THE ASPECTS OF MARXISM IN
SOLOMON NORTHUP’S
“
TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE
”
A THESIS
Submitted as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By:
RAJA BOBBY ADYTIA
Registration Number : 2113220031
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ART
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
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ABSTRACT
Adytia, Raja Bobby. Registration Number: 2113220031. The Aspects of
Marxism in Solomon Northup’s “Twelve Years A Slave”. A Thesis, English
Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan, 2016.
This study analyzes the Marxism conception towards the aspect of Marxism. The data were taken from the sentences or text produced in Twelve Years A Slave novel of Solomon Northup in 1853 which has 199 pages. Particular attention is given to the concerning aspects of Marxism, as defined by Wood (2003). The focuses of the paper are to find out the aspects of Marxism in Twelve Years A Slave novel of Solomon Northup and also describe how Marxism are portrayed in the novel based on the aspects. The results of the study are stated as follows: The aspects of Marxism occurred are: Dialectical Materialism, Social Alienation, Exploitation of Class, and Economic Determinism. Then the aspects of Marxism found in the novel of Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup are portrayed through the difficulties of exploited and unfair treatment of being lower class.
Keywords: Marxism, aspects of Marxism, exploitation, capitalism, materialism,
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Great thanks and praise to the Almighty Allah SWT who has blessed and given
the ability to the writer to complete his thesis for the partial fulfillment of the
requirements for degree of Sarjana Sastra at the English Department, Faculty of
Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and the
help of several individuals who always contributed and extended their valuable
assistances in the preparation and completion of this thesis. The writer’s special
appreciation goes to:
Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of
Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean Faculty of Language and Arts,
State University of Medan.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature
Department and his Thesis Examiner, Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary
of English Department, and Syamsul Bahri, S.S., M.Hum., the Head of
English Non-Educational Program, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State
University of Medan and his Thesis Supervisor.
Dra. Sri Juriati Ownie, M.A., his Thesis Supervisor. Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed., his Academic Advisor.
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Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, M.Pd, the Administration Staff of English
Department for helping the writer in preparing all the fulfillment in
conducting this thesis.
Beloved parents, Raja Zulfan Hadi and Sri Rubiati for the patience,
affection, prayers, financial support and taught the writer many valuable
lessons in facing life.
Fransiska Insani Rahesty Sinaga, his beloved woman for the support,
prayer, and companion to the successful of his thesis.
All his beloved friends in English Literature A and B 2011 and other
faculty, especially for Fajri Januardi, Rezeki Sofian, Serius Affandi
Bukit, Manguhal Hutagalung, Riska Juli, Hasbi Ramadhan and
others that cannot be mentioned all. Thanks for their support, kindness,
great love and care to the writer, also warm hearted encouragement
friendship in finishing this thesis to the writer.
The people who direct or indirectly contributed in this study, your
kindness means a lot to him.
Medan, April 2016
The writer,
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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. The Background of the Study ... 1
A. Theoretical Framework ... 5
B. Literature ... 5
1. Prose ... 6
2. Novel ... 6
C. Marxism ... 7
D. The Aspects of Marxism ... 8
1. Dialectical Materialism ... 9
a. Capitalism ... 11
2. Social Alienation ... 12
a. Reification ... 14
3. Exploitation of Class ... 16
a. Slavery ... 17
b. Racism ... 19
4. Economic Determinism ... 20
E. Relevant Studies ... 22
F. Conceptual Framework. ... 23
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A. Research Design ... 25
B. The Source of Data... 25
C. Technique of Collecting Data ... 25
D. Technique of Analyzing the Data ... 26
CHAPTER IV. DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 27
A. The Data ... 27
B. The Data Analysis ... 27
1. Dialectical Materialism ... 28
2. Social Alienation ... 32
3. Exploitation of Class ... 33
4. Economic Determinism ... 36
C. Research Findings and Discussion ... 38
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 41
A. Conclusions ... 41
B. Suggestions ... 42
REFERENCES ... 44
SOLOMON NORTHUP BIOGRAPHY ... 46
APPENDIX ... 47
A. Conclusions ... 41
B. Suggestion ... 42
REFERENCES ... 44
SOLOMON NORTHUP BIOGRAPHY ... 46
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CHAPTER I
INDRODUCTION
A. Background of Study
It is interesting to know about historical event such as revolution or
significant changes. Because the incapability of seeing directly what happened in
that time, the story mostly known through reading a story or watch the historical
channel on visual media. Along with the story, one theory that put attention of the
history is Marxism.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (mid 19th century) stated that Marxism
is the human actions and institutions which economically determined and that
class struggle is needed to create historical change and that capitalism will
ultimately be superseded by communism. From many forms of exploitation that
happen in many historical events, the victim sometimes forced to obey the upper
class that finally lead to misunderstandings and even conflict among the classes in
the society. This is because some factors, such as they could not catch the demand
of the upper class properly and sometimes the upper class has a specific purpose
or to take advantage by hiding the truth.
Wood (2004) found there are concerning aspect of Marxism, they are:
dialectical materialism, social alienation, exploitation of class, and economic
determinism.
The reason why the writer chooses the aspect of Marxism is because the
writer also finds the same situations in a novel titled “Twelve Years a Slave” by
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endure the oppression of the upper class. The man is actually himself, was a
free-born African American from New York, the son of a freed slave. With the
explanation above, this novel caught the writer attention while the story showed
conversations and occurrence that needed an understanding to get the meaning of
the novel. The writer later did library research and read some Marxism books as
the writer finally got a Marxism study concerned with the topic from particular
books. This novel has many interesting conflicts between upper and lower class to
analyze especially in the scope of Marxism conception. That’s why the writer is
interested in finding out and learn more why the main character affect his life
during the experience of being a slave seeing from the aspects of Marxism. The
aspect of Marxism is the main point as the relationship between social class and
the impact becomes the basis of writer's assumption in analysis. Therefore, based
on the explanation above, this is the reason why the writer chooses Twelve Years
a Slave of Solomon Northup Novel as the object of the study.
Generally, literary works like novel contains many situations of life,
which means as the illustration of the social life. One of them is slavery. Slavery
is related to the political, social, and economic aspect of life. According to
Andriyani and Aquarini in Ramadliyantie (2009:29) slavery in any forms is a
disease. It makes sense when somebody has a disease; they have to do something
to heal herself. Moreover, slavery becomes the interesting subject to find that
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B. Problem of Study
In accordance with the background of the study, there are two problems
formulated, they are:
1. What are the aspects of Marxism in Twelve Years a Slave of Solomon Northup
Novel?
2. How are the Marxism portrayed in Twelve Years a Slave of Solomon Northup
Novel based on the aspects?
C. The Objective of the Study
Related to the problem of the study, the objectives of the study are stated
as follows:
1. To find out the aspects of Marxism in Twelve Years a Slave of Solomon
Northup Novel.
2. To describe how the aspect of Marxism are portrayed in Twelve Years a Slave
of Solomon Northup Novel based on the aspects.
D. The Scope of the Study
The study focuses on the Marxism conception towards the aspect of
Marxism. It is also a certain point to confirm the content of Twelve Years a Slave
of Solomon Northup novel contains Marxism. The data are text or sentences
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E. The Significance of the Study
The research findings were expected to be useful in theoretically and
practically. In theoretically, the findings of the research will give more horizon
and enlarge the discourse on literary studies especially to the study of sociology of
literature in using Marxist theory and also useful information in understanding
Marxism acts. Practically, it is hoped that this research can give a contribution to
other researchers who want to conduct further research in Marxism by using
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions
After analyzing the data, conclusions could be drawn as the following:
1. There were four major aspects of Marxism found in the novel of Twelve
Years a Slave by Solomon Northup. They were: (1) Dialectical
Materialism with 18 cases (26, 47 %), which is an act for sacrificing other
things to get more material value and considering the private property
(living-human, cattle, etc- or not) as the main subject. (2) Social Alienation
with 10 cases (14, 70 %), which is to make the private property solitude and
think none other than work to raise the proficiency of labor. (3)
Exploitation of Class with 31 cases (45, 58 %), which the act of extracting
the labor power and or abuse. (4) Economic Determinism with 9 cases (13,
23 %), which is the urge of controlling the economy but lead to opposite.
2. The data findings showed the aspects of Marxism perspective in Twelve
Years a Slave by Solomon Northup is portrayed by showing the difficulties
for being the lower class and the unfair treatment of exploitation by racism
and also slavery has brought the dark shroud of humanity. The dialectical
materialism as the main pivot of capitalism are shown by the act of owning
people in Twelve Years a Slave as private property for the sake of upper
class prosperity and as a mere tool to gain more material value which is
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property (black people, slaves) to achieve the pompous target of demand, to
raise the proficiency through toiling the labor without complaint or even
sound. It is forbidden to communicate while working. Only one thing is
permitted to do, that is working. Next is exploitation of class, this issue is
portrayed by the discrimination through slavery and racism. The severe
circumstances of lower class plus the grievous treatment of upper class
(land owner, property owner, or the overseer) has brought nightmares for
the black people. The upper class forces the black people to work without
rest from dawn to dark, everything for their material profit. The economic
determinism is portrayed by the capitalist who tries to control the economy
ended to opposite, but still they oppressed other to gain more wealth. In that
moment, the civilized community is not seeing this issue as a disorder, yet
they are controlled by economy and materialistic mindset to live by
sacrificing other human, in this case the black people, the poor slaves. The
determinism of social economic status has led to a wall of stratification.
This condition is created because of the lack of pathos of the society.
B. Suggestions
In relation to the conclusions, the following suggestions are stage:
1. The literature teachers, it is better for them to understand not only the
theory of Marxism but also the aspect within the Marxism as found in the
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2. Applied Linguistic students, it is suggested to read more novels like Twelve
Years a Slave by Solomon Northup which give moral lesson from the
journey of Solomon who tries to find the justice after he experienced
slavery and to teach how to recover all of problems, to be patient and not
giving up.
It is suggested for other researchers to make other research related this idea to give more horizon and enlarge the discourse on literary studies especially to the study of sociology of literature in using Marxist theory and also useful
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http://www.biography.com/people/solomon-northup-21333433 accessed on 16th December 2015
