AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By Maulia Dwiyani Student Number : 994214196
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
iv
You were meant to be
The way you are exactly”
v
My beloved family
And those who cares
vi blessing given to me, so I could finish this thesis.
My greatest gratitude is dedicated to Drs Hirmawan Wijanarka, M. Hum
as my advisor who has read and given correction of my thesis. My great
dedication is also given to Adventina Putranti S.S., M. Hum as my co advisor; her
correction gives a big contribution to make a better thesis.
I dedicate this thesis to my parents, my father Suhartono and my mom
Christina Sri Susilowati who always give me support and love. My special thank
goes to Fitria Luthfiani, Deasy Natalina and Dimas Wahyu Pamungkas Thank
you, for being the best brother and sisters for me. I also thank Afif Milki for being
there during my ups and downs.
I would like also to say great thank to all of my friends, Dina, Harex,
Angking, Dira, melon, Yeri, Feri, Dita, Atik, Gogo, Omut, Ria, Inten and Tuituin.
Finally, yet importantly, I sincerely thank those whose names cannot be
mentioned here for the supports and best wishes. God bless you all.
vii
MOTTO PAGE... iii
DEDICATION PAGE... iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... v
TABLE OF CONTENT...vii
ABSTRACT ...viii
ABSTRAK... ix
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. Background of the study... 1
B. Problem Formulation... 3
C. Objective of the Study ... 4
D. Definition of Terms ... 4
CHAPTER II: THEORICAL REVIEW... 5
A. Review of Related Studies ... 5
B. Review of Related Theories ... 7
1. Theories on Character ... 7
2. Theories on Characterization... 10
3. Theories on Plot... 13
4. Relation between Plot and Character... 14
5. Theories on messages ... 16
C. Theoretical Framework ... 19
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY... 20
A. Object of the Study ... 20
B. Approach of the Study ... 21
C. Method of the Study ... 21
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ... 23
A. The Characteristic of the Main Character... 23
B. The Influence of Cancer ... 31
C. The Reasons that make Ben Change his Plan not to Commit Suicide ... 37
D. The Messages Revealed by Ben Given’s Development ... 46
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ... 49
viii
David Guterson’s East of the Mountains. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2008.
This thesis studies a novel by David Guterson entitled East of the Mountains. The novel tells about someone who intends to commit suicide because of the colon cancer but cancel not to commit suicide eventually.
In this study there are three problem formulations to be analyzed. The first is to find the characteristic of the main character, the second is to find the influence of Cancer and other characters to the main character and the last is to find the messages that revealed by the development of the main character.
The writer applies library research as the method of this study. This research employs theories of character, theories characterization, theories of plot, the relation between character and plot and theories of message to answer the three problem formulations. This research conducts objective approach because is suitable with this thesis which intends to analyze some of intrinsic elements which are plot and character to reveal the messages.
ix Universitas Sanata Dharma,2008.
Skrpisi ini meneliti sebuah novel karya David Guterson yang berjudul East of the Mountains. Novel ini menceritakan tentang seseorang yang ingin bunuh diri karena menderita kanker usus tetapi pada akhirnya tidak jadi bunuh diri.
Dalam penelitian ini ada tiga permasalahan yang akan dibahas. Yang pertama adalah menjawab tentang karakteristik dari pelaku utama, yang kedua untuk mencari pengaruh kanker dan karakter lain pada pelaku utama dan yang terakhir adalah untuk mencari pesan-pesan yang terungkap lewat perkembangan karakter tokoh utama.
Penulis menggunakan metode studi pustaka sebagai metode dalam penelitian ini. Dengan metode ini penulis menggunakan teori–teori karakter, pelukisan karakter, teori-teori alur cerita, hubungan antara alur cerita dan karakter dan teori-teori pesan. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan objektif karena sesuai dengan skripsi ini yang bertujuan untuk menganalisa beberapa unsur-unsur pokok seperti alur cerita dan karakter untuk mengungkap pesan pesan.
A. Background of the Study
Death is a horrifying thing to most people. Separated from the one we love, could not do anymore things that we like the most in this world also an imagination to be buried in the damp, cold wormy land in a scary graveyard all alone is rarely pathetic. That is people usual feeling about death.
Death according to Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of English Language has several similar literal meanings. It is the act of dying, the end of life, termination of life, or the termination of life or the termination or extinction of something (p.37).
Meanwhile according to Michael Montaigne quotes in Satyavati’s book death is a natural process to all of human being, just like we were born in this world and everybody will experience death in a time and there is nothing we can do to stop it no matter how hard we try to fight because it is a part of life in this universe. (Satyavati, 1998:1)
Death can be caused by several ways such as predation, disease, habitat destruction, senescence, malnutrition, accidents or injury, oldness, violence, get killed and also by suicide.
Smith states that suicide is the act of intentionally destroying oneself, a violent self inflicting destructive action resulting in death or the act of killing oneself. (1982:129)
People who commit suicide are types of people who lack of solution in dealing with problems in life. The lack of solution might be caused by the lack of faith in religion. Moslems and Christian regard suicide as a sin. (Coleman, 1976: 613)
East of the mountains is novel written by David Guterson. The novel is about an old man’s journey to death by suicide. The main character, Ben Givens is a 73 retired heart surgeon and a widower who turned out to have a colon cancer lately, because he doesn’t want to be dying with suffer and pains, he decides to end his life by suicide. His plan on suicide will be arranged as neat as he could, because he does not want his daughter and his grand son know that his death is already planned so he make it appear accidental, by planning a hunting trip to the eastern Washington canyons and kill himself by shoot himself somewhere uphill in the desert, hoping that no one found him until he get rotten and eaten by flies and maggots.
The reason why the writer chooses East of the mountains to analyze because is really interesting to explore human’s feeling and characters, Ben Given’s feeling as the main character, how dying can be so frightened a surgeon doctor who used to face that situation, how suicide become a solution to solve the problem. Here the existence of Ben givens as an ordinary man takes part, how first he handle his disease desperately and finally change his mind respectively. The writer wants to know how and in what aspects does the main character experience a development decision to commit suicide firstly and not to commit suicide gradually. In the novel it can be seen that there are some aspects which influence Ben’s feeling toward his cancer diagnose until he decide to commit a suicide such as fear, pain and suffer. Also there are some aspects, which contribute on the development of Ben’s decision on suicide such as bad or good memories, moments and other characters in different ways.
Also the writer wants to find out the possible messages expressed by the development of the main character in the story that the author wants to say and reveal.
B. Problem Formulation
In this thesis there are three problems to be analyze 1. What are the characteristic of Ben Givens?
2. How does cancer influence Ben, and why does Ben finally decide not to commit suicide?
C. Objectives of the Study
This thesis is aimed to answer the three problems stated previously. The first is to find the characteristic of Ben Givens as the main character. Secondly how cancer influences the main character to commit suicide, and why Ben Givens finally decide not to commit suicide, and the last is to find the messages revealed by Ben Given’s character development.
D. Definition of Terms
In order to avoid a misunderstanding in the terms, the writer gives the definitions of the related terms. The first term is development and the second is message.
According Craig in her book Human Development states that development is the change in thought or behavior of a person that occur as a function of biological and environmental influence (1979:9). Meanwhile according to Lemme (1995:95) development is a systematic change in behavior over the resulted from interaction between the individual and the internal or external environment.
5 A. Review of Related Studies
Since East of the Mountains brings Guterson to win some awards, some critics give their criticism on it.
According to Sunmeilan, the character of Ben Givens who is 73 years old and too old to be a hero is kind of an uninteresting person to the readers, in the beginning of the story Ben seems to be a desperate person who wants to commit suicide so much, as the story develop that character finally become more interesting, Ben’s past life that follow him wherever he go make the readers understand more his past and his characters clearly.
“The older Ben Givens is not of great interest to the reader. He has lost the will to live and as such, can only concentrate on his pain and the desire to commit suicide. Even this did little to inspire sympathy in me. However, as the story develops, and Ben begins to look back into his past, he becomes a much more interesting character. The son of a fruit orchard owner, his objective in life was to take over ownership of the orchards from his father, alongside his brother. But the war conspires against him. Joining the army, he witnesses much death and injury, which gives him great respect for the work of his then girlfriend, a military nurse and he eventually decides to become a doctor.” (http://www.ciao.co.uk/East_of_the_Mountains_David_Guterson__Revie w_560574)
resulting some effects which widen the story in every chapter in the novel. The description of the landscape is too much.
“Unfortunately, the story of a man setting out to kill himself doesn't lend itself to a captivating plot; each step Ben takes feels as if it's set up to be his last, and he takes a lot of steps. As a result, ''East of the Mountains'' sometimes feels like a short story gone long. The question ''Why go on?'' is posed and weakly wrestled with nearly as often as the landscape is described with a surgically mystical appreciation, and the answer seems to be ''Because life here is so beautiful.''
(http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/09/reviews/990509.09sullit.html)
Chitra Divakaruni gives a credit to the novel and at the same time compares East of the Mountains with Guterson’s previous novel Snow Falling on Cedars. She thinks that East of the Mountains description about war is not good enough compares to Guterson’s previous novel.
``East of the Mountain'' is a fine novel, but it lacks the historical sweep, the dramatic, stormy battles of the spirit from Guterson's first novel, ``Snow Falling on Cedars.'' Its flashback scenes of war are not as precisely and heartbreakingly rendered as the internment camp scenes in the earlier book. But in its quiet understanding of the autumnal state of life, the questions and fears we all will come to someday, it is a compassionate and masterful achievement.”
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/04/ 25/RV54143.DTL)
“Guterson is a fine writer and, mostly, his story and his characters are interesting and believable. I say 'mostly', because I had difficulty believing that Ben Givens, seventy-three years old and a sick man, could survive a near-fatal car accident with a badly gashed head and then walk for a night and a day through rough country, in foul weather, dragging a wounded dog on a makeshift sledge, and getting involved in a terrifying encounter with hunting Wolfhounds on the way. Didn't those medical experts, who are thanked by Guterson in his Acknowledgments, mention the effects of shock to him?”(http://www.eclectica.org/v3n2/skea_east_mountains.html)
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theories on Character
In a Glossary of Literary Terms, M.H. Abrams says that characters are people that are presented in a dramatic or narrative work. Character is a distinctive type of person that the moral and the dispositional qualities of him are expressed in the dialogue and in the actions. Abrams says that the characters temperament and moral nature for his speech and his action build the motivation of the character. Abrams also states that a character may remain to be unchanged in his outlook and his disposition from the beginning to the end of a work or he may undergo a change.
“A character may remain essentially “stable”, or unchanged in his outlook and dispositions, from beginning to end of a work (Prospero in The Tempest, Mickwaber in Dickens’sDavid Copperfield), or he may undergo a radical change, either through a gradual development or as a result of an extreme crisis (Shakespeare’s King Lear, Pip in Dickens’s Great Expectations)” (Abrams,1981:20).
development. Flat character is always be the same while round character is kind of character that develop (Forster, 1974:48).
Perrine in Literature, Sound, and Sense says that character can be developed or not developed. Most stories contains a certain character which is relevant to every event in the story, usually the events cause some change either in him or our attitude toward him. Based on the development of the characters, character can be static or dynamic. Static character is the same of sort of person at the end of the story as how was at the beginning, meanwhile dynamic character is the developing characters undergoes a permanent change in some aspects of his character, personality, our outlook. The change maybe a large or a small one; it maybe for better or for worse; it is more that a change in condition or a minor change in opinion (1974: 71)
In a Handbook to Literature, C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon also give a theory on character. According to Holman and Harmon, character is the form of human personality. They say that character is a description of a personage and the person is described as some vice ore virtue or type.
“The person is described not as an individualized personality but as an example of some vice or virtue of type, such as busybody, a glutton, a pop, a bumpkin, a garrulous old man, a happy milkmaid, etc.” (Holman and Harmon, 1986:81)
attitude toward him. A character’s reason for behaving as he does in his motivation is an aspect of his general character: it is the continuing desire or intention that governs him throughout the story. These are evidence that we can get to understand the characters. Firstly, we can recognize the character through its name, for example: in Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, the meaning is clear that the character is a good man. Secondly, the minor ones can describe the central character and usually, their attitudes toward a major character are important to define the right personality of the central character. The point is that through our knowledge of the characters we understand their actions and through their actions, we understand the characters.
In a Handbook of Literature Terms, Yelland also has a theory on character. According to Yelland, character is a person in the literary work and character is also a description of a type of a person, meaning that a character in a novel is just the same with alive character in a real world who has type of personalities, attitudes, and behavior which may represent a person in this world (Yelland, 1953:29).
2. Theories of Characterization
Rohrberger and Wood in Reading and Writing about Literature said that the process by which an author creates a character is called characterization.
“There are two principle ways that an author can characterize. The first is through a direct way. It describes the physical appearance. The second, he uses a dramatic event. It means that he places in situation where he should react in particular way. His action must be motive in term that a reader can accept (1971:20-21)
It means that the way to show about characterization can be direct or indirect. In direct ways the author describe the physical appearance. Secondly is through indirect ways, where the author describes the character by how the character behaves and speaks we can see the character implicitly.
According to Holman and Harmon in A Handbook to Literature (1986:61) characterization is divided into three fundamental methods:
a. The explicit presentation is presented by the author of the character through direct exposition, other in introduction or more often through out but the development of the story, which is illustrated by actions.
b. The presentation of the character in action with little explicit comment by the author, in expectation that the reader will be able to deduce the attribute of the author from the action.
makes the reader easier to understand the character, and it can help us to analysis of the literary work.
The other theory of characterization is presented by Beaty and Hunter in their book New World of Literature. According to them, the way in which the author describes character and process of defining characters is usually called characterization. There are also two ways in describing characters in the story, namely direct and indirect ways. It is called direct way when the author describes the way the characters look (their physical appearances and their clothing, bearing, make up, and so on); the way they speak; they way they think; and what other people say about them. While, it is called indirect way when the author describes the character’s language and action (1989:231-232)
M.J. Murphy in Understanding Unseen: An Introduction to English Poetry and English Novel for Overseas Students shows a few ways in which the author tries to make his characters understandable to the readers. They are:
1. Personal description
The author can describe his character through a character’s appearance and clothes.
2. Characters as seen by another
The author can describe the character through the eyes and opinions of another. The reader gets a reflected image.
3. Speech
whenever he is in conversation with another, whenever he puts forward an opinion, he is giving us some clue to his character.
4. Past life
By letting the reader learn something about a person’s life, the author can give us a clue to events that helped to shape a person’s character. This can be done by direct comment by the author, through the person’s thoughts, through his conversation or through the medium of another person.
5. Conversation of others.
The author can also give us clues to a person’s character through the conversations of other people and the things they say about him.
6. Reactions
The author can give us clue to person’s character by letting us know how that person reacts to various situations and events.
7. Direct comment.
The author can describe or comment a person’s character directly. 8. Thoughts.
The author can give us directly knowledge of what a person is thinking about the person’s character.
9. Mannerism
1. His or her basic characteristic. This can be seen from the physical condition, the social relationship, and the mental qualities.
2. His or her appearance from various points of view, this includes: how a character sees him or herself, how other characters see him or her, and how he or she develops, or fails to develop during the course of the story.
3. His or her place in the work such as the treatment of the author, his or her place in the story (a leading character or a minor one), and his or her relation to the theme (Little, 1981:93).
3. Theories of Plot
Another element in the literary work that is closely related to the characters is called plot. Abrams states that the plot has a unity if it is perceive by the readers a complete and ordered structure of actions, directed toward the intended effect, in which none pf the component parts of incidents is unnecessary (1981:140).
Related to the characters, plot cannot be separated from characters indeed, De Laar and Schoonderwood stress that plot is what happens to the characters. Plot and characters cannot really be separated. A plot is nothing without characters; characters are nothing without plot (1963:167).
characters, or between a character and his environment. Stanton also mentions a central conflict in a work. According to him, central conflicts is always between fundamental and contrasting qualities of forces, such as honesty and hypocrisy (1965:16)
Perrine said that plot is the sequence of incidents or events of which a story is composed. It may include what a character says or thinks, as well as what he does, but it leaves out description and analysis and concentrates ordinarily on major happening. Furthermore, he says that every story must have some actions, but for a worth while story. It must be significant action. Physical action by itself meaningless. He adds, in a good story a minimum of physical may be used to yield a maximum of insight (1974:43)
Forster in Aspect of the Novel and Related Writingexplains the difference between plot and story. He says that a story is a narrative of events arranged in their time sequence. A plot, however, is also a narrative of events but it emphasizes on causality. He gives example to make the different become clearer; “the king died the queen died of grief” is a plot. From the example above, it can be seen that plot needs causality while story merely tells the chronological events (1974:60).
4. The Relation between Plot and Character
role as the method to understand the character’s personalities and lives. Character and plot then become the most closely related elements. De Laar and Scoonderwoerd (1963:167) describe how desperately the two elements need one another. They say that plot is what happens to the characters. Plot and characters can not be really separated. A plot is nothing without characters: characters are nothing without plot. Plot is regarded depart from character, but actually the two elements is omitted, it does not create a story.
in a dramatic or narrative work means discussing things that finally have some effects on the characters.
Therefore, to create believable characters, a novelist should plan the plot of his or her novel carefully. The novelist should clearly pose some conflict and resolve them. From the readers’ point of view, the relationship between plot and characters cannot be clearly distinguished in most stories, for the plot including the dialogue amounts simply to knowing how characters, act, and react. Referring to the explanation above, it can be concluded that characters in a novel should not be static. There must be development. While the plot or the story goes forward, the characters should go forward too and vice versa. Action and incident spring out of characters and having occurred, they change it, so that at the end of a novel a character should have changed, have developed, should be different from what he or she was at the beginning of the novel (De Laar & Scoonderwoerd 1963:171)
5. Theories of Message
Every work of literature consists of and offers moral message. Of course there are many types of moral lesson conveyed. Fiction, especially novels, sometimes may have more than one message. Moreover they have been involved by the interpretations come from many other readers. The type of message occurs in a literary work depends on the author’s belief, wish and interest.
illusion that a work of literature exists for its statement that tempts the readers with sweetness of a story to get the real meaning.
The model of literary communication, the way the author communicate to the reader is by, the author encodes a message that the readers receive, or the author sees a great truth that he teaches the readers by example. Usually, message seeks to inform or convince even though it is impossible that it seeks to have the readers comprehend and empathize so that the ideas are more broadly accessible.
Meanwhile Nurgiyantoro also shows a similarity on the definition of message. He states that moral in a work of art is called a message (1995:332). This element actually is the idea that provides the basis for literary work. In other words, it is the idea that forms the background of creating a work.
Message likewise theme is an important element in a work of literature. Nurgiyantoro defines message as something that an author wants to convey to the readers. It also can be the meaning within a work or the meaning suggested through the story. (1995: 321).
When ones are talking about message, they are also discussing moral. It can be said briefly that generally moral means teaching of good and bad (Kenny, 1966:89). But this lesson in some case has relativity. It means that people’s view about moral about moral and values from one place are not always the same as the people’s view from another.
Message in a work of art usually reflects the way of the related author. He wants to convey his opinion about the values of truth. Message in a story is intended as suggestion related to practical moral lesson that can be taken by the readers through the story. They are closely related to problems in life, such as attitude, behavior, and so on. The readers can find them in real life, in the same manners as they are reflected in the story through its characters.
Hudson says that a good message is a message that discloses new a large possibility they do not realize, a writer would try to tell and to show those possibilities themselves. A good message does not tend to follow general pattern or norm but it creates new patterns based on human values (1958:23)
Beside that, a work of art contains several messages that can be classified into major and minor messages.
C. Theoretical Framework.
The purpose of this thesis is to answer the problems stated previously. To help the writer answer the problem formulation, the writer took some theories. Theories of characterization and character were used to analyze the main character described in the story.
Theory of plot which is used to answer the first and the second problem is also important to reveal the actions taken by the main character. Plot is kind of method to understand character. There we can understand easily the movement of the characters.
20
In this chapter, the concern is on the method of the study. It is divided into three parts. The first part is the object of the study, which deals with David Guterson’s East of the Mountains. The second part provides the approach that is used in conducting this study. The last part is the method of the study which is the procedures that concern the steps that are taken in analyzing the novel thoroughly.
A. Object of the Study
East of the Mountains was first published in 1999 in Great Britain. The edition that the writer is using for this thesis was paperback edition published in 2000 by the Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. It was copyright 1999; this novel was printed in Great Britain by Clays Limited St Ives plc. This novel was composed of 278 pages and built of 12 chapters. In this thesis I only analyze the main character and plot to reveal the messages.
B. Approach of the Study
According to Abrams (1981:36-37), there are four types of traditional approaches concerning the analyzing and evaluating of literary works, and one of them is objective.
Objective criticism approaches the literary work as independent object or a self-sufficient object, which stands free from poet, audience, and the environment world. The analysis is on the intrinsic element of the work itself by using intrinsic criteria such as setting (place and time), theme, character, plot which build the story of the novel. In other words, the objective criticism criticizes a work as something that is standing on a work itself.
The writer chooses the objective criticism to analyze the novel. The reason why the writer chooses this approach is based on the idea about the approach itself. It is suitable with the work which intends to analyze some of intrinsic elements which are plot and character to reveal the messages. Concerning on the subject, this work focuses its analysis on the characters and plot without including other aspect outside the work of analysis
C. Method of the Study
In completing this thesis, there were some steps that the writer took. Firstly, the writer read the main source, the novel East of the Mountains thoroughly and reread again to get a deeper understanding. The following step was choosing the topic and stating the problem formulations. The next step was finding the theories and criticism on East of the Mountains related to the problem formulations.
23
The first part of this chapter presents the description of the main character,
because it is very important to find out the characteristic of the main character
first. The second part, the writer will look at the factors that influence the main
character wants to commit suicide and not to commit suicide eventually, and the
last part of this chapter presents the messages that the author tries to present
related to the main character’s development in this in this David Gutersons’s East
of the Mountains novel.
A.
The Characteristics of the Main Character
Ben Givens is the main character in David Guterson’s
East of the
Mountains. He is an old man of seventy years old, strong and very tall, blue eyes,
has a thick chest and broad shoulder, although now get soft as he growing old, his
face is weather and furrow, his eyes two dark shields.
He was a heart surgeon, retired, who had specialized in bypass operations.
As a doctor he is known as a good and competent by other doctors and his patients
believe that Ben is an expert in medicine, it is shown in quotation below.
“He had been admired by other doctors for his steadiness of hand, his
precision, his endurance, his powers of concentration, and his grace.”(p.3)
Since he was a young, his teacher knew that Ben has a potency to be more than just a farmer. In the school Ben is one of talented and has a good brain enough, that he should consider another way beside this apple business thing, that he deserves more. She recommends Ben to one of the good university, she advises him that this path should taken by Ben with pride and confidence, his brother Aidan agrees with her and suggest him also to take this path, but different in Ben’s thought. All he knows at that time is just that his father need him to work the apple orchard. (p.83)
Actually, Ben never thought before that finally he engage with such a medic thing, grown up as orchardist’s son, and knows nothing except apples. But his experience when he joins the army where fear, wound and death become part of him has open his eyes that fight and war definitely not his interest at all. Seeing a man who has badly injures and sometimes lost one of their part of the body disturbs Ben a lot.
The important reason that makes Ben want to be a medicine is his experience during war in the Italian Alps, when his friend who was shot by the enemy and dying, saved by the field surgeon, and also the horrible experience when he has to take one of his enemy’s life in that war.
“He told her about the German he’d killed, the man’s eyes, his legs in front of him, the twitching, rattling death. “I didn’t think,” he confessed. “It’s difficult in situation like that.”
The other reasons also come from Rachel, during the war, Ben and Rachel always send letters to each other, in the letter Ben often tells Rachel about his experience in the military camp, his fear and feeling toward violence in the war, that become a part of killing is something that he doesn’t want to be. Rachel who really concern with Ben’s confusion, convince him that to participate the war is not always deal with killing, it doesn’t have to be a soldiers, but he still able participate in the war as a medic.
“Well, you shouldn’t enlist if don’t want to fight. You should train as a medic or something.”(p.102)
The quotation above shows that Ben is advised not to join the army in the war, but he could still participate the war as a medic.
“You were right,” he said. “I should have been a medic. I should have listened to you.”
“I want to be like that surgeon,” said Ben. “A person like that, a doctor.”(p.201)
Ben Givens is an adventurer, because of his boyhood in Washington's apple country where the scenes is beautiful, wild and free make him an adventurer. He likes to do outside activities such as hike many miles and climb many mountains since he was eight years old. He used to climbing and hiking with his family, his brother, Aidan, his father, Wright, and sometimes Leonora, his mother join too. Once they all together went climbing and hiking in the east of the mountains at falls and conquer that place. In other word the Givenses is an adventurer.
His toughness conquers everything in the mountains is doubtless, that is why his grand son really admires him and likes to do such activities also. He and Chris his grand son, sometimes get the adventure together in many places, but not Silver Peak yet, one of the hardest place to reach, that is why Chris insists to go there with Ben, although Ben kind of too old to do such activities, Christ believe that Ben still capable and strong enough to conquer the Silver Peak.
Quotation below shows the conversation between Ben Givens and his grand son. Chris persuade Ben to conquer the Silver Peak, he also convince Ben that he still strong enough to do it.
“What about Silver Peak?” insisted his grandson? “Up in the pass. A shakedown cruise. A tune – up – run. A day hike.”
“I don’t know if I can do it anymore. My legs are beginning to wobble.” Chris held a piece of bread in his hand. “What are you talking about?” he demanded “You’re still the toughest old goat in the mountains. Don’t start talking about that.”(p.11)
Beside hiking and climbing, Ben also does hunting activities since he was a boy, although deep in his heart he hesitates to do those activities, because his mother against of bird hunting, she thinks that a pleasure of killing small birds on the wing was reprehensible in the eyes of God, but he still do it, he feels that it has to be, it is like an obligation than a pleasure, His father’s opinion about hunting is manly sport has deeply planted in Ben’s mind, but still he has a doubt in his heart that he does something wrong, and it is proven with the quotation below.
Although Ben hesitates with hunt activities, he still hunt, shoot and kill those small birds, his ego, his obedient to his father, to satisfy him, to prove him that he able to hunt, that his teaching on him is success has win Ben amiss feeling, all of this hunt activities done obligatorily like usual activities that he must do as a man, therefore he eat the bird meat with regrets feeling after it. Ben’s hesitation on hunting shows through quotation below.
“Ben killed three mourning doves that day and watched them fall at the report of the .410 his father had placed in his hands. He buried their viscera, wings, and heads, in a small hole in the ground. Their breast meet was dark and small in the frying pan, dusted with salted flour. He ate the meat with vague regret while his mother watched in silence from the sink, until after awhile she came near to touch his cheek. Then she went to the sink again and scrubbed the pan for him.”(p.6)
But these hunt activities totally stop after the war, and when he was married with Rachel Lake, his killing experience that closely seen in the war has traumatic Ben a lot. Suddenly he stop activities that deal with killing, even he stop fishing too. But after Rachel died the pursuit of hunting come to him once again. He is back to those activities as if it is the only way to ease his pain of Rachel’s death. In the past two autumns he returns to the canyons and sagelands to chase small birds, geese and mallards just like in his youth. This time is not as an obligatory but he hunts to escape from the reality when he has no Rachel anymore.
Ben Givens is such a person that braves enough to express his idea and opinion spontaneously. It shown when he was a little boy, when the doctor had give up could not cure his mother’s illness, he is brave to protest to that doctor that a good doctor suppose can cure her no matter what the illness is. This is something that might not do by his brother, Aidan even though he is older.
“There’s nothing we can do to cure her.” “But you’re a doctor,” Ben said.
“Ben turned his face to the floor. “I thought you were a good doctor,” he whispered.” (p.75)
It is also shown when Ben met a girl named Catherine Donnelly, a college student in a bus to Wenatchee, there Ben and the girl have a little argument on their conversation. Both of them defend their opinion about anthroposophy, kind of spiritual philosophy from a book that she read and from the author that she adore. Ben has some questions about this spiritual realm, about heaven, about life after death and about death itself, and the girl said, if we kind of believe this spiritual things, about the other world, we will not afraid with death that death is not scary at all and Ben argues that he is terrify on death not because he doesn’t believe in something like the girl has accuse to him, but because oldness is near with the death that death is not real at young age like her. The chance of an old man to die is bigger than the young man. In his question and opinion it seems that Ben kind of doubt and little mock on the book and the author, until the girl accuse Ben for being a skeptic and too analytical, and he tells her that he doesn’t accept things easily.
His fifty years marriage with Rachel has proven of his loyalty of his love to her until death does their part. And after Rachel die, he still keep Rachel’s beautiful memories with him. He still misses her so much. Even sometimes he holds Rachel’s stuff to cure his yearning.
“And to hold in his hands the earrings and lockets his wife, Rachel, had worn. He had found, in a box, a jar of her sewing buttons, a bulbous-head lavender wand laced with ribbon, a pair of her shoes, a pack of foxglove seeds, and sketch pad less than a quarter filled with her pencil drawings of tress. He had unzipped the garment bag in the storage room closet and yielding to sentimentality, burrowed his face into the dresses there in order to retrieve the faint smell of her.” (p.8)
That quotation shows that Ben Givens is really loves Rachel, the girl of his youth that he knows and meet in his father apple orchard. At first Ben too shy to admit his feeling that he has falls in love with Rachel, to his father Ben says that she means nothing to him, that he doesn’t care about her at all.
“Ben’s father nodded and grinned. “You waste too much time, she’ll be gone,” he warned. “Girl like that gets tired of picking fruit, she’s going to leave this place.”
“Let her,” said Ben. “I don’t care.” (p.92)
But finally he can not keep his feeling to Rachel by himself. He really loves her and the imagination of loosing her is really scares him. So he tells Rachel about his love to her, before she leaves to the Cadet Nurse Corps, a nurse school in San Francisco.
“He thought about dying, not seeing her anymore. “ I wouldn’t want any regrets,” he said. “So I guess I should just say it.”
“What do you mean? You’d better say what?” “That I like you, Rachel. That’s all.”
Ben Givens is someone who has a strong self stand; it is shown at his youth when he wants to go away from home to join the army. His father, Wright Givens tries to persuade him not to go for war out there for Ben’s own good sake. His father advises Ben that he has should not go because he is too young, that he is going to worry, that he needs Ben in the apple orchard, but Ben still wants to go no mater what.
“In the open doorway of the bus they embraced, and Ben smelled his father’s hair. “Thanks,” he said. “For everything.”
His father hugged him harder in reply. “Jesus, “He said, “don’t go”.
Beside his father, Wright Givens who influence Ben not to go, a little objection also come from Rachel, she advice, that he should not go and fight in the war, that war is very danger and could kills him, but he still insist to join the army.
“You could die, you know,” said Rachel. “You’re putting your life on the line.”
“I try not to think about things like that.” “You should, though.”
“I don’t.”(p.103)
First when he is asked by the little girl and little boy in a car rental about what happens to one of his eyes, Ben answer that he has a fight with any coyote (p.43). Second, is when he is asked by the desk boy of the motel near the vet clinic, he replies that his eye get a bad shape because of boxing tournament, he tells him that he is a boxer in the senior-circuit boxing(p.157). Third, is when he is in a supermarket near the motel, where he shops some foods. Just like the previous ones, he has been asked about what happens to his eye, and this time Ben has different replies also. But when the cashier girl laughs and accuses him that he is lying, he give another different fake answer again.
“A game of croquet,” Ben answered. “It got out of control.” “What a crock,” the cashier said. “hah, hah. Very funny.”
“These people take it seriously,” insisted Ben. “I got cracked with a mallet.”
“I always know when somebody lying.” “Croquet,” said Ben. “with the wrong people.” “If you say so.”
“All right. I’ll confess. I walked into a door.”
B. The Influence of Cancer to Ben Givens
When Ben had been told that he had a colon cancer, Ben feels desperate, hopeless, and helpless. Being told that he only have a few months to live is scares him already, more over knowing exactly that the process of cancer will drive him in lot of suffers and pains, his heart is shrink.
Cancer has make Ben Givens recognize marijuana from the drifter, when Ben tells the drifter about his hard burden on his heart, that he has a kind of deadly disease and how the cancer will cause him dying and suffer because of it, the drifter give him three marijuana cigarettes and suggest Ben to use it in the desert, Ben refuse it and ask the drifter to put the marijuana away and tells the drifter that he will not use it, but the drifter force Ben to accept it, and influence Ben by saying to him that the marijuana cigarettes have magic powers, and that the marijuana cigarettes is a pain reliever then without hesitate, the drifter put the marijuana cigarettes in the breath mint tin in the Ben’s rucksack and advice Ben to smoke that dope.
The first cigarette is used in the desert, in hunting time. He knows that Cannabis sativa is a well-established medical fact that could ease the pain of cancer although it is adverse also, but he thinks that there is nothing to loose to try it. He lit the cigarette and gets his lighter out which the truth is, against the grain of his principle and astonish himself with what he does. He smell and inhale first the cigarette before smoke it and suck it deeply, he doesn’t feel anything but hungrier and thirstier than before until his thought is very rich with vivid and graphic memories which is so real and so clear that he feels he could touch his past.
rucksack, he thinks the previous day when he smoke the first cigarette, and slightly feels guilty, regret, and fools but the pressure of the pain in his gut, make him wants to put the suffers away soon, so he take the cigarette and deeply suck it over and over again till the last suck. Just like his first experience, beside the pains seems bearable enough, his mind of thought travels so high to other time and place, this time the memories of the war come to him. The memories that he tries to erase and lock forever, but the marijuana has set them free and make Ben more restless in his sleep.
And the last cigarette is used in the apple orchard owned by the Hardens in Wenatchee, in an apple picker’s cabin where there, Ben pretend to be an apple pickers so he could get his gun back from William Harden. This third experience of using the marijuana cigarette is without any particular reasons, he smokes it as a pleasurable, to relax his mind and thought. This time the marijuana cigarette drive Ben to all the women he has met. The shadows of Catherine Donnelly, the girl he met in the bus to Wenatchee, who he has some intellectuals conversations with, and then the shadow of Christine Reilly, the beautiful girl who has help him after his car accident and reminds him to his beloved wife so much, and also the shadow of the horsewomen with the blue veins in her shoulder that he met at the vet clinic. His lonely feeling make Ben think and dream under the marijuana control about them.
act and react differently, opposite with the way he used to be and sometimes it against his grain of principle.
Cancer makes Ben want to commit suicide, before this cancer widely spread to each part of his body, and stuck on it, he better to end his suffer and pain by end his life as soon as possible by clean and fast suicide so he can free from cancer forever.
“Better to end it now, he’d decided: better to avoid pain than engage it. Better to end his life swiftly, cleanly, and to accept that there would be no thwarting the onslaught of this disease.” (p.4)
His experience as a doctor makes him know already, what will happen to him next, such as predictable days to go with the cancer on him. As a doctor he knows all the chronological of this colon cancer journey in every part of his body that he can not avoid or erase. He knows exactly the symptoms, how the cancer reacts to his body little by little, part by part, how it will cause pain and suffers in his life, how this deadly disease will make him a morphine addict to ease the pain temporary in his dying days before finally die. And this entire phantoms make Ben thinks to end it first by suicide before it really happens to him.
It is not a death that Ben is frightening for, but the process before death itself, dying is a situation and condition that Ben doesn’t want to experience dying, he wish could skip it just like other painful, death will not too painful and not too scary him, but the truth is, he just too scares to be dying.
“The problem, then, wasn’t death but dying, and if the trial of dying could be got through – like any horrifying or painful ordeal – death, the other side, would be endurable.” (p.16)
Beside dying, cancer has make Ben think further about his future days, a dying old man will need people hand, he will bother his family a lot, his life will depend on someone, he doesn’t want it all, he used to be a doctor who help, he doesn’t want to be helped continuously, he doesn’t want to be burden of his family. (p. 273)
According Ben Givens suicide is the best way to overcome his problems, to cut the pains and suffer on his dying days afterwards, he also knew that in some cases, die becomes the only suffering antidote or solution for the one with cancer. They will prefer to die compare than have to suffer and deal with the pain for the rest of their life, what scares Ben and make him doubt for a while is the imagination of regret in the end. But then he thinks that regret now or latter will be the same thing because he regrets already for has a colon cancer and for being dying which he interpret, not become a part of the world anymore because everything seems and smells graveyards to him.
“And so the best one could do, it seemed, was to remove the pain and horror from the process by choosing an intelligent suicide.” (p.16)
now endured, he experienced regret already. He felt no longer a part of the world. Everything reeked of the grave.” (p.16)
What Ben means about intelligence suicide is that suicide that neat, organized, accidentally and natural. Thus no one knows that the death is not caused by suicide just like his own plan on suicide. Good plans on suicide means good lies, in this case, lies are needed in order to avoid suspicions from the others. Ben’s own plan on suicide also includes some lies on it, cancer has make Ben as a liar, but he has to, if he wants the plan going well. Since he sets up a journey, a hunting trip across the Cascades Mountain which is on his mind it will be going to be his last trip and plans to end his life once he reaches the high desert, he need to make it as if his death is not a suicide but accidentally, therefore he lies to his family, Renee, his daughter and Chris, his grandson.
“All right, Silver Peak,” Ben said, and it was this lie he found most disturbing now, as he stood in his bedroom arranging more lies, we’ll go up there, when I get home.” (p.12)
“The lie was open ended so that his family wouldn’t start worrying until he’d been dead for as long as a week—so none would miss or seek him where he rotted silently in the sage.” (p.10)
Dishonesty is his policy now, but not just for his own advantage, he thinks about his family also. He hopes dishonesty will make everything easier, and cause not much trouble to anyone; he lies in order to leave this world as quietly as he could.
somewhere in the desert and end his life by kill himself and hope no one found his body until it get rotten up there. Therefore he arrange his plan carefully, before leaving his house, check it over again because he has to make sure that everything is left properly, everything in this house has to be natural in order, so people who seen it never thought that this house is going to be left forever.
“He opened his garage door to the beating rain, but then it occurred to him he had not made certain that the house was left in proper order – the home of a man who intended to return at the end of an ordinary bird – hunting trip – and he went inside once more.” (p.10)
Then he intends to set his dogs free in the sageland at the end of the hunting day. He hopes that another hunter will find the dogs and taking care of them, before he hangs himself and shoots himself. Actually he scares if what he expected to his dogs will not happens to them, he is kind of little worry that his dogs will hunger, hardship, or even die, but somehow he hopes that they will fend for themselves, he still feels that he owes them more than to abandon them in the expanse of empty canyons. But he has to bring them self if he wants the plan is going well. And after that he could do the next step which is hang and shoot himself in the neck.
“The truth was that at the end of this day of hunting, he intended to set his dogs free on the sagelands, hang himself up between strands of barbed wire-as if he’d been making a low fence crossing-and shoot himself in the carotid artery: shoot himself in the neck.” (p.12)
C. Reasons that Make Ben Change his Plan not to Commit Suicide
This situation makes Ben meet other people and makes Ben has plenty times to revisit his memories in his past life since the location is around the place where he used to live, which some of them surprise and inspires him, make him learn of different life also, therefore these kind of influences, direct and indirectly has make Ben revises his decision on commit suicide.
The first character that Ben met was the young lovers, Kevin and Christine. Both of them help Ben after the car accident. Ben’ car hit the tree and this kind of near fatal accident actually, in spite the suicide, he feels lucky that he still alive, survive and got not- too bad injures. He feels lucky that Kevin and Christine were there to help him. Miracle is something that Ben wait now and for his problems, and he already get one but in another way.
“It could have been considerably worse. I actually feel very lucky.” “It’s incredible,” the girl agreed. “You could have been dead, you know.” “Yes, I could have been,” Ben said. It’s a kind of miracle.” (p.23)
The young lovers Kevin Lamont and Christine Reilly who help him and give him a ride after the accident, reminds of him as his marriage. Kevin and Christine is a couple who travels a lot, just like Ben and Rachel his wife, just like Ben, Rachel also likes to do outside activities, she used to horse riding in the canyons when she was teenager, in Ben eyes, when she ride horseback she reflects a free girl under the sun, that is why Rachel and Ben like to visit some beautiful places out there because both of them are an adventurer. Most of the places that being told by the young couple have already visited by Ben and Rachel years ago, one of them is Cortina, the place where Ben and Rachel have their honeymoon.
“I’ve been there too,” said Ben. “Did you go to Cortina?”
“Yes. Some. Mostly further north.” “What did you do?”
“I went hiking and climbing. Years ago. I had my honeymoon there.” (p.32)
Their intimation and passionate love really reminds Ben of his’ love to Rachel and Rachel’s love to him. Ben admires Christine’s beauty and her tenderness, everything on her reminds Ben of Rachel, her feature, her bones that make Ben compare with his beloved wife.
“The girl reached back for her ponytail and laid it over her left shoulder. Her features, Ben saw, were much like Rachel’s: her beauty was in her fine bones. Her beauty was not an ephemeral thing or a condition of her age alone. It would still be there in fifty years, underneath her aging skin.” (p.41)
That young lovers drives Ben to all sweet moments with Rachel, he realize that to have Rachel eventually is amazing thing after all they have been through, how war separate them thousands miles away, how death threatening them during the war and finally a fifty years marriage unite them. He thinks that had a great love once is one of good fortune, had Rachel is a bless, that he will not forget for the rest of life through all of the memories he got.
“Ben remembered that in Italy, he and Rachel had slipped down between rows of apple trees on the plain of the Po, deep into the cool and dark of orchards, and there they kissed with the sadness of newlyweds who know that their kisses are too poignantly tender and that their good fortune is subject, like all things, to the crush of time, which remorselessly obliterates what is most desired and pervades all that is beautiful.” (p.41)
is become one of reasons for Ben to rethinking over about his intention to commit suicide.
“When they had crossed the river, Ben spoke again. “When we married, we made a pact,” he said, “to burry our ashes together.”
“That’s very romantic.” “Well, we felt so.” “I like the idea.”
“I like it, too. And if I’d gone through with shooting myself, it probably wouldn’t happen.”
“Coyotes and worms instead, you’re right.” “So I’m going home because of that, too.” “I understand,” said Bea.” (p.275)
When Ben doesn’t get a car to rent, he has to continue his journey by hitchhike, while he waits for a ride, he meet another traveler a long haired drifter who wants to hitchhike too. Ben have a difficulty to find a ride by hitchhike, some cars just pass over him, the drifter give a suggestion that if Ben wants to get a ride, he has to hide his dogs in the bushes, the dogs might be the main cause of some car’s objection to give a ride. When Ben and the drifter wait for rides Ben tells him about his colon cancer. The drifter perceive Ben’ complaint about his cancer with no surprise, as if dying means nothing to him, a suggestion that everybody in the world is a dying people, that will die too and they just wait their time.
“The drifter drew on his cigarette, as if he’d heard nothing special. He spoke with the smoke streaming out of his mouth.
“What kind of cancer?” he asked. “The dying kind, Ben answered.
“We’re all dying. You’re just closer to it.”
“You’ve been reading too many books. Or watching too many movies.” “Whatever.” Said the drifter. “But it’s true.”
Because Ben doesn’t have a ride from the hitchhike, he continues his journey, into the hill, on foot with his two Brittanies hunting dogs, Rex and Tristan to hunt, to do the last hunt, he say to himself. In this hunting, somewhere three hundred feet downhill there is fighting between his dogs and another dogs owned by coyotes hunter.
This fight makes Rex get really bad wounds, and the other dog, Tristan is killed. The struggle of their dogs amazed Ben, how they survive from death and how dying and painful is not a matter to scare of.
“Rex heaved beneath him when he threw the first stitch and again when he tied the anchor, but after that dog surrendered. He was braver than Ben had anticipated, more patient in the face of pain. Rex had always seemed too brash, too headlong and imprudently eager, but now he acquitted himself with a decorous restraint, and endured nobly; Ben felt a grudging admiration.” (p.128)
To get more treatment immediately Rex needs a vet, but the closest vet clinic is in Quincy, which is eleven miles from Ben position, because Ben doesn’t have a car and other transportation, he needs a ride to get there since Rex really in a bad injures. To get a ride, Ben offer some deal payment by announce to the people in front of the restaurant in the first town he visit after his dogs get injures. And for sixty dollars, this guy names Stu Robinson willing to take Ben up to Quincy.
“A man stood up. Tall, thin, and hollow-eyed, he wore pointed black sideburns. He wiped his lips with a napkin as he rose, then dropped it on his table. I’ll do it,” he said. “Let’s go.” (p.140)
part along the way to Quincy to see the vet. The sleeper is quiet comfortable place to stay, just like a small complete room in a motel, very neat and clean, there are some small electricity such as fridge, television, and even have a small closet in it. Seeing some new thing like this, Ben just struck with amazement and admiration because he never seen like this before, a moving mini house.
“The sleeper unit was like a motel room, clean, sterile, claustrophobic. A neatly made bed, a refrigerator, a closet, and a television set mounted in one corner. A remote – control channel switcher lay squarely in the middle of Robinson’s pumped pillow. “This is something,” Ben said. “I’ve never seen this before.” (p.142)
On their way to Quincy, Ben and Stu have small talks, like questioning each other names, where they come from, their family and something like that, on that conversation even tough just a little one but means a huge for Ben. In the conversation Stu explain Ben that he live in the truck till now, he doesn’t have a settle place to live in and no family who wait for him to come back home. He says that only have this tractor trailer for sixteen years.
“This is where I live.” “All year round?” “Just about.”
“You don’t have a house?” “This is it.”
“You don’t have a family waiting somewhere?” “This is it,” Robinson repeated.
“Well,” said Ben. “I’ve never seen this before.” “It’s a good rig,” said Robinson.” (p.142)
marriage. Hearing this, Ben seems proud about his fifty marriage with Rachel, proud to have a true love that unite in an eternity engagement, that they eventually separate by the destiny, by something that human can prevent or avoid, separate by death. Ben tells Stu that he become a widower because his wife died nineteen months ago, Ben feels that Stu’s marriage is nothing compare than his, he really grateful to have such a lasting marriage with Rachel Lake. (p.147)
Stu Robinson’s statement and explanation, kind of make Ben shock. The conversation that does not interest and attract him before, suddenly become of his center focus now. He never imagines before, that someone only have a truck to live in for the rest of his live, and no family, meanwhile he have all that a man needs, a home, a family who will take a good care of him during his hard days, but he intends to leave it all behind. He muse over his choice to end his life, his mind full with languish shadow of his day will be, dying in hospital desperately, but the thought what happens to The Stu’s final days more disturbing him. This Stu Robinson makes him realize the importance of home and family through their little conversation and force him to question his choice of suicide. (p.142)
to save and help the patients’ life. That reminds him on his work day that has been nineteen months since his last surgery- repairing a human heart in trouble, the activities that he misses so much. This moment give a wonderful experience to Ben, since he remember the points of his journey is to end his life, the moment that suppose he kill himself, die, rotten and eaten by flies is replace with the surgery instead, the activities that he has thousands of times in order to save lives.
“He had not expecting anything like this. Strange and stranger still, he thought, that a moment in which he’d intended to be dead rotting and eaten by flies in the sage country, he was instead scrubbing for surgery as he had thousands of times.” (p.151)
While Rex rest in the clinic after the surgery, Ben decide to take his gun back from William Harden to Wenatchee. William harden is the owner of the Irish wolfhounds, dogs who fight with Ben’s dog. At that night to protect and save Rex’s life, Ben kills one of Harden’s dogs, that is why, harden carry away his Winchester 21, his father’s gun which become his, since he was eight years old and used for hunting until now and uses for kills Harden’s dog also. Ben thinks that is a robbery but William harden take it as substitute for his dead dogs although that dog kills Tristan and almost kills Rex. (p.122)
This violence experience makes Ben conscious about the realization that violence is evil, that everything which deal with guns always bring a bad luck and sorrow, he knows that all guns are cursed.
“My call is this,” said Ben. “That gun was in my family sixty years. My father used it before I did, hunting birds. He killed a lot of birds with it. After him, I killed my share too. But you know something about that gun? It was never anything but bad, really. A bad thing, that gun.”
On the bus on the way to the wolfhound orchard owned by the Harden, Ben meet three little immigrant workers, an apple pickers. Along the way one of the apple pickers been coughing for hours, Ben predicts that he has some serious illness kind of tuberculoses or pneumonia. And need a care immediately in the hospital, Ben persuade him to go with the medics from 911 that he call, by convince him that the treatment will not cost a money and he will not get deported since these apple pickers seems doesn’t have a permit to be in this country. In other words Ben has save an apple pickers life who has serious illness by persuade him to go to the hospital after examine and predict his illness, since the ill apple pickers taken to the hospital with his brother, the other boy who left alone is taken care by Ben, he also find a job for the boy who come to this state without a green card in apple orchards in the harvest time. (p. 232-250)
And during in the wolfhound orchard Ben has an opportunity to save a young mother delivers a baby who stuck in the shoulder, Ben help the young mother delivers baby without any tools at all, Ben try to save both, the baby and the young mother, it really difficult situation, and finally he still able to save a human life and give a life to the baby like what he used to do as a doctor. People around it consider that Ben’ success deliver a baby is kind of miracle, they thank God for Ben presence at that place. (P.261-263)
for a help and the way they trust him inspire him now, that, he still capable of helping when he believes no longer capable of helping. This experience might be give a time to Ben for thinking that life is very valuable, the way the young mother’ struggle to deliver her baby, and the way he tries to help them until the baby safely deliver is one of incredible thing.
The last influence that inspires Ben not to commit suicide is the statement from Beatrice Cade or Bea Harden, the sister in law of William Harden. When Ben tells that one of the reason for him to commit suicide is he doesn’t want to be his family’s burden, Bea replies that it is not just a burden but a lesson to be more passion.
“It isn’t burden,” Bea said firmly. “Think what they’ll learn from it.” “That sounds good, in principle.”
“It is good,” Bea insisted. “Seeing you die, it’ll make them compassionate. It’ll help them be more compassionate” (p.273).
D. The Moral Messages Suggested by Ben Givens’s Character Development
In this part, the writer will answer that question based on the development character of Ben Givens from desperate person who want to commit suicide become more strong person to cancel his intention to commit suicide. The moral values are derived mainly from the main character’s development.
Second, always value the memories whether bad or good, is one of message that the author wants to reveal through the character of Ben givens. The memories of his past life has inspires Ben to such a better step to take the next steps without do the same mistakes just like before.
Third, the importance of home and family also clearly the message that the author wants to show, how hard, Ben’s problem is, the warmth of his home and family always there for him, the other character’s influence has already make Ben realize that family is one of he need to face his problem, family is always become his support, no matter how hard and difficult situations is, home is the place where we can come back to, there is no place like home.
Fourth, courage is also a message that the writer can see, needs a big brave to do kind of risk journey hunting like that, especially for an old man of 73
