CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION. 2009). Angela s Ashes is the stepping stone for McCourt s later works. This

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1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Background of Analysis Angela s Ashes is the most popular novel by Frank McCourt ( ). Angela s Ashes is the stepping stone for McCourt s later works. This novel is a bittersweet autobiographical story that raises the real-life story of the author, Frank McCourt, who spent childhood and adolescence in a poor family in Ireland. This book is a wonderfully inspired piece of work that emotionally attaches the reader through McCourt s life experiences. The story of how the characters have to survive is surrounded by poverty, unfriendly weather, disease, death, and the power of religious leaders, and fight for a better life. Frank McCourt s was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Irish immigrant parents. Unable to find work in the depths of the depression, McCourt s family returned to Ireland, where they sunk deeper into poverty. McCourt s father, an alcoholic, was often without work, drank up what little money he earned and eventually abandoned the family altogether. Three of the seven children died of disease aggravated by malnutrition and the squalor of their surroundings. Frank McCourt himself nearly died of typhoid fever when he was ten. Frank McCourt worked as a teacher for the New York City Public School System. After years of teaching creative writing to young people, McCourt determined to write his own life story.

2 Developmental psychology also known as human development refers to the ways people grow and change during their life. Moral development is one kind of the human development that experienced by developing child. Moral development is the process through which children develop proper attitudes and behaviors toward other people in society, based on social and cultural norms, rules, and laws. Moral development determines whether a child will be good or bad (Bee 2007:346). When someone s moral developed, it means that his or her moral grows into the next level. Someone s moral can develop through his or her experiences in life when encounters with conflicts. And after reading Angela s Ashes, I am interested to analyze moral development in this novel because I found that the main character in this novel, Frank, undergoes moral development through conflicts and incidents he experiences in his life. I choose this book as the subject of my thesis because it is a massive successful novel, becoming one of the most highly acclaimed nonfiction works of the decade. The book won numerous awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, Royal Society of Literature Award and the Pulitzer Bestseller list for over two years. Angela s Ashes novel is an emotional and wonderful autobiography that captures Frank McCourt s personal history with great depth and appeal. It allows its audience to gain much insight into his life, and to whom McCourt is as a person. Through his clever choice of events and themes, pure honesty, use of techniques such as characterization, humors and emotional and dramatic language, McCourt allows his personal history to come alive in the memoir Angela's Ashes.

3 Literature has been widely known and used by many people all around the world. The term literature refers merely to imaginative works. Literature is the expression of feeling, passion, and emotion caused by a sensation of the interestingness of life. It also has a direct relation to actual life. It reflects an actual experience such as social, philosophical and moral concerns. However, the quality or nature of the writer s conception and understanding of that experience is expressed by the complex structure of words that he or she creates. Novel is one of literary products. Novel is one of literary products that represents the ideas or the thoughts of the author. In a novel, the author can build a new world of his or her own and also can create the characters and also the plot of a story and then make it into a composition that is arranged into a writting. Novel is one of human creations. Some novels are fiction and some based one true story. It is not only as an entertainment but also giving the message and deep impressions to the readers. 1.2 The Problem of Analysis Based on the explanation above, there is a problem that has to be answered. How does the main character Frank experience his moral development?

4 1.3 The Objective of Analysis The objective of the analysis tends to answer the questions or the problems of analysis and it would be useless if an analysis does not have its aim to be achieved. The aim or the purpose of this thesis is to show the process that leads the main character, Frank, to experience moral development. 1.4 The Scope of Analysis In order to avoid a very wide and unfocused analysis, it is necessary to make the limitation of the problem. In this thesis, I would like to analyze the process of the main character s moral development. I will limit the discussion only on the main character, Frank. 1.5 The Significance of Analysis I hope that this thesis will enrich our knowledge about other fields of knowledge. I also hope that this thesis will be useful for the readers or people who need this thesis as a reference. This analysis will hopefully contribute something useful to the readers who want to understand and appreciate literary analysis in general and the work of Frank McCourt in particular. 1.6 The Theoretical Approach Wellek and Warren in their Theory of Literature (1967:73, 81, 110) proposed two approaches in analyzing literary works; they are intrinsic

5 approach and extrinsic approach. Intrinsic approach is an approach which analyzes literary work based on the text and the structural points of literary work which comprises the characters, plot, setting, theme, style, and point of view. While, extrinsic approach is a kind of approach which analyzes the literary work and its connection with other knowledge and external factors such as biography, history, society, religion, psychology and so on. I use extrinsic approach by connecting the story with other knowledge. In this case I relate my analysis with psychology. Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. I connect my analysis with psychology in order to get a deeper understanding about moral development that usually experienced by children. 1.7 The Review of Related Literature In supporting my analysis, I use some related references which are related to this topic, those are: 1. Frank McCourt s Angela Ashes s: A Picture of Irish Childhood by Emilia Stopar (2005). This essay explains about how Frank McCourt pictures Irish childhood in Angela s Ashes. The picture McCourt paints of his childhood in the novel is accurate which includes hunger, poverty and disease, corresponds well with reality. This essay helps me to understand that children s lives in Ireland during the 1930 s and 1940 s were not easy because of war including Frank, since this novel is mainly set in the slums of limerick in

6 Ireland during the 1930 s and 1940 s. It also explains that Frank has to learn how to act, what to expect and what he needs to do in order to survive. 2. A study of Charles Mallison s Moral Development in William Faulkner s Intruder in The Dust by Vivi (2004). This thesis discusses about how the main character, Charles Mallison, in Intruder in The Dust experiences his moral development. This thesis also uses a psychological theory namely Piaget s Moral Development. This thesis helps me to know more about the process of moral development and helps me to find out the process of moral development that experienced by Frank in Angela s Ashes.