Unfolding the causes of Lydia Lee's suicide in Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You

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Sari, Veny Alivionita (2021) Unfolding the causes of Lydia Lee's suicide in Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You. Undergraduate thesis, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya.

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Abstract

This thesis aimed to know the personality of Lydia Lee and unfold the causes of her suicide in a novel entitled Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. Two problems proposed in this study were 1) how is Lydia Lee’s personality described in the novel Everything I Never Told You? and 2) what are the causes of Lydia Lee’s suicide in the novel Everything I Never Told You? This study employed a qualitative method. To analyze how Lydia Lee‘s personality described in the novel, the researcher used New Criticism theory. Whereas the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide was used to analyze the causes that trigger Lydia Lee committed suicide. The researcher gathered phrases, sentences, and dialogues to be analyzed to answer the problems. The result showed that Lydia’s personality was a pathetic girl who became a restrained girl trying to fulfill her parents’ wishes because she did not want to be left by them. Lydia was a closed girl that also had insecurity. She was such a dependent girl toward her brother and had an impulsive attitude. The other result was unfolding the causes of Lydia’s suicide, which were: 1) thwarted belongingness (lived in an alienated family and had no friends), 2) perceived burdensomeness (failed to fulfill her mother’s expectation to be a doctor, failed to fulfill her father’s expectation to be popular, broken-hearted because of Jack, and knowing her father’s affair), and 3) Lydia acquired the capability for suicide. Knowing the risk factors and causes of someone who committed suicide might help the researcher and the reader to be more caring and prevent the same cases from happening in the future.