IG 87 - F. SCOTT FITZGERALD'S THE GREAT GATSBY: A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD'S THE GREAT GATSBY:
A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.      Background of The Study

Literature is representation of human life and human society in which literature exists. An author and his literary work is always be influenced by the reality of his society which inspires his creative process to literary work. His creative process has changed the reality in his life into new a different world.

Furthermore literature gives us not only something pleasure, but also something important to our life, because when we understand literature we expand our sight life. Therefore, by reading literature it causes us to go through some kinds of learning life.

Adler argues, as cited by Sumadi Suryabrata, that human as in individual is a whole thing, which cannot be separated from one another. An individual is a motive configuration attitude and a special value, every activity is a variety of his life style .

In the real life sometimes not all human necessities are completely achieved Human necessities do not only make a trouble for living circles, but also affect their mind and behavior. There are many cases in our country, for example, crimes because of fault of background. It proves to us that background has important role in our life. We can say that background determines of someone's success and failure in his life. It can change his behavior and personality. One takes an experience as traumatic but another takes it as a motivation and learning process depend as on how deep one's mind is.

In accordance with Adler's main concept of man's life, long struggle emerges from inferiority feelings to superiority feelings. An individual has to face the life problems which are coming up as social problems such as forbidden love, occupation, the failure of social life, inferiority feeling and the like.

F. Scoot Key Fitzgerald is a famous American novelist. He writes different literary works, short stories and novels. Among others are The Side of Paradise (1920), The Beautiful and Damned (1922), The Great Gatsby (1925), Tender is The Night (1934), The Last Tycoon (1941), The Crack-up (1945). One of his popular novels is The Great Gatsby, which describes stories of the rich in an affluent American society in which the rich have become less shocking. The Great Gatsby shows the failure in life caused by the obsession of wealth compiling. The main character in this novel is Gatsby, who is ambitious since young to prepare his bright future. He does not want his parents, who are passive and full of failure in life. He has a fictional goal and he wants to make it true after he realizes all his inferiority feeling, such as imperfection, subordinate status, inability to posses his love and he tries hard to defeat them and then he can find his strength through the interaction with the other or social interest and get the self-perfection or the superiority feelings.

It is interesting to study the main character how his family background and his society makes his personality, struggle his life. The individual psychology approach will be appropriate as the tool of analyzing this novel.

B.      The Problem of The Study

Considering the idea in the background above the researches presents the problem as follows: "Why is Jay Gatsby obsessed by wealth ?"

C.      The Objective of The Study

The objective of the study is as follows:

1.       The study aims at analyzing the novel based on its structural elements.

2.       The study also aims at analyzing the behavior of the major character based on the individual psychology.

D.      The Benefit of Study

In studying the thesis, the writer expects it will give benefit as follows:

1.       Institutional Benefit

The result of the study is expected that to be beneficial to the world of literature and to be complement to the study of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

2.       Practical Benefit

The writer expect that the study contributes to the development of literary study, particularly to among student of Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta who have interest in the literary study.

E.       Literature Review

There are a lot of critics who wrote criticisms toward either Fitzgerald's works in general or his novel The Great Gatsby. Among those critics who discuss The Great Gatsby are Lionel Trilling, Edwin Fussell, Marius Bewley, Thomas Hanzo, Richard Chase, Gale H. Carrithers, Jr. and Henry Dan Piper. All their discussions are edited in a book entitled The Great Gatsby, A Study. Lionel Trilling's essay title is F. Scott Fitzgerald it discusses The Great Gat.cby in general. He states that Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby tells about love in the jazz age. He also states that Gatsby stands for America itself Edwin Fussell wrote his essay that called "Fitzgerald's Brave New World". The essay discusses that the thing Fitzgerald means in The Great Gatsby is the whole American civilization that happens in this time rather than The Jazz Age or the lost generation. Edwin also state that what Fitzgerald wants to say in The Great Gatsby is, "we are the end of Colombus dream and this is our brave new world". Gale H. Carrithers, Jr.'s "Fitzgerald's triumph" discusses that The Great Gatsby is about the human situation. Wiwi Alawiyah, UMS student analyzes The Great Gatsby using genetic structuralism approach.

F.       Research Method

In analyzing The Great Cratsby the writer uses the qualitative method.

1.       Research object

The research object in this study is the main character and attitude his personality in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

2.       Data Sources

The study uses library research, The data sources are classified into two categories; primary and secondary data sources. The primary data source is the text of The Great Gatsby, whereas the secondary data sources include references of literature, some books on criticism and psychology of literature.

3.       Method of The Data Collection

The method of the data collection in this study is library research. The study collects and records the primary data in sort of document used as evidence.

4.       Techniques of Data Analyzing

The technique of data analysis in this study is descriptive, and the interpretation of the text is content analysis.

G.      Paper Organization

In order to make easier for the readers to understand the content of this thesis, the writer is going to organize it into five chapters.

Chapter I is introduction that consists of background the study, problem of the study, objective of the study, benefit of the study, literature review, research method, and paper organization. Chapter II is the underlying theory, that will be used to analyze the novel. Chapter III deals with the structural analysis and discussion of the novel. Chapter IV is psychological analysis. Chapter V deals with the conclusion and suggestion.

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