CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study Literature is a full creation of forms,
emotions and expressions which designates
the imaginative ideas through language as the media (Welleck and Warren, 1993). In each form, literature exists
bringing the influential power to the world.
The power is applied into three genres of literary work; prose, poetry, and drama. Among those three genres, prose is the
easier genre to be analyzed because in
every line we can catch the detail information about every important thing appears in prose. A kind of prose is called
novel. In defining the term “novel”, Jeremy
Hawthorn (1985) asserts that novel is fictitious prose narrative or tale of considerable length in which characters and
actions representative of the real life of
past or present times are portrayed in a plot of more or less complexity.
According to Stanton (1965),
novel has many constructing elements. He argues that there are three prominent elements
of novel; facts, theme, and language.
Facts here mean the fictitous structures appearing in the novel, such as the characters, plots, and settings. Stanton
(1965) adds theme, afterward, which is defined
as the central idea of a work of literature that can be broadly applied both to the work itself and to situations outside
the work. And the last, language, is the
sequence of words, phrases, and
sentences that give meanings used by people to express their thoughts and feelings.
Characters, plots, and
settings in a novel are actually the
mimetic products of the real life which
appear in the text (Welleck and Warren, 1956). Characters are mostly human beings who do some behaviors,
make choices, and decide aims.
To do those, humans are
absolutely affected by the external and internal factors.
The external factors are all of
things we can see and evaluate include wealth, physical appearance, and society. Whereas, the
internal factors according to Myers
(1996) includes sensation, perception, dreams, thoughts, fantasy, faith, and feelings. Through both external and internal
factors, the characters flow the plot and
fill the settings.
To understand the
characterization in the novel, both external and internal factors must be precisely discussed. For
discussing the external factors, a man can easily draw out what really mattered. In
contrast, according to Mc.Dougall (1908), the internal factors are primitive and
disorganized matters, thus, can not be interpreted
directly. The internal factors emerge as the mental codes which are unable to see and evaluate. They are
irrational concerns and only psychology, as Feldman (1996) asserts, which tries to make
them as rational field to be discussed.
Furthermore, Feldman (1996)
defines psychology as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
Literature and psychology have a
strong bond either from both objects or functions.
According to Jatman (1985), literature and psychology have the same object; human, and do the same function as the
study of human’s states of psyche.
What differs between them is only
on the space. Jatman states that the object in the literary works is human, behaviour, and
mentality appear in the text as the imaginative
world. But, for psychology, the object is human, behaviour and mentality in the real world.
In literature, psychology looks
at the themes, conflicts, and characterizations
of a work primaly as a reflection of the needs, emotions, states of mind, and subconcious desires (Judith Stanford,2002).
The urgency for discussing values of
needs, emotions, states of mind, and desires gives three possibilities for conducting a psycological
literary research (Wellek and Warren,1990);
1. Research on the main character’s
psychological aspects in the novel 2. Research on the readers’ psychological
aspects responding the work 3. Research
on the author’s psychological aspects while expressing their ideas Characters are the main elements of a novel,
so the researcher decided to analyze the
psychological aspects of the main character Dr. William Chester Minor as the most eccentric figure in the
novel. There will be not only one main character
appears in the novel, but two or more (Stanford, 2002). Yet, the researcher determined the most appropriate
character through paying attention to the
author’s major narrative techniques for describing Dr. William Chester Minor, then, his actions, thoughts and feelings. In
conducting the research based on psychological approach, the researcher also carefully observed the theory
will be gathered. The theory must be relevant
to the data or problems discussed in this research. The researcher explored the data from Simon Winchester’s The
Professor and the Madman.
Such the reward given by Oliver
Sacks, M.D. (from The New York Times), that Simon Winchester was the succes author for the
touching and affecting literary work The Professor and the Madman with its
briliant disbelieved fact construction,
the hystory of the making of Oxford English Dictionary, the contribution, love and purity of the Madman
(Winchester,1999).
The Professor and the Madman was a great literary work which full of suspense, shocking events, and wretched fate.
It narrated a tale of murder, insanity,
and the making of Oxford English Dictionary. In the beginning, the author told a murder commited by an American
surgeon doctor William Chester Minor. It
took place on Lambeth, England, in
Victorian era 1872. The case of murder
was reported rather strange because the doer used a revolver to shoot the victim that the use of a kind of firearms in
the crime commission was thought of as
somehow a very un-British act and as something to be recorded as a rarity in Britain. And, the doer was the American
surgeon doctor William Chester Minor.
Dr. William Chester Minor was the
American inhabitant who came to Britain
in the autumn of 1871 to quiet a mind that had become inflamed. Dr.
William Chester Minor came from
the Cristian missionary family. He was actually
the brilliant graduate of Yale University who became maniac and must spend living in the Asylum for the Criminally
Insane Broodmoor with file number 742
because the case of murder above. From this brief explanation, the researcher determines Dr. William Chester Minor as the
interesting character to discuss.
Dr. William Chester Minor’s
mental disorder in the novel was expressed as monomania. It was not clear what really
causes his monomania until he murdered
the unknown man such he assumed as the member of Irish soldier. In the novel, the doctor admitted that he himself
always felt tortured tried to be murdered,
poisoned, and electrocuted in the nights. The trauma of inclemency in American civil war made the doctor worried
about Irish vengeance whom punished and
tortured because doing desersion by the middle of the war. They were called as treasonous soldiers of the
United States army and must get hard punishments
such death sentence, bucking, and other kinds of tortures in the hand of Dr.William Chester Minor. The doctor often
objurgated himself with screaming and
frightened voice. He assumed that the Irish soldiers will track him down and never forgive his deeds in the war.
In the medical world, the
Hippocrates oath is the holy declaration which must be followed and obeyed by all doctors. It
teaches doctors to be loyal to the profession
of medicine not to torture. Doctors must practice their science with virtue and honor. Doctors come for the benefit
of the sick, remaining free of all intentional
injustice and mischief, and in particular of sexual relations with both male and female.
Related to the story, beside the
doctor commited savagery to the deserters in the war, the doctor also did prostitution
because he only felt entertained and free
with it. But, weirdly, after he get realized, he blamed himself again until at his most extreme guilt he determined to cut
his own genital as his penance.
The gloomy episode of life made
the doctor difficult to rise up and forgive himself from his own great sins and falseness.
Doctor Minor seemed not ready enough to
face the psyche fire upon his reputation and career. How could a doctor graduated of the Yale Medical School with a
degree and a specialization in comparative
anatomy in1863 becoming the tormentor people? How could the doctor destruct the exalted honor of
Congregationalist Church with prostitution and murdering the innocent man while his family
is the member of Congregationalist
Church who muscularly evangelical kind that dominated the American colonies, and whose views and beliefs
were descended from those of the Pilgrim
Fathers? Those interesting describtions
made the researcher believes that it would be a good idea to conduct a research. The
researcher also took Sigmund Freud’s theory
because most problems in the novel were appropiate analyzed through it.
About pleasure, Sigmund Freud is
the only psychological figure who asserts that the pleasure and sexuality principles affects
mo stly people’s personality. In the holy
Qur’an, the delineation of humanistic pleasure principle is also illustrated in
the sorah “The Family of Imran” vrs. 14
as The meaning: The love of desires, of women and sons and hoarded treasures of
gold and silver and well bred horses and
cattle and tilth, is made to seem fair to men; this is the provision of the life of this
world; and Allah is He with Whom is the
good goal (of life).
rk is C � i � � social background. As Elizabeth and Burns said that
literary is not only the effect of social
causes but also the cause of the social effect (Endaswara, 2003:79).
sociological approach, this research will analyze the individual and society. This
research purposed to show the correlation between the works of literature and the
society. Itis because the works of literature
is produced by an author, the author is a part of the society and the author uses the society’s properties, and the
result of the literary works will be used
by the society.
1.6.2 Data Source The main source which provides the data for
this research is the novel The Known
World by Edward P. Jones which is published in pdf formatfrom http://rapidshare.com/files/7118957/jones__edward__p_the_known_world__pulit
zer_prize_winner.pdf.
1.6.3 Data Collecting As one procedure to solve the problem well,
the researcher begins the research with
collecting the data. Here, the researcher takes some steps. These steps are done to make a systematical data and
keepits validity.
The steps are begun by reading
and understanding the novel The Known World.
From this step, the researcher finds some generaldata relating with the condition of racial discrimination happened in
Edward P. Jones’ The Known Worldin form
of paragraphs, phrases and sentences. After this step, the researcher chooses the data which only deals with the
problemsof the study; it is about the form
of racial discrimination and the cause of it and weather does or not the novel reflect the condition of racial discrimination
in Virginia in the last of th century.
To make the process of writing
the result of study easy, the writer in this step gives red colors to the sentences or paragraph
which are used as data. The last step of
data collecting is simplifying the data and to find the only appropriate data which can be analyzed to answer the problems
of thestudy.
1.6.4 Data Analysis After collecting and studying the data, the
researcher comes to the data analysis.
The first step is the researcher tries toexplore the data found and analyze it according to sociology concept of racial
discrimination. This step will help the researcher
to find the forms of racial discrimination in Edward P. Jones’ The Known World.
The second step is focusing in
analyzing the data to find the causes of racial discrimination happened in the society
described in Edward P. Jones’ The Known
World. So, the researcher must carefully classify which data are included to the forms of racial discrimination and
which data are included to the causes of racial discrimination.
The third step is comparing the
condition of racialdiscrimination, its forms
and causes in the Edward P. Jones’ The Known World with some information or references to know does the
racial discrimination told in the novel reflected
the real condition in Virginia in th century
as the sociological research usually
have to do.
The last step is making
conclusion based on the whole analysis. The conclusion covers all of the discussions in
the research.
1.7 Definition of Key Terms To help the reader to understand this thesis,
it isneed to give the key terms of the
research. The key terms are: Discrimination:the
treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit. It is usually
associated with prejudice. It can be behavior promoting a certain group (e.g. affirmative
action), or it can be negative behavior directed
against a certain group. In the other word, discrimination is unequal treatment of various categories of people.
Racial discrimination: any
distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic
origin which has the purpose or effect of
nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental
freedoms in the political, economic, social,
cultural or any other field of public life.
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar