According to Coffin (2002) Nicholas Charles Sparks was born on December 31, 1965. He is an internationally bestselling American author who writes novels with themes that include Christian faith, love, tragedy and fate. A Bend in the Road is one of his novels that does not only include love and tragedy but also guilt and longing of justice. Sparks also includes a mystery into this novel. In A Bend in the Road, Nicholas Sparks is a person who writes with brilliant strength about life's bitter turns and incomparable sweetness. His affirming message carries a powerful lesson about the imperfections of being human, the mistakes that all people make, and the joy that comes when people give themselves to love.
In the story, Miles Ryan, a deputy sheriff in North Carolina town of New Bern, loses his wife, Missy, in a hit-and-run accident. He wants to bring the driver that killed his wife to justice. Miles meets his son's teacher Sarah Andrews, who moved to his town from Baltimore after a difficult divorce. Drawn together by Jonah's school troubles, Miles and Sarah start to date and eventually fall in love. Their relationship is going perfect between them. Miles meets Sarah's family in a thanksgiving day along with his will to have a serious relationship with her. That is when a shocking secret is revealed. Miles is reminded of his past when information about Missy's accident is revealed. Brian who is the narrator in the novel and who is also Sarah’s brother, is revealed to be the one who hit Missy from the beginning of the book. Miles gets angry and believes that Sarah has known the truth from the beginning and planned everything out. Sarah is completely bewildered about it and does not know what to do. Miles explodes on Sarah and says that they have to end their relationship because Miles thinks that Sarah has an affair with Brian to hide all of the truth about the accident which had made Miles’ wife die in that accident. Sarah and Brian must fight through Miles’ anger that contains a possibility to take revenge through them. Eventually, Miles makes sense of everything and makes a decision. Miles decides to forgive Brian as a murderer of the death of his wife by waiting Brian at the cemetery where Missy’s grave is located. As what Miles expected, Miles found Brian carrying flowers. When Miles speaks to Brian, Brian is afraid, but he decides to accept what might happen. Instead, Miles tells Brian to never mention the accident to anyone ever in his life, and that he forgives him, as long as he does something worthwhile with his life. Brian goes home, totally surprised, but knows that what Miles said was right. He goes on with his life without a problem.
A. PROBLEM FORMULATION
In analyzing the changing attitude of Miles Ryan, the following questions will be the basis for the study:
1. To what extent does love motivation give impact on Miles Ryan’s changing attitude?
2. How are the Freudian analysis and the theory of needs from Abraham Maslow applied on the changing attitude of Miles Ryan?
B. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1. To prove that love as a motive of Miles’ changing attitude through his effort to reveal the death of his wife.
2. To analyze the changing attitude of Miles Ryan using Sigmund Freud’s theory focused on human psyche-iceberg concept and the Hierarchy of Needs’ theory by Abraham Maslow.
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