CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION. Literature is identical with the words: the expression of human feeling,

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1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study Literature is identical with the words: the expression of human feeling, imaginative process and creativity (Wellek, 1972:2). Literature is a written work and exists in our society as a communicative means in our ideas of literature to show and give such a greater understanding about this life. Taylor (1981: 1) says that literature, like other parts, is essentially an imaginative act, that is, and act of the writers imaginations is selecting, ordering, and interpreting life-experience. It means that literature is an interpretation of human s mind that uses language as medium. It has a large scope and fantastic. In literature, there are three branches of literature such as drama, poetry, and prose. Meanwhile, prose can also be divided into novel, short story, romance, etc. Novel is one of the literary works that are part of prose. Novel is a fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot that is unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of the characters. Novel contains some aspects that reflected based on the human real life. This aspects commonly concern with feeling, emotion, conflicts, problem, etc. the elements that build up novel are plot, characters, theme, setting, point of view, and language style. One of the most important elements of novel is characters. Talking about the characters of a literary work means talking about their quality of mind, behaviors, or personalities.

2 A character is any person, personal, identity, or entity whose existence originates from a fictional work or performance. A character is a participant in the story, and is usually a person, but may be any persona, identity, or entity whose existence originates from a fictional work or performance. Leading character is the centered individual very dominant. As an individual, the leading focused personality. Leading character emerged as long side the extraordinary character, a character that might be called prototypical. The prototypical character is not a stereotypical but a fully rounded, three dimensional character. In this thesis, the writer chooses Mary Shelley s novel entitled Frankenstein to be analyzed. Mary Shelley was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. And the Frankenstein is infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Brian Aldiss has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results. It has had a considerable influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films. The writer wants to analyze two leading characters ambitions and explain the effect of its ambitions to readers found in that novel. The leading characters in a story is

3 the character that built up the story which revealed by responds to conflict, by his or her dialogue, and through descriptions that being majority of the plot line and the reader is intended to identify with while reading the story. The leading characters which will be analyzed by the writer are Victor Frankenstein and his creature, the monster. The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley tells the story of the leading character named Victor Frankenstein who is described as an ambitious man and a scientist that really wants to create a man. However, his creation failed and turned into a monster. The monster can be considered as the leading character too because they two, Victor Frankenstein and the monster, are the main character who lead the whole story of the novel. Victor Frankenstein is always interested about the facts and wants to know everything in the universe. The writer would like to propose an idea especially about the leading characters ambitions in Frankenstein novel written by Mary Shelley. According to Oxford (2000), ambition is something that you want to do or achieve very much and ambitious is determined to be successful, rich, and powerful by needing a lot of efforts, money or time to succeed. The writer chooses this novel because this novel is very interesting to read and can give some information about the ambitions and its effects to the readers and the writer herself. In nowadays, as the reality of life, we know that a lot of people in this world want to get their ambitions by trying use many ways without to see its effect. The reason of writer to choose this novel because of the author s technique in describing the events, character acting, and style of the novel into her literary works so the readers can

4 read it to be more interesting, enjoying the story, and can get messages from the story itself. For analyzing this thesis, the writer uses library research by collecting all necessary information to support the writer idea in the analysis. The steps used in this thesis are started by reading the novel, finding the related data and quotes that support the theme, until finally making the conclusion of the analysis. 1.2 Problem of the Study Based on the above explanation, the writer would like to concern the writer s thesis in the lading characters ambitions, which formulated into : 1. How are the leading characters ambitions in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley? 2. What are the effects of the leading characters ambitions in Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley? 1.3 Objective of the Study The objective of this thesis tends to answer the question or the problems of study. Therefore, the purposes of this study are: 1. To explain the leading characters ambitions in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. 2. To describe the effects of the leading characters ambitions in Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley.

5 1.4 Scope of the Study The writer limits the scope of the study by analyzing two leading characters ambitions and its effects in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, not from the other characters and not on the other aspects of the novel. The writer believes that by scoping this study on the leading characters ambitions, it will give contribute to us a lot of good messages from this study in order to become more careful in choosing and running the ambitions. 1.5 Significance of the Study The writer hopes that the thesis will enrich our knowledge and can give some information to reader about the leading characters ambitions and its effects in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and expected to give some good messages from the leading characters ambitions and its effects itself.