their life. He tells a lot of about life of black people in South Africa. The system applied in South Africa influenced their daily life in some aspects,
such as injustice treatment and discrimination by white people. The big influence of this system came to Stephen Kumalos family. Stratification,
injustice, and inequality are most described in the novel. By this injustice treatment, Stephen Kumalo, as a main protagonist character, was a part
with his some members of his family, like his son, his sister, and his brother. Stephen Kumalos struggle to solve his family his family problem
also faces some obstacles because of the bad system of social life and government in South Africa.
So the objective of the study is to know the problems of Stephen Kumalo’s family, such as racial discrimination, shame, failure in
educating family members. Stephen’s struggles that he takes to solve his family problems are rebuilding good relationship between black and
white, facing the feeling of shame directly, and reuniting and rebuilding his family.
B. Approach of the Study
The approach used in this study is socio-cultural-historical approach. The writer focuses on Stephen Kumalo, as a main protagonist
character, with his family problem in their family life in Ixopo, South Africa. Their family life as black people was influenced by the system of
government in South Africa, where the discrimination and injustice happened. This approach finds out what happens in a society and reflects
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it in a literary work. Important social issues in a society are described in a literary work. Guerin stated that this approach is to deal with content for in
content it is found literature’s importance in the movement of the history and social condition 1982: 92.
In Warren and Wellek’s Theory of Literature, literature is considered as a social institution. This view sees a literature as a “social
creation” 1956: 64. The social-cultural-historical approach relates literature to the social institution, to an economic, social and political
system. Social class is very different in this novel. Class divisions are typically seen as fundamental to the stratification of society, and as such
may be associated with differences in power and culture Sedgwick, 1999: 64. Culture and class in social life cannot be separated. Sedgwick, in
Cultural Theory the Key Concepts, also says “Culture thereby comes to be seen as fundamentally structured in terms of class inequalitie 1999: 66.”
In Rohrberger and Woods Reading and Writing about Literature, they say that the work of literature put in the sociocultural-historical
approach as a product of civilization. It is also stated that
critics whose major interest is the sociocultural-historical approach insist that the only way to
locate the real work is in reference to the civilization that produced it 1971: 9.
It means that the critics of this approach believe that the only way to analyze and interpret the content of literary work is by evaluating the
attitudes and actions of a specific group of people that created it 1971: 9. Furthermore, Rohrberger also states about the relation between historical
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approach and socioculural approach that fusion in sociocultural-historical approach. She says “the traditional historical approach to literature usually
takes as its basis some aspects of the sociocultural frame of reference, combining it with an interest in the biographical as well as knowledge of
and interest in literary history 1971: 9.” In Guerin’s A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, it is
stated that this approach sees a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of its author’s life and times or the life and times of the
characters in the work 1999: 22. Applying socio cultural-historical approach in this research helps the writer to analyze the relation of the
novel and the social, cultural, and historical background in which the novel is written. In Cultural Theory the Key Concepts, Andrew and Edgar
wrote that cultural theory, then, starts from the self – proclaimed assertion of a plurality of meanings associated with the world ‘culture’ 2002: 3.
Social background of the novel is how social diversity in happens in South Africa and influences the society and family life. African culture
and history also appear in the novel in many aspects, such as the characters’ language, habit, Christianity, and treatments to the society that
is experienced by the characters of the novel of Cry, the Beloved Country. Historically, the culture of Christianity also influences the characters in
their daily life very much, especially Stephen Kumalo and his wife, Mrs. Kumalo. It is told that Stephen Kumalo always spends his time in pray.
So the sociocultural-historical approach is the most appropriate to
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apply in this analysis since this thesis analyzes the literary work from its social, cultural, and historical aspects through the attitudes and actions of
the characters in the novel.
C. Method of the Study
