TOER’S RUMAH KACA
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By WAHMUJI
Student Number: 034214112
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
i
KACA
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By WAHMUJI
Student Number: 034214112
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
iv
“Seorang terpelajar dituntut bisa berlaku adil sudah sejak
dalam pikirannya”
-Pramoedya Ananta Toer-
“Science has not yet put a limit on how long one has to wait”
- John Maxwell Coetzee-
vi
have been the main motivator and the main financial sponsor in my study process. If it were not for them, I will rethink to get an academic degree in literature.
I would like to thank Modesta Luluk Artika Windrasti, S.S. for the corrections and guidance during the process of the thesis. I also thank her for lending me some important books I needed for the thesis. For the reader of this undergraduate thesis, Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S.S., M.Hum., I would like to thank for the priceless corrections and evaluations. My gratitude also goes to Dr. Novita Dewi, M.S., M.A. (Hons) who willingly read my writings and gave valuable support and suggestions.
I would like to thank Andreas Teguh Sudjarwadi for always reminding me to the intellectual tasks and pitfalls; I Putu Jody Setiawan, the first person who brought me into the sea of literary theory; Wahyu Adi Putra Ginting, my interlocutor for many discourses, including this thesis.
For all the people in Media Sastra, thanks for disciplining me in studying literature. I thank all people in Komunitas Orong-Orong for encouraging me to comprehend many things from many different radical perspectives. For all people in LIDAHIBU, I would give my gratitude for the awareness–building of studying Linguistics.
vii
library, though not all of them used in my thesis.
Some friends, through utterance or short message service, have so many times asked me when I would finish my undergraduate study. Apart from their basic assumptions on me and my study process, their questions absurdly raise my spirit to read and write more. One name is appropriately presented here: Dewi Kurniawati. The last, I would give my gratitude to my sister, Vidy, who has softly motivated me in finishing my thesis.
For all people I have mentioned here in this page, I could only say: I hope this thesis would be intellectually useful.
viii
APPROVAL PAGE... ii
ACCEPTANCE PAGE... iii
MOTTO PAGE... Iv LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH... v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT... vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS... viii
ABSTRACT... xi
ABSTRAK... xii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ………..1
A. Background of the Study ………. 1
B. Problem Formulation ………. 7
C. Objectives of the Study ………. 7
D. Definition of Terms ………. 7
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ……….. 12
A. Review of Related Studies ………... 12
B. Review of Related Theories………... 27
1. Theories on Comparative Study ………. 27
ix
b. Relationship ………... 39
c. Javanese Philosophy and Wayang ………... 39
C. Theoretical Framework ……….. 41
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY………. 43
A. Object of the Study………. 43
B. Approaches of the Study ………... 46
1. Narratology……….. 46
2. Postcolonial Approach ……… 47
C. Method of the Study……… 48
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ………... 49
A. Narrative Structures of the Narrators ………... 49
1. Who Tells the Story ………...……… 49
2. Speech Representation and Focalization ……… 53
3. Mimesis and Diegesis ………. 63
B. Representations of Indigenous Peoples ………... 68
1. Otherness ………... 68
2. Time and History ………... 72
x
2. Time and History ………... 94
3. Gender Issue ………... 100
4. Language ……… 106
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION …….……….. 111
A. Concluding Remark ..…….……… 111
B. Suggestions ………. 122
xi
Disgrace and Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Rumah Kaca. Yogyakarta:
Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2009.
Self and other will always exist as long as human communicate with another, as long as a community cooperates with other communities. The representation of Other, simply to say the shown image of Other, is often standardized and becomes the final gate to comprehend, develop, and justify Other. In many cases of representing Other, especially in the realm of colonization and decolonization, the represented image of Other is politically manipulated for the interest of power. It creates unjust representation and homogenization. Therefore, a counterfocalization is necessary for understanding and rebelling the constellation of the valorized colonial discourse, and a comparative study is significant to dismantle the homogenization of postcolonial societies.
This study will first of all describe the narrative structures of the narrators in Rumah Kaca and Disgrace. Then, using some evidences conducted in the first step, this comparative study tries to identify the representations on the Indigenous Peoples given by the narrators in both novels. Furthermore, I will change the focus of understanding Indigenous Peoples, meaning to counterfocalize the representations.
The method used in this study is library research. Some steps applied in this study are collecting the data, doing close reading, picking up the data necessary for the problem formulations, reading and revealing the narrative structures of the narrators in both novels and the narrated representations of Indigenous Peoples, and counterfocalizing the representations. In analyzing narrative structures, narratology is used as the approach. Meanwhile, in reading the representation and proposing counterfocalizations, postcolonial approach is utilized. To compare the phenomena in the novels, I use some theories on comparative study.
xii
Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2009.
Diri dan liyan akan selalu ada sepanjang manusia berkomunikasi dengan manusia lainnya, sepanjang komunitas bekerjasama dengan komunitas lainnya. Kewadhagan atas Liyan, maksudnya citra Liyan yang ditunjukkan, seringkali dibakukan dan menjadi gerbang akhir untuk memahami, mengembangkan, dan menghakimi Liyan. Di banyak kasus pewadhagan Liyan, khususnya di alam penjajahan dan peluluhan-penjajahan, citra Liyan yang terwadhag dimanipulasi secara politis untuk kepentingan kekuasaan. Karenanya, terciptalah kewadhagan dan homogenisasi yang tidak adil. Oleh karena itu, sebuah sudut pandang tandingan dibutuhkan untuk memahami dan melawan konstelasi wacana kolonial yang dipenuhi hasrat menguasai, dan studi komparatif menjadi signifikan untuk membongkar homogenisasi masyarakat pascakolonial.
Studi ini dimulai dengan menjabarkan struktur naratif dari narrator dalam
Rumah Kaca dan Disgrace. Kemudian, menggunakan beberapa bukti yang dihasilkan di langkah pertama, studi komparatif ini mencoba mengidentifikasi kewadhagan Masyarakat Pribumi yang dilakukan oleh narator di kedua novel. Selanjutnya, saya akan mengubah fokus pemahaman Masyarakat Pribumi, maksudnya memberikan sudut pandang tandingan pada kewadhagan-kewadhagan tersebut.
Metode yang digunakan dalam tesis ini adalah studi pustaka. Beberapa langkah yang diterapkan di studi ini adalah mengumpulkan data, melakukan pembacaan mendalam, mengambil data yang dibutuhkan untuk rumusan masalah, membaca dan menyingkap struktur naratif dari narator di kedua novel dan kewadhagan Masyarakat Pribumi yang dinarasikan, dan memberikan sudut pandang tandingan. Dalam menganalisis struktur naratif digunakan pendekatan naratologi. Sementara dalam membaca kewadhagan dan memberikan sudut pandang tandingan, dipakai pendekatan pascakolonial. Untuk membandingkan fenomena dalam kedua novel, saya menggunakan beberapa teori tentang studi komparatif.
1 A. Background of the Study
There is an interesting statement from Teresa de Lauretis about narrative and feminism: “The most exciting work in cinema and in feminism today is not anti-narrative…quite the opposite. It is a narrative…with a vengeance, for it seeks to stress the duplicity of that scenario and the specific contradiction of the female subject in it, the contradiction by which historical women must work with and against (narrative),” (McQuilian, 2000: 3). This consciousness on the male oppression as narrative is an important starting point of resistance. Lauretis celebrates the struggle in the form of narrative (counter-narrative) since she believes that narrative is universal. Although this statement is quite disputable, the power of creating resistance through narrative is highly worthy.
attitudes; and to attack, or, related to the term ‘narrative’, to counter-narrate them.
The large area of discussion in post-colonial study is simply possible-to-be-continued since the colonization and its resistances have appeared long time before the term post-colonial is used by present-day critics. Three issues researched in the present study are the structures of narrative, representation, and counterfocalization.
The narrative structures of the narrators are researched for they influence, or even determine, how the realities brought to the realm of literary works. The word ‘how’ means a lot. It depicts a way, a manner. It reveals a perspective(s). It brings ideological matters.
Representation is important since the process of colonization, as many critics say, can not be disclosed from the discursive phenomena about ‘Other’. In this case, Other is the colonized people, which are popularly called the East or the Orient. The Oriental regions of colonization are, apparently, Asia and Africa.
and detailed data about demography can not stage the Javanese people’s complex culture. The traditional Serat Centhini, on the other hand, can show the real Javanese people’s relationship and complexity. Panoramically, the study of Java was institutionally conducted in the founding of Instituut in Surakarta in 1832 and the Java Instituut in 1919. Those two institutions studied Java and produced texts such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, historical books, novels, and even museums. All the information, apart from its correctness, consciously or not, takes part in forming the life of Javanese people (2006: 38-43).
As the conclusion, the words from Said are quite relevant presented here: “the Orient, in short, existed as a set of values attached, not to its modern realities, but to a series of valorized contacts it had had with a distant European past,” (1979: 85).
The anxiety to compare phenomena which occur in post-colonial countries is a positive desire for it will lead to the alertness toward homogenization. S/he who was born in these countries and internationally communicate with Others, will feel the given represented identities, daily and academically. Also, a little bit generalizing, s/he lives in a country of so called undeveloped, or in a smoother term, developing. The bizarre relationship between power and knowledge which has created essences of post-colonial people, and then, of course, the essences will be able to be manipulated, is not two-color understanding. Hence, those essences still need dynamic studies and dynamic resistances for colonization did not come in empty places, but in habitats having certain cultures and traditions. It is parallel to Ania Loomba’s argument that
the process of ‘forming a community’ in a new land necessarily meant
unforming or re-forming the communities that existed there already, and involved a wide range of practices including trade, plunder, negotiation, warfare, genocide, enslavement, and rebellion (2000: 2).
As the consequence, related to literature, post-colonial studies “find their defining parameters in history”, meaning that the study of postcolonial literature should include historical data and political matters (Boehmer, 1995: 7).
This research is a comparative study between Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s
Rumah Kaca and John Maxwell Coetzee’s Disgrace.
Rumah Kaca is the last novel of The Buru Quartet. The former novels are
Bumi Manusia (The Earth of Mankind), Anak Semua Bangsa (Child of All Nations), and Jejak Langkah (Footsteps). The reason of choosing the last novel is firstly caused by my disagreement with Agustinus Budi Permana’s conclusion in his undergraduate thesis entitled Postcolonialism in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Rumah Kaca. According to him, the form of resistance in Rumah Kaca is in non-physical or political way. This conclusion is not true since Rumah Kaca also provides acts and scenes of physical form of resistance, such as in Prinses Kasiruta when she makes the members of
novels do not look like “Indonesian History” we (Indonesian people) are familiar with. This statement, of course, needs to be proved, and one way of proving it is to give the narrator’s perspective a counter - a counterfocalization.
Coetzee’s style in Disgrace is vividly different from Toer’s. Disgrace’s authorial persona is presented in third person point of view. Yet, as Anne Longmuir, in her essay, has proven that Coetzee uses limited omniscient narration to tell his story, I started to look at the authorial persona’s depiction of indigenous people. Superficially seeing the similarity of the narrators of Rumah Kaca and
Disgrace, that they are colonialists, triggers me to compare. It is my superficial
reason. The 1994 new democratic South Africa (where the novel takes place) and its complex problematic psyche of how both Black and White South Africans are presented are the most attractive issues to study.
Having looked at how exactly the narrators in the novels are narratively structuralized, the study goes on how the indigenous peoples are represented by the narrators. After that, the other possible perspective(s) will be presented as the counter of representations.
B. Problem Formulation
There are three problems to answer. Those particular problems are:
1. How are the narrative structures of the narrators in Rumah Kaca and
Disgrace constructed?
2. How are Indigenous Peoples represented by the narrators of Rumah Kaca
and Disgrace?
3. What are the counterfocalizations of those representations?
C. Objectives of the Study
Referring to the problem formulations foregrounded, this study will first of all describe the narrative structures of the narrators in Rumah Kaca and Disgrace. Then, using some evidences conducted in the first step, this comparative study tries to identify the representations on the indigenous people given by the narrators in both novels. Furthermore, I will change the focus of understanding Indigenous Peoples, meaning to counterfocalize the representations.
D. Definition of Terms and Explanation of Proper Names
Baladewa
Kresna’s Brother, Baladewa, is the king of Mandura. He is very powerful and respected among Ksatriyas. Yet, he is in the side of Kurawa. He is loyal and brave. When the biggest war Baratayuda comes to occur, Kresna tricks him to meditate. When Baratayuda ends, Baladewa follows Pandawa to Astina and takes care of Parikesit (Anderson, 2008: 34; Soetarno, 1994: 39-40).
Counterfocalization
In Gerard Genette’s elaboration on narrative, focalization is the synonym of
perspective (Barry, 2002: 232). The word counter means to say something in order to try to prove that what someone said was not true; to do something in
order to reduce the bad effect of something, or to defend yourself against them
(Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2001: 415). Counterfocalization
literally means a counter- perspective. I follow Anne Longmuir to use the word when she tried to change Lurie’s perspective on African people and society though she did not clearly state the definition of the word. Yet, I think, the meaning is quite clear.
Discourse
Durna
Durna is a Brahmin, witch, and guru. When young, both Pandawa and Kurawa learn from him knowledge and strategy of war. He loves all his students. Yet, when Baratayuda is about to occur, he prefers to be in Kurawa side. He follows Machiavellian morality and automatically be ‘inappropriate’ Ksatriya (He involves himself into the war as Ksatriya). By Kresna’s trick, he is killed by Drestajumena. In his ‘funeral’, both Kurawa and Pandawa give the highest respect and gratitude to him, their guru (Anderson, 2008: 45-46).
Imperialism
Imperialism is not a member of a government or a foreign country. It is a desire to control or influence other nations and countries. It is that ‘big-capital’ which uses their politics of foreign affairs for their own advantages (Soekarno, 1978: 12-14) (my translation).
Indigenous Peoples
The phrase refers to Natives who have been (being) colonized. The letter ‘s’ in ‘peoples’ indicates the natives’ heterogeneity. The words “Indigenous Peoples” appeared around 1970 from the struggle of American Indian Movement and the Canadian Indian Brotherhood (Smith, 2005: xxvi).
Intellectual Property
be done to only develop the theory on others. They are also done for promoting researchers’ careers. And, the one who will have the rights for the theory, and often become the final gate for the truth is the researcher – not the Indigenous Peoples.
Mechanistic model
It is a development of Cartesian philosophical view of extreme dualism pattern between material/immaterial. Isaac Newton constructs that philosophy as the base of classic physics. From 17-19th century, Newtonian mechanistic model on nature dominates all scientific thought (Capra, 2004: 11).
Narrative
The simplest definition: that which is narrated; the technique or act of narration in speech or writing (The New Webster International Dictionary of the English Language, 1973: 634).
Print-capitalism
Books, Newspaper, and all printed materials. In Benedict Anderson’s view, print-capitalism plays great role in compiling together peoples to imagine their identity (Loomba, 2000: 186).
Positivism
“objective” and “scientific” by using passive sentence, and considered themselves ‘scijver (the writer) in order to make the readers believe in the illusion that “text talks by itself” (Sweeney, 2005:xiii).
Postcolonial literature
It is writing that critically scrutinizes the colonial relationship. It is writing that sets out in one way or another to resist colonialist perspectives. As well as a change in power, decolonization demands symbolic overhaul, a reshaping of dominant meanings. Postcolonial literature formed part of that process of overhaul (Boehmer, 1995:3).
Representation
An example or expression of something; A typical of something. To represent means to show an image of something. Hence, conscequently, representation
12
This chapter is divided into three parts. The first is the review on some studies conducted on the works of Coetzee and Toer, and the position of the present study among those critical writings. The second part is the review on related theories. It is the description of theories used as the knife to surge the works. The last part is the theoretical framework. It is the explanation of the contribution of the theories reviewed in solving the problems formulated in this study.
A. Review of Related Studies
This part contains six studies conducted by different critics. Four essays on Coetzee’s Disgrace and two writings on Toer’s Rumah Kaca will be presented. All those studies chosen are related to the study conducted in this paper: the structure of narrative, representation, and counterfocalization.
Rosemarie Buikema. It relates the novel to the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation of South Africa Report) and reveals the uneasiness of building a diversity-in-community nation in South Africa. The last one is the writing done by Michael S. Kochin. It deals with the humanity and universalism that considerably reach their endings. Yet, Kochin still found hopes on some actions done by certain characters, especially which are related to arts, including the novel itself.
The first study, which is conducted by Anne Longmuir, entitled Coetzee’s Disgrace, is a respond to Salman Rushdie, who said that Disgrace merely become(s) a part of the African darkness described (2007: 119-121). It is also done in accordance with the defense given by critic Gayatri Cakravorty Spivak which points out that the use of limited omniscient narration by Coetzee results in the protagonist, middle-aged academic David Lurie’s vision about Africa. Going further, Anne Longmuir tries to, as Spivak suggests, counterfocalize Lurie’s perspective about Africa.
Anne Longmuir’s short essay presents an act depicting Lurie’s limited vision and colonial assumption of Africa: the act of three Africans’ gang-raping Lucy. During the invasion, Lurie was locked in the bathroom and left to mourn his fate. Lurie was placed parallel to Aunt Sally, a figure from a cartoon, a missionary in cassock and topi waiting with clasped hands and upcast eyes while the savages jaw away in their lingo preparatory to plunging him into their boiling cauldron (Coetzee, 1999: 95). The mourning continued, and the narrator wrote:
This speech, Longmuir argues, is a clear instance of the limited omniscient narration identified by critics like Spivak. Those thoughts are Lurie’s, not those of some omniscient third-person narrator. Moreover, Lurie misread the colonization of Africa as a “huge interprise of upliftment.” He placed himself as a victim of savagery of the dark continent, Africa, just as “Aunt Sally”, “an object of unreasonable or prejudiced attack.”
Longmuir concludes that Coetzee reminds the readers of the legacy of colonization and apartheid. Coetzee’s vision of South Africa, Longmuir says, may be bleak, but it never flinches from contextualizing and historicizing the action of the characters. The attacks on Lucy and the farm, Longmuir continues, do not signal lawlessness in postapartheid South Africa but is a product of centuries of domination.
The second research is Margot Beard’s Lesson from the Dead Masters: Wordsworth and Byron in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace
centuries-old power structures and authority figures, can “speak to present-day South Africans.”
Beard states that, despite the differences between them and the vast cultural and historical differences between nineteenth-century Europe and late twentieth-century South Africa, Wordsworth and Byron “imaginatively face up to the difficulties underlying human relations as well as the complex interaction with the world we all live in.” Beard lists the major dichotomies which stem from the juxtaposition of Wordsworth and Byron. He argued that
Coetzee uses the dichotomies both to structure the novel and to sharpen the issues for they foreground the quintessentially Romantic interest in the paradoxical oppositions which lie at the heart of the fully experienced life (2007: 62).
Beard seems to warn the binary opposition which is potentially done to represent certain different people with different cultures and philosophies. The oppositions of things are paradoxical since they both occur in the life, “the fully experienced life”.
Lurie, the protagonist and anti-hero, misread those poets and wore the misreading in all his feeling and his deeds.Disgrace, according to Beard, argues that Romanticism is not a Eurocentric throwback, something to be rejected in the reading of post-colonial South Africa. Instead, the novel addresses the major proposition of Romanticism which is, as he summarized, the essential nature of creative imagination.
The third essay reviewed is Rosemarie Buikema’s Literature and the Production of Ambiguous Memory: Confession and Double Thoughts in Coetzee’s
(http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.matc.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=1&hid=22&sid=298c 573b-8ae7-4484-a663-ebe51949fb1c%40SRCSM1). It focuses on the motives of confessions presented in the novel and how Disgrace helps understand the otherness as a community-building project of culture.
Relating the appearance of Disgrace (1999) to the five-volume Truth and Reconciliation of South Africa Report a year before, Rosemarie Buikema pessimistically responds Bishop Tutu’s ideal dream of a rainbow nation. The problem, according to her, is more complicated. To build a diversity-in-community nation is not an easy task.
Buikema divides her essay into four parts, relating them to the present-day condition of society in South Africa. The first part of Buikema’s essay focuses on the ambiguous truth in confession. Buikema took Coetzee’s reading on Rosseau that “the confession is not infrequently meant to gain sympathy, love, and acceptance from the listener and/or reader.” Subsequently, she takes Coetzee’s suggestion in an analysis of Dostoevsky’s fictional confessions and explains that truth “appears only in the light of death or the eye of God, at the moment in which the confession is no longer aimed at self-preservation.” In a secular world, she concludes, the relationship between confession and truth is already problematical in definition.
confesses guilty and refuses amnesty, forgiveness, and exoneration. Buikema related Lurie’s deed to the book Communication 101 in which language functions as a means of exchange, and concluded that the book Lurie uses to teach his students has little effect. Language, in here, according to Buikema, can not reveal the deepest motives in unambiguous way, and also not to express remorse.
The third part is given title Petrus’ trial. This part takes a long events starting from the move of Lurie to Lucy’s small home, the three Africans’ criminal act of raping Lucy, to the denial attitude of Petrus about his relatives’ deed. Petrus, Buikema argued, adopts the attitude of black man who says: a black man cannot be guilty towards a white man for the coming fifty years.
The fourth part is entitled Imagination and nation-building. Here, Buikema interpreted the action of Luri’s confession in front of Melanie’s parents as the allegory of white men’s confession to the blacks. Lurie, after having experienced ‘Disgrace’when Lucy was raped, easily perceived the blacks’ anger to the whites. In Disgrace, Buikema concludes that
Coetze shows how literature in particular can represent and understand the otherness of the other as something withdraws at unexpected moments and in unexpected ways from the community-building project of culture (2006: 195).
The fourth research is conducted by Michael S. Kochin entitled
Postmetaphysical Literature: Reflections on J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. This research was taken from Wilson Web, winter 2004, volume 33. The novel is seen from a political science perspective.
main characters (Lurie, Lucy, Petrus, and Melanie) are the result of distinctive human possibilities of a living world, the end of romance of worth living in plurality.
Kochin argues that there are different moral standards between University and the world outside and there is a gap between moral standards towards humans and towards animals. Yet, Disgrace is a novel of beginnings, not just of endings, and to understand the novel’s sense “we must seek out intimations of freedom.” Those intimations are, according to him, grounds for hope.
Deriving the fate of the main characters in the novel, Kochin makes a distinction of hope possessed by those characters. The first is for those whom there is little hope. Lurie and Lucy are included in this category. Lurie, after having been left by Soraya, prosecuted by his student whom he ever made affair with, and kicked out of the university, went to Lucy’s home in rural area. He made love with neckless Bev, one who was far from the image of beautiful Eros ought to serve. Moreover, Lurie had to experience the moment of Africans gang-raping Lucy, the moment of rejection done by Lucy to go away from the tribal place, and failure to bring the rape case to court. Hence, to survive in those changing place, Lurie sank himself to art, continuing his project on Byron in an
empty hope. Lucy had the same fate. Yet, this fate was consciously chosen due to
The second category is those for whom there is hope. Petrus and Melanie were included here. Petrus, strongly presumed involved in the case of rapping Lucy, successfully took Lucy’s land and made her his wife. The second character having hope is Melanie. After going out from the university, and lost in somewhere (the narrator does not tell), Lucy went back to the realm of theatre and became a successful actor.
However, Kochin still argued that there is still a thin hope for us represented by Melanie’s play, Lurie’s opera, and the novel of Disgrace. He continued that
This hope is that we can be redeemed by an art that demonstrates the futility of our cultural inheritance and thereby frees us from the need to seek to live it. There is the thin hope offered by rethinking our relation to animals (2004: 8).
The fifth and sixth studies are on Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s works. The earlier is an undergraduate thesis written by Agustinus Budi permana entitled
Postcolonialism in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Rumah Kaca: A Comparative Study.
Permana uses comparative study as the basic analysis of those two novels because, according to him, both stories contain the idea postcolonialism that is universal. Another interesting point to compare is, he argues, the way both novels have similar style in writing concerning the use of point-of-view and characterizations.
To limit the scope of the study, Permana formulates three problems, namely:
1. How are the colonial conditions analyzed from the characters and the settings in the stories?
2. How is anti-colonialism observed from the characters and the settings in the stories?
3. What are the effects of postcolonialism revealed from the characters and the settings in the stories?
Those problems are answered in library research using postcolonial approach. The primary sources used in his analysis are the two novels: Heart of Darkness written by Joseph Conrad and Rumah Kaca written by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The secondary sources are the other texts from several books which supported the analysis.
compared are different. In Heart of Darkness, the motives are to fulfill the colonizers’ desires, greediness, and ambitions. While in Rumah Kaca, he continues, the motives of manipulations are to maintain the position and ownership of wealth politically, socially, and economically.
In the matters of resistances towards colonialism, Permana states that in
Heart of Darkness the acts come in the physical forms while in Rumah Kaca are done in non-physical forms or, in his other words, in political ways. However, the colonizers also brought something beneficial to the natives: education. Yet, ironically, Permana confidently concludes that education is only a useful device to exploit the natives and to show the colonizers’ higher position over the natives. Next, a little bit generalizing, Permana differentiates the use of hybridity in Heart of Darkness and Toer’s novel. In Conrad’s novel, he argued, the natives use
hybridity to feel proud of having ‘new’ identities. Conversely, in Rumah Kaca, the natives use their colonial hybridization to counterattack colonial rules. The last conclusion Permana sketches is in the same effect of resistances in both novels. The effect, according to him, is the fear of colonizers upon the natives.
Some ideas in those ten essays may be put in this thesis to complete perspectives on certain issues. Yet, out of the ten essays Djokosujatno writes; only three essays will be presented here. The reason is simple: only those three essays chosen contain suitable and useful issues for the analysis in this thesis. The titles of those ten essays are; Pram, Prancis, dan Pencerahan (Pram, France, and Enlightenment), Kosmopolitisme dan Pengetahuan Ensiklopedis dalam Katrologi Bumi Manusia (Cosmopolitism and Encyclopedic Knowledge in The Buru Quartet), Tematik Penciptaan dalam Katrologi Bumi Manusia (The Thematic of Creation in The Buru Quartet), Tentang Sastra dan Fiksi (About Literature and Fiction), Minke dan Pangemanann dalam Cahaya Psikoanalisa (Minke and
Pangemanann in the Light of Psychoanalytic), Nyai Ontosoroh: Sebagai Mother
Goddess dan Prototipe Manusia Modern (Nyai Ontosoroh: As Mother Goddess
and Prototype of Modern Human), Struktur Katrologi Bumi Manusia (The Structure of The Buru Quartet), Perihal Bahasa dalam Katrologi Bumi Manusia
(Of Languange in The Buru Quartet), Tentang Orang Jawa dalam Katrologi Bumi Manusia (About Javanese in The Buru Quartet), and Perempuan yang Tersanjung (Honored Women). The essays that will be reviewed here are Pram, Prancis, dan Pencerahan; Struktur Katrologi Bumi Manusia; and Tentang Orang Jawa dalam Katrologi Bumi Manusia.
the historical social changes. Roman fleuve is a long, colossal, and massive novel represented by the 19th and the beginning of 20th century writers such as Balzac, Giono, Romain Rolland, and Stendhal. Djokosujatno concludes that The Buru Quartet is close to those kinds of roman.
Next, Djokosujatno points out some characters which are from France and compared them with other characters, especially to Dutch and British, and concludes that those characters presented have better behavior and morality. For instance: Mr. R, a bureaucrat in Algemene Secretarie, has different, better attitude compared with Donald Nicholson, the former bureaucrat. Mr. R is a kind person while Nicholson is impatient and underestimates indigenous people.
Another important issue, closely related to French Revolution, is the voice of freedom and equality shouted in the novels. Minke is the main character which is also the main speaker of the thought of freedom and equality. His endeavors to teach his nation to be conscious of colonization, to criticize his nation’s bad
philosophy, and to fight against colonizers are the evidences of the influence of French Revolution on him. Exceedingly, Pangemanann calls Minke “The Son of French Revolution.”
The second essay is Struktur Katrologi Bumi Manusia. It contains the reasons of calling the four novels Katrologi, the different form of the first three novels and the last one, the technique of writing, the narration, the letters contained in the novels, meta-historical texts, and meta-sociological texts.
terms of characters, setting of time, and setting of place. The plots of the novels are unified by a strong theme. The first three books are the usual novels, while the fourth one is called memoir. This is a memorable writing related to personal experience of the writer and his/her jobs. Djokosujatno differentiates memoir with
journal intime and carnet. Journal intime is a very private writing used for personal matters while carnet is short notes on important moments or things interesting for the writers in which the writers are not directly involved. In the technique of writing, Djokosujatno argues, Pramoedya successfully wrote his novels in a fascinating ways which can astonish the readers. The novels create curiosity on what has happened, suspense on what is going to happen, and complete curiosity on what is happening.
Next, Djokosujatno explains that The Buru Quartet has a stratified narration. The narrator sometimes gives certain events to the other characters to be told. He emphasizes the appearance of the new narrator in Rumah Kaca as an important issue. By changing the perspective, the katrologi seems complete. Letters found in the novels are displayed in Djokosujatno’s essay as a part of designing the narration of the novels.
investigation about Java in s’Landsarchief. Unfortunately, Djokosujatno does not trace the historical moments and sociological data.
Tentang Orang Jawa dalam Katrologi Bumi Manusia is a compilation of Javanese’s bad habits and bad attitudes read by Djokosujatno in Pramoedya’s
Katrologi. Djokosujatno seemed to embrace the dichotomy of Java, as the representation of Orient, and France and Dutch as the representation of West.
The politeness Javanese holds as the metonymy of certain moral values is only an ancient attitude in modern era. This conclusion is made by Djokosujatno after dichotomizing Minke’s dynamic thought and his mother’s static tradition. The exaggerative politeness done by priyayi (high-class Javanese) represented by Minke’s father, according to Minke in Jejak Langkah, as quoted by Djokosujatno, is only done by those who have slave mental/heart.
Djokosujatno argues that the morality of priyayi is based on the strong contradiction of the limited and limitless. Javanese people, quoted from Bunda’s speech, hold the concept of limitation: to live in simple way. Limitless is a disease. Ironically, the limitless is practiced by Javanese functionaries.
people, and may be Indonesians, do not appreciate at all their intellectuals, and worse, their intellectuality. Only one good point about Javanese mentioned by Djokosujatno in this essay: Javanese people’s becoming traders.
Djokosujatno comes up with a conclusion that Pramoedya, through his
katrologi, is one of those who had predicted and warned the liabilities of Indonesia, and its need of new values. Modern era and, above all, globalization require strong, tough, and brave people, and those who have principle.
Many angles have been utilized to criticize the works of Coetzee and Toer. This present research is actually a similar study, a comparative one, to Agustinus Permana’s undergraduate thesis. Yet, one of the works compared is different.
Margot Beard’s Lesson from the Dead Masters: Wordsworth and Byron in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace triggers my understanding on the philosophy of Indigenous People. How if, for example, the indigenous people presented, especially the antagonist ones, have misread, as Lurie has, their masters, their religions, and their beliefs? And how if Javanese people in Rumah Kaca has failed to read their metaphorical, symbolic philosophy?
counterfocalization and, furthermore, the possible counterfocalizations of the narrator’s depiction on indigenous people.
B. Review of Related Theories
There will be four divided theories explained here. The first theory reviewed is of comparative study. There will be an explanation of the nature of comparing and its development on comparative study of literature, which is, like other literary criticism implemented in literary works, flexible. The second review is a long description of the theories of narratives from the structuration to discourse, from the classic narratology to its development to the more utilizable tools in its current use on post-colonial theory. The third theories presented are on post-colonialism and representation, as one of the main issues in post-colonial critical discourse. The fourth is the theories on postcolonialism and counterfocalization. Under the theories on postcolonialism and counterfocalization are the traditional theories gained from African and Javanese philosophy. Those theories are means to counterfocalize. That is why they are located under the counterfocalization section.
1.Theories on Comparative Study
discipline of Comparative Literature “never had a really unique, “standard” characterization” (2003: 9, 14).
However, some characteristics or certain definitions are needed to do practice, which is when doing a study and intentionally call it “Comparative Literature.” In brief, in 1971, Henry Remak concluded that Comparative Literature is the comparison of one literature with another or others, and the comparison of literature with other spheres of human expression. Twenty eight years later, Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek widened the objects of comparing literature by suggesting two ways as a method of study. The first way is by defining Comparative Literature as “the knowledge of more than one national language and literature”, and/or “the knowledge and application of other discipline in and for the study of literature” (Boldor, 2003:17). The second way is by arguing that Comparative Literature has an ideology of inclusion of the Other. This inclusion has a consequence of creating meanings on marginality, genres, and various text types. Comparative Literature, he continued, “has intrinsically a content and form, which facilitate the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary study of literature and it has a history that substantiated this content and form” (Clements, 1978:5; Boldor, 2003:17-18). The separation between content and form Zepetnek made can be seen as the elaboration of Other which is included in Comparative Literature. Marginality is related to the Other, content is connected to the ideology, and form is the representation of genres and text types.
Instead, Comparative Literature “provides a method of broadening one’s perspective in the approach to single works of literature – a way of looking beyond the narrow boundaries of national frontiers in order to discern trends and movements in various national cultures and to see the relation between literature and other spheres of human activity.” In brief, he concluded that Comparative Literature “can be considered the study of any literary phenomenon from the perspective of more than one national literature or in conjunction with another intellectual discipline or even several” (Clements, 1978: 5). The development of comparing literature, from Aldridge’s statements, from now on goes beyond the national boundaries, especially in its provincial perspective.
The perspective of understanding more than one national literature is, in Jan Brandt Corstius’ term, called “international context”. This term, when used in referring a poem or a prose, refers to “the whole cultural world of which this text forms a part and to the mutual relationship among its various elements.” Comparative Literature, then, is the study of literature from the international point of view by placing them in their “international context” (Corstius, 1968: 15, 71, 72). To sum up, Corstius defined Comparative Study of literature as the reflection upon the international scope of environments contributing certain unique characters of work/s in order to approach the individual character of the text in question as closely as possible from the international point of view.
colonialism, and gender studies (Bernheimer, 1995: 46). Those controversies are academically universal. As the consequence, comparatists need to understand at least two different languages in which the two literatures or literary works are being compared.
The broadening of perspective in comparing literature as elaborated by Owen Aldridge and Jan Brandt Corstius, in terms of abrogating national border, does not mean to release the analysis from the national environments. In spite of that, the conditions of certain nations being compared will be the basic data of recognizing different or same phenomena.
2.Theories on Narratives
In his long essay on his introduction to his The Narrative Reader, Martin Mcquilian concluded that the question of narrative is the impossible space in which philosophy and literature meet each other. The key activity to define narrative, according to him, is precisely the differentiation between stories and narratives. Mcquilian gave some lists of stories taken from Barthes’ examples; novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, and comedy. On the other hand, narrative is “a process of grammatical structuration within language and an object of rigorous, even ‘scientific’ analysis,” (2000: 4). Briefly, as the conclusion from Narrative Reader, Structuration can be defined as the pattern or nature of a story or all stories.
in structuralism, ‘historie’ and ‘discours’, and the Anglo-american academy ‘story’ and ‘discourse.’ Narrative, with its unstable definition, is fostered by the development of mainstream theories from formalism, structuralism, and post-structuralism.
Gerard Genette in his Narrative Discourse focused on the way how a tale is told, which is to say, the process of telling itself (Barry, 2002: 231). Peter Barry summarized this work in a more readable writing. He asked six basic questions about the act of narration and tried to sketch the possible identifications given by Genette. Three of those discussions are displayed beneath. The reason of choosing them is that those three theories are related to the focus analysis of this thesis, which is dealing with perspective/s. The other two basic questions are strongly related to universal pattern of literary works, and one of them, Speech and Thought Representation, will not be used since the more comprehensive definition from Peter Verdonk is chosen.
The second point is on focalization which means ‘viewpoint’ or ‘perspective’. There are two main terms in this discussion; ‘external focalization’ and ‘internal focalization’. In ‘external focalization’, the viewpoint is ‘outside’ the characters depicted, so that the readers are told only things which are external and observable. On the contrary, in ‘internal focalization’ the readers are able to know what the characters think or feel, which would not accessible even if one presents in the setting. Another term important for the way of focalization is ‘zero focalization’ or, in more familiar name, ‘omniscient narration’. This kind of narrative occurs when the narrator freely enters the minds and emotions of more than one of the characters.
The third question Barry asked is who tells the story. A narrator, as a ‘telling medium’ which seems to be neutral and transparent, is not necessarily the author’s voice or persona. Cited there, Genette called the narrator as ‘authorial persona’. Therefore, a narrator can also be identified. A ‘heterodiegetic narrator’ is an authorial persona who narrates other story. While ‘homodiegetic narrator’ will present as one of the characters in the story s/he tells (Barry: 2002: 231-234).
expressing what happens in the characters’ minds. Next is indirect thought which meansthat the narrator reports what was/is thought by the characters. The last one is free indirect speech or free indirect thought which is defined as the act of intersperse of what looks like the third-person narrator to the presentation of the characters’ speech or thought (Verdonk, 2002: 45-53).
Leaving the concern with structuration (its component units and their relations) like the example from Genette’s Narrative Discourse, Peter Brooks defined narrative as:
Not a matter of typology or of fixed structures, but rather a structuring operation peculiar to those messages that are developed through temporal succession, the instrumental logic of a specific mode of human understanding.
Like Brooks, Teresa de Lauretis tried to understand “the nature of the structuring and destructuring, even destructive, process at work in textual and semiotic productions.” She wishes to go from so much description of the structure of narrative as its works and effect. In other words, she leaves for the realm of discourse (Mcquilian, 2000: 7).
narratology seems to me to derive not so much from the importance of the object as from narratology’s own degree of maturation and methodological elaboration.” He is aware that a narrative text can be viewed from other angles, for example; thematic, ideological, stylistic (Mcquilian, 2000:128).
The production of narrative is therefore an unfixed formulation. Some people argued that there is a fixed consideration between narrative and its counternarrative in the narrative-matrix (a system of producing narrative in a limitless border). Said is one who agrees that there is a need for a counternarrative, in terms of the resistance towards imperialism and domination. This counternarrative, which is also called contrapuntal writing, is a “configuration of what is ‘forcibly excluded’ from the text.” Said’s identification between narrative and counternarrative, in term of literary-narrative, leads him to conclude that “the striking consequence has been to disguise the power situation and to conceal how much the experience of the stronger party overlaps with and, strangely, depends on the weaker” (Mcquilian, 2000:23).
Another important definition of narrative is given by Jean-Francois Lyotard. For him, narrative is a mode of knowledge. This understanding is gained from the root of the word narrative from Latin meaning to know. “Knowledge is articulated and communicated in society in the form of narrative. Therefore, narratives define the possibilities of knowledge and, hence, action in any given society.” Thus, narratives consider exist (Mcquilian, 2000:157, 323).
behind. Structuration, or in a quite different wholeness of analyzing text but similar in methodology called narratology, will still be needed as the basic
understanding of reading a text from other angles. Therefore, structuration will still be needed to comprehend a text since, for example, a particular narrator will determine the text displayed in his/her view and understanding.
3. Theories on Representations
The term “post” in “post-colonialism” has invited controversy since it indicates “after” which literally means the radical change of societies after the independence. However, the effects of centennials of colonialism are still apparent in the construction of the present-day societies. Hence, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin used the term ‘post-colonial’ to cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day (Ashcroft, 1989:2).
history, philosophy, linguistics, and the fundamental experiences causing the appearance of these writings. These vast issues, they continued, are not ‘essentially’ post-colonial, but together they create complex fabric of the field (Ashcroft, 2002: 2).
The large area in post-colonial studies is summarized by Peter Barry in
The Beginning Theory. He divided four characteristics of post-colonial reading. The first is the awareness of representations of the non-European as exotic or immoral “Other”. The second and third characteristics are language and hybrid identity. The last characteristic is the stress on ‘cross-cultural’ interactions (Barry, 2002:194-196).
Representation, as one of the main issues of post-colonial studies, has been discussed, if not formulated, by many critics and theorists. The ‘mother’ book of revealing the representation is, in terms of the development of post-colonial study,
The East is represented by the West through its manipulated knowledge which can not be taken for granted as the truth. It is mainly caused by the relationship between West and East, especially in the moment of ‘old’ colonialism expanded by the West, which is dominated by the West and determined by, to quote Said’s words again, “an unstoppable European expansion in search of markets, resources, and colonies.”
4. Theory on Counterfocalizations
In Gerard Genette’s elaboration on narrative, focalization is the synonym of perspective. The word counter means to say something in order to try to prove that what someone said was not true; to do something in order to reduce the bad
effect of something, or to defend yourself against them (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2001: 415). Counterfocalization literally means a counter- perspective. I follow Anne Longmuir to use the word when she tried to change Lurie’s perspective on African people and society though she did not clearly state the definition of the word. To be able to counterfocalize, I need some theories about Indigenous Thought. In this thesis, I use some Indigenous Peoples’ traditional philosophy and religions to be the device of counterfocalization, especially the ones which are strongly related to the content of the novels. For
this is not dominant in the thesis) that is ‘forcibly excluded’ by the narrators. Counterfocalization aims to lift Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge up into intellectual property.
a. Sasa and Zamani
b. Relationship
Africans relationship is very strong especially when they have been brother or sister. Brothers or sisters are not necessarily to be ‘blood’ inherited, but more determined by the relation of marriage. It means that the two families (big families) whose children become a spouse are brothers and sisters. Africans traditional culture on marriage is polygyny, but not more than 25% of households that having more than two wives. Marriage in Traditional Africa is a sign of maturity. To be mature is to get married. After getting married, one will be included in the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of the society. “Failure to get married under normal circumstances means that the person concerned has rejected society and society rejects him in return” (Mbiti, 1970: 174).
c. Javanese Philosophy and Wayang
There are many books exploring Javanese Philosophy. In this thesis, I summarize some of them from the great essay written by Emmanuel Subangun entitled Tidak Ada Mesias dalam Pandangan Hidup Jawa and a book written by Benedict Anderson entitled Mitologi dan Toleransi Orang Jawa.
In relation to Messiah, Traditional Java does not put it in its central theme. The concept of Messiah in Java (Ratu adil or Erucakra) is gained from Jayabaya’s prophetic writing that there will come a just and prosperous governmental administration from the King Asmarengkung. This era comes after Java has been destroyed by Peringgi tribe, and then Peringgi tribe has been totally destroyed. Ratu Adil is not the central of Javanese Traditional Thinking, within which the structure of meaning people have put their life experience as a whole. Ratu Adil appears usually when people suffer crisis. It is caused by the ‘radicalism’ of Javanese to be extremely narima (willingly accepts all that comes) and when they are panic.
The source of Traditional Javanese Philosophy is Wayang (Java traditional shadow puppets). Morality and thought lies in its conflicts and characters. In relation to power, Wayang is often used as safety-valve institution. This institution channels all conflicts and tensions between elite and mass. It pushes ahead the status quo of elite (remember that the relation is symbolic, meaning to say the elite is the balance keeper of macro cosmos and micro cosmos).
ethical and religious systems which are abstract. The acceptance towards other cultures, or ‘tolerance’, is when the others can be adapted and described in the frame of Javanese thinking. The acceptance depends on Javanese’s feelings on their personality and tradition.
Related to tolerance, Javanese also has a unique phrase pantes orane
(‘appropriateness’). This is a standardized norm for each caste based on functions. Here is the example: When Baladewa chooses to be in Kurawa Side, there is
nothing wrong with him because he acts ‘appropriately’ as a Ksatriya. The best person is the one who acts as s/he functions for. A Brahmin must act and behave as a Brahmin. A trader is respected because of his/her trade, etc.
C. Theoretical Framework
This part explains the contribution of each theory presented to solve the problem formulations. There are four groups of theory used in this study – theories on comparative study, theories on narrative, theories on representation, and theory counterfocalizations. The theory on comparative study is used as the basic concept of comparing the two novels; Rumah Kaca and Disgrace. The theory explains the requirements of how to compare two or more objects. It provides the standard and procedure in comparing. For instance, to compare is to have two or more objects; to compare, especially when having abrogating
gained from Gerrard Genette and Peter Verdonk, will be the knife to surge the mimetic and diegetic mode of expression in the works, to show the focalization of the characters, to understand the inclusion and exclusion of the ‘authorial persona’, and to reveal the Speech and Thought Representation. The theory on representation is the basic understanding of representation in the space of postcolonial understanding.
43
This chapter is divided into three parts. The first part is entitled Object of the Study which will describe the works analyzed, the ‘special records’ gained, and the brief and general explanation about the works. The second part is the explanation of the approaches used to analyze the works and the reason of using the chosen approach. The last part of this chapter will describe the procedure of analyzing the works.
A. Object of the Study
Since this thesis is a comparative study, there will be more than one work analyzed. They are Rumah Kaca written by Pamoedya Ananta Toer and Disgrace
written by John Maxwell Coetzee. Both works are categorized as novels.
prison island of Buru. The novel I uses, which has been translated into more than twenty languages, was published in 2000 by the same publisher.
Disgrace is a 220-page-novel firstly published in 1999 by Vintage. The authorial persona of the novel is omniscient narrator. Disgrace is the eighth work of fiction written by Coetzee after Dusklands (1974), In the Heart of the Country
(1977), Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), Life and Times of Michael K (1983),
Foe (1986), Age of Iron (1990), and The Master of Petersburgs (1994). Other works of fiction written by Coetzee after Disgrace are Elizabeth Costello (2003),
Slow Man (2005), and Diary of a Bad Year (2007). The novel I uses is the one which is published in 2000 by Vintage.
nominated to gain Nobel Prize in Literature but until his death in 2006 the award did not come to Indonesia. On the other hand, Coetzee was awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.
Rumah Kaca is a historical novel about the Indonesian Resurgence Era, that is, the era of the indigenous people’s consciousness on their colonized being and their spirit of changing the condition. Rumah Kaca reveals some unsolved mysteries found in the first three novels. It is logically understood since the narrator in Rumah Kaca is a bureaucrat whose work is scrutinizing and controlling indigenous people’s consciousness movements. The bureaucrat, Pangemanann, is an intelligent reader who is trapped in colonial system. By this colonial mud, Pangemanann experiences conscience war: democratic and humanistic European theory versus authoritarian and greedy European colonialism.
B. Approaches of the Study
This thesis uses two different approaches, namely narrative approach and postcolonial approach. Each approach functions differently in this thesis.
1. Narratology
Narratology is used to be the branch of structuralism. Yet, as it becomes more complicated and uses many linguistic terms, it can be independently used (Barry, 2000: 222). This approach tries to read the narrative structure of story/ies. The phenomena of stories will be analyzed linguistically and elaborated within the frame of some narrative theories. Narratology is a way to read the work of literature from the general patterns. For instance, Aristotle identifies three key elements in a plot. They are the hamartia, the enagnorisis, and the peripeteia.
Another example is Propp’s work on formulating the possible items that construct all tales.
Narratology, especially the selected theory on ‘structuration’ functions as the basic analysis on the pattern of the works. This pattern is important dealing with how reality revealed and presented in literary works. The interpretation using this focalization will be useful in destructuralizing the image of certain communities. Also, the further analysis in postcolonial approach needs basic understanding of the construction of the novels.
2. Postcolonial Approach
The background setting of Rumah Kaca is Hindia Belanda – a name given to pre-independence Indonesia. The main theme, and hence, the main conflicts appear in Rumah Kaca are all related to the process of colonialism. On the other hand, Disgrace’ssetting is a post-apartheid country which has experienced a long process of colonialism too. The main difference is clearly seen: the setting of time in Rumah Kaca is pre-independence and Disgrace is post-independence. Yet, as by many critics’ agreement, national independence declaration does not mean the end of colonialization. To understand the effect and resistance of colonialism, whether in pre or national independence is to see it in the frame of post-colonial approach.
Post-colonial approach deals with some main issues: migration, slavery, suppression, representation, difference, race, gender, place, and response to the influential master discourses of imperial Europe such as history, philosophy, linguistics, and the fundamental experiences causing the appearance of these writings. These vast issues are not ‘essentially’ post-colonial, but together they create complex fabric of the field (Ashcroft, 2002). As post-colonialism focuses on the effects and resistances of colonized people, it automatically requires the understanding of colonial perspective.
awareness of representations of the non-European as exotic or immoral “Other”. The second and third characteristics are language and hybrid identity. The last characteristic is the stress on ‘cross-cultural’ interactions (2002:194-196).
C. Method of the Study
This thesis is a library research. The primary data used in this thesis are Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Rumah Kaca and John Maxwell Coetzee’s Disgrace.
The secondary data included here are: the books of theories, historical data, and other studies related to the works.
In analyzing the works, I applied some steps. First step was collecting the data necessarily required in doing the study. The second step was doing close reading
to both works as the object of the study. Next, I collected the data needed for the coherent path of analyzing as formulated in problem formulations. It means that I took some important points of the works which could be lifted up as the significant data of narrative structure of the narrators in both Rumah Kaca and
Disgrace, then read the representation of indigenous people on the novels, and lastly counterfocalized them. After having done those steps, I drew a conclusion of the whole analysis.
49
This part is the answers of the problems formulated in the first chapter. There are three parts in this analysis, namely: the narrative structures of the narrators, the representations of indigenous peoples, and counterfocalizations of the representation. Since it is a comparative study, each conclusion of detail construction and interpretation from one work will be compared directly to the other within the frame of certain approach/es.
A. Narrative Structures of the Narrators
This part is to discuss the narrative structures of the narrators in both works. The limit of the analysis, which is to say the particular narrative terms and concepts used, will be sketched from three categorizations. They are (a) who tells the story, (b) speech and thought representation, and focalization, and (c) mimesis/diegesis. Those three categories are all related to the narrators.
1. Who tells the story
(character), is followed by another he and other singular and plural third person pronouns. The circumstances of this overview are stated in the following scheme:
The platform shows the characters in the novel and how they are connected. Explicitly, the narrator is not one of those characters in the platform. This authorial persona tells the whole story, including the relation between the characters, by eagle-viewing it without stating his/her position. The position of the narrator makes him/her seem to be value-free. Yet, one can not claim that s/he is a neutral omniscient narrator only by seeing whether s/he is homodiegetic or
heterodiegetic. The proving or rejection of this neutrality will be on the discussion of focalization.
On the contrary, Rumah Kaca uses homodiegetic narrator. As stated by Djokosujatno that Rumah Kaca is a memoir, which means a memorable writing related to personal experience of the writer and his/her job, the narrator is directly and explicitly included since it must be using first person narration. Pangemanann, the highest native bureaucrat in the Dutch colonial system in
Hindia Belanda, is the narrator. He is the center of all stories. This is apparent in his statement as the part of exposition of the story on page 4. After introducing the general condition of Asian resurgences against colonialism, and as one who has to dam up the resurgences of indigenous people in Hindia Belanda, he states, “Tugas seberat itu dipercayakan dan dipikulkan di pundakku: Jacques Pangemanann” (This heavy task was entrusted to me and thrust upon my back – me, Jacques Pangemanann). The first person pronoun ‘aku’ (I) is the evidence of the character’s involvement in the story.
Since Rumah Kaca is written in the perspective of a colonial bureaucrat, and the narrator’s task is to control (but not to foster) natives’ resurgences within their modern tools of struggling, organization, a border between the colonial and
Natives: Governor-General Idenburg, then changed by Stirum
native is necessarily drawn. Pangemann’s position is in a colonial box which, dealing with political authority, is higher than Natives. Yet, as can be seen in the platform, he has to obey all the words of governor-general. The arrow in the diagram is the relation of order and control while the line between characters shows the balance relation – the normal human relation between characters in which one of them does not have institutional power to order the other. The double-arrowed line shows that the characters influence each other whether institutionally or personally. The double-arrowed line is only between Minke and Pangemanann since only Minke who, amongst the leaders of all organizations, makes Pangemanann psychologically and intellectually realize his falling down.
2. Speech Representation and Focalization
Focalization in this context serves two main terms: Internal Focalization and External Focalization. Those all terms are utilized to help show how Disgrace and
Rumah Kaca are perspective-constructed.
Usually, those terms foregrounded in Representation are for the third person narrator. Yet, although Rumah Kaca uses first person narrator, it is still worthy enough to use some of the terms because there are some stratified levels of delivering the story in Rumah Kaca.
The first analysis is in Disgrace which uses third person narrator. Disgrace