CHAPTERI INTRODUCTION
1.1
Backgroundof theStudy Literatureisidenticalwith life. Itisatruepictureor
reflection of human’slife. Itdescribeswhat and
how human life
is and usually
reflects the events
which happen in
society. Through literary
work we can eternalize
our special moment
or even express
what is in
our mind and
what is in
our heart beautifully and
artistically. Literary work
is the result
of human being’s
thought which tells
about life that deals
with feeling, ideas,
experience, ambition, imagination,
and problems. It
presents to give
an enjoyment and also broader
the reader’s general
knowledge. Glickberg (Endraswara, 2008:
77) states that“allliterature,
however fantasticor mysticalin content, isanimated by profound socialconcern
and this is true
of even the
most flagrant nihilistic
work”. Literature is
a creative and
imaginative writing which
isfullof valuesfor human being’slife.
Literary works
represent possibility world,
its meaning when
reader deals with
literary work hence he
deals with possibility
of interpretation. Each
reader is entitled
to and oftentimes
differ result of interpretation to
literary work’s meaning. Reader with
different expectation will result
difference of interpretation to
a certain literary
works. This matter
relate to the
problem of the
characteristic, the function,
and the reality of the literary work. The typically characteristics of
literature are shown by its aspect (reference), "fictional", "creation", and
"imaginative"
(Wellek and Warren,
1993:18-20). While the function
of literature depended
from the point
of view and
also determined by
its ideology background. Realities
of the existence
of literary works
always stay in
stress between innovation
and convention. Three elements in
explanation above cause the problem
complex and wide in the world of literature.
Literature consists
of value for
education. Novel can
possibly have literary
value for us
if we can understand
what messages are
conveyed by the
author. Beside that,
literature also can
be a good source
of readers, their
needs, interest, cultural
background, and language
levels. Readers are
usually interested in reading
some literary works
like drama, novel,
poem because the
central theme of
those aremostly aboutlife, love, death which arecertainly undergoneby
allreaders.
In this
study, the writer
concerns with literature
especially novel. It
is the art
of work of a
novelist in beautiful
language and high
thought because reading
novel is very
interesting and
we can catch the message that is
given by the author. “Novel is an extended prose fiction narrative that relates
to the
actions of its
character and events
in their experience”
(Lailah, 2007: 3).
By reading novel everybody can enjoy their sparetimeand
also fulfilltheir emotionalneeds. Itcan bedonewherever and whenever.
There are
some reasons why
the writer is
interested in novel
The Scarlet Letter.
Firstly, she thinks that by reading it the readers will know the
value contained in it and they have to be able
judge its values, cultures,
and life in
it. Secondly, she
thinks that studying
moral value is a very
important thing and really
relevant to the
good people especially
for us educated
people who live
in Indonesia.
Moreover, by knowing
the value in the
literature, we can improve
the progression in
our life. Thirdly, this novel is
not only an extremely entertaining and
action packed story, but
also gives a valuable and lively
pictureof seventeenth century American society in Boston.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
novel The Scarlet
Letter is about
love, sin and
most of all
morals.
Hawthorne creates many different
perspectives on characters and their views. His vivid descriptions of the three
main characters allow
the reader to
make there own
decisions on who
is morally right
or wrong. The Scarlet
Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
is one of moral
and ethical controversy that
reigns throughouttheentirenovel.
The novel
starts out with a woman
named Hester Prynne
standing on a
scaffold in the
city of Boston so
all the town
could see her.
Her crime was
adultery with an
un-named man, and
her punishment was to wear a
letter “A” on her bosom
for the rest of her
life. Because of
the mark of her sin, Hester
lived a life of
exile, not so much physically, but
emotionally. Hester still
lived in the
town of Boston and wasallowed to walk thestreetsand marketplace;however,
shewasnotspoken to except to beridiculed, and theonly timepeoplewanted anything
to do with her waswhen they desired her fine skills as
a seamstress. Also
during this time,
a man named
Roger Chillingworth appeared
in the town and
became Arthur Dimmesdale’s
physician. The reader
knows Dimmesdale to be Hester’s
partner in her sin, and
Chillingworth is revealed to the reader to be Hester’s husband. Because of
Chillingworth’s close proximity with
Dimmesdale at all
times, Chillingworth discovers
Dimmesdale’s secret and tormentstheman’ssoul.
There are
some researchers who
take The Scarlet
Letter as the
object of their
research. They analyze the psychology of the
main characters, internal
conflicts faced by the
characters, and symbols in the novel The Scarlet Letter. One of them is Sri
Wahyuni; a student of Gunadharma University with her thesis (2002) entitled
Psychological Effects toward Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter. In her thesis, she
used psychological approach
to analyze the
psychological effects toward
Arthur Dimmesdale as one
of the main
characters in The
Scarlet Letter. She
concludes that Arthur Dimmesdale is
an idealized self-
image and he
committed suicide because
of the gap
between his idealized
self-imageand self-realization and depression abouthisguilty feeling.
In this
research, the writer
tried to find
the immoralities portrayed
in the novel
The Scarlet Letter because
this matter plays an important
role in society. Why
is it important?
Because by finding about
moralities we will know about the right and
the wrong acts and by knowing
immoralities we are not
asked to follow
them as what the
characters do in
the novel but
we need to
know why someone does
the immorality and what the effect
of it. So, by knowing immoralities we will try
doing the right act
as well as
possible because morally
the effects of
immoralities are very
bad for our
life. Although the novel has
setting in seventeenth century American society but the writer is sure that
almost of every society has the
rule of moralities
and it is
almost the same
although there are
differences also. But whatever the
conclusion of what
is right or
wrong come from
our self to
choose what we
should do depend on our belief
and weneed to havethefoundation of it.
Based on the reasons above, the
researcher decides to choose the title “Immoralities Portrayed inNathanielHawthorne's
TheScarletLetter”.
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