A Comparative Study of Pramoedya Ananta Toer's
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COLONIAL IDENTITIES DURING COLONIALISM IN INDONESIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER’S CHILD OF ALL NATIONS AND MULTATULI’S MAX HAVELAAR AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters By LETYZIA TAUFANI Student Number: 054214109 ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2008 i ii iii “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea especially when we have only one.” Paul Claudel iv This Undergraduate Thesis Dedicated to: My Daughter Malia Larasati Escloupier and My Husband Cédric v LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Letyzia Taufani Nomor Mahasiswa : 054214109 Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul: COLONIAL IDENTITIES DURING COLONIALISM IN INDONESIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER’S CHILD OF ALL NATIONS AND MULTATULI’S MAX HAVELAAR Beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis. Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal : 1 Desember 2008 Yang menyatakan (Letyzia Taufani) vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank and express my greatest gratitude to all of those who gave me guidance, strength and opportunity in completing this thesis. I would like to give my deepest gratitude to my husband Cédric , my daughter Malia Larasati . Their love and support gave me the courage to finish this work immediately, yes, immediately. My special thanks to my advisor, Dra. Theresia Enny Anggraini M.A. , for her smile, advice, discussion, patience, and guidance in working in this thesis. For all the lecturers and all staffs of English Letters Department, especially to my class and academic advisors Adventina Putranti S.S. M. Hum. , Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka M.Hum. and Mbak Ninik for her efforts to help me with everything that has to do with administration work, I greatly thank to them. Thanks to all my friends Oyo, Monic, Lori, Shanti, Aza, Dewi, Kristin, and Icha for the cool time during my studies. Thanks to all my friends in English Letters especially the class of ’05 C and D sections and to those who I have not mentioned yet. I also give my profound thanks to Mbah Ben for being patient with me and Pakde Iwan for encouraging me to critically think about the world. My special thanks to Fian, Vallone, and Diah for helping me with my thesis, my parents Prima and Sunaryo for the discussions and corrections, my brother, Tommy for encouraging me, and the last, I greatly thank Mbah Pram for inspiring me even though we met briefly. (Letyzia Taufani) vii TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ............................................................................................ i APPROVAL PAGE .................................................................................. ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE ............................................................................ iii MOTTO PAGE ......................................................................................... iv DEDICATION PAGE .............................................................................. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................... vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................... viii ABSTRACT .............................................................................................. x ABSTRAK ................................................................................................. xi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ............................................................ 1 A. Background of the Study ............................................................. 1 B. Problem Formulation ................................................................... 6 C. Objectives of the Study ................................................................ 7 D. Definition of Terms ...................................................................... 8 CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ........................................... 10 A. Review of Related Studies........................................................... 10 B. Review of Related Theories......................................................... 14 B.1 Comparative Literature……………………………………. 14 B.2 Theory of Postcolonialism...………………......................... 16 B.3 Theory of Characters and Characterization………………… 18 C. Review on the Biographical Background……………………… 21 C.1 Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Life and Works……………….. 21 C.2 Edward D. Dekker’s/ Multatuli’s Life and Works………... 23 D. Theoretical Framework ………………………………………… 25 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ……………………………………. 27 A. Object of the Study....................................................................... 27 B. Approach of the Study................................................................. 30 C. Method of the Study ..................................................................... 31 CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ……………………………………………. 33 A. Postcolonial Theory…..…............................................................. 33 A.1 Minke within Postcolonial Theory……………………… 34 A.2 Max within Postcolonial Theory….……………………... 54 B. Author’s Background and Portrayal of Colonial Identity………. 64 B.1 Edward D. Dekker’s/ Multatuli’s Background………….…. 65 B.2 Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Background …….……………… 69 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION …........................................................... 72 BIBLIOGRAPHY ….................................................................................. 74 viii ix ABSTRACT LETYZIA TAUFANI. Colonial Identities During Colonialism in Indonesia: A Comparative Study of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Child of All Nations and Multatuli’s Max Havelaar. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2008. The novel by Pramoedya Ananta Toer Child of All Nations tells a story of an emerging nation from colonialism through the eyes of Minke, an eighteen- year-old man who has been primarily educated in the Dutch school. The book depicts life in the colonial world as it is going through tumultuous time. Toer writes the colonial times in Indonesia as it begins to emerge and wakes up from the centuries of colonial oppression. The question of national and individual as well as collective identity is strongly connected throughout the novel. Multatuli’s Max Havelaar depicts the story of a Dutch civil servant living within the colonial world as he examines the colonial conditions. Through Max Havelaar we see the atrocities and misappropriation involving social, cultural and political means. Within the hope of Max there lies a genuine effort to rectify and to bring about the awareness of the colonial system that simply neglects its oppressed. Like that of Toer’s book, Multatuli hopes to raise the voice of those unable to cry for help. There are some objectives that the writer wants to achieve through this thesis. The first is to analyze the main characters within the two books—Minke and Max Havelaar. And the second is to analyze the author’s intention of why they wrote the novel and what message they would like to convey to the reader through their main characters. In order to analyze the problem, the writer employs postcolonial theory as an approach. The postcolonial theory is considered appropriate to be applied to this topic because the discussion in this work involves the colonial identity of each character and postulating them within the postcolonial approach. Later these two characters are compared as they were created by two authors who came from the opposite worlds of the colonialism; one from the world of the colonized and the other from the world of the colonizer. The second question addresses the reason of why these two authors wrote the novel and postulating it to the postcolonial discourse. By proposing this question, the writer tries to answer: how the authors’ reflection of colonial identities can be seen in their main characters and how each are intertwined. The study has found that each character in the novel does not only portray the extreme classical definition of what colonizer and colonized are like, but also they exude within themselves the complex multiplicities as they cross boundaries and continuously shifting themselves within the colonial world. The multiplicities and border thinking constantly occurs within themselves as they try to find the bargaining position and insert their identity as a human being within the colonial spectrum. x ABSTRAK LETYZIA TAUFANI. Colonial Identities During Colonialism in Indonesia: A Comparative Study of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Child of All Nations and Multatuli’s Max Havelaar. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2008. Child of All Nations karya Pramoedya Ananta Toer mengisahkan tentang bangkitnya sebuah bangsa dari penjajahan dalam sudut pandang Minke, seorang pemuda 18 tahun berlatar belakang pendidikan Belanda.