Yang pertama adalah tentang menghargai waktu yang dimiliki sebelum terlambat. Sarah dan Victor digambarkan terlalu fokus pada masa yang akan datang, sehingga lupa menghargai apa yang dimiliki saat ini. Yang kedua, bahwa ketenaran dan kekayaan seharusnya tidak menjadi hal terpenting dalam hidup. Yang terakhir, setiap orang sebaiknya menjadi dirinya sendiri, karena dengan ini setiap orang akan bersyukur dengan apa yang mereka miliki dalam hidup.

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MORAL LESSONS REVEALED THROUGH

THE ALIENATED CHARACTERS

IN MITCH ALBOM’S

THE TIME KEEPER

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

VALENTINUS JAROT BUDI WICAKSONO

Student Number: 114214023

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA 2016

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MORAL LESSONS REVEALED THROUGH

THE ALIENATED CHARACTERS

IN MITCH ALBOM’S

THE TIME KEEPER

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

VALENTINUS JAROT BUDI WICAKSONO

Student Number: 114214023

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA 2016

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I have not failed,

I’ve just found 10,000

ways that won’t work.

- Thomas Alva Edison -

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This is a dedication to

My

Wonderful Wife

and

My

Forgiving Family

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the very first place, I would like to praise the Lord for without His help and

guidance I could never make this thesis complete in time. I am grateful for the

patience and the strength He gives me to finish my study despite all of the

challenges and obstacles that I have been through.

I would like to personally send my deepest gratitude toward my family. To

my beloved wife, Ni Wayan Shanti D. M., for always supporting me at my worst

time and keeping me on the ground at my best time. To my strict father, R. B. Henry

Budianto, for supporting my study financially; my melancholic mother, Susana

Luwi Hartini, for reminding me of my study all these years; and my rebellious little

sister, Anastasia Cindy Raras Anjani, for teaching me what patience really means.

My greatest thankfulness goes to my advisor, Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum., who has encouraged and helped me with his guidance so I can get a better understanding about the topic and finish the thesis quickly, and my Co-Advisor,

Dewi Widyastuti, S.Pd., M.Hum., for her correction to the mistake I made. I thank my best friends, Dika, Driya, Joshua, and Yudha for all the laughs and

hard works we shared together in campus. Without you, studying in campus would

be boring and tiresome. Last but not least, I thank all lecturers, secretariat staff,

librarians and friends in English Letters Department for all the help I have received

as a college student.

Valentinus Jarot Budi Wicaksono

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE ……….. ii

APPROVAL PAGE ……… iii

ACCEPTANCE PAGE ……….. iv

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ………... v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH vi MOTTO PAGE ……… vii

DEDICATION PAGE ………. viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ……… ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS ……… x

ABSTRACT ………. xii

ABSTRAK ………. xiii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ……….. 1

A. Background of the Study ………. 1

B. Problem Formulation ……….... 3

C. Objectives of the Study ……… 4

D. Definition of Terms ………... 4

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ……….. 6

A. Review of Related Studies ……… 6

B. Review of Related Theories ……….. 10

1. Theory of Character and Characterization……….. 10

2. Theory of Moral Values ………. 13

3. Theory of Alienation……… 14

C. Theoretical Framework ……….. 16

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ……… 19

A. Object of the Study ………... 19

B. Approach to the Study ……….. 21

C. Method of the Study ………. 21

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ……… 24

A. The Characteristics of the Alienated Characters in Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper …………..……… 24

B. Moral Lessons Revealed through the Alienated Characters in the Novel ………..……...……. 44

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CHAPTER V:CONCLUSION ……… 56

BIBLIOGRAPHY ………. 60

APPENDIX ………… 62

Summary of Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper ………. 62

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ABSTRACT

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ABSTRAK

Skripsi ini membahas salah satu novel karya Mitch Albom yang berjudul

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A.Background of the Study

As God’s creations, human beings are filled with knowledge and conscience.

Therefore, human beings can think of many ways to express their ideas and feelings.

Some of them think to pour their thoughts into the form of literature. They are what

we call authors. These people transfer what they have in their mind, society and

values in their life to the readers in order to make the readers see, hear and feel the

same way as they do.

Literature is human creation in certain time to say something or events in certain period or year. It is intended to share some idea or issue to other human beings, because the greatness of the literature work is brought out by the wisest and the most sensitive mind in the form of information, experience, knowledge or non-aesthetic values (Guerin, 1979:18).

From the quotation above, it shows that a new world which is derived from our real

world is created in form of literary works where the authors can send their

information, experience, knowledge or non-aesthetic values through them.

Reading literature will gain readers new information, pleasure and

understanding. This can be happening because the readers accepting the ideas sent

by the authors in form of literary works. It allows the readers to identify the good

and evil things so that they can understand and make the right choices in real life.

Just as Moody said:

And all of us who read literary work will find our knowledge broadened and deepened, whether in the individual, the social, the racial, or in the internal

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sphere; we shall understand the possibilities of human life, both for good and evil; we shall understand how we come to live at particular time and place, with all its pleasure and vexations and problems we shall perhaps be able to make right rather than wrong choices (1968:2-3).

There are some genres of literary works in this modern era. “The four modern

literary genres are the short story, the novel, the poem, and the play” (Rohrberger

and Woods, 1971:19). The short story is a short work of prose fiction which usually

has only a single characters while the longer one which has more characters and

developments is called the novel. The poem is a piece of writing that usually

contains figurative language. Last but not least, the drama is a piece of writing that

is usually performed in a stage.

Everything that is written in the literary works can be found in the real world.

There are characters, dialogues, setting, etc. in literature, and yet we have them in

our everyday life. It is just as Wellek and Warren said:

Literature is the reflection of human feeling toward his life. It is closely related to human experience through which we can learn the image of human beings that is expressed in written way. It can also be defined as the work of arts that represents the human life (1956:94).

From what they wrote above, it can be assumed that literature is the representation

of human life because it usually derives its content from human experiences in the

real life. It includes about how human beings socialize with another, cope their daily

problems and even sometimes think about their past and plan their future.

A literary work is a representation of the real society. A society in a literary

work, therefore, may resemble those in a real world. In a literary work, author might

describe variety of thoughts which can also be found in the reality. In a novel, the

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reality by the author. These values can also be taken from the author’s personal

experiences, which makes a novel a fiction work that is reliable in describing certain

real society. Since the characters’ experiences described by the author may be

similar to the ones experienced by the readers, these readers can draw these

character’s experiences as their own, and vice versa. This is confirmed by Rohrberger that:

Because of his own humanity, a reader is able to identify with certain characters, and because a reader performs certain actions in his own life, he is able to understand a character’s interaction with his environment. In the short story or novel, an author presents an illusion of reality which must be credible and which the reader must accept as credible (1971:19).

In every society, there is an unwritten rules applied to the people who lives in

it. It is called ethic which was derived from the Greek word ēthos which has meaning a set of moral principles, especially ones relating to or affirming a

specified group, field, or form of conduct. From ethic, people know moral which

has meaning concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the

goodness or badness of human character. Therefore, because a literary work is a

representation of the real society, there must have been moral lessons in it. That is

the reason why the writer research this topic.

B.Problem Formulation

To help analyze the thesis further, the writer uses these following questions:

1. How do the alienated characters appreciate their time in the novel?

2. What are the moral lessons revealed through the alienated characters in the

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C.Objectives of the Study

In this thesis, the writer examines moral messages conveyed through the main

characters alienated from their society seen in Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper. Therefore, the writer will perceive the society in the novel as a representation of

American’s present society. The following are the objectives.

The first objective is to discover the characteristics of the two alienated

characters revealed in Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper. The two characters have different traits, fate, social class and perception about their own life. Furthermore,

their alienation and time appreciation in daily life is analyzed to determine what

moral lessons in The Time Keeper are.

The third objective is to identify the moral lessons about life and death

through the two characters seen in the novel. As the traits of the characters revealed,

the writer can determine what the moral lessons are.

D.Definitions of Terms

In this part of thesis, some words will be defined in analyzing Mitch Albom’s

The Time Keeper. The purpose is to help the readers to have a better understanding in reading the thesis, and also to avoid ambiguities of certain selected terms. The

definitions of the following terms are taken from well-qualified books.

1. Moral Lessons

Gardner states that moral is the good for man, which rightly understood

cannot be divorced from what is good for his society and environment (1978:134).

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Edition mentions that moral is “relating to, dealing with or capable of making the distinction between right or wrong in conduct” (1983:1168).

According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the word lesson signifies “something that provides experience or information that you can learn

from and use” (2004:924).

From the definitions above, the term moral lessons simply means a good

action done by someone in a society that can be learned from and use as an example

for other people to follow.

2. Alienated Characters

Allan G. Johnson explains what the term of alienation means. He defines

alienation as a condition of being isolated and lonely in a modern society, where

production and result are more valued than joy and pleasure (1986:238).

Abrams defines that characters are the persons represented in a dramatic or

narrative work who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with particular

moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities from what they are saying and what they

are doing (1999:32-33).

In summary, it can be concluded that alienated characters can have meaning

the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work who are being isolated and

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A.Review of Related Studies

Criticisms linger on every single literary work. These discussions about

certain works of art, including literatures are important, since some critics might

provide different paradigms about the same literary work, or some literary works

done by the same author. In this part, the writer is going to encounter some of

critics’ thoughts about Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper.

The Time Keeper is a fictional novel about the relation between human beings and time. The novel consists of fable passages which mainly show the characters’

point of view about the time they are having in their lives, and how this point of

views affect them in facing the time which is “running”. Dor, the Father Time, who

was determined to count time, is banished to the present day, asked by the Creator

of time to teach two characters—alienated because of their paradigm about time,

the true meanings of time.

Mitch Albom is indeed a writer who often put his daily life events into

meaningful work of literature. The Time Keeper and his previous novel, Tuesday with Morrie, are the great examples of this. As with his previous writings, such as

The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom’s

The Time Keeper talks about life and death, and life’s greatest lessons through its fictional characters. Some writers have done their undergraduate thesis, discussing

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this matter. Cynthia Laurensia (2014:xi), in her thesis, discussed about a

character’s—Sarah Lemon, self-concept as an adolescent in Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper, which illustrates her struggles to face life, and how finally she decides to shorten her life by committing suicide. This shows how time on earth is

appreciated and how this point of view of time might finally show some life’s moral

lessons. In this thesis, she points out that society has a big role to someone in

judging the quality of themselves. Indifferent from some of his previous works, in

The Time Keeper discussed by Cynthia, Mitch Albom writes about the concept of death which is encountered by a specific character because she feels inferior and

different from her surroundings.

Alisa Widya Mutiara (2005:ix) wrote about moral lessons on death and love

which is reflected in Morrie’s characterization in Albom’s Tuesday with Morrie. In her thesis, she shows how Morrie is characterized in the novel to let readers know

every detail about him. She also points out some moral lessons Mitch Albom

learned after he talked to his old professor in some consecutive Tuesdays. Different

from one in Cynthia’s writing, death discussed by Alisa is affected by Morrie’s

views about Buddhist teachings, that death is a part of life’s circle, and that a person

should not be afraid to die once they understand this concept. Morrie, according to

this thesis, also learned about some life’s important lessons which he did after

finding out that he was dying.

In line with all negative and positive reviews about Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper, the writer agrees that most Albom’s literary works are closely related to realistic life events, which often teach people about the lessons to learn. However,

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every character in each novel has their own reasoning and background regarding

how they face their lives. In this thesis, the writer is going to concern about the

characterization of Victor Delamonte and Sarah Lemon to reveal moral lessons

conveyed by the author. These two characters have different points of view about

time they have in their lives, and how they wish to treat this time. However, despite

their different concepts of time, the writer has discovered another phenomenon in

the novel, which is alienation. These two characters are alienated from their own

lives, and hence, this alienation contributes to their ways of perceiving time in life.

Since this alienated characters are going to reveal some important lessons in life,

some previously-done undergraduate thesis and writings mentioned before can be

used as references.

B.Review of Related Theories

In order to answer the problem formulation previously stated in Chapter II,

the writer includes some theories to analyze the answers. In this subsection, the

writer explains what theories are being used one by one and where they are taken

from.

1. Theory of Character and Characterization

This theory is the mostly used theory in undergraduate thesis because

characters hold an important role in a literary work where the reader will interpreted

the messages they bring through their actions and dialogues. As stated by M.H.

Abrams, characters are the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work who

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and emotional qualities from what they are saying and what they are doing

(1999:32-33).

Robert Stanton in his book, An Introduction to Fiction states that in literary works, the term “character” commonly refers to two things. It can be the

“individuals appearing in the story” or the “moral principles that makes up each of

these individuals” (1965:17). Thus, in defining the term “character”, we may refer

to the person as an individual who is included in a society in the novel, as well as

the characteristics of these people.

In most stories, he adds, there are what-so-called as “central character, who

is relevant to every event in the story” (1965:17). This central characters convey

variety of things within the story and through their experiences, the events depicted

become relevant. According to Stanton, an author uses several methods to make the

readers “understand his characters and their motivations”. The author may

explicitly describe a character’s traits or elaborate it through the speech, actions,

and behavior (1965:18).

All characters in a literary work have characteristics. Abrams includes “the

character’s temperament, desires and moral nature for their speech and action”

(1993:191) as the characteristic of a character. The ‘particular ground’ of those

things is called ‘motivation’ (1993:191). It can be assumed that the motivation

makes a character in the story act in a particular way so that character can be

distinguished one from another.

Another term used in this theory is characterization. According to Rohrberger

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describing a character, the author applies some ways in order to make the reader

fully understand about the character and his or her characteristics. Related to that,

M.J. Murphy stated that there are several ways in which an author attempts to make

his characters or her characters understandable to, and come alive for his readers or

her readers so the readers can know what kind of a person he or she is. They are

personal description, character as seen by another, speech, past life, conversation of

others, reaction, direct comment, thoughts, and mannerisms (1972:161-173).

However, in this study, the writer only applies some of the ways stated before as

Mitch Albom, the author of The Time Keeper, uses only some of the ways in describing all characters in the novel. Below are the elaboration of ways of

describing a character:

a. Personal description: the author describes physical appearances and clothes of a

character through direct explanation.

b. Character as seen by another: the author defines a character from the eyes and

opinions of another.

c. Speech: the author describes a character through what he or she says.

d. Past life: the author describes a character by giving a clue about his or her past

life.

e. Conversation of others: the author defines a character from the conversation of

others and what they say about the character.

f. Reactions: the author describes a character by through his or her reactions to

various situations and events.

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h. Thoughts: the author defines a character by letting the readers know what he or

she is thinking about.

i. Mannerism: the author describes a character by showing his or her mannerisms

or behaviors.

2. Theory of Moral and Morality

The term moral is closely related to human manners. It, according to

Gonsalves in Right and Reason, is the term used to refer to both good and bad qualities of manners (1986:53). Moral values, thus, is defined as expression of each

one’s unique personality shown in the act of choice (1986:75). As a result, these

values reside in the acts that a person decides to do and in the results of those acts.

When a person does a certain act, there will be following judgments on

whether this action is good or bad. The way an act is judged as right or wrong, good

and evil is defined as morality (Gonsalves, 1986:53). Since every individual has a

power to do both good and evil, judging one’s manner is possible to do. According

to Titus and Keeton (1973:90), we call something right and good, in the moral

sense, if it promotes what is good or has a value for persons. Thus, a right or good

act will gain people’s affirmation, while wrong or evil deed gains people’s denial

and degradation. Morality judgment on a certain person’s act, Gonsalves adds, is

subjective. Hence, there are some grounds need to be encountered to help judging

the morality of human acts—to differentiate the good from the bad ones. Since

morality is subjective, in order to judge one’s act, subjective peculiarities must be

taken into account. Those grounds include the doer’s knowledge and consent,

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personal traits. The circumstance wherein the doer does the action also needs to be

considered (1973:53). In morality, some things are also good in nature in the sense

that they are based on natural human needs to be healthy and survive. Hence, some

naturally good deeds include sleeping, eating, drinking, and preserving one’s

health, while some naturally evil things include pain, injury, and death. Morality

focuses on the rightness or wrongness of the reason behind one’s action.

Related to moral and morality, an example is as follow. We are taught not to

tell lies; that lies are not good. This is referred as moral, our guideline to choose an

act. Since lying is not morally good, we are expected not to do it. When we decide

not to lie, we have our reason—the morality conscience, which can be either right

or wrong, good or bad.

When dealing with morality conscience, some things need to be consider, as

stated by Gonsalves (1986:55). Firstly, that morality conscience does not deal with

theoretical questions of right or wrong in general, but with the practical question,

which can be situational. For example, it is not “Why is lying wrong”, but “If I do

the thing I am thinking, will I be lying?”

Titus and Keeton add another aspect of morality, the society. It is to say that

moral is related closely to society. “An act that is right enriches and strengthens the

life of the group. An act that is wrong is one that has proved to be socially harmful

or less beneficial than its alternatives” (1973:93). Thus, morality refers to a

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3. Relation between Literature and Moral

Literary works are related to the real world. The characters in a literary work

represent those in the real world, and thus, their actions are also a representation of

human’s deeds in the real life. This way, literature contains moral teachings which

can be derived from the actions of the characters and the effects of their actions on

themselves and the society. This is in line with what is stated by Guerin in his book,

A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, that the function of literature is to teach morality and to probe philosophical issues (1979:29).

As a means to teach morality, literary works give an illustration and teachings

about the rightness and wrongness of actions engaged by the characters along the

storyline, as elaborated by Gardner in On Moral Fiction, that literature as an art is essentially and primarily moral that is life-giving moral in its process of creation

and moral in what it says (1978:15).

4. Theory of Alienation

David Karp and William C. Yoels said that everyone has their own

role-taking in attempting a successful communication in everyday life. A person, in

order to establish proper understanding between himself and the society, needs to

build a sufficient role-taking, as quoted below:

The process through which we act in awareness of others and continually adjust our own behaviors in accordance with the way they are acting depends on our distinctively human ability to role-take. In order to infer correctly the intentions, motives, and goals of others, and therefore to predict their future behaviors, we must put ourselves in their place and attempt to view situation as they do (1986:61).

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Failing to act proper role-taking in society may cause someone to live in a sense of

being alienated.

Alienation is formerly defined as merely a work-related phenomenon, as

described by Mandel and Novack:

The cause of existing alienation are rooted in capitalism which was born and bred in the dispossession of the working masses from the means of production and the consequent alienation of wage labor (1970:7).

However, this concept has developed into a broader connotation. Alienation is not

only the gap between man’s existence and the result of this existence, instead, it is

the issue which includes the feeling of loneliness and isolation, frustration, and lack

of satisfaction in life (Karp and Yoels, 1986:286).

Melvin Seeman, in addition, defines alienation as the gap between personal

expectations and rewards in modern society context. He also measures the degrees

of alienation can possibly be undergone by certain individual as powerlessness,

meaningless, normlessness, social isolation, cultural isolation, and self-isolation

(1959:783).

a. Adolescent Alienation

Ralph Turner argues that young person is connoted to a “nonperson status”—

they have the power to new freedom and expectations, yet are burdened by the fact

that this capability can hardly be recognized by the entire society (qtd.in Karp and

Yoels, 1986:286). Hence, teenagers may feel anxious about their social skills and

physical appearance and thus, can be isolated from their own identity, parents,

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part of human development, it can designate psychological and pathological

problems to concern.

b. Parental Alienation

DR. Richard A. Warshak in his journal entitled “What is Parental

Alienation?” (2013) defines the term as the state of a child being alienated from a

parent. This is a common effect of divorce to the children. Divorced couples—

although not necessarily all—have a tendency of alienating the children from the

“leaving” parent. Hence, it is not only the time apart which separates the children

from one parent who is leaving the house after divorce, but also the shared thoughts

of the “staying” parent toward the “leaving” one.

Children undergoing the sense of parental alienation, according to Edward

Kruk, Ph. D in “The Impact of Parental Alienation on Children” (2013) can be

alienated from either one or both parents, although most of them tend to have a

sense of rejection toward the targeted parent.

This kind of post-divorce phenomenon is coined in

http://www.healthline.com// as parental alienation—the post-divorce effect where

one of the divorcees start to be more dominant than another and commonly attempt

to influence the children to hate the previous partner. It causes the “staying” parent

to have the tendency of alienating the child from the “leaving” parent. This isolating

attempt can be done by separating the child from the “leaving” parent physically—

doesn’t give any permission for the child to meet the parent, living at the place far

from the “leaving” parent, or by alienating the child from the “leaving” parent by

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children tend to have a tendency of dealing with drugs or crime, but may also

become an outstanding one at school or organization and society in order to show

their “existence” as “normal” children even though their parents are separated.

c. Social Alienation

In modern society, alienation is undergone by many workers with different

levels of position. The top levels of the organizational hierarchy are those with the

highest possibility of feeling lonely and isolated. These people might be

psychologically, physically, or socially isolated from their subordinates (Karp and

Yoels, 1986:204).

Social alienation can also happen to the elderly, which are not able to identify

their true identity. Most societies picture them as carefree, well-dressed, and

financially stable, while they in fact, may live with incurable diseases, which

become their physical and psychological burden.

Alienation happens in the first place since compared to traditional world,

modern world tends to do reasoning on various kinds of things. Before urbanization

and industrialization, human suffering and restrictions on life chances were

accepted as God’s will which goes naturally. However, modern societies assume

these things to be no longer inevitable and natural, instead those things seem to be

the subject of human will and action (Karp and Yoels, 1986:283). Hence, there are

many things defined to be injustice and end up causing alienation. This

phenomenon happens most to people assuming that they have the power over

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C.Theoretical Framework

In order to answer two problem formulation encountered in this study, some

reviews and theories are required to form a thorough analysis. Two different

previously-written reviews about the literary work—The Time Keeper and its author, Mitch Albom are referred to. The first one is composed by Cynthia

Laurensia that sees deeper to the characteristics of Sarah Lemon as a teenage girl,

emphasizing on her struggles to face life that finally leads to her decision of

committing suicide. The next study is written by Alisa Mutiara, concerning about

similar topics—life and death, and moral lessons learned from both events.

The writer also work based on some theories which can be used to provide

answers to formulated problems in this study. Those theories are the theory of

characters and characterizations, the theory of moral and morality, and the theory

of alienation. These three theories will be used to first, characterize the characters

in The Time Keeper and to show how these characters are alienated; and also, to study how these alienated characters perceive time they have in life differently; and

second, to see moral lessons concerning life and death are described through these

alienated characters. The author also pays attention to the relation between literature

and moral.

In order to find out how alienated characters are described in the novel, the

writer uses the theory of character and characterization by elaborating each

character’s personal characteristics. Two characters with opposite characteristics

will be discussed in answering the first formulated problem. By considering some

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reveal the two characters’—Victor and Sarah’s personal traits, which have

contributions to the way they perceive the time they have given in life.

In order to find the fact that these characters are alienated from their

surroundings, the theory of character and characterization will be combined with

the theory of alienation, which explains characteristics of people having social

estrangement. Theory of alienation will reveal why these two people have different

ways of perceiving death and time.

Moreover, to find out moral lessons on life and death the characters convey,

theory of moral and morality is employed. This last section of the study will

examine how the characters’ experience in life contribute to revealing conveyed

moral lessons about death and time, which can be elaborated using moral theory.

As literary works are closely related to the real world, there must be some moral

values the author is trying to come up with when writing the literary work. Hence,

these moral lessons, which can be a great lesson for the readers will be scrutinized

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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY A. Object of the Study

This research in conducted by analyzing a novel written by Mitch Albom

entitled The Time Keeper. It was first published by Hyperion in the United States in 2012, as well as by Sphere in the Great Britain in the same year. The novel was

a big success in 2012, as it debuted #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List which

was the reason why Sphere reprinted the paperback edition four times in 2013 and

twice in 2014. The paperback edition is divided into 81 short chapters and consists

of 238 pages. This thesis will focus its study on the moral lessons contained in the

novel through Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte, the two alienated characters in

the novel.

The Time Keeper is telling a story about Father Time formerly known as Dor who is banished and cursed for measuring the time before other humans do. Before

becoming Father Time, he was an ordinary man lives with his beloved wife and

their three children in a distant time. But he was too passionate with his childhood

ambition, counting everything surround him. Until one day, he found a way to mark

time by inventing a sundial. Later on, he became more and more obsessed with his

counting and forgot about his family until a disease took Alli’s life. Full of hatred

and anger, Dor swore that he would stop the time to save Alli. But then he was

locked out in a dark cave. An old man came and told him that living forever in a

cave to hear humans’ voices complaining about their time was his punishment and

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order to teach them to value the time was his redemption. The old man promised

him that he will be freed from the purgatory once he fulfills the task. After hearing

his task, Father Time goes back to the Earth with an hourglass. By turning it upside

down, the time will nearly stop. Father Time uses this ability to catch up with this

new modern world. He learns everything to get familiar with modern humans and

technologies. He decides to apply a job in a clock shop because he is very good at

handling the time.

An old man in the mid of his eighties comes to a clock shop in 143 Orchard

Street. The Frenchman who is one of the richest man in the world has tumors in his

kidneys. He does not have any children but his wife, Grace Delamonte, still support

him in his weakest moment. Time is running out for him and yet he does not want

to die soon because he has always been the winner. He cannot accept the fact that

he would lose his life to the cancer he suffered from; therefore, he seeks for

immortality in form of cryonics, the technique based on modern science to save

lives that incurables at the moment by preserving a patient’s body in extremely low

temperature until a medication is found in the future so the patient can be fully

cured. And now Victor has only one purpose in the clock shop, to find the oldest

pocket watch as a symbolic souvenir from the time before he goes into cryonic state.

A teenage girl wants to buy a special watch in a clock shop in 143 Orchard

Street. The smart girl named Sarah Lemon is raised by her single mom, Lorraine

Lemon, because her mom and dad divorced few years ago. She falls in love with

Ethan, a young charismatic boy in the school. They have met couple times and

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recently, Sarah learns the fact that Ethan likes a watch worn in a movie titled Men

in Black. And that the reason why she is in the clock shop now. But she does not

know the fact that her heart will be broken and she will try to end her life because

of the boy she adores so much.

B. Approach of the Study

In order to analyze how the alienated characters in Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper appreciate their given lifetime in different ways and to reveal what moral lessons are depicted through these characters’ experiences, the writer uses moral

philosophical approach. This approach is employed in the study because as stated

by Mary Rohrberger and Samuel H. Woods in Reading and Writing about

Literature, “behind every art form there is also a philosophy of life which can be

expressed and viewed in moral terms” (1971:10). This statement is confirmed by

Wilfred L. Guerin et.al in A Handbook of Critical Approach to Literature about the function of literary work, which is “to teach morality and to probe philosophical

issues (1979:60).

Since the characters in a novel represent those one in the real world, their

experiences also convey moral values which can be learned by the others. This is

as defined by Elizabeth Langland in her book, Society in the Novel, that society consists of people and their classes, together with their customs, conventions,

beliefs and values, their institutions, and their physical environment (1984:6).

Referring to Guerin, authors working on moral bent consider figurative

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work. For them, the most important thing within a literary work would be the moral

or philosophical teaching. In revealing implied moral lessons in Albom’s The Time Keeper, thus, this moral-philosophical approach is the most suitable, as it insists on ascertaining and stating what is taught, rather than the aesthetic aspects of the novel,

as emphasized by Guerin (1979:61).

C. Method of the Study

In conducting the research for this thesis, the writer applied library research

as the method of the study. To support the analysis, the writer read and collected

data from books, journals and thesis from the library. However, the writer needed

to find more information about the literary work and the author. Thus, the writer

also browsed sources from internet about the author’s biography and the work’s

criticisms.

Library research means the research must be conducted by searching and

collecting primary and secondary data provided by the library. The primary data is

the fiction novel itself, The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom. The secondary data are the books, journals and thesis taken from both library and internet which support

the thesis analysis.

There were some steps done by the writer to answer the problem formulation

in this thesis. The first step was reading the novel The Time Keeper thoroughly to

find the important points in the story related to moral lessons. Then the writer found

out that two main characters in the novel were isolated from the society. They were

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too much time in his life. Consequently, the writer chose the moral lessons depicted

in Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte selves as the topic of the study. Then the

researcher created two problem formulation to make the study more focus and

comprehensive.

The second step was to get a better understanding about the two alienated

characters in the novel. To do this, the writer needed suitable books as a guidance

for theory on characters and characteristics. They were An Introduction to Fiction

by Stanton, A Glossary of Literary Terms by Abrams, A Handbook to Literature by Holman and Harmon, Introduction to Literature Volume I by Barnet et al, and

Understanding Unseen by Murphy. By using these theories, the writer found out the characteristics from Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte. From there on, the

writer took theory of alienation from some books, such as Nisbet’s The New Encyclopedia of Britannica, Karp and Yoel’s Sociology and Everyday Life, and Lowry and Rank’s Sociology. These theories were used to explain deeper about the characteristic of alienation experienced by Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte.

The last step was done by the writer by examining the moral lessons through

Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte using theory of moral and morality and

referring to the moral philosophical approach. The writer found some books related

to the theory, they are Gardner’s On Moral Fiction, and Gonsalves Right and Reason.

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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS

This chapter is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the

characteristics of two alienated characters in the novel, Sarah Lemon and Victor

Delamonte. The second one distinguishes the way of Sarah Lemon and Victor

Delamonte appreciate the value of time. The last part deals with the moral lesson

of life and death revealed through Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte.

A. How the Alienated Characters Appreciate their Time in Albom’s The Time Keeper

Albom’s The Time Keeper is considered as an unusual novel because it has not only one major character but three, they are Dor or Father Time, Sarah Lemon,

and Victor Delamonte. The three of them are considered as major characters

because according to M.H. Abrams, a major character usually takes part both

directly and indirectly in almost the entire story since the story itself focuses on him

(1993:23). However, the writer decides not to include Dor in the thesis since it is

irrelevant to the analysis. The reason why Dor is excluded in this thesis merely

because the character is not undergoing the alienation. Therefore, in this section,

the description of Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte’s characteristics is discussed

by scrutinizing the fragmented stories of each character presented in the novel.

Often, they are shown in the past and present forms back and forth and contain

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1. Sarah Lemon

Sarah Lemon is a seventeen-year-old girl whose parents divorced when she

was twelve years old. The divorce happened two months after her birthday.

Afterwards, Sarah stays with Lorraine, her mother, instead with Tom, her father.

Sarah used to have a warm, friend-like relationship with her mother which after the

divorce, turns into a mother-teenage daughter gap. The absence of her father—who

Sarah thinks does not want her any longer after the divorce—influences not only

Sarah’s personality, but also her previously-healthy relationship with Lorraine.

Sarah feels like being trapped in a strange household with the mother, who keeps

talking negativities about her former husband, without knowing that her teenage

daughter expects her father in a quite different way from her.

After the split, Sarah stayed with Lorraine, who would blame Tom, her absent ex, for every wrong thing in their lives. Sarah would nod sympathetically. But each of them, in a way, was still waiting for the man; Lorraine to admit he was wrong, Sarah to have him rescue her. Neither thing happened (Albom, 2013:14).

It is clear that Lorraine expect Tom to come back and apologize for mistakes he did

to the family while Sarah hopes Tom to come to rescue her and bring happiness in

their home again—which never happens.

Her parents’ divorce and her mother’s negative talks about her father, has

brought a sense of alienation to Sarah’s life. Sarah’s mother always complains to

her friends about how her husband “was never good enough” and that he is the

cause of their divorce (Albom, 2013:35). In Sarah Lemon’s case, however, her

mother attempt to alienate her from her father in fact, does not cause hatred toward

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Sarah doesn’t want to open herself to her mother as she did when she was in eighth

grade. Her mother tries to speak to her and restore their relationship, “but the door

is always closed” (Albom, 2013:74). Their different opinion makes both of them no

longer share stories nor do manicure together any longer. Even Sarah does not want

to tell where she is going or what problems she has when her mother asks about it.

Thus, the Mother-Daughter connection is getting distant between them.

Lorraine eyes the bed. She sees options laid out: two pairs of jeans, three T-shirts, a white sweater.

“Where are you going?” “Nowhere.”

“Are you meeting someone?” “No.”

“You look good in the white—“ “Mom!”

Lorraine sighs. She lifts a wet towel from the floor and leaves (2013:9).

Not only at home, Sarah’s sense of insecurity also occurs when she is at

school. There, she is described as a smart girl who is really bright in science and

excels in almost all of the subjects in class. She can easily master all lessons and

get a high rank. Due to all these easiness, she even describes the class as something

with “no challenge” and is more suitable to be considered as “boredom”. This

confirms the statement once pointed out by John Horton, an American sociologist,

that in current time, alienation is used to refer to feelings such as powerlessness,

boredom, and dissatisfaction (qtd.in Weinstein, 1974:209). “She gets the third rank

in the class and is waiting for an early admission to a nearby state university”

(Albom, 2013:49). Regardless of being a smart, responsible student at school,

Sarah does not have sufficient ability to get along with her friends. She is detached

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as “too smart, too fat, too weird—so few kids bothered to talk to her” (Albom,

2013:131). This is ironical, since all her excellences at school in fact, does not only

alienate her from what she does—she expresses school as boredom, but also

alienate her from the people she meets every day—her classmates and friends. As

a matter of fact, being alienated at school has deteriorated Sarah’s self-esteem and

security, making her angry with everything around her, including her mother. Even

when Lorraine and Sarah stay home most evenings, they rarely talk at each other

(Albom, 2013:73). Sarah becomes an introvert girl as the consequence of being

trapped in a social alienation.

As a teenage girl, Sarah Lemon does not only experience alienation caused

by her inability to cope with the thoughts being shared by her surroundings. She is

also isolated since she is lack of self-confidence. This is caused by her unattractive

physical appearance described as “too fat” by her friends. She assumes herself as

an unwanted teenage girl with variety of physical negativities. She doesn’t meet the

criteria of teenage girls perceived as a good-looking one. She also keeps gaining

weight after her parents’ divorce, as she eats non-stop as her unreasonable response

to the divorce.

—and Sarah, who could whiz through a biology exam, disliked what she saw in the mirror as much as she figured everyone else did: the hazel eyes, too far apart, the dry, wavy hair, the gap between her teeth, the doughy flesh she had never really shed since gaining weight after her parents split up (Albom, 2013:47).

James Kagan and Robert Coles in Twelve to Sixteen: Early Adolescence

stated that one of the most important side effects of entering school is that children

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schoolroom is one-sided, but peers are equal (Kagan and Coles, 1972:114). Yet,

Sarah Lemon undergoes a quite different experience. She is not equal to most of

her friends, especially the famous and mean ones. She sees a gap between these

popular classmates and herself. As a result, she fails to make herself recognized by

these peer groups. She thus spends most of the time at school by herself, as an

outsider to the rest of the groups.

She ate lunch by herself, walked home by herself, and spent most evenings in the house with her mother, unless Lorraine had plans with the clacking women Sarah referred to as “the divorce club”. Then Sarah ate alone by her computer (Albom, 2013:47).

In the same book, Robert Coleman confirms Sarah Lemon’s condition by

stating that as teenagers are not very kind to overachievers, the hard-working,

conscientious students are rarely the most popular (qtd.in Kagan and Coles, 1972:

114). It is reasonable, therefore, that upon Ethan’s appearance in her life, Sarah

Lemon starts to put all her studies aside. She is, in fact, gaining her self-esteem as

a member of a “normal” member of teenage groups, in which your grades at school

is not as important as your ability to cope with your peers. Albom also says it clearly

that what mattered in high school was popularity—based mostly on how you looked

(Albom, 2013:47).

In Sociology, Donald Light and Suzanne Keller explains Sarah Lemon’s experience as a social role strain, which occurs when conflicting demands are built

into a role. There are certain consequences which come when someone is playing

their roles within the society. Role strain occurs when people cannot meet the

demands of their role (1975:52). Sarah Lemon is undergoing a role strain when

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expect them to be able to cope with all the lessons to get a considerably high rank.

Sarah is able to cope will all lessons being taught at school. She gets good grades

and a high rank. She is involved in the students with highest ranks. Yet, as a

teenager, the role of this good and bright students has brought her into a social

alienation at school. She is estranged from the rest of the students with abilities

lower than hers. Hence, she is not able to befriend and put herself into the teenage

friendship. She is then described as a bright student who is too weird to talk to. This

social role strain eventually brings a sense of alienation for her during the school

years.

Sarah’s social isolation at school that has made her time at school very

difficult keeps her “counting down the months to graduation” (Albom, 2013:131),

the time when she is going to be free from all senses of inferiorities she has long

been feeling. Sarah starts to hope that time can be either faster or cut off. She wants

to die soon, as she feels she does not have any reasons to stay alive.

All these sense of inferiority, isolation, and role strain affects Sarah’s way of

thinking. For her, having a boyfriend is the last thing in her mind. Unexpectedly,

though, she accidentally meets a good-looking boy while doing her essay on “an

influential community experience” by voluntarily servicing people at a homeless

shelter as one of her college application requirements. The eighteen-year-old boy’s

name is Ethan, whose job is to deliver food supply to the shelter on Saturdays. He

is her senior at school, who—unlike her—is popular among boys and girls. Ethan

once unintentionally greeted her on the day they first met. Yet, for Sarah, this

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notice from Ethan has made her “visible” and “wanted”, according to Sarah. Ethan’s

way of addressing her using the word “Lemon-ade” is also a thing making Sarah

Lemon feel special. For Sarah, Ethan has been her “new world”, where she is the

center of attention, who is fully wanted and put into account. Sarah starts to live in

her own world, believing that she does not need anyone else other than Ethan.

Sarah began to view Ethan as her destiny, the way young girls often do with young boys. Far from school and its written rules of who can talk to whom, she had more confidence, she stood up straighter, she left behind the social network T-shirts she sometimes wore in favor of lower-cut, more feminine tops, and she would blush when Ethan said, “Nice look today, Lemon-ade.” (Albom, 2013:51)

Carl E. Pickhardt in “Adolescence and Falling in Love” states that it is common for

teenagers in high school to alienate themselves from their surrounding when

realizing they are falling in love. In fact, they have fallen into a depth of caring,

which is more complex and compelling than what they have ever been experiencing

before. When teenagers like Sarah Lemon falls in love, they tend to think that the

person they fall in love with is the one they are going to spend the life with. Hence,

these in-love adolescence tend to draw themselves from their former life and world,

and focus only to the person they are falling in love with. In Sarah’s experience,

falling in love has made her a person which is alienated from her true self. She starts

to stop liking what she favors and start to pay attention to what Ethan “might” like.

She does many things making her feel awkward, but hangs on to the belief that

Ethan might like it. She is doing many things, but is alienated from the things which

are purposeless for herself. Her adolescence love for Ethan makes her think that “If

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Ethan’s presence in Sarah Lemon’s life has somehow change her way of

perceiving time. She does not care about school time any longer. Instead, she is

concerned about the time afterwards, when she will be able to see Ethan. His

existence is also able to make her put her difficult school-life aside. She even “cut

her last two classes”, thinking that Ethan might require time to be together with her,

so she’ll need to give it to him (Albom, 2013:135). Having Ethan as her “boyfriend”

has made the alienated Sarah Lemon, who often felt desperate when spending her

days at school, a girl who hopes the time to be prolonged. She needs more time, as

she feels “the time flies” when she is with him (Albom, 2013:136). She wants the

time to be stopped, so that she can be with Ethan for as long as she wants. It is thus

not surprising that when Ethan puts her down and starts to pull himself away, time

starts to grow longer once again for Sarah Lemon. The teenage girl who once hoped

the time to stop, so that she can spend the time with her first adolescent love, now

wants to commit suicide—ending the rest of the time she has using her own way.

Since Ethan is “her destiny”, having him away from her life is the most difficult

event to deal with, that she thinks death is much simpler and easier.

According to Milton A. Gonsalves in Right and Reason, Sarah Lemon’s suicide is based on the thought shared by those having severe problems in certain

communities or in a bigger scope, the society. This teenage girl assumes her life as

something bitter, from which she found no reasonable way outs. Sarah Lemon

realizes that no one in her life really “sees” her appropriately, even Ethan, whom

she adores too much. When falling in love with the boy, Sarah once had a thought

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However, this thought ended when she finally learned that Ethan never had the same

feeling with her, leading her into desperation and worse feeling of rejection and

isolation. As a smart and bright student, this rejection raises a question within

Sarah’s mind—whether she really deserves to be treated that way, despite all efforts

and achievements she has got. When in such condition, according to Gonsalves, a

person may make a suicidal decision to preserve dignity and self-mastery by ending

his or her life at the moment when all life’s worth and meaning are exhausted

(1986:245).

She also decides to shorten—or more likely, stop her God-given time on

earth as a reaction to the thought “why not kill ourselves when we have become our

own greatest enemy?” as also stated by Gonsalves (1986:245). Sarah perceived

herself as an outsider, which her surrounding refuses to accept. Despite her efforts

to make herself a better one, she keeps failing. In the end, she was unable to find

anything valuable inside her, that she decided to end all the miseries by shutting

down her life by ending the time she had left in her own authority.

2. Victor Delamonte

Victor Delamonte is a successful businessman who is the fourteenth-richest

man in the world. In 1965, when he was forty one years old, he was married to

Grace who, at that time, worked in his firm as a bookkeeper. Now, in his

eighty-sixth age, he finds out that he has a tumor near his liver and kidney failure. The

doctor has already told him a couple of months he has left. Knowing that, he does

not give up easily. He will lose if death takes his life. Then he gets the answer of

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contaminated by incurable diseases so that those bodies can be cured in the future

where the advanced medication of the diseases has been found.

Victor has been an orphan since he was nine. His father, who was a plumber,

was involved in a fight that took place in a seaside tavern. He was killed there. After

a few days, his mother committed suicide by jumping off from the bridge. To save

his future, he was transported to his uncle in America. In the boat, he learned

something important after his food supplies thrown away to the water by some

hooligan kids.

He cried that night for all that that he had lost, but he would say it taught him a valuable lesson: that holding on to things “will only break your heart.” So he avoided attachments, which served him well during his financial ascent (Albom, 2013:53).

Therefore, one of his characteristics is not easily attached to something. He knows

when is the right time to let go of something before it is too late because it will only

break his heart. And as quoted above, this characteristic is one of the reasons why

he can be top businessman in the world by selling old things and investing on the

new ones. Not only his father suicide makes Victor a let-go person, but it also

trigger a sense of alienation in him. Victor is working very hard to make his life

decent and prosperous. He would do the best attempts to seek for the best results in

the workplace—his business. Not surprisingly, he sees other businessmen as his

competitors, as stated by Karl Max in one of the characteristic of an alienated

modern man—they tend to be alienated from other human beings.

But just as competition between businesses brings down the price of commodities, competition between workers brings down wages. This is not only materially damaging to workers, it estranges them from each other. Humans are free beings and are able to not only transform the world themselves, but to cooperate in order to transform the world in more

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sophisticated and helpful ways. As such, they should see each other as allies, especially in the face of a capitalist class who seeks to undermine worker solidarity for its own benefit. But under capitalism workers see each other as opposing competition (qtd.in Karp and Yoels, 1986:200).

Victor Delamonte is not only wealthy, but also clever and idealistic. Albom

states that Victor’s cleverness make him a good problem solver. He has broad

knowledge about many things and thus, is able to make proper decision for almost

everything in the workplace. Being clever, he is able to rise to the top of the world.

He has succeeded in building his investment from an unknown company to the

famous one since he has always find the answer from the problem his company

facing.

Victor had always been to see a problem, find its weak spot, and crack it open. Failing companies. Deregulation. Market swings. There was invariably hidden key; others were just missing it (Albom, 2013:60).

However, his welfare and prosperity are not things he gains easily. Instead, he has

to give some other things up to build his career paths. Just like some of successful

businessmen, Victor buries himself in his company 24 hours a day. As a result, he

becomes a workaholic person. He changes from a loving husband to a serious one

as his company expands. Grace realizes this change.

At first they did so much together—played tennis, visited museums, took trips to Palm Beach, Buenos Aires, Rome. But as Victor’s business, their joint activities fell away. He began to travel alone, working on the plane and even more at his destination (Albom, 2013:54).

As a married couple, Victor and Grace has once experienced living happily as a

small family, although they do not have any children. They spent their time mostly

together with laughs and smile. But as the company grows and the years passes,

they both lose their connection as husband and wife. Victor, thus, is detached from

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Victor does not have enough time to be spent effectively with his wife at home. The

last ten years of their marriage has been plain, tasteless, and cold. There is no

home-sweet-home after work, because home for Victor is merely a building—a place to

be shifted with his precious office.

They shared coffee in the mornings and the occasional restaurant at night, but as the years passed and their wealth stacked like chips around them—multiple homes, private jets—their life together felt more like a duty. The wife played her role, the husband did the same (Albom, 2013:54).

As stated, Victor’s routine in the workplace has turned his personal life into a distant

one. Unconsciously, he is detached from his own wife and thus, marriage. He is

alienated from both. Physically, he might be with his wife. He owns several

homes—which are actually houses, instead of homes—and private jets he bought

for his wife. Ironically, he and Grace can hardly enjoy those classy things together.

They both act as a husband and wife, but are not able to give the meaning of these

both roles. This is an irony, since Victor attempts to fight for all these possessions

in search of happiness for Grace and himself. Yet, her hard work is the one making

Grace lonely and neglected.

Despite all the plainness both Grace and Victor experience within the years

of being together, there is no one between them who has any intention of running

away from the marriage they have built together. More less, this is affected by their

advanced age. This is confirmed by Gonsalves in his topic about marriage and

divorce, that when married couple have reached advanced age, hardly any reason

could justify a separation (1986:319).

When entering a married life, both Victor and Grace have encountered their

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happiness with all their possessions and wealth, Grace tries to make Victor to

understand and confirm her wish for having children from the marriage. Victor,

however, denies his wife’s wish, ensuring her that their wealth—the houses, the

villas, and money are enough to bring them happiness children can do. As Victor

keeps getting busy with all his works and business, Grace is left alone in a marriage,

which she feels to be plain day after day. Hence, although the two of them never

talk about divorce, their turned down wishes—Grace for the children, and Victor

for Grace’s happiness from the possessions have made the marriage something both

of them can hardly cherish. Thus, the two are alienated from their own married

lives.

As a workaholic man, Victor turns into a selfish person. He thinks of nothing

else beside his work even though his marriage with Grace is at stake. They live in

a marriage without a child, yet it is merely Grace who always try to persuade Victor

to start thinking about having kids around. Yet Victor, who is too busy working,

keeps avoiding this kind conversation which makes them talk less nowadays. Even

though they have been married for forty-four years, “the last ten they’ve been more

like roommates” (Albom, 2013:28).

With money and power, Victor also becomes arrogant. He feels that he is a

really important person, a person that this world cannot lose. His pride as the

fourteenth richest man in the world is the reason why he feels that way. The

arrogance of him leads to the paradigm that he will always be the winner. “Like

other men of enormous power, Victor could not imagine the world without him. He

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Victor’s way of thinking has made him an isolated man, not only in the house,

but also the office. In the office, this man experiences the sense of both physical

and psychological alienation. As stated by Karp and Yoels in Sociology and Everyday Life, the top-level managers are they who will likely to experience high self-consciousness, which eventually builds a barrier between them and their

subordinates. This is not only caused by the fact that these top-rank managers are

distinguishable among the other colleagues, but also the decisions they are making,

which more less influence their subordinates’ lives and paradigm (1986, 204-205).

As one of the wealthiest men in the world, Victor have made various decisions

and plans for his success ladder. He has a well-operating company, which does not

only give him and his family a fortune, but also holds the lives of a lot of employees,

making him a psychologically-isolated top-rank businessman. This kind of

alienation sense is not uncommon. In fact, James Henslin has stated in his book

Down to Earth Sociology that the top-rank employers and business owners indeed tend to be isolated from the rest of the community. These people have certain rules

to obey, not to mention regard their time as a very valuable thing which cannot be

given to any commoners (1972:121). Victor—one of the world-s wealthiest

business possesses this very valuable time that makes it is difficult for other people

just to meet him. Thus, “he cannot be seen without any appointment” (Albom,

2013:133).

Regardless all the wealth he owns, Victor’s life is going to scramble, as his

next obstacle is no ordinary. He is suffering from kidney failure and has to fight

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made a change on his paradigm about his life. He has a thought that everything will

be tough—and he may lose. The doctor has revealed the time he has, which is not

longer than two months, and this makes the wealthy man even feel more powerless

and meaningless. Victor starts to encounter the sense of being isolated from his own

life—he needs to give up the life to the illness, which he will never do, for any

reasons. In the end, with his resource and cleverness, he finally finds the answer

through cryonics.

Cancer was a stumble. But the real hurdle was human morality. He finally found his opening when a researcher from his West Coast offices, responding to his requests on “immortality,” faxed a stack of material on cryonics (Albom, 2013:61).

Cryonics is not an affordable choice of prolonging life every common man can do. This is an almost impossible, very expensive method of preserving the body for a

desired period of time until the cure for the illness is found. By doing this, Victor’s

characteristic compromises Heslin’s that for modern society, life is not as simple as

one in more conventional society. In modern society, everything is more

complicated and thus, death becomes something requiring attention and efforts.

People living in modern societies—although not all, tend to think they are able to

control the way they live the life, and money is one of the means in controlling the

life. Hence, people in different social classes might possess different chances of

everything in life. The more money and wealth the people own, the more various

their choices in life become.

And the significance of social inequality is that it determines people’s life chances, the possibilities as to the fate one may expect in life, and the single most significant factor in deciding a person’s life chances in our society certainly is money. Simply put, if you have it, you can do a lot of things you

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of couple of thoughts which are essential in life. By observing the characters’

experiences, readers are able to point out some moral lessons about how time in life

should be spent.

The first moral lesson derived from the story is how the readers are told to

cherish the life before everything is spilled. This lesson is learned mainly through

Victor’s experiences about his lifetime—how he should have cherished all the

moments with his wife, and how he should have been able to enjoy what he has

been working hard on before the kidney failure gets him. Victor’s opinions and

complains about his health condition, and how he brags to be able to fix it by

prolonging the time and buying a little more of it expect the readers to realize that

cherishing what we are having at the moment is essential, since everything can be

spilled while we are trying to pursue what truly are meaningless.

The second conveyed moral lesson is about how fame and wealth may be

important for most people, yet those should not be the most important things to

pursue. It is normal for human beings to seek for acceptance from their surroundings

in a form of fame and wealth. However, Sarah and Victor’s experience about their

ruined lives triggered by their excessive expectation for these two things might

teach the readers that something else might deserve to be placed above fame and

wealth. Sarah’s decision to commit suicide and Victor’s powerlessness against his

decaying body elaborate the moral lesson about how fame and wealth can possibly

put someone into the sense of emptiness. Descriptions about Grace’s daily life after

Victor is diagnosed with kidney failure also shows that being focused to earthy

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people surrounding us is more essential than merely get to get noticed and

experience a superficial fame, like the one depicted in Sarah’s lesson experience

with Ethan—her puppy love. Wealth will also be more meaningful when we have

someone to share it with, which is illustrated through Grace’s and Victor’s thoughts,

their past experiences, and their present distance as a husband and wife.

The last moral lesson, in addition, is everyone is told to be the way they are

and be sure that every individual is special. This is important in that many people

are alienated trying to fulfil what others expect on them. This is specifically drawn

from the story through Sarah Lemon’s life experiences. Despite her attempts to be

a bright student to be accepted by the surrounding, she instead gets more distant

from the teenage world around her.

Characterization in the story and what moral lessons are implied behind it

can be elaborated by reading and understanding Albom’s The Time Keeper deeper

through what the characters present and elaborate it with some reliable confirming

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abrams, M.H., A Glossary of Literary Terms. New York: Heinle & Heinle, Inc., 1999.

Audi, Robert. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy 2nd Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Bowen, Stephanie. “Books Reviews: ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’.” CNN Books

Reviews. CNN Interactive. May 7, 1998.

(http://edition.cnn.com/books/reviews/9805/06/). August 22, 2015.

Gardner, John. On Moral Fiction. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1978.

Gonsalves, Milton A. Right and Reason. Ohio: Charles E. Merill Publishing Company, 1986.

Guerin, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Johnson, Allan G. Human Arrangement: An Introduction to Sociology. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1986.

Kagan, Jerome and Robert Coles. Twelve to Sixteen: Early Adolescent. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1972.

Karp, David and William C. Yoels. Sociology and Everyday Life. Itasca: F. E. Peacock Publisher, 1986.

Kruk, Edward. “The Impact of Parental Alienation on Children”. Psychology Today. April 25, 2013. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/co-parenting-after-divorce/201304/the-impact-parental-alienation-children). August 21, 2015.

Langland, Elizabeth. Society in the Novel. London: The University of North Carolina, 1984.

Light, Donald and Suzanne Keller. Sociology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. New Edition. New Delhi: Gopsons Paper limited, 2004.

Macionis, John J. Sociology: Fourteenth Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2008.

Mandel, Ernest and George Novack. The Marxist Theory of Alienation. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970.

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Mann, Leon. Social Psychology. Sydney: John Wiley & Sons Australasia Pty. Ltd, 1969.

Moody, H.L.B. Literary Appreciation. London: Longman, 1968.

Murphy, M. J. Understanding Unseen. London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1972.

Rohrberger, Mary & Samuel H. Woods, Jr. Reading and Writing about Literature. New York: Random House, Inc., 1971.

Seeman, Malvin. On the Meaning of Alienation. Los Angeles: Irvington Publishers. 1959.

Stanton, Robert. An Introduction to Fiction. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1965.

Warshak, Richard A. “What is Parental Alienation?”. 2013. (https://www.warshal.com/publications/what-is-parental-alienation.html).

Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary Unabridged 2nd Edition. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Weinstein, Deena and Michael A. Weinstein. Living Sociology: A Critical Introduction. New York: David Mc. Kay Company, Inc., 1974.

Wellek, Rene and Austen Warren. Theory of Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brad and World, Inc., 1956.

Zipp, Yvonne. “Book World: ‘The Time Keeper’, by Mitch Albom, is a waste of time itself.” The Washington Post. WP Company Llc. September 11, 2012. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-the-

time-keeper-by-mitch-albom-is-a-waste-of-time-itself/2012/09/11/6ad5f352-f933-11e1-a073-78d05495927c_story.html). August 21, 2015.

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APPENDIX

Summary of Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper

In Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper, Dor, a man living in a world without

time and written word is obsessed with counting time. He found the instrument to

do this and started to count the time using this instrument. Eventually, he fell deeper

into his obsession, even after he was married with three children. When finally his

wife died, Dor asked for more time to God. He stated her intention on stopping the

time to keep Ali—his wife, forever. Instead, he was banished to an eternity in a

cave. This is the punishment he got from measuring time.

Thousands of years have passed without Dor aging, and for redeeming

himself, he was asked to help two people who have lost in time, just like him once

before; Sarah Lemon and Victor Delamonte. Dor was sent to the earth to tell and

teach these two humans the real meaning of appreciating time.

Sarah is a seventeen-year-old teenager who is isolated from her surrounding,

being unable to cope with her friends socially. She is falling in love with Ethan,

who she assumes as her world. Sarah asks to God to make the time run faster

because she cannot wait to go on a date with the teenager boy. However, the “date”

is not what she has been expecting. Moreover, Ethan starts to reject and humiliate

her in front of his friends, making Sarah’s sense of lack of self-esteem worse. She

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Victor is the fourteenth-richest man in the world, who is a successful

businessman. Despite all the wealth and possessions he has got, Victor suffers from

a tumor and kidney failure, which brings him to the sense of powerlessness. As he

knows that a good health is essential for pursuing fortunes, he refuses to give up to

the illness. He asks to God to slow his time down, so that he can live longer. He

later decides to achieve immortality by undergoing cryonics, a procedure with

which his body will be preserved and brought back to life when the cure to his

illness is discovered in the future.

These two characters are going to meet Dor, who does not have any ideas on

how he should teach both Sarah and Victor about the meaning of their time.

Moral lessons revealed through the Alienated Characters in Mitch Albom`s the Time Keeper.

MORAL LESSONS REVEALED THROUGH

THE ALIENATED CHARACTERS

IN MITCH ALBOM’S

THE TIME KEEPER

MORAL LESSONS REVEALED THROUGH

THE ALIENATED CHARACTERS

IN MITCH ALBOM’S

THE TIME KEEPER

I have not failed,

I’ve just found 10,000

ways that won’t work.

- Thomas Alva Edison -

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My

Wonderful Wife

and

My

Forgiving Family

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IN MITCH ALBOM’S

THE TIME KEEPER

MORAL LESSONS REVEALED THROUGH

THE ALIENATED CHARACTERS

IN MITCH ALBOM’S

THE TIME KEEPER

I have not failed,

I’ve just found 10,000

ways that won’t work.

- Thomas Alva Edison -

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Forgiving Family

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