CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1. 1. Background of the study In
this life , we often hear the word “literature”, and until this time, there is no perfect definition about that word. Culler,
in his Literary Theory, said that works
of literature come in all shapes and sizes and most of them seem to have more in common with works t hat are not
usually called literature than they do with
some other works recognized as literature“ (1997:20). Literature, according to Long (1945:3), is the expression of life in
the words of truth and beauty, it is the
history, and the only history of the human soul. Literature gives the people love, faith, duty and friendship.
According to Glickberg (1967:75)
”all literature, however fantastic or mystical
in content, is animated by a profound social concern, and this is true of even this most flagrant nihilistic work”. That
statement represent that whatever the
form of the literary work is, it has close relationship to the social phenomena.
Literature is not only creating
private imagination but also a report of reality in certain periods and places. Literary works
contain human expectation, fear, joys, and
so on.
In our daily life, we often know
a story by listening the radio, watching television, going to cinema and reading books,
newspapers, magazines and novels. Some
people prefer to do those activiti es but the others prefer to sit as the writer of that story. As the writer, they can
express their idea in the form of fiction or non -fiction. In the form of fiction, the
author can express their idea without limitation,
for example, they can take the stor y from real history or from their own imagination. In expressing their ideas, they
can use symbol, which uses something to
means something else, such as used voyage to suggest life. Alternatively, they can use satire that is used to ridicule
something that exposes the follies of its subject, for example individuals,
organizations or states. In addition, they also can use language style, such as using metaphor,
irony or simile.
Moreover, there are some kinds of
literary works, such as poetry, drama and
nove l. As the writer of the story, people can take one of those kinds of
literary works. Poetry is the
imaginative expression of strong feeling. Edgar Allan Poe gives definition, that poetry is the
rhythmical creation of beauty, its sole arbiter is taste. Withthe intellect or with the
conscience it has only collateral relations.
While drama is, a story that told
in action by the characters on the stage. And novel is a fictional prose narrative of
considerable length and complexity that deals
imaginatively wit h human experiences.
In this research, the writer
takes novel as the object of the study. The reason underlines this choice is because it is in a
long story. Although drama is also written
in long story but it is different from novel. In drama, the stor y is written
in form of dialogs and plays on the
stage, while in the novel, the story is written in paragraphs and the author describes the story
in detail. As we know that novel is one
of the literary works that contains of many kinds of view, values and messages. Kind of literary work is interesting
to be read and analyzed because it has
special characteristic that is telling a story. This is supported by Coyle and Peck (1986:102), that “Novel does not,
however, present a documentary picture of life. Alon gside the fact that novels look at
people in society, the other major characteristic
of the genre is that novels tell a story. In fact novels tend to tell the some few stories from time to time”. On the
other hand, novel cannot be separated from
the societ y in which where the author lives. As Iswanto (2003:59) says that literary works are born in a society because
of the author’s imagination reflects to the
social event in the author’s surrounding. Therefore, the presence of literary works is a part of the social life. Besides,
she enjoys the novel, the writer also will get new knowledge that she has not known
before. Such as the real condition, where
and when the work was written.
In this research, the writer
takes Thackeray’s Vanity air as the
object of the study, because Vanity Fair is Thackeray’s masterpiece and it
is considered as a classic of English
literature and one of the great works of satire in all history. This novel satirizes English middle class society in early th century. Hopefully, in Vanity Fair , the writer will get story, which
has relation to the society at the time when
the author lived. The writer thinks that this is worth to know the life of the author and his society, which influences him
in writing the novel. Because she considers
that this is important in giving her on input about the general life in the England middle class society, especially in
the Victorian literature.
In Victorian literature,
Thackeray is often compared to another great novelist in the era of Charles Dickens. While in that time Dickens was most popular compared to Thackeray. There was a great
animosity between the two writers here,
they respected each other’s abilities but had very different styles and they criticized the other’s treatment of subjects.
Dickens lapsed often into sentimentally
while Thackeray’s writings were seen as far more cynical and detached. He tended to see bad in all his
characters and he had none of the simple, while good characters common in Dickens, such
as Oliver Twist . In wikipedia, it is
written that Thackeray is more realistic in writing his fiction compared to Dickens or other authors in that era. The
acknowledges that even his heroes had faults.
Moreover, this is either interesting or unique to the writer. Dickens also took his com mitment to literature very
seriously whereas Thackeray appeared to take
his talent and responsibilities much more lightly. That is above the reason why the writer takes Thackeray (www.wikipedia.orgaccessed June 25 , 2006).
Thackeray made clear, both in his
role as the narrator of Vanity Fair and his private correspondence about the book, that he
meant it to be not just entertaining, but
instructive. Like all satire, Vanity
Fair has a mission and a moral. It mission is to satire the English middle class society in th century especially in London.
Vanity Fair is Thackeray’s
resplendent social satire that exposes the greed and corruption raging in England during the
turmoil of the Napoleonic wars. Vanity Fairis Thackeray's panoramic, satirical saga
of corruption at all levels of English society,
set during the Napoleonic Wars. It chronicles the lives of two women who could not be more different: Becky Sharp,
an orphan whose only resources are her
vast ambitions, her native wit, and her
loose morals; and her schoolmate Amelia
Sedley, a typically naive Victorian hero, the pampered daughter of a wealthy family. The
novel is interesting to be analyzed because the author of this novel sets his novel a generation earlier. H e really wrote
about his own society. Thackeray saw how
capitalism and imperialism with their emphasis on wealth, material goods, and ostentation had corrupted society and how
the inherited social order and institutions,
including the aristocracy, the chur ch, the military, and the foreign service, regarded only family, rank, power,
and appearance. These values morally crippled
and emotionally bankrupted every social class from servants through the middle classes to the aristocracy. High and
low, individualswere selfish and incapable
of loving (www.academic.brooklyn.cuny.eduaccessed on May 12, 2006).
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