18 others, speech, past life, conversation of others, reactions, direct comment,
thought, and mannerism, the researcher obtains Bhisma’s characteristics. The second problem is to reveal the deeper
meanings of Bhisma’s struggles. The researcher uses Marxism approach in analysing Bhisma by
applying theory of ideology from Althusser and theory of power and powerless. Besides, the researcher uses theory of Katresnanism
to analyse Bhisma’s struggles from Javanese values point of view. One of the Katresnanism aos which is
applied is andhom slamet. Then, the researcher will find the relation of the Bhisma’s characteristics and the meanings of his struggles in his life.
D. Context of the Novel
Context of the novel can be said as a setting in which the novel is written. By knowing the context of the novel and its author, the readers will understand
the story of the novel. The setting of the story constitutes the external reality that surrounds the internal reality of the character’s personalities. The context is
divided into two settings, first is the setting of the writer when she writes the novel and second is the setting of The Question of Red. Culler 1997 says,
―Context is what determines meaning‖ p. 62. It is used to know the particular utterances by looking at historical context in each figure.
1. Context of the Author
The setting where the author, Pamuntjak wrote her first novel was in Jakarta, Indonesia. Some parts of the novel were based on long research and some
interviews with ex-political prisoners. She did her research by directly visiting
19 Buru Island with Amarzan Loebis, a poet, senior editor of Tempo magazine, and
former political prisoner in Buru Island prison camp. Moreover, she learned from Pram
oedya’s experience to enrich the quality of her novel. By doing long research, Pamuntjak made her novel of Indonesian turbulence from her point of
view as the author not as the former political prisoners. As a result, her writing style is different
from others’ writers. She wrote the novel in 2013 in Indonesia’s reformation era. It meant
everyone was free to write his or her opinion for government and PKI. It was very different from the previous era, particularly in Suharto’s era in which no one was
allowed to refuse the government ’s order and discuss PKI Indonesian Communist
Party or anything related to communism. Pamuntjak, therefore, was bold to write a story about Indonesian political situation in Sukarno and Suharto era. She even
put some incidents and people who join group belonging to PKI. It was definitely interesting because the story about PKI was a never ending topic to discuss in
Indonesia. There were many perspectives and versions.
2. Context of the Novel
