A STRUGGLE FOR LOVE IN F. SCOOT FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY : AN INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH

SAFITRI, RIRIN FILA (2008)
Abstract
This research investigates how the major character struggle to get his love in F. Scoot Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Therefore, the study analyzed the novel in term of its structural elements and based on the an individual psychological approach The object of the study is the personality of the major character of the Jay Gatsby. The data source are literary data. Those are devided in two categories, primary data and source and secondary data source. The primary data source is the novel itself. The secondary data are the other source related to the novel. The technique of data collection of the study is library research. The technique of data analysis is descriptive analysis The outcome of the study shows that the struggle for getting love can change the personality. It is reflected in the major character’s personality, from has no problem becomes he has many problem when he wants to get his love again from his ex- girl friend.

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Love can make people happy, sad, and angry. It makes people laugh
and cry. Musbikin (2002:30) says that love is sacred. It is given by Allah, It’s
priceless. It means everybody deserves to love even though he or she has to
struggle for it. In the struggle to find love, people’s personality and life style
change. People will try to be better when they meet someone that they love.
Someone who is falling in love will always feel happy and trying to look
better and better in front of the person that he love. He will do everything as
a form of sacrifice,
Love generally includes an emotion of intense attrraction to another
person, a place, or thing; and may also include the aspect of caring for or
finding identification with those objects, including self love. Love can be
described as an intense feeling of affection, an emotion or an emotional state.
In ordinary use, it usually refers to interpersonal love an experience usually
felt by a person for another person. Love is essentially an abstract concept,
easier to experience than to explain.
F. Scott Fitzgerald writes a story on the struggle of love. His novel is
The Great Gatsby. This novel consists of 186 pages and tells how James Gatz
or Jay Gatsby tries to win back his ex-girl friends heart, Daisy. In the past they
were a couple. However, since Gatsby is a poor man, Daisy’s parents did not
approve their relationship. Daisy then got married with Tom Buchanan, a rich
man from the other side of America. Since that day, Gatsby made a promise to
himself to change his life. His wish is that he wanted to become a rich man in
order to get Daisy back. By the passing of time, Gatsby’s dream comes true.
He becomes a rich man. He begins to find Daisy and her husband. He finds
them and builds a big house in front of the Island where Daisy and her
husband live. To attract Daisy’s attention, Gatsby throws parties all day long
for the rich people in town. Oneday, he meet Daisy and they have an affair.
There are many conflicts in the story. One of them is when Gatsby realizes
that Daisy is a married woman and asks her to leave her husband. Tom himself
has an affair with Mr. Wilson’s wife. Without Gatsby and Daisy knowing it,
Tom is aware of their relationship. He decides to make Gatsby fail.
In the end of the story, Gatsby is murdered by Mr. Wilson. He
suspectes that Gatsby is responsible for his wife death and he believes that her
death is not caused by an accident. Mr. Wilson knows the story from
Buchanan, he said that James Gatsby is the one who killed Mrs. Wilsons.
To know more about the novel, it is better to know about the writer.
The author F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24.1896, on Lourel
Avenve In St. Pauk, Minessota. His father was a Sourtherner and
Chatholic who was running a small wicker furniture business but than
work as a salesman for Protect and Gamble after the business failed. When
he was only eleven year old. His father was being fired. Such condition
brought him a feel of intense embarrassment that lather he uses it as the
social background of his heroes. His other novel is this side of paradise
(1920), the beautiful and dammed (1922), short stories all sad young man
(1890) and the last Tycan (1939).
Almost all of his literary works, novels or poems tell about an
American Dream, how American people try to get his wish getting a material
for his life or just having fun with other people. The real example is explored
in his novel “the great Gatsby”. This novel fully tells about how Americans
try to change their lives just like their dreams. Their aim makes them become
a good man, wealthy and good appearance. So, that is why the researcher is
interested in analyzing this novel by using an individual psychological
approach and takes a title “Struggle for Love in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ”The
Great Gatsby”: an Individual Psychological Approach”
B. Literary Review
Fitzgerald is an American novelist that is very popular. As long as the
writer knows, there has been other researcher who conducted a research on the
novel. In his study, Kaharuddin (2000) discussed “James Gatz Defense
Mechanism in Fitzgerald the Great Gatsby” using psychoanalytic Approach.
In his problem he focused on Gatsby’s defense mechanism in relation with his
problem. In this opportunity the researcher decides to conduct a research on
the major character’s way on struggle for getting his ex- girl friend’s love, and
the influence that he gets because of it. Here the researcher uses an individual
psychological approach.
C. Problem Statement
Based on the title and the background of the study, the main problem
in this research is, “How is a struggle for love reflected in F.S Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby?”
D. Objective of the Study
The aims of the research are follows:
1. To analyze the novel on the structural elements
2. To analyze the novel with individual psychological approach
E. Benefit of the Study
The benefits of this study are as follows:
1. Theoretical Benefit
This study is expected to give contribution to the development of
the body of knowledge, particularly the literary studies on Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby.
2. Practical Benefit
It is expected to give a condition in literary field as reference to the
other researcher in analyzing this novel particularly the students of
Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta.
F. Research Method
In analyzing The Great Gatsby the writer searches for many data.
1. Object of the Study
The object of the study is Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
2. Type of the Data and the Data Source
In doing this study, the writer uses two sources of data, namely
primary and secondary data sources.
a. Primary Data
The primary data source is the novel itself, The Great Gatsby by Fscott
Fitzgerald
b. Secondary Data Source
The secondary data are taken from other sources which are related to
the primary data such as the biography of the author, and website about
The Great Gatsby.
3. Technique of the Data Collection
The method of collecting data that the writer uses is library
research. Firstly, the writer reads and comprehends the primary and
secondary data source. Secondly she notes down of important information
in both sources. Then, she selects them by accepting the relevant
information with the problem and rejecting the irrelevant information that
does not support the topic of the study. Beside that the writer uses internet
to find the information about the novel and literary theory that she uses.
4. Technique of the Data Analysis
In analyzing the data, the writer employs descriptive qualitative
analysis or content analysis. The analysis is started on the author and then
the structural analysis of the novel and finally the individual analysis of
the literature.
G. Paper Organization
The paper consists of five chapters and each of them is sub divided
into sub sequent division. Chapter one is the introduction that consists of
background of the study, literature review, problem of the study, objective of
the study, benefit of the study, research method, theoretical approach and
paper organization. Chapter two is the underlying theory, namely explaining
about principle theory of personality. Chapter three is structural analysis; the
researcher explains the structural elements of the story and discussion. Chapter
four is data analysis; it presents six basic principle of an individual
psychological approach. This chapter represents the application of the
underlying theory in which the novel is analyzed by means of Adler’s
individual psychology. Finally, the last chapter integrates the overall
discussion and brings it to the conclusion of the study.