The effect of friendship in Sam Oliver McQueen's character in Sally Nicholl's 'Ways to Live Forever'

Sally Nicholls’s Ways to Live Forevertells about a unique friendship between two boys who got cancer. They are Sam Oliver McQueen dan Felix Stranger. In the beggining of the story, Sam is told as an eleven years old who has different personality from Felix who is thirteen years older.They decided to be friends after meeting at a hospital. This study study is aimed to answer the two problems formulated, namely (1)How is the characterization of Sam Oliver McQueen before he meets with Felix in novel Ways to Live Forever? (2) How is the friendship between Sam Oliver McQueen and Felix described in novel Ways to Live Forever ? (3) What are the effects of friendship between Sam Oliver McQueen and Felix toward Sam’s character in novel Ways to Live Forever ?. The kind of this research is descriptive qualitative research. This research use a library researchthat collects the books, journals and some articles from internet which have relationship with this research. The result of this research is appropriate with some different theories.The result of this research is appropriate with some different theories. The researcher uses New Criticism as the main theory and concept of Friendship from Aristotle to describe the friendship between Sam and Felix. In addition, the researcher uses Psychological approach from B.F. Skinner which mainly focuses on the effects of friendship between Sam and Felix toward Sam’s character change.