CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW

Transcription

1 CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW 2.1 Literature Roberts and Jacobs (1993: 1) state that literature refers to compositions that tell stories, dramatize situations, express emotions, analyze and advocate ideas. Through literature, everybody may not just get entertainment but also ideas contained in the literature itself. As generally known that literary works contain various aspects in human life such as culture, social or moral that readers may get some lesson and knowledge from them. Furthermore, literature brings many essential meanings for human s life. It helps human to grow both personally and intellectually because literature lets human see and learn more about a lot of different points of view, ideas, culture and so many more which may open, increase their knowledge, grow their intellectuality and personality to be better. Literature makes human as a human. Peck and Coyle (1984:38) basically divide literature into three genres, namely poetry, drama and novel. Poetry is dominated by the rhythm and melody; drama is the combination of dialogue and stage; and novel is a narrative kind of fictitious writing. Meanwhile, Roberts and Jacobs (1995:3) elaborate the kinds of literature by stating that literature may be classified into four categories or genres: (1) prose fiction, (2) poetry, (3) drama and (4) nonfiction prose. Usually the first three are classified as imaginative literature. The genres of imaginative literature have much in common, but they also have their distinguishing characteristic. For

2 instance, the distinguishing characteristic of prose fiction or narrative fiction is depicted by myths, parables, romances, novels and short stories. Originally, fiction means anything made up, crafted, shaped up but nowadays fiction refers to prose stories based on the author s imagination. The essence of fiction is narration relating or recounting of a sequence of events or actions. Works of fictions usually focus on one or a few major characters that undergo a change of attitude or character as they interact with other characters and deal with problems. While fiction, like all imaginative literatures, may introduce true historical details, but not the real history. For instance, Charles Dicken s Oliver Twist which describes revolutionary era in 1834 when the child exploitation occurred but the character Oliver Twist did not exist. Its main purpose is to interest, to stimulate, to instruct and to divert, not to create precise historical records. Non fiction prose is the literary genre that consists of news reports, feature articles, essays, editorials, textbooks, historical and biographical works and the like, all of which describe or interpret facts and present judgments and opinions. Major goals of nonfiction prose are truth in reporting and logic in reasoning. Whereas in imaginative literature the aim is the truth to life and human nature, in nonfiction prose the goal is truth to the factual world of news, science and history. Wellek and Warren (1997:1) stated, literature can be treated as a document in the history of ideas and philosophy for literary history parallels and reflects intellectual history. So it is clear that if someone wants to know further about the history or the real condition in certain era, it is better to look at the literary works

3 in the period itself because a literary work is a directly reflection of social structure, class struggle and others. 2.2 Literature and Sociology Sociology derives from the Greek Socius (society) and logos (science) which means the study of all aspects of human and their relation in community (Ratha, 2003:1). Moreover, as stated in Dictionary of Social Sciences (2002: 453), the term of society was first used by Auguste Comte in 1830s to propose a synthetic science that would unite all knowledge about human activity. So basically, sociology is a field of knowledge studying about human act and interaction between a human to another. Through sociology, we may figure out the way of human adaptation to the nature, the sociological mechanism of human and other things lead us to the deeper understanding about human. In general, the object of Sociology is society. A society is a group of humans or other organisms of a single species that is delineated by the bounds of cultural identity, social solidarity, functional and others (http/ accessed on 24 October 2009). Members of a society may come from different ethnic groups. A society may be a particular ethnic group, such as the Bataknese or Javanese; a nation state, such an Indonesia; a broader cultural group, such as a Eastern society; or even a social organism such as an ant colony. According to previous statement, it can be concluded that classification exists in the society since it is a human nature to find the most convenient and right space for them. Then the classification in the society is naturally arranged by the society itself.

4 A lot of scientists try to explain the relation between literature and society. Karl Marx and Fredrick Engel s in 1848 published their theory about critical analysis of capitalism and a theory of social of change called Marxism. In one of the theory called Historical Materialism, a fundamental underlying reality of human existence: that in order for human beings to survive and continue existence from generation to generation, it is necessary for them to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life ( accessed on October 11, 2009). It is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history. It seems obvious it was Marx s view as the foundation to the understanding of human society and historical development. 2.3 Marxism Marxism is an economic and social system based upon the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel. It is the system of socialism of which the dominant feature is public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. This theory has explained the true position of the proletariat in the general system of capitalism. According to Marx, capitalism, is based on the exploitation of the working class (proletariat) by the owners of capital (factories, machinery, and working capital) whose profits come from the difference between the wages of labor and the value of product. Classical political economy, before Marx, evolved in England, the most developed of the capitalist countries. Adam Smith and David Ricardo, by their investigations of the economic system, laid the foundations of the Labour Theory of Value. Marx continued their work; he provided a proof of the theory and developed it

5 consistently. He showed that the value of every commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary labor time spent on its production. According to Marx in a class is defined by the relations of its members to the means of production. He obviously proclaimed that history is the chronology of class struggles, wars, and uprisings. Under capitalism, the workers, in order to support their families are paid a bare minimum wage or salary. In the process of it, the worker is alienated because he has no control over the labor or product which he produces. The capitalists sell the products produced by the workers at a proportional value as related to the labor involved. Surplus value is the difference between what the worker is paid and the price for which the product is sold. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, turning the idealist dialectics of George Hegelupside down, came up with dialectical materialism and a materialist account of the course of history known as historical materialism. For Marx, the base material of the world is social relations (and mainly class relations, e.g., between serfs and lord, or today, between employees and employer). As an expression of these basic social relations, all other ideologies form, includes those of science, economics, law, morality, etc. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the term to refer to a theoretical perspective that holds the satisfaction of everyday economic needs is the primary reality in every epoch of history. Opposed to German idealist philosophy, materialism takes the position that society and reality originate from a set of simple economic acts which human beings carry out in order to provide the

6 material necessities of food, shelter, and clothing. Materialism takes as its starting point that before anything else, human beings must produce their everyday economic needs through their physical labor and practical productive activity. This single economic act, Marx believed, gives rise to a system of social relations which include political, legal and religious structures of society. Karl Marx was not very well known in his lifetime and his writings remained practically unfamiliar to the greater part of his contemporaries. Much of his earlier works were deeply affected by the works of Hegel, who believed that man's existence was centered in his capacity for reason, and thus, ideas are the moving force of behind cultural evolution, spurring us on to build our reality. However, after 1844, Marx turned away form such notions and towards ideas similar to Fuhrboch, who said that man made his own reality, and that the way they are shapes their reason. Marx said that thinking follows behavior/being, a materialist view. Marx sought to produce an overview of human history in these terms and to explain why history took the course it did. History is marked by the growth of human productive capacity and the forms that history produced for each separate society is a function of what was needed to maximize productive capacity.

7 2.4 Materialism As stated in Dictionary of social science (2002: 299), materialism is a philosophical position that states everything is material, or a state of matter. It means that philosophy of materialism holds the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance. Many philosophers tried to explain materialistic through science since 19 th century since philosophical materialism was developed. A German philosopher, George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, found a new scientific philosophy called dialectical materialism. The reality of Hegel belief was about spirituality and nature as the product consumption. In the other words, Hegel required spiritual happiness as the most important in life. The young Karl Marx admired this idea of Hegel and convinced that Hegel had discovered something important. He especially admires Hegel s dialectical account of human history into materialism by adapted Hegel s idea by arguing that economic forces were basic to all social phenomena. According to Marx, production and distribution of life s necessity should be equal to people, so there is no gap among society. He claimed equality is the most important thing in society to live better. When Hegel focused on spiritual happiness and Karl Marx developed the idea of materialism more into economic purpose. Every individual has to work very hard to fulfill their needs and get better living. It is nature of human being to do it, which is why human often called as an economic creature. The goal of economic efforts is the satisfaction of human

8 needs. Everyone requires at minimum of food, clothing and housing as the basic needs of human to survive. Those life s necessities should be got by all people. The production of life s necessities should be enough to all people and the distribution of it should be spread averagely. That is Karl Marx tried to emphasize. The time is changing and so do the human s needs. In the beginning, they just need food, clothes and shelter from the weathers. But by the development of human civilization, they need a lot of needs for their life such as variety flavor of food, lavish house, sophisticated vehicles to ride, or most fashionable clothes to wear. And to get those things, human need to have a lot of money to buy that. Based on those matters, many people try to get better life to fulfill their needs. The material as the life s necessities of human changes into prestige of the human himself. Material is no longer interpreted as the life s necessities but it changes into money. It becomes the symbol of success and happiness. This shift process certainly brings a lot of change to the human nature. Material which at the beginning is considered as the life necessities turns into human obsession to reach the happiness. Modern people started to think money has such a powerful function. With money people do not only get anything they want but also they can also do everything they want to do. Even money involves a human status. Money is a magic power which control human and creates the essential social status (Ratha, 2003:27). It means that money is a human s creation which controls them and also the society.

9 CHAPTER III PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL 3.1 Theme Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. It is the most confusing and famous term between the other literary elements since it can be interpreted differently by each reader. Apparently, The Great Gatsby is a story of the saddened love between a man and a woman. In the matter of fact, the main theme of the novel encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. There are some major themes of this novel but the most interesting themes of it are fall of American dream and pursuit of material as the symbols of success and happiness. Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching greed, arrogant, empty pursuit of pleasure and even ignore to other human. The reckless jubilance that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music, epitomized in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night, resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals. When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that they had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early twentieth century America seem like stuffy or empty hypocrisy. The dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained increase in the

10 national wealth and a newfound materialism, as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels. A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune, but the American aristocracy (families with old wealth) scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators. Additionally, the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, which banned the sale of alcohol, created a thriving underworld designed to satisfy the massive demand for bootleg liquor among rich and poor alike. Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as emblems of these social trends. Nick and Gatsby, both of whom fought in World War I, exhibit the newfound cosmopolitanism and cynicism that resulted from the war. The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby's parties evidence the greedy scramble for wealth. The clash between old money and new money manifests itself in the novel's symbolic geography: East Egg represents the established aristocracy, West Egg the self-made rich. Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby's fortune symbolize the rise of organized crime and bootlegging. As Fitzgerald saw it, the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream, especially on the East Coast. The main plotline of the novel reflects this assessment, as Gatsby's dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle.

11 3.2 Character According to Roberts and Jacobs (1995:51), character is a reasonable facsimile of human being, with all the good and bad traits of being human. Generally, a story is concerned as a major problem that a character must be face. It may influence with other character, with difficult situation, or with an idea or general circumstances that force action. The characters of Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby are really interesting, they are: Nick Carraway: The novel s narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Honest, tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves as a confidant for those with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island that is home to the newly rich, Nick quickly befriends his next-door neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby. As Daisy Buchanan s cousin, he facilitates the rekindling of the romance between her and Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is told entirely through Nick s eyes; his thoughts and perceptions shape and color the story. Jay Gatsby: The title character and protagonist of the novel, Gatsby is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he made his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that Gatsby was born James Gatz on a farm in North Dakota; working for a millionaire made him

12 dedicate his life to the achievement of wealth. When he met Daisy while training to be an officer in Louisville, he fell in love with her. Nick also learns that Gatsby made his fortune through criminal activity, as he was willing to do anything to gain the social position he thought necessary to win Daisy. Nick views Gatsby as a deeply flawed man, dishonest and vulgar, whose extraordinary optimism and power to transform his dreams into reality make him great nonetheless. Daisy Buchanan: Nick s cousin, and the woman Gatsby loves. As a young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with Gatsby and promised to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors a deep need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful young man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy decided not to wait for Gatsby after all. Now a beautiful socialite, Daisy lives with Tom across from Gatsby in the fashionable East Egg district of Long Island. She is sardonic and somewhat cynical, and behaves superficially to mask her pain at her husband s constant infidelity. Tom Buchanan: Daisy s immensely wealthy husband, once a member of Nick s social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around him. He has no moral qualms about his own extramarital affair with Myrtle, but

13 when he begins to suspect Daisy and Gatsby of having an affair, he becomes outraged and forces a confrontation. Jordan Baker: Daisy s friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. A competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the new women of the 1920s cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the truth. Myrtle Wilson: Tom s lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a rundown garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately for her, she chooses Tom, who treats her as a mere object of his desire. George Wilson: Myrtle s husband, the lifeless, exhausted owner of a rundown auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. George loves and idealizes Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with Tom. George is consumed with grief when Myrtle is killed. George is comparable to Gatsby in that both are dreamers and both are ruined by their unrequited love for women who love Tom.

14 Owl Eyes: The eccentric, bespectacled drunk whom Nick meets at the first party he attends at Gatsby s mansion. Nick finds Owl Eyes looking through Gatsby s library, astonished that the books are real. Klipspringer : The shallow freeloader who seems almost to live at Gatsby s mansion, taking advantage of his host s money. As soon as Gatsby dies, Klipspringer disappears he does not attend the funeral, but he does call Nick about a pair of tennis shoes that he left at Gatsby s mansion. 3.3 Plot Plot is often defined as a narrative of motivated actions, involve some conflicts which are finally solved in the end of the story. It is based on the interactions of causes and effects as the author put sequentially or chronologically. In the novel The Great Gatsby, Nick Caraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the new rich, a group who have made their fortunes too recently to have established social connections and who are prone to garish displays of wealth. Nick s next-door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night.

15 Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egg, he was educated at Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island home to the established upper class. Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, an erstwhile classmate of Nick s at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. Nick also learns a bit about Daisy and Tom s marriage: Jordan tells him that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle. At a vulgar, gaudy party in the apartment that Tom keeps for the affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose. As the summer progresses, Nick eventually garners an invitation to one of Gatsby s legendary parties. He encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a surprisingly young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone old sport. Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion. Gatsby s extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy, but he is afraid that Daisy will refuse to see him if she knows that he still loves her. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially

16 awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. Their love rekindled, they begin an affair. After a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife s relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such undisguised passion that Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand, and he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal his fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him. When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby s car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle s husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally shoots himself.

17 Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for the people surrounding Gatsby s life and for the emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast. Nick reflects that just as Gatsby s dream of Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonesty, the American dream of happiness and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of wealth. Though Gatsby s power to transform his dreams into reality is what makes him great, Nick reflects that the era of dreaming, both Gatsby s dream and the American dream, is totally over Setting The setting in The Great Gatsby is very important because in Fitzgerald's world setting reveals character. Fitzgerald divides the world of the novel into four major settings: 1. East Egg; 2. West Egg; 3. the valley of ashes; and 4. New York City. Within these major settings are two or more sub settings. East Egg is limited to Daisy's house, but West Egg incorporates both Gatsby's house and Nick's. The valley of ashes includes the Wilson's garage, Michaelis' restaurant, a nd the famous sign with the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. New York City includes the offices where people work, the apartment Tom Buchanan has rented for Myrtle Wilson, and the Plaza Hotel, where the final showdown between Gatsby and Tom Buchanan takes place. Each of these settings both reflects and determines the values of the people who live or work there. East Egg, where Tom and Daisy live, is the home of the Ivy League set who have had wealth for a long time and are comfortable with it.

18 Since they are s ecure with their money, they have no need to show it off. Nick lives in new-rich West Egg because he is too poor to afford a home in East Egg; Gatsby lives there because his money is "new" and he lacks the social credentials to be accepted in East Egg. Hi s house, like the rest of his possessions (his pink suit, for example), is tasteless and vulgar and would be completely out of place in the more refined and understated world of East Egg. No wonder that Gatsby is ruined in the end by the East, and that Nic k decides to leave. The valley of ashes in contrast to both eggs is where the poor people live-- those who are the victims of the rich. It is characterized literally by dust, for it is here that the city's ashes are dumped (in what is now Flushing, Queens), and the inhabitants are, as it were, symbolically dumped on by the rest of the world. The valley of ashes, with its brooding eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, also stands as a symbol of the spiritual dryness, the emptiness of the world of the novel. New York City is a symbol of what America has become in the 1920s: a place where anything goes, where money is made and bootleggers flourish, and where the World Series can be fixed by a man like Meyer Wolfsheim. New York is a place of parties and affairs, and bizarre and colorful characters who appear from time to time in West Egg at Gatsby's parties. The idea of setting as moral geography is reinforced by the overriding symbolism of the American East and the American Midwest. This larger contrast between East and Midwest frames the novel as a whole. Nick comes East to enter the bond business, and finds himself instead in the dizzying world of The Jazz

19 Age in the summer of He is fascinated and disgusted with this world, and he eventually returns home to the Midwest, to the values and traditions of his youth.