WAHANA INOVASI VOLUME 8 No.1 JAN-JUNI 2019 ISSN : 2089-8592 A REFLECTION OF MARRIAGE TEMPTATION IN DANIELLE STEEL’S NOVEL THE KISS: READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM Sri Wulan Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Islam Sumatera Utara [email protected] Abstract means to combat potential infectious This analysis focuses on the marriage agents. Indeed, every marriage faces temptations which are represented by the temptations. These temptations can make the characters in Danielle’s novel The Kiss. There marriage more mature. The temptations in are two married couples in the novel. Both marriage make a couple better understand couples experience such temptations in their each other. However, marriage temptation can marriages. Those temptations become the also break the integrity of the household which object of this analysis. The analysis is based results in divorce. This is also reflected in on the theory of Heitler’s three A marriage Steel’s novel The Kiss. The protagonist and breakers. Then, the narrative approach is deuteragonist face problems in their marriage applied in this analysis. The result shows that so they feel they have something in common there are three forms of marriage temptations that makes them fall in love with each other. found in the novel. First, both married couples According to Bonhoeffer (1967:27), in the novel face family problems. Second, marriage is more than your love for each other. there is anger which comes from the In your love you see only the heaven of your protagonist’s husband, and this destroys their own happiness, but in marriage you are placed happiness. Third, there is love affair which at a post of responsibility towards the world happens among the characters. This is as the and mankind. Your love is your own private impact of the family problems. The three possession, but marriage is more than marriage breakers happen to the married something personal—it is a status, and office. couples in the novel. In conclusion, marriage Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will temptation can happen to each married to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, couple. The most important point of this and not merely your love for each other, that analysis that actually the marriage temptation joins you together in the sight of God and man. teaches a married couple to be more mature. Marriage is based on the Therefore, the married couple should find any anthropological truth that men and women are solution to such temptation. complementary, the biological fact that Keywords: marriage, temptation, family, reproduction depends on a man and a woman, couple, reader-response criticism. and the social reality that children need a I. Introduction mother and a father. (Anderson, 2013) It is very common that life is full of Hughes (1999), the term “temptation” problems, life is not to be thought but to be admits of two normative senses, a primary enjoyed. If people just think of their problem, meaning which is essentially moral, and a they will never have any progress, and they secondary meaning which is non- will sink under the sea with their problem itself. moralthough nevertheless evaluative. Whatever the problem is, life must go on. The GradesFixer (2018), temptation is days which come must be considered as a defined as a strong urge or desire to have or new day. It means however the life will change to do something. Most people experience and the problem will come to an end. Those temptation in their lives whether big or small. who can face the problem patiently and Temptation is simply a flaw that we as humans carefully they will survive. are going to experience because we are not Only those who are weak will cry and perfect and crave what we do not have. suffer. They will say that their life is the worst. However, how that individual handles that They will face this life pessimistically. As certain crave shows a lot about their character. depicted in the novel The Kiss by Danielle Though we all experience temptations, it is up Steel, there are two marriages portrayed as to us to make mindful decisions about what is facing their own marriage problems. Those are in our best interest. Isabelle’s marriage and Bill’s marriage. Day’s conception of temptation as Heitler (2011) says that a marriage is a quoted by Hughes (1999) implies that to tempt living family system. Like all living things, a involves intentionally engaging a person’s marriage can get infected with toxic agents desire for that which is in some sense wrong. that result in its death. Immunities provide a Though he concedes that tempting may be 2 Sri Wulan : A Reflection of Marriage Temptation in Danielle Steel’s Novel……………………………… unintentional, and gives an example of a and reproduction. As a social, legal and beautiful woman unconsciously and religious institution, marriage has undergone unintentionally tempting her husband’s best any number of modifications and changes; friend to commit adultery with her, Day (1993) nevertheless, its basic realities remain the insists that temptations are usually conscious and intended. In keeping with his focus on the same. The permanent, indissoluble, active dimension of the core moral meaning sacramental union of the orthodox differs of the term, Day thus defines “temptation” strikingly from the free, easily served, and from the standpoint of one person tempting often not even officially registered marriages, another: “a tempter (TR) tempts a temptee let us say, of a modern Russian, and yet both (TE) by offering (TE) something which (TR of these marriages have certain underlying believes) will please (TE).” Furthermore, elements in common. In both instances, the temptation requires that the subject desire that which he thinks is in some sense wrong. couple seeks to make their union stable. They Temptation thus occurs when a tempter assume the freedom and privilege of a sexual engages a temptee’s wrongful desire in relationship, and normally have as their circumstances in which the temptee’s ultimate aim the establishment of a family. resistance is weakened. Moreover, “Tempting Biologically, the object of marriage is not to is morally wrong because it is morally wrong legalize a sexual union, but rather to ensure to try to cause TE (the person tempted) to do the survival of the species and of the race. what is morally, or prudentially, or aesthetically, or legally, wrong.” From this point of view, marriage is not merely The above description about marriage a sexual relationship, but a parental and temptation are like two sides of a coin. It association. It is the union of a male and a can be said that each married may experience female for production and care of offspring and marriage temptation. By facing these reproduction is, therefore, another temptations, a lot of married couples can pass fundamental object or purpose of marriage”. and they become more mature. On the other (Stone, 1939: 18). hand, other married couples seem to fail in overcoming these temptations. Indeed, such marriage temptations can be found in Danielle’s Three Marriage Breaker. Heitler (2011) novel The Kiss. This can arouse the reader to costs of the three main marriage deal- interpret the temptation experienced by the breakers: Alcoholism, Affairs and Anger. The protagonist and the deuteragonist. In short, this 3 A mistakes can get you fired from the job of is also as the reason why this study focuses on spouse. Alcoholism, affairs and anger, in marriage temptation as representation of real marriage life. addition to wrecking your marriage, can have It is hoped that this study can give a profoundly negative impacts on your children. representation of a real marriage life through Modeling addictions, affairs and anger teaches the analyzed variable. your kids that this is what adults do. At the same time, addictive, sexually unfaithful and II. Literary Review excessively angry behaviors teach your kids that attachments are unreliable and unsafe, Russsel as in Wimalasena (2016) making your kids less able to establish secure describes that in modern times, the most positive relationships as they reach adulthood. important aspects of marriage are social, religious as well as legal. Bertrand Russel Then, Hitler (2011) gives any potential says that “marriage differs, of course, from remedies that can strengthen your resistance, other sex relations by the fact that it is a legal keeping your relationships healthy. institution. It is also in most communities a religious institution, but it is the legal aspect 1. Addictions which is essential”. (Russell, 1959: 88). If your usage of a substance like Then Wimalasena (2016) also quotes alcohol or drugs, or habit like Stone’s description of marriage. The excessive shopping or sports- fundamental basis of marriage is defined as “a watching, ever prompted someone personal association between a man and a you love to say to you, "Too much," woman and a biological relationship for mating 3 Sri Wulan : A Reflection of Marriage Temptation in Danielle Steel’s Novel……………………………… listen up. The biggest mistake people exists not as an artifact upon a printed page make with addictions, alcohol and but as a transaction between the physical text otherwise, is that they deny that they and the mind of a reader. It attempts “to describe what happens in the reader’s mind are over-doing it. They get defensive. while interpreting a text” and reflects They insist "I"m only drinking so much that reading, like writing, is a creative process. because ..." They claim, "You do it According to reader-response critics, literary too.." or "Everyone drinks like that.." texts do not “contain” a meaning; meanings They minimize, "I just drink....".