Analysis of Theme Through The Portrayal of The Protagonist in Arthur Golden's 'Memoirs of A Geisha'.

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ABSTRACT

Di dalam tugas akhir ini, saya menganalisis tema melalui karakteristik tokoh utama dari novel yang berjudul Memoirs of a Geisha karangan Arthur Golden. Setelah membaca dan menganalisis novel tersebut, saya mendapatkan bahwa tema dari novel ini adalah “untuk mendapatkan apa yang kita inginkan, kita harus berusaha untuk mendapatkannya.”

Saya mendapatkan tema tersebut melalui lima karakteristik sang tokoh utama yaitu berkemauan keras, berani, gigih, persuasif, dan cerdik. Karakteristik tersebut saya dapatkan dari tindakan yang dilakukan tokoh utama novel tersebut dalam usahanya mendapatkan pria yang telah memberi tujuan baru dalam hidup sang tokoh utama saat dia kehilangan harapan. Pada akhirnya, sang tokoh utama berhasil mencapai apa yang dicita-citakannya dan menghabiskan hidupnya dengan pria yang dicintainya.

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APPENDIX

Summary of Memoirs of a Geisha

Chiyo’s mother is dying, and her father is really old at the time Mr. Tanaka

sells her and her sister to Gion. Chiyo is lucky enough to be sold to an okiya, a house of the geisha, as her older sister, Satsu, is sold to become a prostitute. When Chiyo tries to run away from her okiya, she fails and Mother, the owner of the okiya, does not want to invest in her anymore. Mother considers Chiyo a bad investment and she is only useful as a maid.

One day, when Chiyo is running errands in the city, she meets the Chairman. the Chairman greatly impresses her. After her encounter with the Chairman, Chiyo makes a promise that one day she will become a geisha. She hopes that by becoming a geisha, she can meet the Chairman again.

Mameha, the most famous geisha at that time, sees the bright future of Chiyo as a geisha. She takes Chiyo as her apprentice and changes her name into Sayuri. They struggle to fight against Hatumomo. Mameha helps Sayuri to sell her virginity at an outstanding price at that time. Sayuri is finally adopted as a daughter and defeats Hatsumomo.

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the Chairman that has encouraged Mameha to take her as a sister and help her to become a geisha. The Chairman becomes Sayuri’s danna and takes her out from the okiya. Sayuri does not become the Chairman’s wife; she is only the

Chairman’s mistress. Therefore, it will be troublesome for Sayuri if she has a

child from the Chairman. She decides to move to America as the Chairman often makes a business trip to America.

Biography of the Author

Arthur Golden was born in December 6, 1956 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Arthur Golden struck out on his own after graduating from Harvard College with a degree in art history in 1978. He went on to earn a master's degree in Japanese history from Columbia University and then spent fourteen months in Japan before returning to the U.S. and getting a master's in English from Boston University. He started his literary career when he was twenty-six years old.

After fifteen years of hard work, Arthur Golden finally manages to finish his first novel, Memoirs of a Geisha. He rewrote the Memoirs of a Geisha for several times before finally he used first person point of view, Sayuri’s point of

view. He made this novel based on his interview with Mineko Iwasaki, who was once a geisha. He was sued by Iwasaki because he broke the agreement to keep the source of his novel anonymous as Iwasaki is not supposed to tell anybody her story when she was a geisha. Sayuri and her story is Golden’s invention, mixed by

historical facts of a geisha’s life between 1930 and 1940. Memoirs of a Geisha is

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writers is Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems (Volumes 1-3).

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Maranatha Christian University

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Japan or “Land of the Rising Sun” has a cultural heritage that is called geisha.

Geisha literally means “person of the art” (Kaminsky). They are traditional Japanese

artist-entertainers (“Geisha and Maiko Girl of Japan (Kyoto)”). They are trained to be a dancer, singer, samishen player, and in other entertaining skills. At first, geisha were men, like minstrels in the medieval Europe. As the number of men taking up the job decreased, women took over (Kaminsky). Geisha is not a prostitute, what they really do is entertaining people with their skills, their witty jokes, and their beauty. They were most popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and are still in existence today, although the number is dwindling.

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Maranatha Christian University basically everything to the owner of the okiya. In order to get their independence, they should either buy themselves out or find a danna, a patron who is willing to buy them out. Arthur Golden captures the life of the geisha in the 1930s in his novel Memoirs of a Geisha. It is a modern fairy tale about geisha. “Her story is that of a poor girl who struggles against all odds to find happiness and success in life even includes the standard types found in a typical fairy tale” (Howard). This book tells about the struggle of a girl who climbs up for her success as a geisha. The protagonist shows that all the hard work will get paid off someday. After its release in 1997, Memoirs of a Geisha stays in the New York Times bestseller list for two years. It has sold more than four million copies in English and has been translated into thirty-two languages around the world. In 2005, this novel was adopted into a movie under the same title, Memoirs of a Geisha.

Arthur Golden, the author of this novel, takes ten years to write this novel. He does an extensive research about the life of a geisha before World War II. He writes this novel based on a study and an interview with a former geisha who now lives in the USA. He writes his fiction and nicely combines it with historical events. He gives us a very detailed description about life in Gion, Kyoto at that time. He tells us a story which is totally different from his own background and his time.

Arthur Golden's brilliant debut novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, is a reminder of just how silly the exhortation 'write what you know!' can be. Clearly Golden, a 40-something American male, has never lived anything

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Maranatha Christian University vanished world that he re-creates with subtlety, sensuality, and supreme authority, bringing to life characters so complete and idiosyncratic — so fully sprung from the eras he has evoked — that his novel ultimately overwhelms us, as seductive and beguiling as the geisha of its title.

(“Memoirs of a Geisha”)

I will analyze the theme of the novel through the portrayal of the protagonist. Theme is “a brief “mind’s full” on any particular subject; that is, it

presents and considers the subject in several of its various aspects.” “Theme, like

an essay, should be a short, accurate, and forceful presentation of ideas or descriptions, well contrived as totality or unity.” (Roberts 8). A protagonist is the

main character in a novel or a film. A protagonist is usually put in a position where the reader is able to empathize with them, basically the central character in a story or narrative (“What Is a Protagonist?”).

I choose to analyze the theme of the novel through the portrayal of the protagonist, which the author has created as willing to do anything to achieve her dream. She wears poisonous make up, she lets people hurt her, she goes through a very hard training, sells her virginity; and she does so to achieve her dream, which is to be together with the man that she loves.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

1. What is the theme of the novel?

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Maranatha Christian University PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purposes of the study are:

1. to reveal what the theme of the novel is.

2. to show how the portrayal of the protagonist helps in revealing the theme.

METHOD OF RESEARCH

I use the library research for my thesis. First I read Memoirs of a Geisha as the primary text. I also read a couple of books and compile some data from the Internet so as to support my analysis of theme through the portrayal of the protagonist. Finally, I draw some conclusions from my analysis.

ORGANIZATION OF THESIS

This thesis consists of three chapters, preceded by Abstract, Table of Contents and Acknowledgments. The first chapter is Introduction, which consists of the Background of the Study, the Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research, and the Organization of the Thesis. The second chapter is the Analysis of Theme Through the Portrayal of The Protagonist of

Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. The third chapter is Conclusion, followed

by Bibliography and Appendix, which contains the Synopsis of the Novel and the Biography of the Author.

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CHAPTER THREE

CONCLUSION

After analyzing the theme through the portrayal of the protagonist in Arthur

Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha, I would like to draw some conclusions. Sayuri, the

protagonist, is sold to be a geisha because her parents cannot take care of her anymore. Because of her mistake, she loses her chance to be a geisha and becomes a maid, and owes an even greater debt. She can repay her debt only by being a maid as long as she lives. When she has lost all her hope and purpose of life, the Chairman comes and brings into her life another purpose. She wants to be together with the Chairman. She works her way up from being a maid to being a geisha.

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Sayuri’s characteristic of being strong-willed helps her become determined

in achieving her goal. When she sets her new goal after her encounter with the Chairman, she works very hard to achieve it. As she goes through a very hard training and a painful process of being a geisha, she finds a way to practice her skill amid her hectic schedule as a maid and as a student of a geisha school. With this characteristic, she lives her life doing everything that she can to achieve her goal. She goes through all of the process of being a geisha and finally she achieves her goal.

From her second characteristic, being brave enables here to overcome the obstacles that occur in her way to becoming a geisha. She endures the risk of wearing a poisonous makeup, she lets someone apply a hot wax on her hair although it is painful, and sleeps with a cradle that supports her neck. She does anything just to get herself a step closer to her goal. Being brave helps her to do things that are painful and dangerous for her. She endures the pain of being a geisha because she knows that being geisha is her only way to be together with the Chairman. Her bravery helps her to encourage herself to do things that are painful and uncomfortable in order to improve her career and make herself a step closer to the Chairman.

Her third characteristic is persistent. It helps her to focus on her goal. Even when Nobu is already fond of her, she does not take her eyes off from the Chairman. She knows that Nobu is a fine and nice man, but she does not love him. She wants something more than just kindness and she can get it only if she is together with the Chairman. Therefore, every time Nobu proposes to be her

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Maranatha Christian University happy. She keeps on chasing the Chairman because she knows that she will be happy if she is together with the Chairman.

Being persuasive makes her easy to ask for help from the people around her. Her way to being together with the Chairman is not easy. There are a lot of problems that she has to deal with. She cannot solve her problems alone; therefore, she needs help from others. Pumpkin, her friend in the okiya, helps her when she needs to go out. Pumpkin also tells her what Hatsumomo has done to ruin her career. It shows that in achieving her goal, Sayuri needs help from other people. Her ability to persuade people makes her get the help that she needs in order to achieve her goal.

Her last characteristic is resourceful. It helps her to find a way to resolve the problems that come her way. For example, she seduces the man who has an interest in her by using the scar on her thigh. She uses her femininity and acts so innocent in front of Dr. Crab. She knows the fact that the doctor loves buying

geisha’s virginity and probably will buy hers too. She uses her scar to sexually

attract Dr. Crab. From this quality of hers, she can find a solution to deal with her problem. Although they are only two men who bid on her virginity, Dr. Crab pays an outstanding amount of money for her virginity.

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Maranatha Christian University sees her being a geisha as a stepping stone for something greater, not as a dead end. By becoming a geisha, she can get closer to the Chairman. When she has become a geisha, she works hard to achieve her dream. I believe that the author wants to tell us that we have to work hard if we want something and do whatever we can to achieve it. Do not get stuck by what other people say, but do what matters to us. Sayuri sees being a geisha as a chance to get closer to the Chairman.

In my opinion, the author has succeeded in creating a detailed story about the life of a geisha. He has spent so much time studying the life of a geisha and writing it down in his novel. The author also combines his fictional character with historical events in World War II. After fifteen years of hard work, he can finally get his novel finished. His novel becomes a bestseller and has been translated into thirty-two languages. We can see both from the author and the protagonist that we are able to achieve something if we work hard for it.

After analyzing this book, I believe that the theme can be applied to our daily life. The five characteristics that I have mentioned above can help us to struggle in our life. While working towards our goal, we will face some difficulties. We have to compromise with other people, we have to be able to sell our ideas, and we have to find the best way to deal with our problems. We can use

Sayuri’s characteristics in our own life to solve our problems. We can also learn

from Sayuri to not give up easily on our way to achieve our goal.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary text:

Golden, Arthur. Memoirs of a Geisha. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1997. Print.

References:

“Arthur Golden”. Wikipedia. March 4, 2011. Web. Mar 21, 2011.

“Brave”. oxford dictionary. Oxford University Press. Web. Sept 13, 2011.

“Geisha”, Wikipedia. Web. Sept 4, 2011.

“Geisha and Maiko Girl of Japan (Kyoto)”. Phototravels. Web. Oct 28, 2011.

Howard, Melisa. “Review of Arthur Golden's Historical Novel Memoirs of a Geisha.” Suite101. Web. Apr 9, 2011.

Kaminsky, A. “What is a Geisha?”. Wisegeek. Web. 28 Oct2011.

“Memoirs of a Geisha”. barnesandnoble. Web. Apr 9, 2011.

“Persistent”. Cambridge Dictionaries Online. Cambridge University Press,

2011.Web. Oct 28, 2011.

“Resourceful”. Cambridge Dictionaries Online. Cambridge University Press,

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Maranatha Christian University Roberts, Edgar V. Writing Themes About Literature. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,

Inc, 1977. Print.

“Strong-willed”. Cambridge Dictionaries Online. Cambridge University Press,

2011.Web. Oct 28, 2011.

“ Struggle”. Cambridge Dictionaries Online. Cambridge University Press,

2011.Web. Oct 28, 2011.

Trachtenberg, Jeffrey. “The Next Chapter”. The Wall Street Journal Online. July

12, 2004. Web. Mar 25, 2012.

Analysis of Theme Through The Portrayal of The Protagonist in Arthur Golden's 'Memoirs of A Geisha'.

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPENDIX

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER THREE

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY