Analysis of the Portrayal of the Protagonist of Jodi Picoult's House Rules.

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Maranatha Christian University

ABSTRACT

Penggambaran dari sebuah karakter dalam karya sastra muncul sebagai

hasil imajinasi sang penulis. Inspirasi penggambaran karakter dapat berasal dari

mana saja. Hal tersebut dapat juga muncul dari imajinasi dari sebuah karakter

yang memiliki karakteristik unik yang sebelumnya belum pernah terpikirkan atau

jarang ditemukan.

Penggambaran karakter semacam ini dapat ditemukan dalam karakter

Jacob Hunt pada novel House Rules karya Jodi Picoult. Jacob Hunt adalah

seorang remaja pengidap Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) yang merupakan semacam

kelainan autistik tetapi masih belum banyak diketahui oleh banyak orang.

Kelainan ini menyebabkan Jacob dipandang sebagai pribadi yang kaku, tidak

sensitif, agresif dan obsesif oleh orang-orang normal di sekelilingnya.

Karakteristik-karakteristik ini diberikan kepada Jacob oleh orang-orang

sekelilingnya karena mereka tidak cukup tahu tentang Asperger’s Syndrome dan

apa penyebab sebenarnya serta bagaimana cara menghadapinya. Jacob

dianggap memiliki karakteristik-karakteristik yang negatif dan berpotensi

menimbulkan bahaya karena pada saat itu Jacob menjadi tersangka dalam

kematian Jess Ogivly. Jacob dianggap tidak bersikap kooperatif dan kecurigaan

bermunculan yang bermula dari serangkaian investigasi yang dilakukan oleh

pihak yang berwenang sampai pada persidangan sehingga menimbulkan

prasangka buruk dari orang-orang di sekitarnya. Sang Novelis memberikan

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berhadapan dengan seseorang dengan Asperger’s Syndrome. Minimnya

pengetahuan tentang kelainan ini menyebabkan kesulitan dalam memproses dan

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Jodi Picoult is an American novelist who is famous for her writings which

mainly discuss issues which involve human emotion and complex problems in

their relations. Her first novel, Songs of Humpback Whale, was published in

1992. Other famous works are My Sister’s Keeper (2004), Handle With Care

(2009), Second Glance (2003), Perfect Match (2002), Keeping Faith (1999) and House Rules (2010). Jodi Picoult has received praises from senior writers like Stephen King, who states that “Picoult writes with unassuming brilliance” (“Jodi

Picoult”) and they are often listed as best sellers in famous newspaper reviews

such as the USA Today and the New York Times review.

The book discussed in this thesis is one of Picoult’s bestselling novels,

House Rules. House Rules is a novel which tells about a boy named Jacob Hunt who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a highly functional form of

autism that limits social interaction. In order to make Jacob able to live normally

with other people and be accepted, his mother, Emma Hunt, hires Jessica “Jess”

Ogivly to improve Jacob’s social skills. Unfortunately, things are getting

complicated for Jacob and his mother when Jacob is accused of murdering Jess.

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and fights his way to get approval and understanding from his neighbors who

generally have negative image on him. Picoult manages to bring the reader to

understand the situation the main characters face by writing this novel in the

perspective of all the main characters. She also gives detailed emotion of each of

the characters, especially Jacob, a person with Asperger’s Syndrome.

The main reason for me to choose this novel is that the novelist manages

to tell the reader and explain to them about Asperger’s Syndrome, which is

classified as an “Autistic spectrum disorder which has intellectual capacity within

the normal range, but has a distinct profile of abilities that has been apparent

since early childhood . . . such as a qualitative impairment in social interaction, in

subtle communication skills and restrictive interests” (Attwood). This means a

person with Asperger’s Syndrome has the same intelligence as a normal person

but lacks social ability such as to communicate and understand emotion well as

can be seen in the daily life and behaviour of Jacob Hunt.

The strength of this novel is the way the author describes Asperger’s

Syndrome through the portrayal of Jacob Hunt, the protagonist. A protagonist is

“simply the central character, the one whose struggles we follow with interest,

whether he or she be good or bad, sympathetic or repulsive” (Perrine 44). In this

analysis, I want to show the characteristics of the protagonist and also the

purpose of the author in creating such characters. That is why I am interested in

analysing the portrayal of the protagonist in House Rules.

The character of Jacob is far from the ideal image of a good normal person

because he is suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome. The author creates such a

character to make the reader understand more about people with Asperger’s

Syndrome. Although Jacob seems normal, sometimes he behaves differently

from normal people. This makes Jacob as an interesting character to be

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attractive one. “Maybe the protagonist does not always have the good virtue but

he/she needs to have compensatory value to his/her mistakes or bad behaviour

so that the readers can imagine themselves in the position of the protagonist and

satisfy their ego" (67-68). Although the character of Jacob is far from the image of

a perfect person, by reading the story from the beginning to the end, the reader

develops the feeling of sympathy towards Jacob because of his disability which

makes him unable to interact well with his surrounding.

Statement of the Problem

The problems that I am going to discuss in this thesis are as follows:

1._{How does the author portray the protagonist in the novel?}

2. What is the purpose of the author in creating such a character?

Purpose of the Study

The analysis of the protagonist of House Rules in this thesis has two purposes:

1. To show how the protagonist is portrayed in the novel

2. To show the purpose of creating such a character

Method of Research

To analyze the novel, I use library research. First, I read the novel, House

Rules and then I start to analyze the novel using formalism. I take some references and resources from the books in the library and from various sources

as well as from the Internet to support my analysis of the novel and finally present

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Maranatha Christian University Organization of the Thesis

This thesis consists of three chapters preceded by the Table of Contents

and the Abstract. In Chapter One, I present the Background of the Study, the

Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research and

the Organization of the Thesis. In Chapter Two, I analyse the portrayal of the

protagonist of House Rules. Chapter Three is the Conclusion of the thesis. It is

followed by the Bibliography and the Appendices, which include the summary of

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CHAPTER THREE

CONCLUSION

After analysing Jodi Picoult’s House Rules, I come to some conclusions.

From the beginning, the novel tells a story about Jacob Hunt, a boy who suffers

from Asperger’s Syndrome which makes him different from other boys of his age.

Jacob is seen as a rigid, insensitive, agressive and obsessive person by his

surrounding because of the syndrome which causes him to have problems with

his social skills so society tends to misjudge him. His limitation as an Asperger’s

also brings him to the situation which makes his life more complicated, namely as

the suspect of Jess’s murder.

People have seen the rigidity of Jacob through the fact that Jacob obeys

the rules and concentrates on things he loves. It is caused by the brain defect in

every Asperger’s Syndrome’s sufferer. According to Jacob, he himself is not a

rigid person. For him, every action is basically about obeying the rules which

have been taught earlier. For a person with Asperger’s Syndrome, obeying rules

is easy as for them the world is simply black and white without any exaggerated

expressions including the House Rules which may place him in difficult situations.

In relation to his rigidity, his surrounding sees Jacob as an insensitive

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everything from his own perspective and through his inability to understand and

express emotion which is caused by impaired ability to identify social cues.

Jacob’s wrong expression makes people think that he is insensitive and capable

of committing a murder as we can see through his laughter while Dr. Nussbaum

seriously explains the autopsy of Jess’s death in the court and also when he does

not show his sadness when his mother says that Jess is dead. However, this

characteristic actually comes as a result of his inability to sense any emotion and

his brain is incapable of interpreting it. He simply does not understand what is

emotion. Only few people around him who understand his limitation in

communication.

Jacob is also seen as an aggressive person since he cannot express

himself properly in his communication especially when the plans are changed

and when he faces things that he cannot stand. For example, when Jacob

assaults Mimi, his classmate, because he feels that she breaks the rules, and

when he shows his tantrum because of he cannot watch CrimeBuster TV shows

which Jacob regularly watch or when he is touched by his cellmate who has red

head while in the prison. On the other hand, he is not aggressive. For Jacob, it is

just a normal response towards a set of things he dislikes and whenever a rule is

broken. His being aggressive does not mean that he is violent; he just reacts to

the rules and the routine that has been changed or whenever he feels that people

break the rules.

Jacob is also seen as an obsessive person when his surrounding notice the

notes that are found as the evidence of Jess’ death. Jacob writes down the

analysis of the crime scene which is similar to Jess’s crime scene and he puts the

notes into practice by re-arranging Jess’s crime scene based on one of the

episodes of CrimeBuster TV show. Jacob does all these things without drama; he

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obsessive person is his focus on detail instead of the big picture of a thing which

means he only thinks about detail such as the crime scene without thinking of the

consequences as the big picture. Because of his obsession, Jacob’s surrounding

considers him a cold-blooded murderer.

Jacob’s impairment makes people assume that Jacob might have killed

Jess. The author creates such a protagonist to show to the reader the real

condition of a child with Asperger’s Syndrome. Due to his illness, he will always

be blamed by society. Thus society who does not have enough knowledge on

Asperger’s will consider Asperger’s Syndrome as a mental illness instead of

physical disfunction. The fact is that Asperger’s can also caused by birth defect

whereas mental illness is emotional disfunction triggered by pressure from

outside and can happen on normal people who have normal brain function.

The author succesfully fulfills her purposes of writing this novel. The first

purpose is to give the reader a clear description of the characteristics of a person

with Asperger’s Syndrome by using multiperspective points of view to explain

Jacob’s feeling and the people around him in detail and the second purpose is to

give illustration of what will happen to Asperger’s if he or she is involved in a

situation dealing with law enforcement community such as the police and the trial

through Jacob’s story. Picoult wants to convey to the reader that one will have

prejudice when one do not have enough undertstanding of Asperger’s, one tends

to blame them because they do not understand them.

In the end, after reading and analysing this novel, I would like to say that

we can learn much about Asperger’s Syndrome from this novel. People with

Asperger’s cannot interact well with society because of their limits through

emotional understanding while emotion is important in socializing with other

people. People with Asperger’s Syndrome will only react to unambiguous things.

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rules which have been taught to them which they will hold firmly. It is not easy for

them to face pattern changes. If the patterns change suddenly, they will respond

by, for example releasing tantrum. Tantrum is a normal form of response that

appears when they cannot control the situation.

In a bigger picture, Jacob simply lives differently from normal people and

they should not be perceived as bad or wicked people because they can hardly

understand emotion which are essential in social life and as the novelist reveals

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Text:

Picoult, Jodi. House Rules. New York: Atria International, 2010. Print.

References:

“About the author – her life & work.” JodiPicoult.com. 2015. Web. 28 Jan. 2015.

“Aggressive.” Longman Dictionary. 2nd ed. 2001. Print.

Attwood, Tony. “What is Asperger’s Syndrome?” Oasis @ MAAP. MAAP Services,

2005. Web. 28 Feb 2014.

“Insensitive.” Oxford American Dictionary. 3rd ed. 2011. Print.

“Jodi Picoult.” Book Stephen King Recommends Discussion. Goodreads Inc,

2014. Web. 19 May 2014.

Koss, Melanie D. “Young Adult Novels with Multiple Narrative Perspective: The

Changing Nature WA Literature.” The ALAN Review (2009). 74.

ViginiaTech eJournals. Web. 7 Dec 2014.

“NYT Bestselling Author.” Biographical Sketch. Jodi Picoult, 2014. Web. 6 May

2014.

“Obsessive.” Oxford American Dictionary. 3rd ed. 2011. Print.

Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. 4th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich, Inc. 1974. Print.

Analysis of the Portrayal of the Protagonist of Jodi Picoult's House Rules.

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... i

ABSTRACT ... ii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

... 1

... 3

... 3

... 3

... 4

CHAPTER TWO: ANALYSIS OF THE PORTRAYAL OF THE PRO-

TAGONIST OF JODI PICOULT’S HOUSE RULES ... 5

CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSION ... 17

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 21

APPENDICES

... 22

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER THREE

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY