Depictions of bullying and its effects in Harlan Coben’s Hold Tight

The research aims to examine bullying, the researcher researched depictions of bullying and its effects in Harlan Coben’s Hold Tight. This novel tells about the control exercised by parents over social phenomena that occur to their children, teenage suicide, bullying, children’s independence and drug abuse. Therefore, in this research, the researcher will answer research problems, namely (1) how bullying roles are described in Harlan Coben’s Hold Tight, (2) how bullying types are depicted in Harlan Coben’s Hold Tight, and (3) how bullying affects those involved in Harlan Coben’s Hold Tight. This research uses a qualitative research design to obtain a clear and systematic description of the issue being researched. Descriptive content analysis in textual form is applied in this research to analyze the novel’s content. The researcher used Erica Thompson’s theory (2019) to analyze data. Data is collected by underlining or highlighting quotes in the novel. These quotations are then analyzed by describing the characters in the novel who have a role in bullying. The analysis continued by explaining the types of bullying in the novel. Then, it outlines an analysis of the effects of bullying on the lives and personalities of the characters involved. The research results show that the bullying roles consist of four types of bullies (social bullies, fully armoured bullies, bullied bullies, and a group of bullies) and two types of victims (innocent victims and provocative victims) have been found in this novel. Regarding types of bullying, the researcher found that there are five types of bullying, including physical bullying, verbal bullying, psychological bullying, social bullying and cyberbullying. The effects of bullying on those involved include physical effects (death), social effects (moving house or school), and psychological effects (depression, anti-social behaviour, further disorders, anxiety and eating disorders).