Degree of Powerfulness of the Main Character in Colferâs the Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell.

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Universitas Kristen Maranatha ii

ABSTRACT

Dalam skripsi ini, saya membahas degree of powerfulness dari tokoh Evil

Queen. Dia adalah salah satu tokoh utama dalam novel berjudul The Land of

Stories: The Wishing Spell, yang dikarang oleh Chris Colfer. Dalam pembahasan

ini, saya menggunakan Stylistics sebagai landasan teori utama. Stylistics

merupakan sebuah studi tentang gaya berbahasa. Teori spesifik yang digunakan

adalah Functional Grammar yang berfokus pada ideational meaning, yaitu

transitivity. Lebih lanjut dikatakan bahwa terdapat tujuh peran partisipasi dalam proses material, yaitu agent, force, instrument, medium-initiator, beneficiary or

recipient, medium-target, dan medium, sesuai urutan dari yang paling powerful sampai dengan paling powerless.

Sebagai hasil pembahasan, didapati bahwa kehidupan Evil Queen

diceritakan dalam dua bagian. Di bagian yang pertama, Evil Queen digambarkan

sebagai tokoh yang sangat powerful, di mana dia berusaha untuk membebaskan

Mira, kekasihnya. Di bagian yang kedua, dia digambarkan sebagai tokoh yang

tidak terlalu powerful, ketika dia mengetahui bahwa pria yang dicintainya

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Universitas Kristen Maranatha iii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1Background of the Study

In this thesis I would like to analyze the degree of powerfulness of a

character in the novel The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer.

Colfer has written a lot of novels including Struck by Lightning, which was

adapted into a movie. His novel The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell was

released on July 17, 2012 as the first part of The Land of Stories series, which

consists of four novels; the other three are The Land of Stories: The Enchantress

Returns, The Land of Stories: A Grimm Warning, and the last one is The Land of

Stories: Beyond the Kingdoms.

The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell has received a lot of praises. According to New York Times, this novel is a best-seller novel. In addition, on

October 10, 2015, the novel was rated 4.7 out of 5 stars by 653 reviewers on

amazon.com. Moreover, at the same time, goodreads.com, where people can see books’ recommendations and leave or read book reviews, gave a high rating to the

novel—4.16 out of 5 stars—as reviewed by 2,935 reviewers. Thus, the ratings

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The novel I choose to analyze, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell, is a

story about Alex and Conner Bailey—a pair of twins who come to the Land of

Stories where fairy tales are real. They have several adventures to collect the

items to activate the wishing spell. The wishing spell is a legendary spell that can

grant any one wish, but some items are needed for the spell to work. The twins

have to collect the items by travelling to every kingdom in the world of The Land

of Stories, for instance the Northern Kingdom, where Snow White lives and

Sleeping Kingdom, where Sleeping Beauty sleeps for a long time. Their journey is

not easy because they have to compete against the antagonist, the Evil Queen,

who is also looking for the items for the spell.

I choose this novel because it has a lot of cliffhangers that make me curious

about what will happen next. Even though the story Colfer wrote is taken from

old-time fairy tales like Cinderella, Sleeping beauty, etc., he manages to present it

in a new way—adding elements which are not present in the original stories and

thus making it seems fresh. On top of that, Colfer’s characterization of the

character is so vivid that readers are drawn into the story.

I analyze one of the major characters in this novel because I want to see how

linguistic features can be used as a tool to analyze a character from a literary

work. I believe this is something that can be developed to become a new field of

research in linguistic field.

The character I analyze is the Evil Queen, the antagonist in the novel. In the

story, the twins have to rally against her to collect the items as she needs them as

well to free the person she loves. In the story, the Evil Queen succeeds in

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has followers whom she can take advantages from. The Evil Queen in Colfer’s

book is different from the Evil Queen everyone knows; she is originally portrayed

as a purely bad character who is lonely and does not have anyone close. Yet, in

Colfer’s book, the Evil Queen has someone that she loves very much; moreover,

the Evil Queen’s characteristics seem to change over the course of the novel.

When I read the novel, I think that Chris Colfer portrays the Evil Queen

differently before and after she frees the man she loves. This piques my curiosity

and therefore I am going to examine this difference by analyzing the degree of

powerfulness of the Evil Queen using Functional Grammar.

This analysis belongs to the linguistic field of Stylistics. According to

Simpson (2004), “Stylistics is a method of textual interpretation in which primacy

of place is assigned to language” (p. 2). I use the theory of Functional Grammar to

know how the character is portrayed by the novelist.

Halliday’s study (as cited in Gerot and Wignell, 1994) says that Functional

Grammar is a study about meaning. There are three meanings in Functional

Grammar; however, I will focus on the ideational meaning which consists of

Transitivity analysis.

Transitivity is a central of processes (Gerot & Wignell, 1994), and processes

are the tools I use in analyzing the character. Even though Halliday identified

seven processes (Gerot & Wignell, 1994), Toolan (1998) states that a character’s

degree of powerfulness can be seen through Material process, without looking the

other six processes.

The analysis of the degree of powerfulness is significant as this will allow

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enjoyment but they can also understand the message that the novelist wants to

convey; in addition, when the readers are able to analyze the characters, the

readers will feel close to the characters because they understand the characters

better.

(853 Words)

1.2 Statement of the Problem

I would like to analyze the following problems:

1. How is the Evil Queen described as a powerful character by the novelist?

2. How do the material processes reveal the degree of powerfulness?

1.3Purpose of the Study

This analysis is done to:

1. find out the degree of the Evil Queen’s powerfulness which has been

described by the novelist.

2. find out how Material processes reveal the degree of powerfulness.

1.4 Method of Research

First, I chose the data source to be analyzed. Then, I selected the data

taken from the data source, after which I analyzed the data based on the theory of

the degree of powerfulness in Functional Grammar. Finally, I wrote the research

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1.5 Organization of the Thesis

The thesis consists of four chapters. It begins with Chapter One, which is

the Introduction that consists of Background of the Study, Statement of the

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

Thesis. Chapter Two is Theoretical Framework, which explains the Linguistic

area and the approach used in analyzing the data. In Chapter Three, there is the

presentation of the data analysis. Last, in Chapter Four, Conclusion, I put forward

my personal comments on the findings. Finally, the thesis ends with Bibliography

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CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION

In this chapter I would like to draw some concluding points based on the

findings of the analysis in Chapter Three. The first finding is the fact that the

writer arranges the story into two stages of the Evil Queen’s life. The first one is

before she rescues her loved one, while the second one is after finding out that the

person she loves is dead.

In the first stage, the Evil Queen is trying to rescue her lover. As seen in

the table, there are 130 clauses describing this. However, when finding out that

the man she loves is dead, Colfer only describes the Evil Queen in 32 clauses.

Thus, it is obvious that the Evil Queen has a more dominant role during the first

stage (80.2% of the total clauses) compared to during the second stage (only

19.8%).

In my opinion, the way Colfer portrays the Evil Queen in this way is to

emphasize the Evil Queen’s great love towards Mira, her boyfriend. In doing this,

Colfer is leading the readers to see how the Evil Queen never gives up getting her

true love. I believe Colfer’s intention is to raise the readers’ sympathy towards the

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Besides, by describing the Evil Queen in two stages of life, Colfer clearly

portrays the change in the Evil Queen’s character. The Evil Queen, before saving

the one she loves, is portrayed as an active and powerful character. On the other

hand, after seeing that the one she loves is dead, she becomes less active

character. In my opinion, Colfer’s strategy is clever as he creates an antagonist

that is dynamic and interesting. As we know, most antagonists in fairy tale stories

are portrayed flat, and there is no change in character from the beginning of the

story until the end. By creating a unique antagonist, the story becomes interesting

to read.

The fact that it is nearly at the end of the story that the Evil Queen’s

characteristics change is indeed a nice surprise. When first reading the story, the

reader will think that the Evil Queen in this book is like an evil queen everyone

knows. Yet, at the end, the surprise takes place and the reader is given a different

“Evil Queen”. This also supports the idea that Colfer intends to raise the reader’s

sympathy towards the Evil Queen.

The second finding is about the Evil Queen’s participant roles. Out of 130

clauses in the first stage her role as a doer is 75.4%, which includes the roles as an

agent (72.3%) and medium initiator (3.1%). In the second stage, she is portrayed

differently; she is a less active character. Only 40.6% out of 32 clauses describes

the Evil Queen as a doer, while there is 59.4% of the clauses that shows her as a

done-to individual. In my opinion, through this kind of portrayal of the Evil

Queen, Colfer wants to emphasize how powerful or active the Evil Queen is in the

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at the beginning by making the Evil Queen do all the activities in order that the

reader may feel her activeness and powerfulness.

In the second stage, we see that Colfer makes the Evil Queen less active.

He tries to make the reader feel the difference in the Evil Queen’s characteristics.

This will cause the reader to feel sympathetic towards the Evil Queen for in the

first stage she is portrayed as the most active character—as an agent, but in the

second stage she becomes a less active character—as a medium target.

Moreover, Colfer purposely makes the Evil Queen very active at the

beginning so that the readers will notice clearly the character change. Logically

speaking, if Colfer did not show 75.4% of the Evil Queen as the doer in the first

stage, the reader would hardly be aware that the Evil Queen becomes less active.

Thus, by reducing the Evil Queen’s role as an agent in the second stage, the reader

will notice easily that the Evil Queen’s characteristics change, which is a great

strategy.

I do think that Colfer focuses on the twist. The reader at the beginning are

given a common antagonist, but at the climax of the story—when she finally finds

out that the one she loves is dead—the twist happens. The readers may think it is

different from other novels as there is a surprising plot. I see Colfer also thinks

that not all antagonists are the same. By making the twist, it is expected that the

reader wants to read more.

The other finding I get is the systematic and chronological plot in the first

stage of life. I get three main events in which the Evil Queen does activities. First,

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Queen plans something to break the curse. The last is the Evil Queen takes the

items to activate the spell.

In my view point, Colfer makes a clear plot about the Evil Queen to make

the reader understand easily for the book’s target reader is early teenagers. As we

know that early teenagers do not really like a complex and complicated story. The

readers will not feel confused of what the Evil Queen does in the story as what she

does is a clear and step-by-step process. The plot does not have a chronological

plot or reverse chronology.

The next finding is the fact that the antagonist has someone she deeply

loves. As we know, many antagonists do not have someone they can really love.

An evil queen in common fairy tales does not have anyone she truly loves. She

just wants to make people suffer. On the other hand, in Colfer’s work, the

antagonist has someone she really loves whom she will do anything to rescue. All

the activeness or powerfulness of the Evil Queen can be said to refer to what she

does in rescuing her lover. In my opinion, Colfer wants to tell that even an

antagonist fights for the one she loves. Hence, the reader will realize that there is a

moral lesson of the Evil Queen’s life, which is never to give up for the loved one.

Finally, as a suggestion, those who are interested in doing a similar topic

like mine had better choose to analyze a character that is portrayed uniquely so

that there will be something interesting to analyze. In addition, they had better

choose a novelist that has his or her own style so that the analysis is worth doing.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Source

Colfer, Chris. (2012). The land of stories: The wishing spell. New York: Little,

Brown and Company.

References

Amazon. The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell. Web. 10 October 2015.

Gerot, L & Wignell, P. (1994). Making sense of functional grammar. Sydney:

Gerd Stabler Antipodean Educational Enterprises.

Goodreads. The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell. Web. 10 October 2015. Nytimes.The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell. Web. 10 October 2015.

Simpson, P. (2004). Stylistics: A resource book for students. London: Routledge.

Toolan, M. (1998). Language in literature: An introduction to stylistics. London:

Degree of Powerfulness of the Main Character in Colferâs the Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell.

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Degree of Powerfulness of the Main Character in Colferâs the Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell.