point of view analysis of the year of miss agness by
TRANSCRIPT
POINT OF VIEW ANALYSIS OF THE YEAR OF MISS
AGNESS BY KIRKPATRICK HILL
THESIS
Submitted by
ADISTA PUTRI
Student of Fakultas Tarbiyah dan Keguruan
Department of English Language Education
FAKULTAS TARBIYAH DAN KEGURUAN
UNIVERSITAS ISLAM NEGERI AR-RANIRY BANDA ACEH
2021 M / 1442 H
NIM. 150203092
THESIS
Submitted to Fakultas Tarbiyah dan Keguruan
Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh
In Partial Fulfillment of The Requirement for
The Bachelor Degree of Education in English Language Teaching
by:
Student of Fakultas Tarbiyah dan Keguruan
Department of English Language Education
Approved by:
ADISTA PUTRI
NIM. 150203092
Main Supervisor Co- Supervisor
i
Banda Aceh, 3 Agustus 2020
Adista Putri
Yang Menyatakan,
Jagong Jeget, 3 Desember 1996
Rukoh, Banda Aceh
(Declaration of Originalty)
ii
All my praise and gratitude be to Allah SWT who has conferred strength,
opportunity, and health so that I can complete the undergraduate study by
completing the writing of this thesis. Shalawat and salaam to the Prophet
Muhammad SAW along with his family who have brought a change from the
realm of ignorance to a world full of science and civilization.
The study of "The Points of View Analysis of The Year of Miss Agnes
By Kirkpatrick Hill” has been made possible by generous help from many
parties. A profound sense of gratitude binds me to Mr. Dr. phil.Saiful Akmal MA,
and Ms. Rita Hermida M.Pd as my supervisors. Their guidance, patience, time,
and ideas were the absolute backbone of this study and extremely benefited the
entire completion process of this thesis. I am extending my heartfelt gratitude for
their vision, sense of humour, wisdom, and incredible wholesomeness that have
inspired me deeply, completely.
Tremendous appreciation also goes to all lecturers who have taught me
so many things and encouraged me to be the best version of myself, to my parents
who have been my heroes since day one, and to my equally psychotic friends;
Anggun, Firdha, Katsummi, Rahmad, and Gumilang who have been my beyond-
belief support system, partners in crime, and the best companions I could ever ask
for. Thank you for walking this journey with me, against all odds.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
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Finally, to Allah SWT I ask to be given His ease and guidance. I realise
that this thesis is not free from mistakes and flaws. Therefore, I sincerely accept
criticism and suggestions from all parties for improvement of this writing.
Banda Aceh, 3 Agustus 2020
The Researcher,
Adista Putri
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ABSTRACT
Name : Adista Putri
NIM : 150203092
Faculty : Fakultas Tarbiyah dan Keguruan
Major : Department of English Languange Education
Thesis working title : The Point of View Analysis of The Year of Miss Agnes By
Kirkpatrick Hill
Main Supervisor : Dr. phil. Saiful Akmal,MA.
Co-Supervisor : Rita Hermida M.Pd
Keywords : Point of View, The Year of Miss Agnes
This study worked on analyzing point of view within a novel called The Year of
Miss Agnes. The problems of this research can be formulated into two specific
questions: What kind of point of view does the author use in The Year of Miss
Agnes? and How does the point of view influence the story narration? Regarding
the research question, the aims are to discuss what point of view type used in the
story and how it influences the story narration. This research used descriptive
qualitative research method. The main source used in this study is a novel entitled
"The Year of Miss Agnes" by Kirkpatrick Hill. It was published in September
2000 by Margaret K. McElderly Book. The main data for this research was
obtained through document analysis and involved descriptive-interpretive method.
The result of this study indicated that the story uses first person point of view
from the beginning to the end. The use of this point of view allows the story to be
narrated in a more personal way. In accordance with the significance of the study,
theoretically and practically, the result of the research is significantly beneficial to
students, lecturers, and also general public. The distinctiveness of first person
point of view in The Year of Miss Agnes and its prominent influence on the story
narration will enrich the knowledge of literary devises, increase the variety of
learning materials, and most importantly, the result of this research will increase
the public’s engagement with appreciation in literature
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY ............................................................ i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .............................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................ v
CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION
A. Background of study ............................................................... 1
C. Research Questions .................................................................. 5
D. Research Aims.......................................................................... 5
E. Significance of the Study .......................................................... 5
F. Terminology .............................................................................. 7
CHAPTER II : LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Definition of Literature ............................................................ 9
B. Definition of Point of View ...................................................... 11
C. Types of Point of View ............................................................ 12
D. Synopsis of The Year of Miss Agnes ........................................ 14
E. Biography ................................................................................ 19
CHAPTER III : RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Research design ....................................................................... 22
B. Source of Data ......................................................................... 23
C. Methods of Data Collection..................................................... 23
D. Methods of Analysis................................................................. 24
CHAPTER IV :FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. Findings from The Analysis of Point of View in The Year of
Miss Agnes .............................................................................. 25
B. Discussion ............................................................................... 38
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vi
CHAPTER V : CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Conclusions ........................................................................... 41
B. Recommendations .................................................................. 42
REFERENCES ............................................................................................... 43
APPENDICES
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of Study
Literature work is a precious gift from author’s journey of
imagination. They forge feelings into words, perpetuate words into books,
bequeath books to the readers, and eventually, live the story to eternity.
According to Klarer (2004), literature is referred to the written expression as
an entirety, with the restriction that not every written document can be
categorized as literature in the more sense of word. Furthermore, Goodman
(2001) stated that literature includes forms writing which are deliberately and
creatively experimented with certain languages in order to form ideas and
build images that attractively capture the readers’ imagination. In this way,
literature can be said as aesthetic writing works that offer the beauty of
imagination where the readers can take themselves into magnificent realms
where they can find joy, new perspectives, and even new ways of life without
leaving homes.
Webster (2004: 1321) said that:
People sometimes want to express their ideas, feelings, and messages
by writing on their notes. However, this activity may sometimes
produce a good work in literature. Literature is the class of writings
in which imaginative expression, aesthetic form, universality of
ideas, and permanence are characteristic features, as fiction, poetry,
romance and drama. Literature is a way to express their ideas,
feelings, and messages in life.
2
Roberts and Jacobs (2007) stated that literature can be classified in
two ways, they are fiction and nonfiction. Fiction usually becomes more
preferable to read for its imaginative side that stimulates readers’ creativity to
picture certain written aspects such as characters, places, even scenes. Fiction
itself can be divided into novel, short stories, and folklore. Novel usually
becomes the favorite among the three because it offers complex story plot and
also values that can be found within. Eagleton (2005) said that one can find
the beauty of poetry and dramatic dialog in the novel, along with epic,
pastoral, satire, history, elegy, tragedy, and any number of other literary
modes. According to Griffith (2010) there are intrinsic elements that build the
novel and make it into a solid story. They are character, setting, plot, theme,
and point of view.
Point of view is a crucial part in a story because it shows how the
characters tell the story based on their ‘position’ in the story itself. The way
a character tells a story will influence the whole narration because it usually
comes from their feeling, sight, or sometimes simply their opinion and
perspective towards certain phenomenon. What they see is what we see in a
story. Klarer (2004) stated that narrative perspective or point of view
characterizes the ways in which a written work presents persons, events, and
settings. The subtleties of narrative perspective developed parallel to the
emergence of the novel and can be simplified to three basic positions: The
action of a text is either mediated through an exterior unspecified narrator
(omniscient point of view) though a person involved in the action (first
3
person narration), or presented without additional commentary (figural
narrative situation).
According to Irani (2001), point of view is the most important factor
in forming and giving unity to the materials of the parts of the story. It
determines the relation of writer to the realm within the story. Point of view
determines what the reader knows and feels about the events of the plots. It
can be said that point of view is the lens to for the reader to see the story
through. In accordance with that reason, point of view is clearly an
important and captivating aspect to explore in literary analysis. Since the
researcher is a fiction writer, well executed point of view will help the
researcher to show characters’ traits based on how they interpret the world
around them. It helps her to deliver the idea of the story by showing rather
than telling. Show Don’t Tell is quite essential to writers as Anton CheKhov
defined Show Don’t Tell like this: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show
me the glint of the light of the broken glass”. Point of view is not only
essential to writers but also to readers. The broadness of the readers’
knowledge and insight towards certain issues in the story depends on the
character’s narration in the story itself. To illustrate, if a story uses first person
point of view, where all the narration is centered on a single character as a
whole, but this character is merely ignorance and is only considerate of trivial
matters, then the readers will consequently miss more meaningful matters.
There are many researches that have been conducted on analyzing
the point of view in novels. The first research was conducted by Harris (1975)
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under the title “Analysis of Point of View in The Novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.,
As Applied To Oral Interpretation”. The findings revealed that Vonnegut’s
writings use 3 points of views. They are first person point of view, third
person point of view, and mixed point of view. These revealed the stylistic
advancement on the part of the author, Vonnegut becomes more liberal in his
approach to point of view and in the relationship he establishes with his
audience.
The second research related to point of view was conducted by
Sofyanti (2016) under the title “An Analysis of Point of View and Plot on
Capote’s In Cold Blood”. The result of the analysis showed that Capote uses
the omniscient point of view. With this point of view, the narration is
centered on the character’s thoughts to give different views without a chance
of spoiling his own thoughts.
The third research was conducted by Zubaidi (2011) under the
title “Kelleher’s World View on Iron Star Novel: The Different Point of View
in Seeing Terrorism”. The findings revealed that the limited third person
point of view in the novel explored the terrorism issue deeply. It places the
author’s point of view in the wrong side of war against terrorism done by the
USA government.
Although the previous researches deal with the same topic with the
recent research, the focus of this analysis is on the point of view Kirkpatrick
Hill uses in her novel The Year of Miss Agnes. Therefore, based on the
explanation above, the researcher is going to investigate the point of view
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under the title “Point of View Analysis of The Year of Miss Agnes By
Kirkpatrick Hill”.
B. Research Questions
In this research, the researcher decided to focus on these following
problems:
1. What kind of point of view does the author use in The Year of Miss Agnes?
2. How does the point of view influence the story narration?
C. Research Aims
Based on the research questions above, the aims of this study are as
follows:
1. To find out the point of view that is used in the novel The Year of Miss
Agnes.
2. To analyze how the point of view influences the whole narration in this
novel.
D. Significance of The Study
1. Theoretical Significance
Theoretically, this study is hoped to improve knowledge in the field of
literature especially in point of view analysis as a reference for future similar
research.
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2. Practical Significance
a. Students
This study is expected to enrich students’ knowledge and appreciation
in literature. By having knowledge and deep appreciation in literature, it will
help students to understand history, geography, culture, and social change
through the lens of literature. Furthermore, it is hoped that students will have
higher reading interest as a result of literature appreciation.
b. Lecturers
This research is hoped to increase the variety of learning materials
that can help them to teach literary devices especially point of view study.
Through literature, lecturers can encourage students to be exposed to new
vocabulary, imagery, and even new lines of reasoning and a deeper thought
process.
b. General public / Literarists
This research is hoped to provide new reading materials to improve
their knowledge in literature field. A deep exposure will help them
understand the power of stories. Moreover, it is a truth universally
acknowledged that every writer comes from different cultures and beliefs,
accordingly, this research is truly expected to help people understand
diversity through literature. Therefore, through this research; literature
insight, even humanity insight, will be more widespread among society.
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E. Terminology
1. Point of View
According to Hamalian and Karl (1967), cited in Walad (2018),
point of view can simply be defined as a term for who tells the story and how
the story gets told. The narration mode (or modes) established by an author
by means of which the reader is presented with the characters, dialogue,
actions, setting, and events which constitute the narrative in a work of fiction
(Abrams, 2012).
Generally, Point of View can be classified into two types: Single Point of
View and Multiple Point of View (Beaty, 2002). In this research, the point of
view the researcher wants to explore is Single Point of View.
2. The Year of Miss Agnes
The Year of Miss Agnes is a child book by an Alaskan author
named Kirkpatrick Hill. This book was published on September 1st,
2000 by
Margaret K. McElderly Book. This book has won Once Upon A World Book
Award, California Yong Readers Medal, and many more (Engberg, 2014).
3 Kirkpatrick Hill
Kirkpatrick Hill was an Elementary School teacher with more than
three decades teaching experience. She lives in Fairbanks, Alaska, with her six
children. Hill’s greatest works are Toughboy and Sisters, Winter Camp, and
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The Year of Miss Agnes. Her experience while teaching in Alaskan “bush” was
her biggest inspiration for her works (Engberg, 2014).
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CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Definition of Literature
Hornby (2000) stated that, etymologically, the term “Literature”
derived from Latin word “Litaratura”/”Litteratura” which means “letter” or
“writing formed with letters”. According to Klarer (2005), literature normally
include supplementary adjectives such as “aesthetic” or “artistic” to distinguish
literary works from texts of everyday use such as newspaper, legal documents,
telephone book, and scholarly writing. Furthermore, Kennedy (2007) states that
literature is written or oral material that is usually used to describe anything
whether it is creative writing or a scientific and technical work, but the term is
commonly used in works of creative imagination, including works of drama,
poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.
Roberts and Jacobs (2007) stated that literature refers to
compositions that all stories, dramatize situations, expresses emotions, and
analyzed and advocate ideas. Before the invention of writing, literary works
were spoken or sung, and were retained only as long as living people
performed them. In some societies, the oral tradition of literature still exists,
with stories and poetry designs exclusively for spoken delivery. Even in our
modern age of writing and printing, much literature is still heard aloud.
Literature is generally divided into three genres, they are poetry, drama, and
prose. Poetry is the expression of ideas and feelings through a rhythmical
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composition of imaginative and beautiful words selected for their sonorous
effects. There are then kinds of poem; they are ballad, ode, elegy, pastoral,
sonnet, epic, dramatic monologue, satire, confessionals, and free verse (Robert
and Jacobs, 2007)
The word ‘prose’ is derived from the Latin prosa, which simply
means ‘straightforward’. In general understanding, according to Iranmanesh
(2012), prose is a written work that is similar to a natural, colloquial and oral
discourse and also lacks a literary definition. She also claimed that prose is a
word or phrase in which there is nothing but simple explanation and fulfillment
of the aim, plain from inner emotions and feelings, for the speaker as the
instructions of the great ones for the subordinates, explaining an incident to
someone else or recording an occurrence that they should all be simple.
Robert and Jacobs (2007) classified prose into two, fiction and
nonfiction. Fictions are made up writing works based on author’s creation and
imagination. It includes novel, short stories, romances, and myths. In the
contrary, nonfiction is literary works which interpret data, facts, and opinions.
It consists newspapers, encyclopedias, essays, historical books, and many other
works.
According to Annex (2010), there are five characteristics of prose
fiction. First, it is called as fiction in the broad of literary sense. It means that,
prose fiction is not factual truth. Second, it has dialogue and also the character,
but it differs from drama. There are plainly no narration in drama, but in prose
fiction, it has narration and also description. Third, prose fiction needs
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narration to tell the readers a story about a certain character in a certain setting,
doing or having a certain experiences, conflict or peak of the problem. Fourth,
it is written in descriptive form because in telling a story, the author uses
description of character, situation and place. Last, prose is not written in poetic
style of writing.
B. Definition of Point of View
Point of view signifies the way a story gets told—the mode (or
modes) established by an author by means of which the reader is presented
with the characters, setting, dialogue, action, and events which constitute the
narrative in a work of fiction. (Abrams, 2012).
Minderop (2005 : 90), cited in Fikriani (2014), proposes that in
literature, point of view can also be categorized into physical point of view,
mental point of view, and personal point of view. Physical point of view is the
position of place and time that is used in delivering the story materials and
quite related to physical setting that covers the setting of place and time.
Meanwhile, mental point of view is the narrator’s feelings and demeanors
towards the conflicts in the story, it is related to character reaction technique in
character portrayal in characterization and Personal point of view is the
relationship chosen in narrating the story as the first, second, and third person.
Abrams (2012) wrote that third-person narrative, the narrator is
someone outside the story world who refers to all the characters in the story by
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mentioning names or as “they”, “she”, “he”, or “it”. Thus Jane Austen's Emma
begins: "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable
home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of
existence; and had lived nearly twenty-oneyears in the world with very little to
distress or vex her.".
One of the most critical decisions any writer has to make is the point
of view from which they will tell their story. When one makes this decision,
the entire relationship between the writer and their story is set. The point of
view from which a writer tells a story defines his entire outlook, and each
viewpoint comes with its own tools that can give great freedom to writers but
also restrict them.
C. Types of Point of View
There are four basic points of view according to Kennedy (2007),
i.e.:
1. The first-person point of view
In this point of view, the author’s position is both the narrator and
the participant. She or he stands in the story as a character and use the subject
“I” in the events of the story. The author may be the protagonist or may be an
observer, or simply minor character.
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2. The Omniscient Point of View
In this point of view, the author becomes a nonparticipant and does
not appear in the story as a character. He or she knows the minds of all (or
some) character, jumps from one to another’s mind because they have the
absolute ‘power’ to do so. The author refers them such as “he”, “she”, or
“they”.
3. The Objective Point of View
It is when the author does not dive into the mind of any character
but describes the event from the outside lens. The author tells the look of the
character faces, what characters say about, he or she leaves us to infer
people’s thoughts and feelings.
4. The Third Person Point of View
In this point of view, the author acts as a non-participant within the
story, but tells it from the view point of one particular character in the story and
stays inside the confines of what is perceived, thought, remembered and felt by
a certain character (or at most by very few characters)within the story.
Point of view has its own way to influence the story narration and
reader’s perspective. Bell (2010) explained that there is a range of intimacy in
point of view. The most intimate is first person, where the narration comes
from the character's mind. We bond the strongest possible connection with the
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main character's feelings and thoughts. Conversely, the least intimate one is the
omniscient point of view. While the omniscient narrator can roam freely, this
such absolute freedom prevents a close focus on one character which, once
again, makes it more intimate.
Bell (2010) also stated that when a story is written in the first-person
perspective, the narrator's eyes determine what kind of information the readers
may receive during the process of reading. Our perceptions are based on those
of the speaker, so our understanding of characters, conflict and the
development of plots is based on what we learn from the narrator description.
To sum up, a point of view is quite impactful because it will decide
what the reader gets to know about any given situation in a story and who is
highlighted with the experiences. Point of view will also build the mood within
a story. For example: if a story uses first person point of view in which the
main character is a pessimist, then the mood of the story will be rather
accordingly.
D. Synopsis of the Novel “The Year of Miss Agnes”
In an Alaskan village in 1948, Fred (Frederika) and her mother
(“Mamma”) watched the local pilot, Sam White, took the only school teacher
away in his plane. Fred worried about what will happen with their tiny school
cabin without a teacher, and her mother claimed that there won’t be any more
school. Not having enjoyed her own schooldays, Mamma did not mind this, but
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Fred is upset. They watched as the teacher asked Sam to take her back to town,
then ran to get her belongings from her cabin. Fred was aware about the
teacher telling Sam why she left. The teacher hated the smell of fish among the
students. This quite made sense because students ate fish for lunch almost
every single day. They actually had several teachers since they started the
school there. Unfortunately, some left before the year was over. Some stayed
the whole year but none ever came back after the summer.
A week later, Miss Agnes Sutterfield, a teacher from England,
arrived. At first, Fred and her best friend Bertha, felt anxious about this teacher
because she looked rather strict. But everything was changed since Miss Agnes
invited them to have a tea time in her new cabin. They talked a lot and got
along well. The first day at school gave Fred and friends a whole new
atmosphere. Miss Agnes showed them the biggest map they had ever seen,
record players, and a bunch of new books. For another thing, the desks were
not all lined up but put in circle. Everything was different for them, good
different.
Aside of being amazed with new stuff Miss Agnes showed such as
beautiful colouring pencil they never seen before, Fred and friends were
mesmerised by how Miss Agnes read them Robin Hood for half an hour. They
were all excited. She also drew Robin Hood’s figure to attract the students’
interest. However, Miss Agnes did not read the whole part of the story so that
the students would wait while letting their imaginations roam high.
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Miss Agnes used the big map to teach geography. She showed where
exactly Alaska is, she told everything in detail; the village where they lived, the
rivers, the lakes, the sloughs, and many more. Fred had never seen her friends
so excited about anything in school. Not until that one day. Miss Agnes also
showed where England exactly located in and told them more about her family
and how she actually missed her home. On that day, the students realised a
bitter fact; Miss Agnes will only stay there for a year.
One day, Fred forgot her luch and her sister, Bokko, came to the
school to bring it to her. Bokko, somehow, drew Miss Agnes’s attention. She
put her hand on Bokko’s shoulder and asked her “Where did you come from?”
but Bokko did not answer. Apparently, Bokko was deaf. Instead of letting
Bokko go home, she asked her to stay and learn together with the other student
in that small cabin. Everyone was so surprised about Miss Agnes’s decision.
They used to believe that a girl like Bokko should go to a special school, but
Miss Agnes did not believe in such thing. She decided to talk to Bokko’s
mother to convince her that Bokko had to come to school from that day one.
She believed that everyone should have the same opportunity for better
education.
In November, Little Pete (one of Fred’s friends) and his grandpa, dad
and uncles had to go to the trapline. Bernie, auntie of Little Pete, usually went
with them to the winter camp and did all the cooking. Little Pete’s mom was
dead, that’s why. A long time ago, when Little Pete was just born, they had
measles at their old village of Dolbi. Those measles killed a lot of people,
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mostly the old people and the babies, but Little Pete’s mom died then. Usually
Little Pete was dying to get out to camp as soon as it snowed. He really liked it
out there at their camp because he liked being out in the woods. But he did not
really want to go this year because school was so interesting with Miss Agnes
there. Most of all, he did not want to miss the end of Robin Hood. He was not
good enough at reading to read it for himself, so Miss Agnes read extra long last
day he was in school, and they finished the book. So Little Pete was glad of that.
Miss Agnes gave him a little notebook and told him to write in it every day so he
would not forget all he had learned about printing nicely. Nearly every day some
other family would go off to winter camp and the village was getting emptier and
emptier.
After Robin Hood, Miss Agnes read them Greek myths. To think of all
the mischief those old-time people could get up to, changing into trees and that.
They loved the monster ones, and they drew pictures of the Chimera and the Hydra
and the three-headed dog. That was a good one. And after that she read them the
story about Ulysses, and that had more monsters. After that, she moved on to
fairytales. She knew exactly how to attract students’ interest in literature.
One day, Miss Agnes put school books away, and she made some other
little books for the students to read. A different one for each of them. Just little
pieces of paper stapled together, but the thing about those books was they were
about them. She then encouraged them to write another books about themselves.
Miss Agnes said not to worry about the spelling, just write. Anything they
wanted to. She gave each of them a little notebook. Any word they needed for
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their story she would write for us in that notebook. That was their own little
dictionary. And that was the way they learned to spell. Unlike the previous
teachers, Miss Agnes made the students so comfortable because she did not
say that their English was bad like the other teachers did. She truly help the
students building their confidence.
By spring they could all read pretty good and write stories and tell the
names of the places on the whole map. Bokko could write now, too, and read the
books Miss Agnes wrote for her. If she wanted something, she could write to them
now, not really good, but enough that they could tell. But this year the kids who
were going to spring camp were sad. They knew when they got back Miss Agnes
would be gone. It would all be over. There would be another teacher next year.
Maybe a nice one, even. But never the same as Miss Agnes. When the ice went
out, it was almost the end of school and they all were all getting ready to go to
fish camp.
Miss Agnes packed her things. She did not pack the books or the
phonograph or the records. “I leave these for you,” she said. “For next year. You
tell the new teacher where the old books are. She’ll likely want to use them.”
Fred helped her some after everyone else had said good-bye and gone.
When she had everything packed, she said to her, “This teapot is for you.
Remember the first day I came, when you and Bertha had tea with me? This is to
remember me by.”
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Late in September, the students got back from fish camp. Fred had so
much fun there but she missed Miss Agnes and wished she could just stay at fish
camp all winter, too. Bokko now had mastered sign language because of Miss Agnes
and now everyone could communicate well with her. They were all happy to see
Bokko has a better life now.
It was a dark rainy night when they got home from fish camp. It was all
gloomy and there was no light anywhere. Everyone who stayed in the village must
had fallen asleep, even Old Man Anderson. When they came around the corner, they
saw a light in school. It seemed like that was a sign that there came a new teacher
already. They decided to put their bags down and walk softly up to the school
window. As they looked in, they were surprised by what they saw. On the school
desk, there was a ginger cat, they basically had never seen a cat before. For a moment
they were all mesmerised. Then under the soft school light, a woman appeared. She
was Miss Agnes with a new haircut. She had returned.
No words could express how thrilled Fred and Bokko were. They two
could not wait to start the new semester with Miss Agnes.
E. Biography
An elementary teacher who worked in Alaska for over three decades,
Kirkpatrick Hill is best known for writing novels that introduce younger
readers to life in the Alaskan wilderness areas known as the "bush." In the
middle-grade novels Toughboy and Sister, The Winter Camp, and The Year of
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Miss Agnes, as well as in the young-adult novels Dancing at the
Odinochka and Do Not Pass Go, Hill "lets the audience live inside her story,
and in fortifying her characters she fortifies readers too," according to
Elizabeth Devereaux in the New York Times Book Review. Hill's novels are told
entirely from a young protagonist's point of view, allowing readers to identify
with the fear, grief, and resolve that her teen and preteen characters experience
while surviving the harsh conditions of the Arctic region. "If good
children's books got the attention they deserve, Kirkpatrick Hill would be a
name known to everyone," Devereaux concluded.
Born in 1938, Hill spent her first years in a mining camp
outside Fairbanks, Alaska. "We moved into Fairbanks so I could go to school,"
she once related to SATA. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at
the University of Alaska, but left when she got married. Even with one, then
two, then three children at home, Hill found the time to return to school to
complete her studies, and she received her bachelor's degree from Syracuse
University in 1969. Three more children followed, after Hill began a teaching
career that took her back to the Alaskan bush.
With Loechelle's help, Toughboy and Sister was published in 1990.
The book tells the story of two Athabascan Indian children who are forced to
survive on their own after their mother dies during childbirth and their father—
an alcoholic who cannot get over the loss of his wife—meets his death in a
boating accident at a fishing camp on the Yukon River. Eleven-year-old John
21
and his sister, nine-year-old Annie Laurie, find themselves abandoned in this
remote area and forced to rely on their wits to survive. Calling Toughboy and
Sister a "strong, satisfying short novel accessible to very young readers," Betty
Levin added in the New York Times Book Review that "Hill has achieved a
sense of a world that spans two cultures and a feeling for two children whose
clear and convincing voices speak to us across the divide."
In The Year of Miss Agnes Hill transports readers to the 1940s and
introduces ten-year-old Frederika. Fred's feelings about schoolwork change
drastically after a new teacher named Miss Agnes comes to the small, one-
room schoolhouse in Frederika's remote Abathascan village. While many
teachers have come and gone—some lasting only a few weeks—Miss Agnes is
here to stay, and inspires Fred and her friends with her creativity and
excitement over learning. Told in what Horn Book reviewer Roger Sutton
described as Fredrerika's "distinct and definite voice," Hill captivates her
readers with "the anecdotes about Miss Agnes's masterful teaching methods,"
creating a novel Sutton dubbed "always true and involving." In Booklist Gillian
Engberg praised The Year of Miss Agnes as "an uplifting portrait of a dedicated
teacher."
22
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Research Design
The study is designed by using qualitative research. Merriam (2009)
stated that qualitative research provides highly descriptive data in the form of
words and pictures rather than the numbers produced by other types of
research. Boyd (2000), added that description creates a clear picture of a
person, animal, object, place, or event. A writer paints into the reader’s mind
what can attract and be perceived by the five senses. The details help us see,
hear, taste, touch, or smell in your imagination, whatever is being described. A
writer chooses descriptive details carefully to gain the interest of readers. It is
suitable for the writer’s intention who wants to describe her analysis through
description. Cresswell (2012), as cited in Rizky and Golubovic (2020), in
qualitative study, variables are unknown and requires exploration.
According to Vanderstoep and Johnston (2009), qualitative research is
a type of research that produce narrative (textual) descriptions of the
phenomenon under the study. Therefore, the researcher provides richer and
more in depth understanding population. Vanderstoep and Johnston (2009:210)
also stated that “qualitative textual analysis involves the identification and
interpretation of a set of verbal or non-verbal signs. Furthermore, interpretation
23
can be analysed from the perspective of the historical or cultural context in
which the text was created.”
B. Source of Data
The main source used in this study is a novel entitled "The Year of
Miss Agnes" by an Alaskan author named Kirkpatrick Hill. It was originally
published in September 2000 by Margaret K. McElderly Book. This novel
won an award from International Reading Association, Once Upon a Book
Award, Simon Weisenthal Center, Museum of Tolerance, and National
Council of Teacher of English.
The sources of data will be divided into two parts; primary source
and supporting sources. The main source is The Year of Miss Agnes by
Kirkpatrick Hill which was first published in 2000 with 128 pages. In
analysing the data, the researcher will use books, articles, journal, and other
sources to gain new information related to the research topic. In addition, the
articles and other sources will be listed on the reference pages.
C. Methods of Data Collection
The main data for this research was obtained through document
analysis. Ary, et al. (2002) states that the most common data collection
method used in qualitative research are : (1) observation (participant and
nonparticipant), (2) interviewing, and (3) document analysis. Based on the
24
three data collection method stated above, the researcher used document
analysis because this technique is the most suitable one to be applied in this
research.
D. Methods of Analysis
This research used content or textual analysis and involved
descriptive-interpretive method. The writer described the data, sources, and
analysis. After that, the writer reviewed the result and gave her opinion about
the research’s object. In this phase, the researcher should be quite aware of the
nature of pre-understanding of the phenomenon which tends to shape the
interpretation. Also, it is quite open for unexpected meaning, therefore, the
researcher should be aware of their own expectations (Elliot & Timulak,
2005).
There are several steps that the researcher had done in order to analyse
the data. Firstly, the researcher downloaded the pdf novel of The Year of Miss
Agnes as the source of point of view analysis. Secondly, the researcher read the
text thoroughly for deep understanding of the story. Next, the researcher
analysed which part of the dialogues or narration within the story that show the
type of point of view and how it influences the whole story. Finally, the
researcher summarised the data and drew a conclusion of the study
25
CHAPTER IV
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the point of view analysis from The Year of Miss
Agnes is presented. In the finding section, all the provided data were classified
into the point of view type analysis and the influence of the point of view based
on the novel.
A. Findings from The Year of Miss Agnes
The data analysed in this research was a children book under the title
The Year of Miss Agnes, written by an Alaskan author Kirkpatrick Hill.
Meanwhile, point of view was the fictional element which was selected to be
studied. Below are the analysis and the result.
1. Point of View of The Year of Miss Agnes By Kirkpatrick Hill.
First Person Point of View
It is mentioned by Abrams (2010) that point of view is the way the story
gets told. In The Year of Miss Agnes, Hill uses the first person point of view.
The paragraphs below are taken from the book to represent how Hill uses the
point of view.
26
Data 1
What will happen now?” I asked Mamma as we watched the
plane take the teacher away. “Maybe no more school.” Mamma
twitched her shoulder a little to show she didn’t care. Mamma
never went to school much, just a few months here and there when
her family wasn’t trapping or out at spring muskrat camp. She
said she hated school when she was little. The little plane
circled our village and then flew low over Andreson’s store and
waggled its wings at us. That was Sam White, the pilot, saying
good-bye to us.
It was Sam White laughing, too. Sam thought nearly everything
was funny. He had just landed with the mail and there the new
teacher was waiting for him when he opened the door of the
cockpit. She pushed right through the rest of us and started talking
before Sam even got to say hello. (Chapter 1)
On these paragraphs, Hill places herself as a narrator. The word “I”
and “we” indicate the first person point of view. She tells the reader about her
confusion related to her school life and her mother’s perspective about school
itself. As the “limited” narrator, Hill has the privilege to describe what is
around her in detail. Yet, only what she is aware of.
Data 02
I was helping Old Man Andreson in the store when Sam came in.
It was my job to cross off every day on the calendar with an X so
Old Man Andreson wouldn’t get mixed up and forget what day it
was. And it was the first day of a new month, so I had to tear that
last month off, too. October 1, it was now—1948.
Sam was really big and tall, and when I was little, he always
used to lift me up and make my head touch the ceiling. Now I was
too big for that, so he just stuck me on top of the counter.
“Fred! I brought you a new teacher. I kidnapped her. What do you
think about that?” I had a bad feeling about that, so I asked him,
“Is she nice?”
Oh-ho,” said Sam. “This one’s got a little mileage. You kids are
27
not going to get away with nothin’.” That didn’t sound like she
was going to be nice, so I wiggled down off the counter. I wanted
to go have a look at her. (Chapter 1)
Data 03
I ran to the Nickoli house to see if Bertha was there. She was in
the back of the house, helping her mother with a moose skin. They
were twisting it and twisting it with a long spruce stick so it
could get really soft. Good enough to sew.
“Bertha, we got a new teacher.” Bertha’s eyes got big and
worried. “Is she nice?”
“I don’t know. Sam said she was strict.”
Bertha dropped the stick and we ran, even though her mother
was yelling after her to get back.
We ran to the teacher’s cabin and then stopped short in the dusty
road. There was a skinny woman whacking the dust out of a rug
on the side of the cabin porch.
She was wearing pants. We never saw a woman wear pants. Our
moms always wore dresses, with thick socks and moccasins. And
us girls, too. Sometimes if it was really cold, we’d have pants
under our skirts. But never just pants.
We looked hard at her to see what we could find out. (Chapter
2)
Data 04
I think she could tell I was still a little mixed up, because she
said, “The English that we speak in England sounds different
from the way you speak English here. But it’s the same language.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, and this time I knew what she meant. Like how
you can tell when someone is from Nulato or Hughes just
because they say their words different.
“My name is Agnes Sutterfield,” she said. “What are your
names?”
“This is Bertha,” I said. “Bertha Nickoli. She’s really Bertha
John, but Jake and Annie adopted her from her real mother, Sally
28
John, because Sally had too many kids already. Sally lives at
Allakaket.”
The new teacher looked at Bertha. “I know your real mother,” she
said.
“You do?” We were very surprised. (Chapter 3)
Data 05
He’d already gone, but Old Man Andreson was talking to some
of the men. Barney Sam and his big boy, George, and Clayton
Malemute and them. They were buying shells for their guns, and
other stuff they needed to go hunting. They never did their buying
quick—they had to talk a long time. I wasn’t supposed to talk
when grown people were talking, but I was too curious.
“Jack,” I said to Old Man Andreson. “You know our new
teacher?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s a good one. Agnes Sutterfield. She
been in the country a long time, up at Allakaket. They like her a
lot up there.”
“That was my teacher,” George said. “One winter we was staying
with my grandma up there. I was only in that school a little while
before we went to spring camp, but she was a good one. She
taught me how to read. She knows a lot. That’s a good teacher you
got now.” (Chapter 2)
On these paragraphs, the author constantly uses “I” as the subject
pronoun. She also involves “my” as a possessive determiner which emphasises
the use of first person point of view. Furthermore, it can be seen that Hill uses
first person point of view from Fred’s perspective. It means Fred (Frederika)
uses the word “I” and describes events as she experienced. She does know
neither what other characters are thinking unless they tell her, nor what is
happening in the story out of her sight.
29
Hill uses first person point of view consistently until the final chapter
of the story by using fist person subject personal pronouns, object personal
pronoun, possessive pronoun, and possessive adjective.
Data 06
My dad’s looking at the camera and he’s laughing, with his eyes
all squinched up. Bokko looks like that when she smiles, too.
I think he was a really happy kind of guy. That’s what everyone
says. Always joking. If he hadn’t died, there would have been
more laughing in our house. Mamma is not the laughing kind.
(Chapter 4)
Data 07
I waited for the teacher to holler at them and hit her desk with the
ruler, but she just looked a look at them, with her eyebrow up and
her mouth a little pushed to one side. It wasn’t a mean look, it was
a smart look, if you know what I mean. So they stopped and sat
down. (Chapter 5)
Data 08
Even before we went to school, she used to get a pencil from
Old Man Andreson and she’d hunker down by the boxes in the
store and she’d copy the writing. She’d write Olympia Beer and
Pillsbury Flour and anything that was printed on the boxes. She
didn’t know what the letters said, she just thought they were
pretty. (Chapter 6)
Data 09
I asked Miss Agnes where Juneau was, and she showed me, way
down at the bottom, in the part she said was called the panhandle
because that part looked liked a long handle and the rest of
Alaska like the pan. I ran my finger from where we were on the
Koyukuk River to Juneau and thought of Daddy making that long
trip. It was a long way away to go to die. (Chapter 7)
Data 10
We all got tickled with that idea and started talking to each other
without making a sound. Only we made our mouths really stick
out when we did it. It was so funny, Charlie-Boy fell off his chair
laughing. Then Roger started saying bad words in Indian with his
30
mouth, and everyone started giggling. (Chapter 8)
Data 11
We had to melt snow to get water in the winter. Sometimes
Grandpa and the other men would cut big chunks of ice from the
lake behind the village, too. Ice makes lots more water than snow.
In the summer we all got water from the river. (Chapter 9)
Data 12
Sometimes, any old time of the day, we never could tell when,
she’d take it out of its little case and we’d sing. She taught us
“Polly Wolly Doodle” and “Barb’ry Allen” and “Loch Lomond”
and a million other songs. (Chapter 10)
Data 13
It was good to have that line. We could see how long ago things
were happening with it. It made my thinking go straight.
(Chapter 11)
Data 14
We told Miss Agnes about those stories, and after that Miss Agnes
would read us a fairy tale and then we would tell her one of the
old-time stories. Miss Toby told them in Indian, so they sounded
different when you tried to tell them in English. Not so good,
somehow. (Chapter 12)
Data 15
After we thawed it out, we put popcorn strings on it and little
chains made of green and red paper. That tree looked just
beautiful. (Chapter 13)
Data 16
But Marie could hardly read at all, and none of us younger ones
were much good at it. We read real slow, and the big words
gave us fits. Selina and Charlie-Boy were still learning the
alphabet. (Chapter 14)
Data 17
We knew that we didn’t talk the right way, because the other
teachers had told us we had terrible English.
31
But Miss Agnes said there were lots of right ways to talk.
(Chapter 15).
Data 18
By spring I could add and subtract. Bokko could write now, too,
and read the books Miss Agnes wrote for her. If she wanted
something, she could write to us now, not really good, but
enough that we could tell. (Chapter 16)
Data 19
Bokko and I stop to look. I feel terrible, and Bokko does, too, I
can tell. We can’t stop ourselves, though. We got to look. I put my
bag down and walk softly up to the school window. (Chapter
17; End)
From the analysis that has been done by the researcher, it can be seen
that in this novel, Kirpatrick Hill placed the character Frederika both as the
narrator and the participant. In the story, Fred has an important role. She is the
observer and also a minor character. By narrating the story through Fred’s
point of view, Hills only allows the readers to experience events in the story
based on what Frederika knows, sees, and hears.
2. The Effect Of The Point of View on The Story Naration
(1). It Allows The Story to be Narrated in A More Personal Way
The findings on the effect of point of view in The Year of Miss Agnes
is based on comprehensive reading of the novel. The researcher found that the
use of first person point of view allows the story to be narrated in a more
personal way. The full analysis will be presented below.
32
Unlike in Third Person Point Of View where the narrator only has a
role as an observer because he/she is not included as one of the characters in
the story, First Person Point of View allows the readers to experience the
events as the story characters themselves. The use of the word “I” makes the
readers feel like as if they are telling their own stories in their head while
reading.
In First Person Point of View, the author controls the entire scene and
plots through her particular perspective in her own voice. The story is narrated
in limited view point because the main character witnesses the events but
cannot see into other character’s minds, or what is out of his/her reach. By
using First Person Point of View, the readers are completely drawn into the
story (Rasley, 2008).
In The Year of Miss Agnes, Frederika represents the readers both as the
observer and the main character. In other words, the readers consider
themselves as Frederika, as the crucial part of the story. A personal connection
is obviously built under this circumstance since the readers portray themselves
as Frederika through this narration voice.
Since the narration is presented through Frederikas’s perspective, her
characterization is quite influential in building moods of the story. Frederika is
a ten-year-old girl from a remote Alaskan village in 1400s. The story is
delivered based on her personal view as a child with her innocence and naiveté.
33
Data 20
She was wearing pants. We never saw a woman wear pants. Our
moms always wore dresses, with thick socks and moccasins. And
us girls, too. Sometimes if it was really cold, we’d have pants
under our skirts. But never just pants. (Chapter 2)
Data 21
We did what she told us for a while, and then she stopped and
said, “We need some tea.” Just like we were grown women.
She took the kettle off the back of the stove and poured water into
a fat little brown teapot. I wanted to put my hands around that pot,
it was so round. (Chapter 2)
Data 22
I couldn’t keep my eyes off that map, it was so wonderful. Right
away I went to it and I stood on a chair and I showed those kids,
“This is Alaska, where we are now, and this is where Teacher
comes from. It’s English.” The teacher looked at me with a quick
look, and I could see she was pleased I remembered. On this big
map my fingers didn’t cover the little English place. (Chapter 3)
Data 23
Then the teacher put a big box on the long table, and we gathered
around to watch while she unwrapped it. When she opened the
box, it smelled so good, like new pencils. And that was because
there were pencils in it. Not just the yellow kind we always had,
but boxes and boxes of colored pencils, with every color of lead
you could think of
.
And there were big yellow boxes of crayons, forty-eight in a box,
the skinny kind, not the fat kind we had before. And a box of
green pencils with dark lead, and lots and lots of tin boxes of
paints. Each one had a little brush in it, and there was another
bunch of little brushes tied together with a rubber band.
And there was a wooden box with little metal tubes that Miss
Agnes said had paint in them, too. I couldn’t believe she was
going to let us use all those beautiful things. (Chapter 5)
(2). It Allows The Readers to Dive Deep Into The
34
Character’s Mind
Frederika’s background as a little girl from an isolated village, away
from luxury and modernity, makes her has a different way in seeing every
phenomenon around her. She might be ten years old, but she is emotionally
juvenile for her age. She could be overly-mesmerised by trivial matters just
like when the first time she saw Miss Agnes wearing pants. She is also secretly
admiring Miss Agnes’s teapot shape in a very naïve way after bearing in mind
how odd it is to be invited for tea regarding to the fact that she and Bertha are
just kids. Moreover, Frederika is also deeply amazed by the map, colouring
pencils, paints, and brushes that Miss Agnes showed in front of the class.
Those might be something quite typical for other students out there, but seeing
a map and painting tools is a completely new and appealing experience for
Frederika and her friends at that small school.
Frederika’s position as the narrator and the main characters in the
story lets the readers dive deep into her mind. The readers experience
everything she feels and thinks. Therefore, the readers will also experience the
events in the story exactly how Frederika does. Her narrative voice leads the
reader to perceive every event in the story in an unsullied and child-like way.
Data 24
I was so happy to be going to school again. Mamma was mad. She
was slamming things around. She didn’t see the use of school. It
made her mad to have me gone all day when I could be helping
her at home.
35
Bokko was helping me get ready. I couldn’t find my clean socks,
so she gave me hers, which were pretty clean even though there
was a hole in the toe she never mended.
I put them on when Mamma wasn’t looking, or she would have
yelled and maybe kept me from school because I didn’t have clean
socks and Bokko’s had a hole in them. And she’d yell at Bokko for
not darning them.
I was glad to be going to school, but I felt sorry for leaving
Bokko. She didn’t go to school because she was deaf. She was
born that way. She was two years older than me, twelve, and I
was the only one who understood what she wanted to say. I could
just tell somehow. Mamma wasn’t patient to understand her.
(Chapter 3)
Data 25
My dad’s looking at the camera and he’s laughing, with his eyes
all squinched up. Bokko looks like that when she smiles, too.
I think he was a really happy kind of guy. That’s what everyone
says. Always joking. If he hadn’t died, there would have been
more laughing in our house. Mamma is not the laughing kind.
Mamma works for Old Man Andreson at the store, cleaning and
doing the washing and all of that. And she does sewing to sell,
boots and mitts and marten hats. She sews really good.
(Chapter 4)
Data 26
Mamma makes mittens out of lots of different kinds of skins. Otter
and wolf are good ones, and she gets a lot of money for those. The
mittens have long, braided harnesses so you can tie the mittens up
behind you, so they won’t get in your way if you’re working. And
so they won’t get lost.
Those harnesses are made of three different bright colors of yarn,
and they’re prettier than anything you ever saw. They have big
pom-poms on them for decorations.
Mamma gets me and Bokko to wrap the yarn around a piece of
cardboard about a million times to make those pom-poms fat
enough. We get tired doing it, but in the end when Mamma cuts the
ends and fluffs them out, they look so pretty. (Chapter 4)
36
(3). It Strengthens The Connection Between The Readers and The
Main Characters and Improves The Character Building
Understandings
Frederika leads the reader to portray her parents in her honest and
simple way. She described how different the personalities they parents have. She
loves his father’s cheerful traits and she implicitly let the readers know she is
longing for him. Her mother’s personality is slightly in contrast. Nevertheless,
Frederika shows the different side of her mother by telling how good she is when
it comes to work. Fred told the readers that behind her Mamma’s short-tempered
traits and distant way of loving, she is actually quite caring with her kids in her
own way.
Frederika’s narrative voice allows the readers to embrace her
complexity as a daughter, as a sister, and as a little child full of wonders. She
loves her father, she also loves her mother against all odds, and it obviously can
be seen that Frederika has a huge compassion towards her deaf little sister,
Bokko. There is nothing that can brighten up her days more than the fact that she
could go back to school. Yet, she feels bad because she has to left Bokko at
home. The relationship that Frederika’s has with her family is explained sensibly
and straightforwardly. It makes Frederika’s character becomes very realistic. It
unconsciously strengthens the connection between Frederika and the readers.
Data 27
When Miss Agnes read to us, she did all the people in different
voices, and we forgot right away it was just reading. It got real,
37
like being inside the book.
I didn’t want Miss Agnes to ever stop reading. I felt as if I really
was in that dark, deep forest with trees taller than you ever heard
of, and when she stopped, I felt shocked, as if I’d come out of a
dream. (Chapter 6)
Data 28
I always hated this arithmetic, and I always just wrote any old
numbers down before, so I wouldn’t have to think about it. And if
the teachers wanted to make me do it right, I would cry and carry
on. Then they would leave me alone about it.
Even if writing was fun when Miss Agnes showed us how, there
was no way she could make this arithmetic fun. (Chapter 7)
Data 29
Miss Agnes was going to teach Bokko.
I don’t know what Miss Agnes said to Mamma, but Bokko did
come to school. Not the very next day, because Mamma was
kicking up a big fuss about Bokko having no clothes and her socks
having holes in them, but the day after.
This sign language is really something. Miss Agnes said when
people have been doing it a long time, their hands just fly. I’d like
to see that.
And that’s not all deaf people can learn to do. Miss Agnes said
there’s a way deaf people can learn to look at your mouth when
you’re talking and know what you’re saying that way. She said
they would teach that to Bokko in a special school for the deaf if
she went. We all got tickled with that idea and started talking to
each other.
Here we used to think some things were so bad you just had to
give in to them, like being deaf or blind, but now we were
finding out that there’s always something they’ve thought of to
help people like that. It was hard to do, this sign language and
blind reading, but it’s better to kick some instead of just sinking.
(Chapter 8)
38
Data 30
I think Miss Agnes worried about Marie because she didn’t learn
fast. Or maybe because Marie was so good-natured, she’d do
what anybody said. Anyway, she kept Marie at it, even if she
wasn’t coming to school with us.
Marie wasn’t the only one. Plasker’s father came to Miss Agnes’s
cabin sometimes at night, and she helped him learn to read and
write, and even Old Man Toby came to learn to write his name.
Miss Agnes didn’t think school was just for kids. “You have to
keep learning all your life,” she said.
That was a good thing to think about, always learning something
new. It wasn’t like you had to hurry up and learn everything right
away before the learning time was over, it was like you could
kind of relax and take your time and enjoy it. (Chapter 9)
Data 31
Before Miss Agnes came, we didn’t know people like us could
learn that much and could be a doctor. It was in my head then, that
I could do something really big. I didn’t want to have babies, like
Marie, and marry some boy. Maybe he’d get mean sometimes. Or
have another girlfriend, like Martha’s husband. I wouldn’t like
that.
(Chapter 15)
.
Through Frederika’s point of view, the readers can deeply
acknowledge how tremendously she admires Miss Agnes as their new
teacher, and so do her friends. Her narration lets the readers witness that Miss
Agnes has brought the new light into the classroom. Everything becomes
more joyful. Every kind of difference is cordially embraced. Miss Agnes
encourages students to believe in their dreams and reminds them that learning
is not only for kids. She gives everyone the same opportunity.
Frederika’s narration discloses the fact that even though from an
39
inexperienced little kid who grows in an isolated village perspective, a
dedication of a teacher is a precious give. She is aware of the huge change
with her mindset since Miss Agnes came along. She used to believe that
villagers like her people were not meant to have big dreams. She used to think
that learning is only for the young and the gifted. But After Miss Agnes,
everything has changed. She believed learning is for everyone, so are dreams.
B. Discussions
Based on the data analysis, the researcher would like to answer the
research questions. There are two questions stated in this research, namely;
1).What kind of point of view does the author use in The Year of Miss Agnes?
2). How does the point of view influence the story narration?
To answer the first question, the researcher read The Year of Miss
Agnes novel thoroughly and repeatedly. After analyzing the data, the writer
found that Kirkpatrick Hill uses first person point of view. This point of view is
used constantly and consistently from the beginning of the story up until the
end. What indicate the use of first person point of view in this novel are first
person subject personal pronouns, object personal pronoun, possessive
pronoun, and possessive adjective (I, me, my, mine). The main character as the
narrator also uses us, our, and ours when it comes to explaining things where
other characters are involved.
In this novel, Kirpatrick Hill places Frederika, as both a narrator and a
character. The story is fully delivered through her lens. However, every
40
character has the same position. Nobody is described by Frederika as the ‘true’
main character; all of them have the same portion in the narration. Frederika
has a role to witness every single phenomenon in the novel and it lets the
readers know the events of the story limitedly through what she sees, hears,
and thinks.
The result of the analysis above is strongly in line with the second
question proposed in the research questions. The use of first person point of
view allows the story to be narrated in a more personal way. Reading the story
through Frederika’s perspective lets the readers dive deep into her mind. The
use first person point of view allows the readers to experience the events as the
story characters themselves. The use of the word “I” makes the readers feel like
as if they are telling their own stories in their head while reading. In this case,
the readers consider themselves as Frederika, as the crucial part of the story.
Therefore, personal connection is obviously built under this circumstance since
the readers portray themselves as Frederika through this narration voice.
41
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Conclusions
This research was conducted to analyse the point of view applied in
the child novel The Year of Miss Agnes. It is basically a story about children
struggle in a remote Alaskan village for a better education and a dedication of
an new English teacher named Miss Agnes. The result of the analysis revealed
that The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill uses first person point of view,
shown by the use of the words I, me, my, mine, us, our, and ours within the
narration.
First person point of view applied in The Year of Miss Agnes
immensely influences the story narration. The story is narrated by a ten-year-
old girl named Frederika as the observer and a character. The use of first
person point of view in the story leads the readers to sink deeply into her mind.
The use of the word “I” as the main subject draws the readers to portray
themselves as Frederika. This circumstance unconsciously builds a connection
between the readers and the readers. Furthermore, since the story is told
through Frederika’s eyes, the narration is based on the way she perceive every
phenomenon around her, and it is clearly has a correlation with her background
and personality. Therefore, this point of view strongly influences the narration
style, and in this case, the story is narrated in a more personal way.
42
B. Recommendations
Point of view is one of the most important literary devises. It is like a
lens to see events and phenomena within a story. In this research, the result
revealed the fact that point of view has a tremendous impact on the story
narration. Moreover, point of view also implicitly reflects the character’s
mindset and personality. This study is quite essential for future researcher to
analyze fictions with the similar focuses. Furthermore, for the readers, this will
help them to acknowledge the importance of point of view in a story.
Based on the result of this research, the writer suggests that this study
can be continued to find the next research topics related to point of view, such
as The Analysis of Point of View and Its Effect on Story Characterization, or
Disclosing The Point of Views in Victorian Horror Short Stories.
43
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46
APPENDIX
First Person Point of View
Data 1
What will happen now?” I asked Mamma as we watched the
plane take the teacher away. “Maybe no more school.” Mamma
twitched her shoulder a little to show she didn’t care. Mamma
never went to school much, just a few months here and there when
her family wasn’t trapping or out at spring muskrat camp. She
said she hated school when she was little. The little plane
circled our village and then flew low over Andreson’s store and
waggled its wings at us. That was Sam White, the pilot, saying
good-bye to us.
It was Sam White laughing, too. Sam thought nearly everything
was funny. He had just landed with the mail and there the new
teacher was waiting for him when he opened the door of the
cockpit. She pushed right through the rest of us and started talking
before Sam even got to say hello. (Chapter 1)
Data 02
I was helping Old Man Andreson in the store when Sam came in.
It was m yjob to cross off every day on the calendar with an X so
Old Man Andreson wouldn’t get mixed up and forget what day it
was. And it was the first day of a new month, so I had to tear that
last month off, too. October 1, it was now—1948.
Sam was really big and tall, and when I was little, he always
used to lift me up and make my head touch the ceiling. Now I was
too big for that, so he just stuck me on top of the counter.
“Fred! I brought you a new teacher. I kidnapped her. What do you
think about that?” I had a bad feeling about that, so I asked him,
“Is she nice?”
Oh-ho,” said Sam. “This one’s got a little mileage. You kids are
not going to get away with nothin’.” That didn’t sound like she
was going to be nice, so I wiggled down off the counter .I wanted
to go have a look at her.(Chapter 1)
47
Data 03
I ran to the Nickoli house to see if Bertha was there. She was in
the back of the house, helping her mother with a moose skin. They
were twisting it and twisting it with a long spruce stick so it
could get really soft. Good enough to sew.
“Bertha, we got a new teacher.” Bertha’s eyes got big and
worried. “Is she nice?”
“I don’t know. Sam said she was strict.”
Bertha dropped the stick and we ran, even though her mother
was yelling after her to get back.
We ran to the teacher’s cabin and then stopped short in the dusty
road. There was a skinny woman whacking the dust out of a rug
on the side of the cabin porch.
She was wearing pants. We never saw a woman wear pants. Our
moms always wore dresses, with thick socks and moccasins. And
us girls, too. Sometimes if it was really cold, we’d have pants
under our skirts. But never just pants.
We looked hard at her to see what we could find out.(Chapter
2)
Data 04
I think she could tell I was still a little mixed up, because she
said, “The English that we speak in England sounds different
from the way you speak English here. But it’s the same language.”
“Oh, yeah,”I said, and this time I knew what she meant. Like how
you can tell when someone is from Nulato or Hughes just
because they say their words different.
“My name is Agnes Sutterfield,” she said. “What are your
names?”
“This is Bertha,”I said. “Bertha Nickoli. She’s really Bertha
John, but Jake and Annie adopted her from her real mother, Sally
John, because Sally had too many kids already. Sally lives at
Allakaket.”
The new teacher looked at Bertha. “I know your real mother,” she
said.
48
“You do?” We were very surprised.(Chapter 3)
Data 05
He’d already gone, but Old Man Andreson was talking to some
of the men. Barney Sam and his big boy, George, and Clayton
Malemute and them. They were buying shells for their guns, and
other stuff they needed to go hunting. They never did their buying
quick—they had to talk a long time. I wasn’t supposed to talk
when grown people were talking, but I was too curious.
“Jack,” I said to Old Man Andreson. “You know our new
teacher?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s a good one. Agnes Sutterfield. She
been in the country a long time, up at Allakaket. They like her a
lot up there.”
“That was my teacher,” George said. “One winter we was staying
with my grandma up there. I was only in that school a little while
before we went to spring camp, but she was a good one. She
taught me how to read. She knows a lot. That’s a good teacher you
got now.”(Chapter 2)
Data 07
I waited for the teacher to holler at them and hit her desk with the
ruler, but she just looked a look at them, with her eyebrow up and
her mouth a little pushed to one side. It wasn’t a mean look, it was
a smart look, if you know what I mean. So they stopped and sat
down. (Chapter 5)
Data 08
Even before we went to school, she used to get a pencil from
Old Man Andreson and she’d hunker down by the boxes in the
store and she’d copy the writing. She’d write Olympia Beer and
Pillsbury Flour and anything that was printed on the boxes. She
didn’t know what the letters said, she just thought they were
pretty. (Chapter 6)
Data 09
I asked Miss Agnes where Juneau was, and she showed me, way
down at the bottom, in the part she said was called the panhandle
because that part looked liked a long handle and the rest of
Alaska like the pan. I ran my finger from where we were on the
Koyukuk River to Juneau and thought of Daddy making that long
trip. It was a long way away to go to die. (Chapter 7)
49
Data 10
We all got tickled with that idea and started talking to each other
without making a sound. Only we made our mouths really stick
out when we did it. It was so funny, Charlie-Boy fell off his chair
laughing. Then Roger started saying bad words in Indian with his
mouth, and everyone started giggling.(Chapter 8)
Data 11
We had to melt snow to get water in the winter. Sometimes
Grandpa and the other men would cut big chunks of ice from the
lake behind the village, too. Ice makes lots more water than snow.
In the summer we all got water from the river. (Chapter 9)
Data 12
Sometimes, any old time of the day, we never could tell when,
she’d take it out of its little case and we’d sing. She taught us
“Polly Wolly Doodle” and “Barb’ry Allen” and “Loch Lomond”
and a million other songs. (Chapter 10)
Data 13
It was good to have that line. We could see how long ago things
were happening with it. It made my thinking go straight.
(Chapter 11)
Data 14
We told Miss Agnes about those stories, and after that Miss Agnes
would read us a fairy tale and then we would tell her one of the
old-time stories. Miss Toby told them in Indian, so they sounded
different when you tried to tell them in English. Not so good,
somehow. (Chapter 12)
Data 15
After we thawed it out, we put popcorn strings on it and little
chains made of green and red paper. That tree looked just
beautiful. (Chapter 13)
50
The Effect of Point of View
I always hated this arithmetic, and I always just wrote any old
numbers down before, so I wouldn’t have to think about it. And if
the teachers wanted to make me do it right, I would cry and carry
on. Then they would leave me alone about it.
Even if writing was fun when Miss Agnes showed us how, there
was no way she could make this arithmetic fun. (Chapter 7)
Data 29
Miss Agnes was going to teach Bokko.
I don’t know what Miss Agnes said to Mamma, but Bokko did
come to school. Not the very next day, because Mamma was
kicking up a big fuss about Bokko having no clothes and her socks
having holes in them, but the day after.
This sign language is really something. Miss Agnes said when
people have been doing it a long time, their hands just fly. I’d like
to see that.
And that’s not all deaf people can learn to do. Miss Agnes said
there’s a way deaf people can learn to look at your mouth when
you’re talking and know what you’re saying that way. She said
they would teach that to Bokko in a special school for the deaf if
she went. We all got tickled with that idea and started talking to
each other.
Here we used to think some things were so bad you just had to
give in to them, like being deaf or blind, but now we were
finding out that there’s always something they’ve thought of to
help people like that. It was hard to do, this sign language and
blind reading, but it’s better to kick some instead of just sinking.
(Chapter 8)
Data 30
I think Miss Agnes worried about Marie because she didn’t learn
fast. Or maybe because Marie was so good-natured, she’d do
what anybody said. Anyway, she kept Marie at it, even if she
wasn’t coming to school with us.
Marie wasn’t the only one. Plasker’s father came to Miss Agnes’s
51
cabin sometimes at night, and she helped him learn to read and
write, and even Old Man Toby came to learn to write his name.
Miss Agnes didn’t think school was just for kids. “You have to
keep learning all your life,” she said.
That was a good thing to think about, always learning something
new. It wasn’t like you had to hurry up and learn everything right
away before the learning time was over, it was like you could
kind of relax and take your time and enjoy it. (Chapter 9)
Data 31
Before Miss Agnes came, we didn’t know people like us could
learn that much and could be a doctor. It was in my head then, that
I could do something really big. I didn’t want to have babies, like
Marie, and marry some boy. Maybe he’d get mean sometimes. Or
have another girlfriend, like Martha’s husband. I wouldn’t like
that .