Psychosocial Development of Anna Fitzgerald’s Character in My Sister’s Keeper
Novel by Jodi Picoult
ABSTRACT
Commonly, parents decide to have children to complete their live as part of their family.Then, how about the parents who have another reason with the presence of their
children? It can make the children to have different thinking with other and it can make
the children wonder about their true status or identity in family. It is because parents and
their children do not have the similar purpose in their family. This situation happened in
My Sister’s Keeper novel. The researcher choose to analyse Anna Fitzgerald in thenovel because the life of family in My Sister’s Keeper novel was not like other family in general.
The researcher analysed Anna Fitzgerald’s character through two theories to find outher identity. Erikson’s psychosocial development in the fifth stage was used to analyseof how Anna Fitzgerald got through the development as thirteen years old children indefining her own identity, successfully or not. It was because this stage discusses aboutthe process of finding the true identity. Meanwhile, the researcher used Bowlby’sattachment theory to analyse of Anna’s relationship with her mother. Also, in thistheory, the researcher only used one characteristic (proximity maintenance) to knowabout factor that influence of Anna’s position in Erikson’s fifth stage. This research wasaimed to find out about the identity in fifth stage of psychosocial development of a childwho lived uncommon situation and the factor that influenced her identity.
The result of this research showed that Anna psychosocially experienced role confusion
because she failed to know about her true identity. This situation influenced Anna’srelationship with her mother. As a result, she did not have fidelity as her basic virtue.Anna did not get the sense of safety and comfort from her relationship with Sara, asmother-daughter relationship.
Key words: Psychosocial Development, Attachment Theory.