AGATHA CHRISTIE’S CHARACTERIZATION ANALYSIS THROUGH SOPHIA IN THE NOVEL CROOKED HOUSE

Abstract

The novel Crooked House is an interesting detective story. This novel was written in 1949 by Agatha Christie. In this research, there are two research questions: first, how is the characterization analysis of Sophia through telling and showing in the novel Crooked House then the second questions, how is the result of characterization analysis related to Agatha Christie’s life experiences through her biography. To answer the questions, the researchers uses the characterization by Albertine Minderop related to Agatha Christie’s life experiences through the literature and biography by Rene Wellek and Austin Warren. The method in this research uses qualitative and inductive method, it uses qualitative method because the data of the novel Crooked House is textual data or non-numerical format then it used inductive method because the process of the analysis in the novel Crooked House is starting from specific to general. As the definition, characterization is the way of the author to describe and convey information about the character behaviour in the story. The character behaviour can be analysed by using telling and showing. Telling is the way of the author to tell the story directly about the character, then showing is the way of the author to give a chance to the reader to reveal the character. As the analysis through telling and showing, Agatha Christie describes that Sophia is a kind person with other people. Although she is a kind person, she is also described as a mysterious person. It is a mysterious person because Sophia does not like if somebody knows about her problem. Agatha Christie also shows that Sophia is an anxious, suspicious and emotional person. Sophia feels anxious, suspicious and emotional because Sophia has a problem about her grandfather’s death. After the problem of Sophia’s family solved, Agatha Christie tries to make the story a happy ending through Sophia’s marriage with Charles. In addition, the dialogue of the novel Crooked House through telling and showing, there are some correlations with Agatha Christie’s life vii

experiences. Mystery, Distress, murder, wealthy family, Agatha’s Family, England, Egypt, marriage, hotel and poison are the examples of Agatha Christie’s life experiences that it is also described in Agatha Christie’s novel Crooked House. As the result of this research, it shows that Agatha Christie’s life experiences have the influence to her novel Crooked House. Although those words in Agatha Christie’s Crooked House do not totally describe about the truth of Agatha Christie’s life experiences.