KENDALL AND PAYTON'S LESBIAN IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT IN KRISTEN ZIMMER'S THE GRAVITY BETWEEN US

This study concerns about Identity Development Model expecially about lesbian person. This study focuses on the two characters. The first character changes her sexual orientation from heterosexual person to homosexual person. Meanwhile, the other character who has become lesbian since she was child, and she endures from child until now. Hence, the steps of life that make the characters change her sexual orientation become the main topic of this study
Queer criticism is used to be underlying theory that focuses on lesbian criticism to support in analyzing the novel. Lesbian criticism describes relationship between woman and woman. In addition, this study uses qualitative design because the data that are analyzed and interpreted are not manipulated. The data which described and analyzed are in the form of utterances of the characters and the narrator’s explanation in the novel. The key instrument in this study is the writer herself.
After analyzing the novel, the conclusions of this study are: (1) Kendall confuses about herself because Kendall has ever had a relationship with men. Different from Payton she does not confuse because she has been lesbian since she was child. (2) Kendall worries to tell her mother because her mother is a protective mother, and Payton worries to tell Kendall because she does not want Kendall to be different with her. (3) Kendall has no experience in this step, but Payton starting to look for other lesbians. (4) Kendall accepts her feeling and tries to tell about her feeling to Payton, and Payton tries to tell her mother about herself. (5) Kendall and Payton reveal to her friend that being lesbians is not an error choice. (6) Kendall tells the world that it just a gender matter and it will not change her whole life.