AN ANALYSIS OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONFLICTS
FACED BY HARRIET IN THE NOVEL “THE LITTLE
FRIEND” BY DONNA TARTT
THESIS
By: Lilik Hidayati
08360023
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
AN ANALYSIS OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONFLICTS
FACED BY HARRIET IN THE NOVEL “THE LITTLE
FRIEND” BY DONNA TARTT
THESIS
This thesis is submitted to meet one of the requirements to achieve Sarjana Degree in English Education
By: Lilik Hidayati
08360023
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
MOTTO AND DEDICATION
“wa man jaahada fa-innamaa yujaahidu linafsihi.”
“Barangsiapa bersungguh-sungguh, sesungguhnya kesungguhannya itu adalah untuk dirinya sendiri.” (QS Al-Ankabut [29]: 6)
DEDICATION:
TABLE OF CONTENT
COVER ... i
APPROVAL SHEET ... ii
LEGITIMATION ... iii
MOTTO AND DEDICATION ... iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... v
ABSTRACT ... vi
TABLE OF CONTENT ... vii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study ... 1
1.2 Statement of the Study ... 4
1.3 Purpose of the Study ... 4
1.4 Significance of the Study ... 4
1.5 Scope and Limitation ... 5
1.6 Definition of the Keyterm ... 5
R II CHAPTE : REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Literature ... 6
2.2.1 Types of Novel ... 9 2.5 Psychological Conflict Resolution CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design 3.2 Approach ... 3.3 Research O 4.2 Harriet’s Psychological Conflicts ... 37
... 37
2.2.2.2 Character ... 2.2.2.3 Setting ... 15
2.2.2.5 Theme ... 18
Conflict as Element of Novel ... 19
Psychological Conflict as Element of Conflict ... 21
... 28
... 33
33 bject ... 34
3.4 Research Instrument ... 34
3.5 Data Collection ... 34
3.6 Data Analysis ... 35
CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Research Findings ... 37
4.2.2 Hatred Feeling ... 39
4.3 Harriet’s Psychological Conflicts Resolution ... 42
4.3.1 Rationalization ... 42
4.4 Discussion ... 46
CHAPTE BIBLIOGRAPHY APPE R V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1 Conclusion ... 51
5.2 Suggestion ... 52
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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iYanni, Robert. 2002. Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, & Drama. New York: Mc. Graw-Hill Companies.
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Conflict. USA: Wm. C. Brown Publishers
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
Chapter I of this research presents such topics as: background of the study,
statement of the problem, purpose of the study, significance of the study, scope
and limitation, and definition of key term. Each section is presented as follows.
1.1 Background of the Study
Literature is the reflection of human’simagination written bywords to show
the author’s feeling in showing happiness, sadness, or anger. According
toRisdianto (2011: 5), “Literature is written material that deals with thought and
feeling in imaginative or ‘serious’ literature.”
Reading literature certainly has severaladvantages. Commonlyit for
entertaining by the power of thewonderful selected words thatbringinga certain
emotion for the readers.
According to Endraswara (2003: 22), “Literature is not only a dead object or
paralyzed phenomenon, except full of alive imaginations.” So, readers may enter
to the emotion expressed in the words by comprehending the dialogues.
According to Risdianto (2011: 5), “Literature is generally divided into three
groups respectively prose, drama, and poetry”. The study focuses on prose,
especially on novel.Novel is a long written literature that has complex story and
consists of many characters. According to Nurgiyantoro (1994: 4), “Novel is a
fiction work offering an imaginative ideal world formed by the intrinsic elements
such as, scene, plot, character (characterization), background, point of view, and
other imaginative elements.”
One of the parts of a novel is conflict that can be defined as the most
important thing to make a story more alive. According to Risdianto (2011: 17),
“Conflict is the basic tension, or challenge that propels a story’s plot.” From the
theory above, by conflicts, readers will be more curious to finish the
story.Conflicts themselves are classified into two general parts, internal and
external. According to Susanto (2012: 131), “Internal conflict occurs because of
tension or struggle among two expectation in the human’s mind. Contrary,
external conflict occurs because of the differences of expectation among one
character and another.” Based on the theory, it can be concluded that internal
conflict is similar with psychological conflict is about a character’s mind and
external conflict is similar with physical conflict is about a character and others,
human or not human.
The Little Friend is a kind of detective or mystery novel written by Donna
Tartt. It is an interesting novel that is full of psychological conflict of the main
character. It tells about Harriet who lost her only brotherwho found hanged on the
trees in front of his house. The cop and all of his family declared that he was
committed suicide. But Harriet felt there was an oddity in that accident. She
thought that Robin was murdered. So she tried to investigatethat accident with her
close friend.
From the explanation above, this study attempts to analyze the
psychological conflicts faced by Harriet in the novel ‘The Little Friend’ by Donna
Tartt.”The reasons for choosing this novel are because in 2003 this novel
wasawarded WH Smith Literary award as the bestselling novel. The other reason
is because this novel has brought a new way of thinking about a child’s mind and
herstruggle to break her own curiositywithout being knew by her family.
The study is aimed at analyzing Harriet’s psychological conflicts in her way
of solving her only brother’s death. The studyfocuses more on the main
character’sinternal or psychological conflicts rather than the external or physical
because the power of this novel is on the conflicts from Harriet internally. She had
high ambition to solve her brother’s death. She was far away from her father,
while her mother has been insane since the accident. So, it seems that the internal
conflicts faced by Harriet are interesting to analyze.
There have been several previous studies analyzing conflict. The first is
Herawaty (2010) whoanalyzedpsychological dilemma of the major characters in
Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper. Another is Fauziah (2008) who focused on
thepsychological analysis of the main character’s personality in Go Ask Alice.
This study has the same subject of analysis, that is the young main characters, but
this study has difference from the others, it isthe character who analyzed in this
study expresses her psychological conflicts by revenging to the man who
estimated as the killer of her brother. So that, unconsciously the character’s
psychological problem guide her to do a crime.
1.2 Statement of the Study
Based on the background of study above, this study states two problems in
this analysis;
1. What are the psychological conflicts faced by Harriet in the novel “The
Little Friend” by Donna Tartt?
2. How does Harriet solve her psychological conflicts in the novel “The
Little Friend” by Donna Tartt?
1.3 Purpose of the Study
From the statements of the problems above, this study has several purposes,
as follow;
1. To find out the psychological conflicts faced by Harriet in the novel “The
Little Friend” by Donna Tartt.
2. To find out the way Harriet solves her psychological conflicts in the
novel “The Little Friend” by Donna Tartt.
1.4 Significance of the Study
This study will give added significance in education becausethis novel tells
about wrong way of life of a child named Harriet, who far away from his father
and has no communication with her mother even they live in a home. Therefore,it
can be life learning for the educators in giving education about the importance of
communication and thinking logically.
5
For students, this study will give life learning about how to think logically
in doing something. The other is this study will give more knowledge in learning
literature. About how to selects certain words in writing literature in order to get
the readers’ emotion
1.5 Scope And Limitation
There are many elements that can be analyzed in this novel.However, this
study focuses on psychological conflicts in the novelThe Little Friend by Donna
Tartt, while the limitation isHarriet as the main character.
1.6 Definition of the Key Term
In order to avoid misunderstanding of some words about this study, there
aresome definitions of the key term of this study provided below;
Psychological Conflicts: The conflicts that were caused by the
psychological needs of humans, such as desire for power, control,
autonomy, recognition of love (Wandle and Warren, 2013).
Main Character:A character who becomes priority in the story, as a doer or a
victim (Nurgiyantoro, 1994: 165).
Donna Tartt: The author of The Little Friend.
Harriet: The female main character of “The Little Friend” novel by Donna
Tartt.
The Little Friend: The second novel written by Donna Tartt, it was
