Hedonism in Happiness by Aminatta Forna

This research studies hedonism in Aminatta Forna's Happiness. Hedonism views the pursuit of pleasure as the primary goal in human life. This research aims to examine hedonism done by hedonistic characters, which display as glorifying personal pleasure to make them get their happiness as employed by Aminatta Forna on her fictional elements. Besides, it also foregrounds the types of hedonism and the impacts of hedonism and investigates how far Forna delivers the hedonism issue in the novel. In doing the research, I apply the psychological approach proposed by Sigmund Freud, which introduces the difference between the pleasure principle and the reality principle, and the hedonism theory by Dan Weijers with seven concepts of hedonism. I utilize the qualitative method to discover how hedonism's idea is conveyed. Finally, the finding of this research shows that there are five among seven kinds of hedonism found in the novel; Folk Hedonism, Value Hedonism, Motivational Hedonism, Egoistic hedonism, and Hedonistic Utilitarianism. This research reveals hedonism representation in attaining personal gratification, which unfolds the one who seeks pleasure above the pain in acceptable or unacceptable ways