PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ON THE CULTURAL SETTINGS OF SUICIDE IN EUGENIDES’ THE VIRGIN SUICIDES AND MURAKAMI’S NORWEGIAN WOOD AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters By ANGELA MERICI Student Number: 154214071 DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA YOGYAKARTA 2019 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ON THE CULTURAL SETTINGS OF SUICIDE IN EUGENIDES’ THE VIRGIN SUICIDES AND MURAKAMI’S NORWEGIAN WOOD AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters By ANGELA MERICI Student Number: 154214071 DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA YOGYAKARTA 2019 ii PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI iv PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI v PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI vi PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI vii PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI MOTTO PAGE - Bapak. vi PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI DEDICATION PAGE For My beloved Bapak and Mamak Jojo, my only one little brother My future Natte Boriz All of my friends in life My whole family Everyone that I ever met vii PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Almighty God for giving me a chance to live in this world especially for His blessings and never-ending love on me so that I could finish this undergraduate thesis. I highly send my deepest thanks to Dr. Gabriel Fajar Sasmita Aji, S.S., M.Hum. as my thesis advisor and Theresia Enny Anggraini, M.A., Ph.D. as my co- advisor for always give their guidance, time and many suggestions for me in creating and developing the idea of this undergraduate thesis from the beginning until the end. Then, my sincere gratitude goes to my beloved parents, Swantoro and Antonia Eka Purwanti, for supporting and loving me in doing everything. I also thank my only one sibling and brother Jonathan Alvredo for entertaining me when I lost my spirit. I would thank Natte Boris my best partner along 4.5 years for supporting and giving the suggestion for me. Finally, I would like to give my great gratitude to my friends Gita, Diana Sonya and Laras for amazing times in English Letters Department. I also would like to thank Maria Felicia for helping me in correcting the grammatical mistakes. I also give my sincere gratitude to Syantikara Dormitory family who have built the nice environment during my study in Yogyakarta. My thousand gratitude also goes to Oci, Kak Pande, Yudea, Beata Sepin, Mira, Febby, Audina, Vista, Eka, Komang and Terry for always supporting me in finishing this undergraduate thesis through every moments that we have experienced. ANGELA MERICI viii PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ........................................................................................................ ii APPROVAL PAGE ................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. ACCEPTANCE PAGE ............................................ Error! Bookmark not defined. STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ....................... Error! Bookmark not defined. LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH ..... ................................................................................................................................ vi MOTTO PAGE ................................................................................................... vii DEDICATION PAGE ......................................................................................... vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................... viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................... ix ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... xi ABSTRAK .............................................................................................................. xi CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... xii A. Background of the Study .......................................................................... 1 B. Problem Formulation ............................................................................... 4 C. Objectives of the Study ............................................................................ 4 D. Definitions of Terms ................................................................................ 5 CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE .................................................... 6 A. Review of Related Studies ....................................................................... 6 B. Review of Related Theories ..................................................................... 9 1. Theory of Setting................................................................................ 10 2. Japanese and American Suicides ....................................................... 12 C. Review on Comparative Literature ........................................................ 18 D. Theoretical Framework .......................................................................... 20 CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 22 A. Object of the Study................................................................................. 22 B. Approach of the Study ........................................................................... 24 C. Methodology of the Study ...................................................................... 24 CHAPTER IV : ANALYSIS .............................................................................. 27 A. Cultural Settings of The Virgin Suicides and Norwegian Wood ............ 27 1. Cultural Setting of The Virgin Suicides ........................................ 28 2. Cultural setting of Norwegian Wood............................................. 36 B. Suicide in Japanese and American society. ........................................... 49 1. Suicide As a Responsibility in Japanese society and Free Choice in American society ............................................................................... 51 2. Suicide as a Desire to Kill and Less Attention for Mental Illness in Japanese Society, Suicide as Perfection in American Society .......... 57 3. Suicide as the Self-Restraint for Japanese society and Selfishness for American Society .............................................................................. 61 ix PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 4. The Stronger and The Weaker Culture of Japanese and American toward Suicide ................................................................................... 64 CHAPTER V : CONCLUSION ......................................................................... 69 REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 71 APPENDICES ..................................................................................................... 74 Appendix 1: Biography of Jeffrey Eugenides ............................................. 74 Appendix 2: Biography of Haruki Murakami ............................................. 76 x PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI ABSTRACT MERICI, ANGELA. (2019). A Comparative Analysis on the Cultural Settings of Suicide in Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides and Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. Yogyakarta. Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Universitas Sanata Dharma. This undergraduate thesis discusses the two novels The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides with the cultural setting of suburban life in United States and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami with the cultural setting of Japan. Both novels raise the same issue of suicide but in different cultural settings. The differences of the novels’ cultural settings have inspired the researcher to analyze how the two cultural settings in the two novels deal with suicide issue. The researcher has formulated two problems. The first is how the cultural settings are described in American novel The Virgin Suicides and Japanese novel Norwegian Wood. Secondly, how each cultural setting, the Japanese and the American deals with the issue of suicide. This undergraduate thesis uses the library research to find the views of suicide in both novels. In analyzing, there are four steps that have been done by the researcher. First, the researcher read the two novels repeatedly and highlighted the setting of the story where the suicide happens. Second, the researcher found the related studies, theories for the references and the approach that will be used in this study. Sociocultural approach was applied in this study. Third, the researcher applied the theories to answer the questions such as theory of setting and theories of suicide in America and Japan. Fourth, the researcher created the conclusion. Based on the analysis, the researcher has found that in The Virgin Suicides (1993) America and its society are described as the place with the very high scale of individualism, perfectionist, liberal, and less awareness in religion while in Norwegian Wood (2000), the novel is set in 1969 where Japan is described as the place with the high of individualism, nationalism and patriotism, self-discipline and responsibility. Then, each cultural setting has its