CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study Human is created differently from other God’s
creatures. They are given intellectual ability
in facing life. Unlike animal that has no fear and worry about limitedness and
lack, human always tries to fight his
lack and weakness. Animals feel sufficient as long as they feed well, find a warm shelter, and lay their eggs or give
birthsto their babies safely. They never ask anything surrounding them that does not support or even
harm them. Onthe other hand, human never takes anything just for granted. They always
wantto make bad things in his life good, and make the good things better no mater if itwould
make them better or evenworse. All of their life is a struggle to do the best in order to find and
realize their life existence. Dagun, (1990: 17) says that, to be exist means doing action,
becoming,and planning useful thing. Every human being becomes less than the previous conditions,
theyalways try and try to seek every kind of possibilities. Absolutely, this effort will be
done in order to find a better life condition, this basic character in every human then what we call as
existence.
Human existence is said to be
authentic when he can choose and decide freely who and what he will become. Moreover, Human being
form themselves trough out their own act and manner. To form themselves, they do not want
to be influenced by others, even nature and social culture. In this real life, as long as
responsible it is free for human to take a part on whatever they want. Human also can show their reasonsup on
what he has done (Dagun, 1990: 18).
In short, it is clear that
freedom is very essential to human being as it can be identified as human existence itself. Kierkegaard states
that human existence is not static (Hasan, 1972: 24). It means that human always moves from a
possibility to reality. As human possesses freedom, this movement to the development possibly takes
place and is based on himself. Human existence itself is found and exists in his own freedom.
So, it would not go too far to say that freedom is the supreme value among existentialists who
put the emphasis on human existence.
Literature and philosophy are, in
fact, different from each other. The difference appears as philosophy studies concert human and
emphasizes on the living human, while literature emphasizes its study on the characters living
in workof art created by its author. However, these two studies have a close relationship as
literature is often made as the manifestation of philosophy’s ideas. And moreover, people
always try to find a new solution for their problem. So there is the same characteristic inboth
literature and philosophy, that is the freedom in thinking.
“Frequently literature is thought
ofas a form of philosophy, as ideas wrapped in form, and it is analyzed to yield leading ideas” (Wellek &
Warren, 1956: 110).
So far, it is also said that, “To
be sure, literature can be treated as a document in the history parallels and reflects intellectual
history. Frequently either explicit statement or illusion show the allegiance of a poet to a specific
philosophy, or establish that he has had some direct acquaintance with philosophies once well known
or at least that he isaware of their general assumption” (Wellek & Warren, 1956: 111).
Furthermore, Ratih (2005) states
that, modern philosophy that influences modern literature is Existentialism. In fact, it does
not only give influence but also has strong relationship since both of them are based on the life that
is marked by anxiety, despair, loneliness, and fearless. Since freedom itself is an important
thing to determine modern people’s characteristic, Existentialism that has freedom as its supreme
value then, functioned as the answer to the questions existing in philosophy and
literature in the modern life. One ofthe main issues in philosophy, as well as a literature, is human
existence.It is a very interesting topic to discuss, as it can give many benefits to human’s
understanding about himself and most of people can find their freedom in their own existence.
Daniel Defoe was born in St.
Giles, Cripplegate, London about 1660, then he died on April 26, 1731. Although he was late in
writing fiction, some of literary critic appreciated him as a first person who wrote the main literary
work inan English daily conversation as well. One of them is Robinson Crusoe. The novel itself was
published firstly on April 25, 1718 in London.
Recently, this novel had been reprinted
in India by Tiny Tot Publications in 2004. As a classic literary work, this novel becomes famous for
decades, until today. Moreover, Robinson Crusoe has received wide response for
many people in all over the world as the first masterpiece English literary work in eighteenth century. As Paul
Negri says in his preface (2007:vi), that the novel is well known in all over the world as one of the
most popular literary works that has been written.
Even, a German literary critic
calls it as the “world book.” In fact, there are many literary works that effort to be competed with it, but no one
becomes more. It is no exaggeration to say that Robinson Crusoeis an immortal literary works.
The researcher thinks that, this
novel represents literary works function as a guidance in real life. Because by reading this novel, we
cantake what has happened as a lesson to face the real life. For instance, as it canbe found in
Robinson Crusoe’s character is strongly true that basically every human being will defend his
existence where and when he is, although he must be responsible for more and more extraordinary
risk that he faced. Whatever he can do to defend his existence, because every human being has a
strong desire to be free to decide his way of life, without any intervention from others, even his
parents. So then, Existentialism is ableto be used to analyze Robinson Crusoe’s freedomof life.
It is very challenging for researcher to analyze it deeply.
The previous study that have been
done on two thesis which have similar themes, they are related much about Existentialism and
Feminism. Those previous studies are; Ratih Hardina, the scholar of The State Islamic University of
Malang in her thesis Strike for Freedom as Related in "Gadis Jakarta" (A Philosophical
Approach) found out that there are several Existentialism thought on Feminism issues that she wrote.
Such as, Existentialism issues is one ofthe efforts to find the answer to the question of the root
ofwomen's oppression frompatriarchal culture.
Beside that, women's existence
does not stop at her position being other as being free individual, a woman has the freedom to take choices in her
life to attain the desire of changes. Whereas Eva Fatmawati the scholar of Sebelas Maret
University of Surakarta in her thesis entitled Existentialism in Kate Copin's "The
Awakening" found out that the novel The Awakening comprises to strike for freedom is connected
with Existentialism aspect. It is including existence, estrangement, anxiety and nothingness feeling,
and freedom as a means to get her self-existence.
1.2 Research Problems Based on the phenomena above several thingsare
needed to know from this novel, namely: 1. How
does the character defend his existence? 2. What
are the relationships between existence and freedom of choice Robinson Crusoe’s way of life? 1.3 Objectives of the Study Concerning to the problems mentioned above,
the objective of this study isclassified into two items: 1. To
give detailed explanation of the way how the character defend his existence.
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar