Hazel Grace's Internal Conflict in "The Fault in Our Stars"

Introduction

In psychology, conflict refers to anytime when people have opposing or incompatible actions, objectives, or ideas. The psychologists define conflict to be a state of opposition and disagreement between two or more people, which is sometimes characterized by physical violence and mostly refer to existence of the clash, which can be interest, action and direction. Everyone around the world has ever faced a struggle and it caused of conflict, especially internal conflict or psychological conflict. Internal conflict or psychological conflict is a conflict that takes place in a person’s mind and the experience of having opposing psychological beliefs, desire, impluse or feeling. According to Galtung (2009), internal conflict is a conflict that occurs when someone choose between what they want and what they should. Internal conflict happens within a person.

In the psychological field, there is a conflict that takes place in a character and person’s mind it called “internal conflict or psychological conflict. Internal conflict is a psychology struggle whereby someone finds himself or herself in difficulty when making a decision during a personal situation or anything else that concern in minds. The internal conflict is a conflict that experienced by human’s internal problem.

This research can be classified into library research because of the data sources are gathered from library. The sources of data are from the primary data sources and the secondary data. The primary data of this research is the novel The Fault In Our Stars. The reseacher reads and observe the novel carefully and critically. After read the novel, the reseacher makes a note into the data card. The secondary data of this research are taken from the relevant books, journals, and internet which are suitable to support this research. After the data is collected, the data is analyzed using descriptive qualitative method. According to Taylor and Bogdan (2016), qualitative methodology refers in the broadcast sense it research the produces descriptive data people own written or spoken word and observable behavior.

Theoretical Framework

According to Davidoff(1991:178), internal conflict is the conflict that influnces from the inside of the character such as the differences of goals. The differences of someone’s goal which are incompatible each other inside of the individual. In the literary work, internal conflict is always felt in the soul of character. Internal conflict is an internal problem of human being. For example, this occurs due to a conflict between two different desires, beliefs, and choices. Horney states that the internal conflict comes when someone has an anxiety. The anxiety comes from mind and heart. The internal conflict arise when people have conflicts with their heart, mind and

According to Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, “By ‘Psychology of literature’ we may mean psychological study of writer, as individual, or the study of creative process, or the study of the psychological types and laws present within works of literature, or, finally, the effects of literature upon its reader”.

Based on Wellek and Warren’s opinion, psychology of literature has four brances, as follow : 1) The psychological study of the writer, as type as individual, 2) The study of creative process, 3) The study of the psychological types and laws present within work of literature, 4) The effect of literature upon its reader.

Analysis

The aim of this paper is to describe the internal conflict of the main character in the novel The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. The internal conflict is faced by Hazel Grace Lancaster as the main character. The internal conflicts are:

Hazel Grace had been with Stage IV thyroid cancer when she was thirteen. When she was fourteen, her lungs started to fill up with water. She could not breathe like a normal person. This condition made Hazel desperates in her life. Every day she struggles with her cancer. She thinks she makes an earthquake to her parents. It can be seen in the quotation in the novel below:

I had a sugery called radical neck dissection, which is about as pleasant as it sounds. Then radiation. Then they tried some chemo for my lung tu,ors. The tumors shrank, then grew. By then, I was fourteen. My lungs started to fill up with water. I was looking pretty dead — my hands and feet balloned; my skin cracked; my lips were perpetually blue. They’ve got this drug that makes you not feel so completely terrified about the fact that you can’t breathe, and I had a lot of it flowing into me through a PICC line, and more than a dozen other drugs besides.

From the quotation above, it shows that Hazel struggles with her cancer. She should had a surgery called radical neck dissection, radiation, and then the doctor tried some chemos for her lung tumors when she was fourteen.

Hazel Grace Lancaster is a sixteen years old girl who suffers from thyroid cancer that has affected to her lungs and she needs to breathe with oxygen from a tank at all times throughout the day. Hazel feels so depressed because of her cancer and she can not breathe like a normal person, makes her parents happy, doing the daily activities like the others teenagers, making more friends, and going to dates. Her parents want Hazel have a normal life like the other teenagers but she always refuses it. She just wants to stay at home and always with her parents because Hazel always feels she is just a burden and will destroying her parents life, its always haunts her. She calls herself a grenade for her parents. It can be seen in the quotation below:

“I’m like. Like. I’m a grenade, Mom. I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualities, okay?”

The others quotation that Hazel said she is a grenade:

“I’m a grenade, “I said again. “I just want to staw away from people and read books and think and be with you guys because there’s nothing I can do about hurting you”

“I don’t need to get out more. And I can’t be a regular teenager, because I’m a grenade.”

From the quotation above, it is visible that Hazel has the internal conflict because her depressed feeling. Hazel feels depressed because she is a grenade, she will blow up without knowing when. She is sad because she destroys her parents’ life when she dies.

Hazel Grace never falls in love with anyone before she meets Augustus Water. She is falling in love with Augustus. Hazel loves Augustus and Augustus loves Hazel too but, Hazel can not express and tells her feeling toward Augustus. Because she feels she just a grenade that is going to explode one day and Hazel does not want to make Augustus be her victims. She tells Augustus that she can not be his girlfriend, because it will hurt for Augustus. The quotation that Hazel loves Augustus:

I nodded I liked Augustus Waters. I really, really, really, liked him. I liked the way his story ended with someone else. I liked his voice. I liked that he took existentially fraught free throws. I liked that he was a tenured professor in the department of Slightly Crooked Smiles with a dual appointment in the Department of Having a Voice That made My Skin Feel More Like Skin. And I liked that he had two names. I’ve always liked people with two names, because you get to make up your mind what you call them: Gus or Augustus? Me, I was always just Hazel, univalent Hazel. From the quotation above, it shows that Hazel loves Augustus. She likes all about Augustus. She thinks that Augustus is gorgeous but, she scares and does not want to tell Augustus about her feeling toward him. This condition makes her desperate. She scared that she will make Augustus hurt because of her.

Conclusion

This paper is discussion about the internal conflict that face by Hazel Grace as the main character in the novel The Fault In Our Stars. The first internal conflict is the internal conflict of Hazel’s cancer. Hazel must struggles with her cancer everday. Because of her cancer, she can not breathe like a normal people. When she was fourteen, she should had a surgery called radical neck dissection and radiation. Hazel can not live like the other.

The second internal conflict is the internal conflict in depression feeling. Hazel is a cancer fighter who lost the spirit in life. She just killed her time for spending quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, eat infrequently and she always think about her death.

The third internal conflict is the internal conflict in love feeling. Hazel grace falling in love with Augustus Waters, but she can not to tell Augustus that she love him. Hazel does not want Augustus to be her victims because of her cancer.

Bilbiography

1. Bogdan, Robert & Taylor, Steven J. (2016). Introduction To Qualitative Research Method. New Jersey: John Willy and Sons, Inc.
2. Davidoff, Linda L. (1991). Psikologi Suatu Pengantar Edisi Kedua Jilid Dua. Jakarta: Erlangga.
3. Galtung, Johan. (2010). Theories Of Conflict. New York: Columbia University.
4. Green, John. (2012). The Fault In Our Stars. New York: Penguin Group.
5. Wellek, Rene & Warren, Austin. (1970). Theory Of Literature. London: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, Publisher.