CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
A child is part of the society and he or she is a young human that cannot
live alone in the society, and children need adult’s attention and protection to know everything around them. Related to children, every child has a high curiosity with things that are new and they have different characteristics in how they construct their own world. Hornby (1995:192) state that child is a young person who is under the legal age and it can be a boy or a girl. Based on the definition above, child can be defining as childish in the age range of young categories. Young age will affect how they view things and the world from their perspective and it is like a world full of imagination, it makes them fantasize something concrete thins and non-concrete and they are still looking for their own identity in society. Related to development of children, children also have characteristics the way of thinking. The way they interact with others is also a social relationship that will help them get to know about something that they have never heard, and something they have not seen in the world. It is associated with social interaction in society, how the social condition of every individual around children has relation with the way children think about the world of life itself and every individual social interaction will describe how they are actually looks like.
Related to early childhood, children also have characteristics the way of thinking. It related to child's perspective and child perspective. A Child
perspective is “direct adult’s attention towards an understanding of children’s perceptions, experiences, and actions in the world” (Sommer et al., 2010:22).
Differently, child’s perspective is “the representation of children’s experiences,
perceptions, and understanding in their life world” (Sommer et al., 2010:23). It can be concluded that child perspective is created by adults who are looking for, intentionally, create child perspectives and as realistically as possible, to
reconstruct children’s perspective. In this context, child perspective becomes issue
to know how children have perception on something around them because they are still young and easy to receive new thing that they want to know. It related to identity of children in how they construct the phenomena about something from what they touch, see, and hear about objects, other people opinion, culture, and tradition from others and they learn with their animistic and imaginative life. The role of the people around children is very important to teach many things that understood by children. In this case, role of parents in educating their children is something very important. Environment and socialization process is close relation to children. It will affect the child's perspective on his world and the world within the community itself. One of important roles is terms of knowing the development of children. In this context, adult has different perspective to know how child is one of the members in the community. They are individuals who cannot live alone without help from others and they are still difficult to understand which one is real and which one is not real in the world.
In this context, adult has a role to know how children’s world through
child perspective. Child perspective is one of issue in different studies. Child perspective also can be known in teaching subject, sociology aspect, and psychology aspect. Related to this research, the researcher in this study tries to
know children’s world using Piaget children development theory and other theory
of children characteristics. It is rarely to analyze how children actually look like through literary study. A child perspective in this research becomes one of new issue in literary study. Related to sociological approach, child perspective
becomes one of way to know how children’s experience until they grew up
becomes adult because they will be successor of generation in the future. Related to child perspective, it is clearly important that adult try to understand and
describe how children’s world actually happens in different age of children
different culture. In this case, Adult has an important role in their children's development. How they know something, they would have to ask the matter to the nearest person in a social interaction between individuals and other individuals. The immature characteristics in early childhood also have relation in how they know the reality and the unreality things because children in different age also have different way of thinking. They are also has a lot of imagination because they are still has different perception about all things around them.
Related to the issue above, literary work such as a novel also contains the description of children view their world. One of the novel that tell the issue written by Emma Donoghue and she is Irish-Canadian writer. She was born in Dublin 1969. Emma Donoghue is fiction contemporary and history writer. Emma also writes historical literature and drama for stage, radio, and television. Now, she lives in London, Ontario with her husband, her son, and her daughter. Emma becomes famous because of the bestseller Slammerkin book. Besides that, Emma has the other novel that published in 2010. The title is Room and It published by Little, Brown and Company. Her novel is very popular, translated into 35 languages, sold out more than two thousand copy all around the world, and has 146 editions. Including Indonesia is one of country that has Indonesian translation version in 2016. Based on the official website of Emma Donoghue, the novel won Hughes and Hughes Iris novel of the year, Rogers Writer’s Trust Fiction Prize for
best Canadian Booksellers’ Association Libras Awards, Forest of Reading Evergreen Award, W.H Smith Paperback of Year Award and her novel “Room” is
one of New York Times best fiction titles in 2010 (Donoghue, 2016:3). Her famous Room novel makes the play director transforms the novel into a movie. The movie becomes nomination in Golden Globe Award 2016 including the category of the best movie and as the winner in Academy Award 2016 for the best actor. It makes Emma more popular around the fanatic novel readers all around the world.
theme than others. If it relate to the issue of children, a novel in this study tells
about child who lives in the small room as a son from woman’s abduction victim.
The story begin with the teenage girl was initially abducted when she was young. They are equipped with a door that can only be opened with a password of kidnapper. The kidnappers had planned everything. The rooms have designed as "home" for a long time. In the second year, the women got birth a child in small room. The boy named Jack. Five years later through the eyes of Jack's story is narrated. In the world, there are only Jack and Ma and Jack did not know anything outside world except the looked room itself.
Although Room equipped with a TV, but Ma said to Jack that everything they see on TV is just an image and not real in the outside room and it make Jack confused to the reality because he is 5-year-old. Ma tried to raise Jack in the limitation area in the room. Ma taught him to read, write, physical exercise, reading stories to him and creating exciting games to fill their daily activities. When the night arrived Jack sleeping in the closet because it was then that the man they call "Old Nick" comes. Over the past 5 years, Ma has created the world for Jack. One time Jack began to realize that the image he sees on the TV is real, but Jack as young child who difficult to understand the fact and finally Ma revealed that there is a world outside Room and acknowledges that during this time Ma was lying. This fact is confusing for Jack because for him the worlds are only Room, Ma and himself.
In this context, Jack as a 5-year-old boy illustrate the characteristic of being animistic and imaginative life because he spend much time living in the room without interact to other people except Ma. The special thing about this book is how Emma Donoghue told from the perspective of a five year olds child. The narrative is so real and typical little boy. It makes carpet, Desk, Wardrobe, Wall, all are friends since birth and Jack did not want to leave them. In addition, Ma tried hard to make Jack understand that they have to flee and finally they get
their freedom live in better world that refer to the world that bigger than “Room”
adapt to others human outside the world. In this context, the novel also describes condition the condition of child as abduction victim. The child as the first narrator that tells about the story based on his perspective as a child. He tells his own world with his mom. His mom tries to explain every question from her son but sometimes it still confusing for a child to understand because a child is still young in early childhood in a life. Living in difficult situation influenced a that has own perception and own opinion about something real and not real. The child in this novel tries to search his own identity. This novel is a novel that written by a woman and as a mother too, but the author tells the story based on the child perspective in five years old that make this novel becomes best sellers
Based on the simple synopsis of the story above, this novel has interesting
story for readers and entertain the reader about how Jack’s life in the confinement
“Room”. The novel “Room” novel by Emma Donoghue has grown many comments from readers and most of them give positive response about the story. For example, a response comes from Aime Bender in The New York Times website below:
“…Donoghue navigates beautifully around these limitations. Jack’s voice is one of the pure triumphs of the novel: in him, she has invented a child narrator who is one of the most engaging in years — his voice so pervasive I could hear him chatting away during the day when I wasn’t reading the book. Donoghue rearranges language to evoke the sweetness of a child’s learning without making him coy or overly darling; Jack is lovable simply because he is lovable. Through dialogue and smartly crafted hints of eavesdropping, Donoghue fills us in on Jack’s world without heavy hands or clunky exposition” (Bender, 2010:2)
also became famous because the plot is clear from the beginning until the end of the story. The plot as if giving an overview on any conflicts that can occur. The plot described in detail and neatly arranged on each element of the story. Emma Donoghue makes the plot looks interesting because the story told according to child character in the story.
The second reason is the research about “Child perspective” is rare in literary study. The researcher thinks that It is important to know children actually look likes through the characterization of Jack as 5-year-old child that used by the author to describe them and the minor character here is a good mother who try to
understand children’s desire and children’s questions. She has a child in difficult
situation but she still raises her child as a single parenthood. She tried for never showed directly her depression and her trauma about the bad incident in the past. How strong Ma survives to life as a victim of abduction that has a child from the kidnaper. She tried to do anything to make her child happy live in the room and she tries to teach Jack in the room with lees facility in limited room.
The third reason is the researcher in this study interested with Jack’s
character of the novel. Jack is still young and he as the narrator of the story describes the detail event in each part that make the story more interesting because of jack. Jack makes the readers empathy with his small family. Jack also a good and smart character because he learns everything in the room. He still can read a book, asking everything to his Mother and he is strong characters of the story because he describe and tell the reader how life and how feeling live in the narrow world it means the room itself through the eyes of 5-year-old boy.
good mother that raise her child alone, and the story tells us to understand how
smooth Jack understand about the world. The story tells us about child’s curiosity about his own world and his own identity. The moral message from child perspective itself becomes a lesson in how adult give attention to know who they are in the society. The readers are not only to get the moral value from the explanation and description based on Jack as the main character, but also the message tells us about how hard a mother tries to raise children in worst situation but still strong to raise them. Related to the description and the reason above, the researcher intents to conduct a study entitled “CHILD PERSPECTIVE OF
THE WORLD REFLECTED IN EMMA DONOGHUE’S ROOM (2010)
NOVEL: A SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH
B. Problem Statement
1. What are the indicators of child perspective of the world in the novel? 2. How is child perspective of the world depicted in the novel?
3. Why does the author address the child perspective in her novel?
C. Objective of the Study
Dealing with problem statement above, the researcher formulates the objectives of the study as follows:
1. To identify the indicators of child perspective of world in Room novel. 2. To describe how child perspective of world is depicted in Room novel. 3. To reveal why the author addresses child perspective in Room novel.
D. Limitation of the Study
E. Benefits of the Study
1. Theoretical Benefit
The study will enrich all literature researchers and can be a reference for other researcher that wants to make another research used Room novel. The result of this study is also to give another knowledge about literary especially in Emma
Donoghue’s novel.
2. Practical Benefit
The researcher expects that this research will give benefits for other literary students, especially student of English Department in Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta. This research also gives contribution about the process of analyzing a novel based on Sociological theory.
F. Research Paper Organization
The research paper of “Child Perspective of World Reflected in Emma
