THE MAIN CHARACTER’S AMBITION IN NOVEL MARY BARTON WRITTEN BY ELIZABETH GASKELL

Abstract

Literature is a mirror of human beings, since it portrays human life containing, among other things, psychological aspect. Some of the aspect are concerned with conflict, and ambition. The writer is motivated to analyze the ambition of the main character, named Mary Barton, as a reaction to the social classes in Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel entitled Mary Barton. This study is to generate interpretative understanding of the following research problems: (1) what is Mary’s ambition? (2) What influences her to have that ambition? (3) What kinds of emotional stress are experienced by Mary as the impact of her ambition? The design of the research is descriptive qualitative. Analysing the data used inductive qualitative. Mary has an ambition that someday she can have a better life. She is ambitious that someday she can be a part of the upper class by being the wife of Mr. Harry Carson. She realizes that her ambition has caused a lot of suffer to the people around her. That wealth is nothing compared to love. In the process of realizing her ambition, there are emotional stresses such as anger, hate, sorrow, grief, fear and guilt experienced by Mary as the cost of her ambition.