Dave's Journey in Searching for a Family's Love in Dave Pelzer's Novel The Lost Boy

Abstract

This study aims to discover the reasons why Dave did the journey and the process that he had been through in order to find family love in Dave Pelzer’s The Lost Boy (2009). There are two main points analyzed by the writer: the setting and characterization of the main character of the novel, Dave. To accomplish this study, the writer applied New Criticism theory by closely reading the novel to examine the formal elements such as setting and characterization. Through this study, the writer found that Dave’s experience traumatizes and makes him hard to trust other people. The setting that appears in the novel has an important role in changing his characterization in the end of the story.