LANDSCAPE AND THE SILENCE OF COLONIALISM NARRATIVE IN THE FIRST SUNDANESE NOVEL (1914)

Asep Yusup Hudayat Universitas Padjadjaran E-mail: [email protected]

Lina Meilinawati Universitas Padjadjaran E-mail: [email protected]

Teddi Muhtadin Universitas Padjadjaran E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT The landscape (nature and domestic space) in the first Sundanese novel (1914) Baruang ka nu Ngarora” Poison for the Youth”, which was published during the colonial period of the , can be interpreted as ambiguous, which has the potential to show a palimpsest. The reasons are (1) the landscape (especially nature) in the novel has an atmosphere of silence, (2) the atmosphere cannot be interpreted as peaceful, but how the problems surrounding the practice of colonialism are likely to be hidden, diverted, or even interpreted, and (3) the landscape has the potential as a layered text based on memory traces inherent in narratives about the changing natural landscapes and domestic space. Thus, this study aims to uncover the potential of landscapes as areas of hiding, diversifying, and suppressing the narratives of colonialism. The approach used for this purpose is postcolonial. From a postcolonial perspective, Loomba (2003: 92-93) states that literature is also an important means of taking, reversing, or opposing the dominant colonial means and ideologies. This study also uses the palimpsest concept to show the overlapping phenomenon of pre-colonial and colonial narratives in the natural landscape and domestic space, which indicates the hidden narrative of colonialism behind this background. The result of this research is the silence of the narrative of colonialism in the background of natural landscapes and domestic space which is constructed as hiding and transferring of colonialism narratives. Keywords: landscape; palimpsest; colonialism; Sundanese novel

INTRODUCTION Baruang ka nu Ngarora ‘Poison of the Youth’ (shortened BN) by D.K. Ardiwinata is the first Sundanese novel published in 1914. Although BN is placed as an aesthetically successful work (Rosidi, 1996:), this work still leaves ample space for reading regarding the influence of colonialism on the work, including the absence of a narrative of colonialism. In this work, the narrative is brought into the indigenous class’s internal conflict: destroying the “commoner- nobility”. Colonialism discourses appear “silent” in the work. This silence is still likely to be widely interpreted about D.K. Ardiwinata’s life background. Ardiwinata as an indigenous elite, as (1979: 1-2) shows in D.K. Ardiwinata. According to Kartini, D.K. Ardiwinata not only grew and developed as part of the Dutch East Indies government elite but also inherited Bugis-Makassar and Sundanese blood, where his grandfather was a descendant of Raja Lombo from Makassar was exiled to Bandung with his two children. He also grew up in the traditions of the Sundanese elite.

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This background of life certainly influenced the formation of DK Ardiwinata’s awareness as an indigenous elite who was under colonial rule which directly or indirectly had the opportunity to leave memories of colonialism for him, at least if the story of his grandfather and father as an exile from the Dutch East Indies rulers reached himself, his testimony of his father’s and grandfather’s refusal of his mother not being allowed to come to Makassar when their status as exile ended, or the authority of the Balai Pustaka where he worked that left pressures on him in various ways and for various purposes. Thus, this condition has the potential to conceal the narrative of colonialism due to the cultural and political environment in which it governs the cultural products of indigenous peoples. Brown stated that violence and oppression do not always threaten the body’s safety, but attacks the soul and soul (quoted from Crafs & Buelens, 2008). The silence about the past is difficult to show because trauma is hidden behind words (Hirsch, 2008 in Rice, 2007: 151). BN is set in 1874 (Hapit 1291 H) which quietly narrates coffee plantations in a full chapter in chapter eight. His silence can be read as a layered text when Prianger Stelsel becomes part of the history of colonialization in West Java. However, the novel only shows the people’s joy in cultivating coffee plantations after the Prianger Stelsel ended. A few traces of text but it becomes valuable when an incident in it is told of a grandmother from among the common people doing coffee ngékés “picking up the leftovers of the coffee harvest” and having to defend herself a little when asked by her plantation owner. Other text traces can be investigated through the plantation workers’ expressions who suddenly knelt on the side of the road when Nyi Rapiah rode through the road. Nyi Rapiah considered that the workers had been fooled by her appearance, which she considered a noble. This momentary moment is certainly important to be connected not only to indications of feudalism but also colonialism. The research results of Arnout Henricus Cornelis Van Der Meer (2014: 26-27) can show this, namely, in 1719, it was decided that when meeting the Governor-General on the road, Europeans had to lower their horses or carts and bow, while Javanese people were expected to squat in place. It is a sign of respect. However, when the VOC went bankrupt, in 1795, the laws on shelter and respect were withdrawn. Based on these phenomena, the main issue raised in this research is the silence of colonialism narratives. This research attempts to answer the following questions: (1) how did nature leave traces of colonialism? (2) how can be feudalism narratives used to cover or erase colonialism narratives? These questions are born through the assumption: the novel Baruang ka nu Ngarora contains traces of colonialism even though the text shows the internal conflicts of the natives in feudalism. Thus, the aims of this paper are (1) to show the forces of nature in leaving traces of colonialism and (2) to reveal how feudalism narratives used to cover or erase the colonialism narratives. BN so problematically if it is viewed based on the ability of the natives to store, manage, and pass their memories through literary works to the next generation. First, literary works that were born during the Dutch East Indies colonial era were under the control of the Dutch East Indies as indicated by Yamamoto (2011: 89-96) so that traumatic narratives of the past had the opportunity to be hidden or even eliminated in works belonging to natives that published by the Dutch East Indies government. However, hiding and eliminating the narrative of colonialism still has the opportunity to be traced through the narratives way is constructed and presented. Second, D.K. Ardiwinata, who wrote the novel in the Dutch East Indies era, is assumed to have carried out his creation strategy regarding colonialism based on his personal experience and collective property (pribumi). Burrow (quoted by Crafs & Buelens, 2008) said that there is a universal tendency to turn away, or refuse to hear traumatic stories from the colonial. Thus, the works that were born during the colonial period of the Dutch East Indies at the beginning of the 20th century, although they were assumed to be “almost absent” from traumatic narratives, this condition could still provide opportunities for the writers’ awareness to open up about the

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confinement of colonialism and its oppression. D.K. Ardiwinata is a government elite who serves as the director of Balai Pustaka. Their position in the social environment and the Dutch East Indies government became important to be connected with their potentials in remembering or managing past traumas that were inherited from their ancestors and these potentials were used as sources of their work. Third, the narrative construction of collective and cultural memories represented in D.K. Ardiwinata will not separate from aesthetic and ideological interests. The aesthetic as Iser pointed out (1978: 21) is the interest of constructing a narrative by considering the construct of the author’s imagination on reality and how the potential of the text has an impact on the reading community; ideological interests, as agreed in the postcolonial approach, expose colonialist practices from their hiding. The problem solving to the colonialism traces, a postcolonial approach use to dismantle text layers by applying the palimpsest concept. From a postcolonial perspective, Lomba (2003: 92-93) states that literature is an important means of taking, reversing, or opposing the domination and colonial ideologies. Burgin (in Hutcheon, 2004) said that all forms of cultural representation - literal, visual, aural based on ideology so that it is impossible to escape from patterns of social and political relations and apparatus. Based on the postcolonial perspective, according to Bhaba (cited by Loomba, 2003), ambivalence is not only a marker of the trauma of the colonial subject but also as a feature of the workings of colonial authorities and their resistance. The colonial presence was always ambivalent, torn between presenting its original and authoritative self and its articulation of repetition and difference. This condition can have an impact on the natives who are in a dilemma between accepting and rejecting the influence that is present in their life. Henricus Cornelis Van Der Meer (2014) The Netherlands builds a hegemonic system by encouraging a mixture of culture, social, and race. The Dutch immersed themselves in Javanese culture and society. From the 1890s to the late 1920s, this complex system of domination was transformed by rapid technological innovation, evolutionary thinking, the rise of Indonesian nationalism, and the intensification of the Dutch “civilization” mission. This research uses a postcolonial approach. Literary work reading in a postcolonial perspective is a reading type that focuses on exposing colonialism practices that impact cultural products, including literary works. In this research, postcolonial reading directed at identifying literature as a means of ideology (Loomba, 3003), identifying knowledge and power in colonialism practices related to cultural products (Said, 2017), tracking mimicry visibility and ambivalence in the clash of indigenous and colonial traditions (Bhabha, 2004), and (3) exploration of palimpsest imagination (Max Silverman, 2014). Lomba (2003: 92-93) states that literature is also an important means of taking, reversing, or opposing colonial domination and ideologies. Literary texts circulate in society not only because of their intrinsic value but because they are part of other institutions such as markets or the educational system. Through these institutions, they played a role in building a cultural authority for the colonizers. Literary texts not only reflect the dominant ideologies but encode tensions, complexities, and nuances within colonial cultures. He stated (2003: 97) that literary texts were important for forming colonial discourses because they worked imaginatively and influenced people as individuals. Literature reflects and creates ways of viewing and articulating colonial processes. Said (2017: 277) emphasizes that studying literature from a postcolonial perspective is to trace the geographical landscape, including the geographical experience of the colonialist and the colonized as represented in literary works. In a novel, geography, landscape, and setting are the main thing. The research tasks are (1) to find geographic markers represented in literary works and (2) to explain the setting that connects the work with comprehensive historical experiences regarding colonization and colonization. Concerning knowledge production, Said (2017: 375-385) states that knowledge production is never neutral with its stakes due to the 117 SECRETARIAT OF NATIONAL COMMITTEE d.a. Grha STR, Jalan Ampera Raya Nomor 11, Telepon (021) 7813708, Jakarta Selatan 12550 Website: http://hiski.or.id Bank Mandiri Account No: 142 00 1614854 - 5

production of culture. The discourse of imperialism goes hand in hand with an explanation of conquest, the creation of instruments of domination, and techniques of study rooted not in theory but an actual territory. Bhaba (2004: 128) states that visibility mimicry is always produced at the site of prohibition. It is a form of colonial discourse: discourse at a crossroads, what is known and permissible, and what is known must keep it secret; if spoken that is considering to be breaking the rules. Therefore, differences in representation are always a matter of authority. The colonial discourses (2004: 130) that articulate interdictory differences in precisely the ‘other scenes’ of nineteenth-century Europe are the desire for authentic historical awareness. The unarticulated colonial human being is a confusing process of classification that I have described as a metonymy of the substitute chain for ethics and discourse. It resulted in the breakdown of the colonial discourse so that two attitudes towards external reality remained; one considers reality while the other rejects it and replaces it with a product of recurring desire, re-articulating ‘reality’ as mimicry. The features of the palimpsest described by Max Silverman (2014: 100-102). Baudelaire describes the palimpsest as a way in which memories are not lost but can reappear from under the blanket of forgetting there is a tension in the relationship it builds between remembering and forgetting, visible and invisible. Deleuze calls it the coexistence of the sheets of the past. Gérard Genette puts the palimpsest as a strong allusion to represent not only the multi-layered character of urban space but also the work of the soul, personal and collective memory, and self-textualization. As such, Silverman emphasizes that the palimpsest serves to remind us how the retrieval of forgotten or repressed memories is closely related to questions about power and ideology: why are these memories forgotten and repressed? What choices have been made consciously or unconsciously to promote certain memories and influence others? Possible resistance to dominant power relations, are there other spaces, voices, and practices that challenge the established order and question apparent coherence and homogeneity? Ultimately, the palimpsest reminds us that the visible and the unseen, and absence and presence are locked in a strained relationship at all times. It can trigger the critical power to challenge deep-rooted and reductive ideologies and to rediscover the voices silenced by dominant practices.

METHODS This research examines the first Sundanese novel (1914) to uncover the concealment of colonialism narratives under the influence of the Dutch East Indies authority. An in-depth reading of the data aims to look at the effects of colonialization on literary products. It is in this way of reading that postcolonial study performs its function. The research phase is sorted: 1. Initial reading stage, primary data is read in a textual perspective to find text potentials related to narratives concerning individual memory, collective memory, and cultural memory in the colonial life’s setting during the Dutch East Indies rule in the Priangan area of West Java. This reading is limited to achieving an understanding of the issues present in this work. 2. The second stage of reading, primary data is read in a contextual perspective to find the relationships between the potentials of the text and the main objective of this paper to reveal the landscape and silence of colonialism narratives in the novel in the influence of the Dutch East Indies authority on literary creation. 3. In organizing and processing data, reading the results of the two previous stages, the data is then processed based on instruments and variables. In the data processing stage, the focuses are arranged in the following table:

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Table 1 Data processing

PRIMERY INSTRUMENT VARIABLE GOALS DATA

NARRATIVES OF the narrative silence about the narrative silence about the mapping of narrative silence about NATURAL colonialism in a natural colonialism in domestic colonialism in a natural setting and domestic LANDSCAP AND setting space space DOMESTIC SPACE

BARUANG PALIMPSEST layers of the factual text's layers of pre-colonial an appointment of palimpsestic narratives as an KA NU and memories colonial value indication of the hidden colonialism narrative NGARORA textual designation of text construction based on the type

of issue raised, the text is constructed, the (SUNDANESE NOVEL) tendency behind text reconstruction, and the issue contruction tendency extra-textual influence of government and cultural (local & KONSTRUCTION colonial) authorities on the concealment of colonialism narratives

Data validity has been evaluated through strict data checking of instruments and variable data. The checking in question has been measured through questions. The answer was confirmed a description of the validation objectives, which provide the materials that should be available in this research during the data collection and processing. Data validity has been evaluated through the stage of controlling the data analysis instruments logically and functionally.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION Result The results of data processing concerning the silence of colonialism narratives are summarized in the following table:

Table 2 Analysis Result

PRIMERY INSTRUMENT RESULT BASE ON VARIABLE GOALS DATA

NARRATIVES OF the natural landscapes have domestic spaces have served the mapping of narrative silence about NATURAL served to hide the narrative to divert the colonialism colonialism in romanticism from natural setting LANDSCAP AND of colonialism narratives and domestic space. Ardiwinata's ideal world DOMESTIC has confirmed the preservation of class SPACE differences

BARUANG PALIMPSEST in natural landscape, the in domestic spaces, the ideal palimpsestic narratives has performed their KA NU feudalism issue replace the world that Ardiwinata built fungtion in exposing of hidden colonialism NGARORA colonialism issue and has through the domestic space narrative (BN) removed traces of Prianger has represented by the Stelsel tension between the values (SUNDANESE of loyalty and the will to NOVEL) reach a nobility class with all their class charisms. textual issue contruction tendency extra-textual Feudalism issue, patriarchy issue, and progress issue have been constructed by Ardiwinata in BN KONSTRUCTION as an effort to hide his support for the Dutch East Indies authority by hiding the narratives of

denial colonialism. Reluctance to criticize dominant

hidden

culture

deletion diverson empathy power (nobility class) indirectly confirmed

alignment

patriarchy

authorities

class clash class overnment Ardiwinata's denial of colonialism.

G advencement

colonial and native

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Discussion For Ardiwinata, the natural landscape cannot be separated from romanticism, both regarding modern thinking about progress and the hope of the Santana “middle class” reaching a nobility class: mesmerizing. The discourse of progress in BN is positioned as a rejection of ignorance and laziness. The ideal world built within BN produced from the reality of the indigenous people who were still ignorant and lazy when measured by the standards of the Dutch East Indies authority. As for romanticism expectation about the middle class reaching the middle class shows the imagination of the ideal world of humans that represented through the nobility class. Santana’s ideal world is difficult to realize in reality because of the persistent gap between the aristocrats and the lower classes: the middle class and the ordinary people. Faruk (2002: 278-279) said that romanticism is awakened from the tension between a strong desire for an ideal world and an awareness of its attachment to the real world. The tension is what makes the concept of longing, the process of becoming; the awareness of the extent of what is being achieved becomes important in romanticism. Such ideology is not only important for the authors of the Balai Pustaka tradition of Indonesian novels as a social sub-group but also their wider social group, namely the Western-educated intellectual group. They can serve as a basis for understanding the real social and political tendencies they experience and understanding their position within them. The authors of the Balai Pustaka traditional novels lived in a social-ideological environment of Dutch imperialism and colonialism that placed them as objects, “slaves” who were inferior in all respects. According to him (2002: 88), all Indonesian literary traditions are almost controlled by romantic literary conventions for various reasons. First, romantic literature is indeed the first product of a mass production system so that it can reach a wide range of people, including readers who are not from their home countries. Second, romantic literature is a historical legacy that has its roots deep in Dutch Indies literature as the closest and most accessible modern literature. Third, romantic literature may indeed be the most absorbable answer to the social problems of Indonesian society during the Balai Pustaka tradition period. Touching on politics as a means of dominating power in the Dutch East Indies, Faruk stated that politics was the most real and recognized representation of reality because it contained definitions of domination and subordination, control and control, and conflicts of interest. Since the Dutch colonial government was indeed a government that enforced domination and subordination, it was necessary to control it to conceal this and evoke the illusion of a harmonious relationship within the colonial society under its control. The novel BN which was born in the early 20th century is part of the Balai Pustaka tradition which is also bound by the ideology of romanticism, considering the birth of the first Sundanese novel (1914) preceded the birth of the Indonesian novel (1920) and BN was born from the Balai Pustaka tradition in which Ardiwinata was an author is the chief editor of the Sundanese language and literature commission at Balai Pustaka. The ideal world that was built by Ardiwinata at that time had to do with the realities he faced, both with the Dutch East Indies authority and the impact on the works he produced. Ardiwinata has shown his attachment to the reality he faces, namely feudalism between colonial cultures. His desire to place the feudalism discourse as best as possible not achieved because the “ideal world” built by Ardiwinata about “class” placed the appealing class as a class that Santana “middle class” and cacah “common class’ could not penetrate or reach. Ardiwinata has putmenak “nobility class”, santana, and cacah in their respective places. In the end, he was only able to show his sympathy for santana and cacah without offering the world the possibility of menak. Even though he uses the value of the teachings of MimPitu “Mim Seven” that humans must avoid achieving glory, the values of these teachings are only tied to santana and cacah while menak left free from these values.

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The natural landscape that Ardiwinata narrates in BN is part of the romanticism in question. Natural landscapes are a means of creating the longing for the love that is desired, the peace to be reached, and the purity that is to be maintained. The natural landscape also becomes a part of being mapped in a class context in which the intersection between classes is described problematically in terms of the employer-worker, ruler-people, hide-seek escape-return relationship. If it is connected to the value of the teachings of MimPitu “Mim Seven” which are contextual with nature, feudal life, and colonial life, it can be assumed that the prohibition of MimPitu (stealing, adultery, indulgence, drinking, gambling, madness, and killing) should also be binding colonial authorities. However, the narrative is only led to the raising of the issue of feudalism with very few traces of colonialism in terms of employer-labor relations, with the mention of the practice of monitoring plantations and a grandmother who picks up the remnants of the coffee harvest which characterizes the remaining traces of colonial rule over the natives. The narrative is further directed to the journey of the story of NyiRapiah who is ambivalent and willing to let go of UjangKusen as her husband to get Aom Usman who is an attractive person; The journey of the story of UjangKusen, who was ensnared by MimPitu until he was imprisoned in a correctional facility in Surabaya for alleged theft of his father’s money. The ideal world that Ardiwinata has built through natural landscapes is represented by the tension between natural potential as a source of peace and a source of production with NyiRapiah’s tormented feeling because the new area (coffee plantation) in which she located provides nothing but triggering her longing to return to her hometown. In this condition, Ardiwinata places the natural landscape as an ambiguous area; on the one hand, nature is positioned as an area of hope to build a new family economy, on the other hand, nature is seen as an inhibiting factor in the realization of hopes for an attractive man who lives in the city. This ambiguity can be anticipated logically by the condition of NyiRapiah, who is increasingly ambivalent when she lives in a coffee plantation and is far from Aom Usman as her mooring. The struggle to build a household life independently (no longer depending on the help of parents) by managing coffee plantation land is a hint from Ardiwinata about the meaning of progress that can be realized by arousing the spirit of hard work of the characters in it as well as opening insights on how to foster a household starting with building the family economy. The domestic landscape of Santana places, especially the interior of the house, places a side of romanticism where values shown as well as a fulcrum in reading the future. The ideal world built about loyalty in fostering domestic life is based on the potential of a character who hesitated. The domestic sphere of the conquest does not touch the talk of values at all but instead describes the forms of service which the lower class must obey to its employer. Thus, ideal space in the perspective of Santana is a value that must be maintained and implemented to achieve an increase in dignity/class as a form of response to the reality of the characters in it that live in-class gaps. The ideal world that Ardiwinata builds through the domestic spaces represented by the tension between the values of loyalty and the will to reach a higher class (appealing) with all the class charisma. In the context of domestic space, Ardiwinata has positioned the house as an ambiguous space. The values of class equality and inheritance of the values of obedience and loyalty present in BN’s narrative have further alienated Ardiwinata from the readiness of the figures within BN to live it. The ideal value of equality was eventually destroyed by NyiRapiah’s desire to get a handsome man. At the same time, Aom Usman’s acceptance of NyiRapiah who then placed and treated NyiRapiah according to her class (NyiRapiah was made a house in the back while Aom Usman and AganSariningrat, wives of their equivalents, lived in the front house), and the destruction of UjangKusen after NyiRapiah left. The discourse of progress is destroyed by returning them to laziness, reluctance, and even hopelessness to increase their knowledge of the welfare of life. On this side, Ardiwinata has positioned Santana as a class that is incapable of pursuing the achievements and charisma of the nobility class. 121 SECRETARIAT OF NATIONAL COMMITTEE d.a. Grha STR, Jalan Ampera Raya Nomor 11, Telepon (021) 7813708, Jakarta Selatan 12550 Website: http://hiski.or.id Bank Mandiri Account No: 142 00 1614854 - 5

Meanwhile, the class was narrated as a class without social and moral defects; at least the kidnapping of NyiRapiah at Aom Usman’s instructions did not get any attention from Ardiwinata. It seems clear that romanticism has built Ardiwinata’s ideal imaging that is shown from the modern way of thinking about progress regarding natural landscapes and domestic space as a means of it. However, the values or outlook on life that Ardiwinata displays confirm his agreement to maintain class differences as natural. As for colonialism, Ardiwinata completely covers it with narratives that raise the issue of feudalism. Sundanese novels of the early twentieth century cannot be separated from the cultures of the Nusantara and colonial culture. The main question: “who remembers what, in the conditions how to remember and inherit it, to whom to inherit it, for what purpose,” is a series of questions that must be answered not only through the relevant subjects of these questions but also the subjects that are not reachable textually in the literary work. As an overview, in BN by D.K. Ardiwinata lost colonial narratives in it, the life of Sundanese society at the end of the 19th century was presented in the issue of feudalism. Where are the main issues about the Netherlands Indies country hidden with all their stories? If the narrative is related to the author’s selective rights to the reality he wants to present in his work, why choose the issue of feudalism and eliminate or even negate colonialism? Maimunah (2014: 336), in her article “Perlawanan Alam terhadap Kolonialisme dalam Cerpen Pohon Jejawi karya Budi Darma” discusses the influence of tropical nature on the continuity of colonialism in the Dutch East Indies through the Ecocriticism approach. The Jejawi Tree short story tells the story of a mystical tree that swallowed up many Dutch people during the colonial period. This tree is considered by the natives as a sacred tree, while for the Dutch, this tree is considered a threat. Henky Van Kopperlyk, the mayor of Surabaya at that time, took various methods to get rid of the tree. Instead of showing his superiority as a person in power, this story ends with an embarrassing event that was experienced by the mayor himself. For Maimunah, the tropics could be the first test for colonial bodies accustomed to the four seasons. Many Dutch employees gave up on the ferocity of the tropics which at that time was also followed by epidemics of tropical diseases such as cholera and malaria. Nature’s resistance to colonialism became a symbol of resistance that Western masculinity and Dutch arrogance were undermined by the femininity and mysticism of the Jejawi tree. The colonialists have failed to understand the indigenous people’s local wisdom who place nature as an equal and needy part of life. If Maimunah succeeds in showing the superiority of nature to colonial authority, then in the BN the natural landscape will be interpreted in ambiguity which has the potential to show its layered text. The reasons are (1) the natural setting in the novel has an atmosphere of silence, (2) the atmosphere cannot be interpreted as peaceful, but how the problems surrounding the practice of colonialism have the opportunity to be hidden, diverted, or interpreted behind the silence, and (3 ) Landscape has the potential as a layered text based on the traces of memory attached to the landscape which from time to time change along with the story of the humans who occupied it when nature became natural or even became a culture. Apart from the landscape, in the same capacity, the respective indigenous and colonial figures can be read in the same way regarding the layered text’s potential. This is possible because memories are continuously recorded, managed, and integrated with other memories. Ambiguity due to the existence of layers of text in BN can be mapped into three main things, namely regarding the presence of feudalism and the elimination of colonialism narratives, the value of local wisdom weakened by modernism about progress, and sympathy and partisanship. These relationships are overshadowed by memory performance in remembering and forgetting that can be seen based on the presence (top layer/surface) and absence of text (underlayer covered, deleted, etc.).

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Regarding narrative construction, issues of feudalism, patriarchy, and progress have been constructed by Ardiwinata in BN as an effort to hide his support for the Dutch East Indies authority by hiding the narratives of colonialism. Reluctance to criticize dominant power (to conquer) indirectly confirmed Ardiwinata’s denial of colonialism. Thus, the BN was a representation of the voices silenced by the dominant practices: the Dutch East Indies authority.

CONCLUSION The natural landscapes and domestic spaces in BN leave a narrative trail of colonialism. The colonialism traces can be revealed by using the palimpsest concept to dismantle closed, hidden, confessed, even omitted, or discarded narratives. Colonialism narrative is traced through the presence of natural landscapes in silence and domestic space. In BN, natural landscapes are used as a space for battle and testing of an ideal world built on the reality of the crush of class with all its effects. The domestic space (house) is used as a means of showing the value of loyalty and progress as a representation of the ideal world but in it, the situation is shown the opposite: loyalty, intelligence, and the spirit of hard work to create physical and mental well-being are snatched away by class interference which destabilizes these ideal expectations. Thus, romanticism is firmly attached to BN. Palimpsest that appears in BN, the feudal issue hidden the issue of colonialism, especially about the practice of forced cultivation: PrianganStelsel. In the domestic space, the ideal world built by Ardiwinata is represented by the tension between the value of loyalty and the desire to reach menak. Thus, the application of the palimpsest concept has succeeded in uncovering hidden narratives about colonialism.

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