The Analysis of Personality Traits of George in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five: Five Go to Billycock Hill
Santosa,S.S.,M.Pd
Abstract
The research aims to comprehend the character type and personality traits of George in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five: Five Go to Billycock Hill. In analyzing the character of George, the writer applied the objective or formalistic approach. The approach studies the intrinsic element of the literary work. The writer also did a library research to finish this research. The writer also takes some theories of character and personality to support the analysis. The writer finds out that George is one of the major characters in the story. She has some characteristics showing that she is a major character of the story. By applying Subhan’s theory of character, the writer finds that George is protagonist character of the story because she has good characteristics. She is described as the caring, helpful and wise girl. In this research the writer also analyze the personality traits of George. The writer applies Robert B. Cattell’s theory. In this analysis the writer applies the major source traits or primary factor for analyzing the personality traits of George. From these six-teen personality factor of major source traits the writer finds out three personality traits that often appear in George’s personality which are warm, vigilant and tense personality. Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five: Five Go to Billycock Hill is very interesting to be analyzed because the novel can be analyzed from some aspects. It proves that this novel is truly a literary work that it is interesting to be read and to be analyzed.
Introduction
Analyzing the novel is challenging and also interesting. The story of novel can be entertaining, funny, or tragic. It also has different of theme such as love, adventure, family, fiction, etc. and it is usually described as the real daily life, so it makes the readers feel as the part of the story. The readers will be interested to read the novel because she can choose the themes that suitable with their need. The readers also can take the moral values that described through the characters’ personality and characteristic. The readers can take the good personality as an example of their life, but if they have the bad personality, they can learn that is not good to be an example for their life.
Novel is considered more popular than the other literary works because people consider that reading novel is easier to understand than reading the other genres of literature. At the present, many of the modern novels are created but classic novels still exist and it still becomes the favorite novel for some people. One of the classic novels is The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton. In this thesis the writer is going to analyze the sixteenth series of The Famous Five novel. The title of the novel is The Famous Five: Five Go to Billycock Hill. The writer is going to analyze this novel because of some reason. Firstly, this series is one of the popular series at the longest time and many people from all generation like reading this novel although it was published several years ago. According a survey in 2012, The Famous Five is the British adults’ favorite childhood novels of all time. The theme of this novel is adventure story. The readers will get many surprises when they read this novel because Enid Blyton as the author describes the story with many surprising events and interesting story. Besides this novel popular at the longest time, the story contains of many moral values. The last reason is that the writer wants to analyze one of the main characters of this novel. There are five main characters, George, Dick, Julian, Anne and Timmy the dog. The writer is going to analyze the character of George because she has unique personalities.
Based on those reasons, the writer is going to analyze George as the main characters of the novel. After reading and comprehend the story, the writer tries to analyze the character type of George. Then, the writer tries to analyze the personality traits of George. From the explanation and the reasons above then the writer decides to give the title in her analysis “THE ANALYSIS OF PERSONALITY TRAITS OF GEORGE IN ENID BLYTON’S THE FAMOUS FIVE: FIVE GO TO BILLYCOCK HILL”.
Theoretical Review
There are two grand theories used in this research. The first theory is related to character which is proposed by Subhan (2003). The second one is personality trait proposed by Raymond B Cattell (1905–1998).
Regarding character, it is one of the important elements in creating the story of the novel. The novelist will create some characters that they interact or communicate each other, but each of them has different role. Some of the characters have important role in the story that becomes the main focus of the story. If the novelist eliminate one of those characters, the story will not interesting. Those characters are called major or main characters. On the other hand, there are some characters that do not have important role and they appear only in a few times. Those characters are called minor characters. As stated by Subhan (2003:8) that the characters of novel can be divided into two groups. They are major or main character and minor characters.
Major characters play the important role in the story of novel. They are discussed much in the story and they always have connection or speak with other characters. They also appear many times from the beginning until the end of the story. The main character in a novel consists of more than one character with different major quality. According Subhan (2003) the major characters can be analyzed into three groups. They are protagonist, antagonist and companion.
In analyzing the personality trait, the writer should aware that there are some theories that can support the analysis. Those theories were written by some psychologists. Gordon Allport (1897–1967) was the first psychologist that describes personality traits. Allport described three types of personality traits. They are cardinal trait, central trait and secondary trait. Alloport‟s theory was developed further by Raymond B Cattell (1905–1998). Raymond B Cattell proposed 2 hierarchical structure of personality: (1) major source traits or primary factors, (2) second-order traits or global factors. In this analysis the writer will use the major source traits or primary factors theory to analyzing the personality trait of the character. This theory is taken from Richard M. Ryckman‟s Theories of Personality based on Raymond B Cattell‟s theory. Major source traits or primary factors provide the most basic definition of individual personality. These factors of personality are well-known as six-teen personality factor and it is initially labeled factors A, B, C, D,E, and soon. It stands for Warmth (A), Reasoning (B), Emotionally Stable (C), Dominance (E), Liveliness (F), Rule-Consciousness (G), Social-Boldness (H), Sensitivity (I), Vigilance (L), Abstractedness (M), Privateness (N), Apprehension (O), Openness to Change (Q1), Self-Reliance (Q2), Perfectionism (Q3), and Tension (Q4).
From the explanation of personality trait theory above, the writer can conclude that there are some psychologists that concern with personality trait. Raymond B. Cattell is one of the psychologists that proposed hierarchical. structure of personality: source traits or primary factors and second-order traits or global factors to determine the structure of personality. The primary factors have six-teen personality factors. These personality factors are listed as a pair of opposites and it is described into low range and high range to determine the kind of the source trait.
Objectives
The writer also wants to know, the personality traits of George that illustrated in the novel The Famous Five: Five Go to Billycock Hill. The answer will be found from these two questions:
- What is the character type of George in the novel The Famous Five: Five Go to Billycock Hill?
- How are the personality traits of George described in the novel The Famous Five: Five Go to Billycock Hill?
Method
The Novel analyzed by the writer is Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five: Five Go to Billycock Hill. The Famous Five novel is a series novel that is one of the popular novels in English and in the world. According a survey in 2012, The Famous Five is the British adults’ favorite childhood novels of all time. The Famous Five novel consists of twenty one series. It was first published in 1957 in Great Britain. It consists of 184 pages and twenty one chapters.
The writer is going to apply an objective or formalistic approach as the approach to analyze this novel. This approach studies the intrinsic element of the literary work. The writer is using this approach because the answer for the first and second research question needs to be proven with some quotations from the novel. This approach will also give convincing supporting evidence for making a conclusion about the finding in the research.
Findings and Discussion
This chapter discusses the result of the research. Firstly, the writer would like to analyze the character type of George that consists of analyzing the major or minor character and analyzing George as the protagonist of the story. George is one of the major or main characters in the story. There are some evidences proving that she is a major character of the story. The first evidence is that she appears many times from the beginning until the end of the story. In fact George always appears in every occasion of the story and she has the important role in those occasions. In addition, George also always appears in every setting that is described in the story. There are some settings that described in the story; they are George’s house, farm, Toby’s house, Billycock hill and Butterfly farm.
The following evidence is that she is discussed much in the story. It means George is discussed by the other characters although she is not with them. In this novel, there are some parts that George is discussed by the other characters. One of the proves that George is much discussed by the other characters is when Toby and Dick discuss about George that she is a boyish girl and doesn’t like to be girlish.
The last evidence why she is called as the major character is that she always has connection with other characters or speaks frequently with the other characters. Besides George there are fourteen other characters. From those fourteen characters, George communicates or speaks frequently with them, except Mr. Brent. George does not speak directly with Mr. Brent, she only knows about Mr. Brent from her cousins. If it is counted into percentage, the characters that communicate or speak with George almost 93 % from 100 % or thirteen characters from fourteen characters.
The second discussion of this chapter is that the writer would like to analyze the personality traits of George based on Raymond B. Cattell’s theory. From the six-teen personality factor of major source traits that described by Raymond B. Cattell, the writer finds three personality traits that often appear in George’s personality.
The first personality of George is that she is a warm person. She is described as the outgoing person that has strong interest in people and seeks interactions, so she can create the closeness with them. The first evidence proving that George is warm person is when she meets with Mr. Gringle for the first time. She is very welcome and tries to have good interaction with him. She is also has big interest with Mr. Gringle because she knows from Toby that Mr. Gringle is the owner of the wonder place for butterflies. Although it is the first time they meet each other, but it does not matter for George. She tries to create the closeness with Mr. Gringle by asking him to allow her and her cousins visit the Butterfly farm that owned by Mr. Gringle.
”Mr. Gringle could we see your Butterfly Farm, please? We would so like to!” “Of course my dear of course,” said Mr. Gringle, and his eyes shone as he were very pleased. (5:47)
The above citation shows that George is seeking interaction between her and Mr. Gringle by asking him to allow her and her cousins to visit the butterfly farm that owned by Mr. Gringle. The evidences proving that she is warm person are that she can create good interaction and closeness with Mr. Gringle and Jeffrey Thomas even they never meet before.
The warm person is described as the outgoing person that she has strong interest in people and seeks interaction, so she can create closeness with them. It can be seen in George’s personality. The evidences proving that she is warm person are that she can create good interaction and closeness with Mr. Gringle and Jeffrey Thomas even they never meet before. In addition, she can be close with Benny, although Benny is still five years old but she can create good interaction and become close each other. It is because George tries to understand about Benny who like pet especially pig very much so George tries to make conversation about pet and it can create the closeness between them.
The other personality that is often appearing in George is vigilance. She tends to be suspicious or distrustful to some people. She becomes distrustful to people when she gets the bad experiences with them or she hears bad story about these people before. There are some evidences describing George is a vigilant person. The first evidence of her vigilant personality is that she is very suspicious with the name of Binky who told by Benny. She really believes that Binky is Toby’s dog so she is very vigilant to face this situation because she is afraid that Binky is unkind dog and it will be dangerous for her and Timmy. She becomes suspicious to Toby because she gets bad story about Toby before who like making a trick to make people afraid. The second evidence is that she suspects Mrs. Janes’ son as a man who pretending as Mr. Brent or a man appearing before Jeffrey Thomas and his aero plane is lost. George suspects Mrs. Janes’ son as Mr. Brent because she never meets before with him but she often hears about his bad behavior that he always hits his mother and he does not like stranger. The fact that Mrs. Janes’ son does not like stranger has made George feels high suspicious to him that he is a man pretending as Mr. Brent. The last evidence proving George is a vigilant person is that she is very suspicious to Mr. Gringle and his friend because George believes that they have kidnaped Benny. Her suspicion appears because before Benny is lost there is an occasion that makes Mr. Gringle is angry to her cousins and Toby. The other reason why she is suspects Mr. Gringle and his friend as the people who kidnap Benny because they often behave unfriendly who does like with their presence in the Billycock hill.
Besides having warm and vigilant personality, George is also described as a tense person. She often becomes tense or sometimes becomes irritable when she faces a problem even it is a little problem. The first evidence proving that she is tense person is when she meets with Mrs. Jenes who is unfriendly. She asks George to leave the butterfly farm with anger face and she mumbles that her son does not like stranger. The first prove of her tense personality is that she is very angry to Mrs. Janes who behaves unfriendly to Timmy. The next evidence is that she is very angry to Toby who makes a joke to George. She does not like with a joke given by Toby. She warns Toby that she will pay the joke given by Toby. The last evidence proving that George has tense personality is when she is very angry of Mr. Gringle who blames her and her cousins breaking his glass house.
Conclusion
The character is an important element that should be put by a novelist in a novel. The novelist will create some characters that they interact or communicate each other, but each of them has different role. Some of the characters have important role in the story that becomes the main focus of the story. Those characters are called major or main characters. The writer analyzes the character of George in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five: Five Go to Billycock Hill.
After analyzing the character of George the writer finds that George is one of the major or main characters in the story. There are some evidences proving that she is a major or main character. The first evidence is that she appears many times from the beginning until the end of the story and plays the important role in every occasion in the story. The second evidence is that she is discussed much in the story. George is often discussed by the other characters although she is not with them. The last evidence proving that she is a major character is that she communicates and speaks frequently with the other character. The major or main character in a novel consists of more than one character with different major quality. The major characters can be analyzed into three groups; protagonist, antagonist and companion. The writer finds that George is a protagonist of the story who has good characteristics. The characteristic of George are caring, helpful, wise.
In this analysis, the writer also analyzes the personality traits of George by using Robert B. Cattell theory. From the six-teen major traits or personality factor the writer finds three personalities that often appears at George namely warm, vigilant, and tense.
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