The influence of interpersonal relation to the personality of the main character of John Steinbeck’s the pearl

ABSTRACT

Psychology and literary work have close relation since literary works present characters that are depicted as having certain psychological conditions. Therefore, one of the ways to analyze a literary work is by using psychology theory as the basis of study.

This study was conducted to find out the influence of the main character’s interpersonal relation upon his personality changes.

This study used descriptive qualitative as the research method. The data were analyzed as the following steps: data reduction refers to the process of selecting by using purposive literary criticism, psychological approach, focusing, simplifying, abstracting, transcription, and then getting the resolution of the analysis. The data of this novel are categorized in four: beginning, conflict, climax, and resolution.

Based on the data analysis, and the discussion, the the main character’s interpersonal relation with his society had much influenced his personal changes. The changes were very much influenced by his bad experienced on his interpersonal relation with his society. The interpersonal relation he had had such bad influence on his personality changes. He was previously known as a calm gentleman having a good manner, then changed into a killer wanted by society and the law enforcement.

It is concluded that the conflicts the main character had were mostly due to his interpersonal relation with the society, and thus created changes in his personality. 'Therefore it becomes one prove that interpersonal relation is able to change one’s personality.