The Impact Of Narrative To Literary Journalism As Seen Through John Hersey’s Hiroshima

Approved by the Department of English, Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara (USU) Medan as thesis for The Sarjana Sastra Examination.

Head, Secretary,

Dr. Muhizar Muchtar, MS Dr. Dra. Nurlela, M.Hum NIP. 19541117 198003 1 002 NIP 19590419 198102 2 001

Accepted by the Board of Examiners in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Sarjana Sastra from the Department of English, Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara, Medan.

The examination is held in Department of English Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara on February 14th 2013.

Dean of Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara

Dr. H. Syahron Lubis, MA NIP. 19511013 197603 1 001

Board of Examiners

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AUTHOR’S DECLARATION

I, SANDRA CATTELYA, DECLARE THAT I AM THE SOLE AUTHOR OF THIS THESIS EXCEPT WHERE REFERENCE IS MADE IN THE TEXT OF THIS THESIS. THIS THESIS CONTAINS NO MATERIAL PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE OR EXTRACTED IN WHOLE OR IN PART FROM A THESIS BY WHICH I HAVE QUALIFIED FOR OR AWARDED ANOTHER DEGREE. NO OTHER PERSON’S WORK HAS BEEN USED WITHOUT DUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IN THE MAIN TEXT OF THIS THESIS. THIS THESIS HAS NOT BEEN SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF ANOTHER DEGREE IN ANY TERTIARY EDUCATION.

SIGNED :

COPYRIGHT DECLARATION

NAME : SANDRA CATTELYA

TITLE OF THESIS : THE IMPACT OF NARRATIVE TO LITERARY JOURNALISM AS SEEN THROUGH JOHN HERSEY’S HIROSHIMA

QUALIFICATION : S-1/SARJANA SASTRA DEPARTMENT : ENGLISH

I AM WILLING THAT MY THESIS SHOULD BE AVAILABLE FOR REPRODUCTION AT THE DISCRETION OF THE LIBRARIAN OF DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, FACULTY OF CULTURAL STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA ON THE UNDERSTANDING THAT USERS ARE MADE AWARE OF THEIR OBLIGATION UNDER THE LAW OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA.

SIGNED :

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Since it seems that this is the only page where I can say anything I want without going all formal and boring, I am not going to waste my chance. Sure I will keep it decent and cuss-free.

Thank Lord! I was able to finish my thesis. The road to finally be in this state, the state where I can actually relax and not losing my hair because stressing out, was rather bumpy and painfully slow. It was all God’s guidance and blessing so I could finish this thesis. Thank goodness! I am grateful that I learn to trust in Him.

I love my family. God knows I love them until death. I may not able to see the glimmering proud in my Mama’s eyes, but I know she would. She had been the greatest Mama for me. She made me the way I am now, and I could not be more honored to dedicate this modest thesis to her. I also thank God for giving me my Papa. His patience and understanding for my slacking-mode during the making of this thesis are just plain awesome. You are the most awesome, Pa! You support and trust me, and that has been my source of energy since I could remember. And finally, I must send bear hugs and thousand kisses to my only sibling, Leon Adelbert Kendrick. I am still amused with our rare communication. But, each time we texted, usually at midnight or even dawn, it never came as a dull conversation. And you never forget to remind me to graduate quickly and look for a job so I can pay for your living cost. What a brother.

The next gratitude I want to throw is for Johan Christian Tobing. Somehow, he manages to be my best friend for these… three years? I know I had been silly and unstable for most of the time and yet you still stick around and care to help me out. You have been my strength and my shoulder-to-cry-on. I cannot list whatever

generosity you had given me because that will waste too many papers. But notice this, I am highly grateful to have you as my best friend. Whatever will happen between us, I hope we can still acknowledge each other, at the very least, as a friend.

And I also want to throw a bunch of hugs and kisses to my girlfriends! I will state your names alphabetically so we can prevent any silly jealousy, because we know we are that silly, girls! Can I add smiley emoticon? Probably I should not. So, you know your names, Arianna Silaban, Ayu Sugianto, Dewi Meliala, Faiza Balqis, Juliatma Pamela Silitonga, Marshinta Veronika Napitupulu, Rina Sari Nainggolan, Siti Utami Firdausy, Yosi Maulana Sitorus, and Yuliza Sembiring. We had great moments and done crazy things like normal crazy people we actually are. And for all my classmates in batch 2008, you all had colored my college life. Whether I actually befriended you or not, whether we talked a lot or never talk at all, whether you are secularist or pluralist, whether you are hedonist or ascetic, whether you are apathetic or concerned, whether you are backstabber or sincere, whether you even know my name or not, I sincerely thank you all for the experiences we had together.

I learned English literature in campus but I practiced journalistic in daily basis. For these three and a half years, I am devoted to Pers Mahasiswa SUARA USU. This place made me realize the importance of journalistic so I made this thesis according to my passion for that. Applied to SUARA USU in that cloudy afternoon in August 2009 has been one of the best choices I have ever made in my life! No kidding. It may seem I exaggerate it, but I understand if people outside SUARA USU cannot comprehend this easily. This is the place where I actually grew up, where I learned to be tough, confident, sincere, brave, responsible, rational, fair, and I learned to be stubborn too. Because we know we do not back down easily, we struggle hard. I thank God for giving me this path, the path where I can meet these

whole amazing guys in SUARA USU. You are my brothers and sisters from another mothers and fathers. I cannot put names in here because I seriously thank all of you, each person who ever be involved in working at SUARA USU. Keep going, guys.

And for the lecturers and staffs and officials, I am not going to thank you for you doing your job helping me to graduate, that is your job after all. I sincerely thank Mr. Mahmud Arief Albar for his time and patience for me during the making of this thesis. You actually listened and gave me great advices. I know it was not your proportion, but I am glad you helped me anyway. For Mr. Siamir Marulafau, thank you for always been there and encouraged me to finish this thesis as quick as possible, you have incredible spirit and I appreciate it so much. I would also like to thank Mr. Yulianus Harefa because, somehow, you still acknowledge me whenever we met and always gave warm smile and positive energy. I was glad having you as my academic supervisor. Last, I would like to acknowledge the late Mr. Perdamen Perangin-angin. He had been a great lecturer, had been kind and friendly all the time I knew him. He was one idealist lecturer that I knew and I honored him more than he ever knew. God bless his soul. And thank you very much for Bang Am! You surely are a way cooler administration dude than the one worked before you.

As typical as it is, there are still many people I want to thank to for helping me in the process of the making of this thesis, but sadly I cannot mention all of them. So I just thank God for giving me all of them and I will beg Him to bless you all.

Medan, February 2013 The Writer,

Sandra Cattelya Reg. Number 080705022

ABSTRACT

Sastra lekat dengan imajinasi sedangkan jurnalisme menyucikan fakta. Dua bidang ilmu yang bertolak belakang ini ternyata bukan tidak mungkin bisa berjalan beriringan. Pada 1973, seorang jurnalis sekaligus novelis dari Amerika, Tom Wolfe, menerbitkan buku The New Journalism, sebuah aliran jurnalisme baru yang termasuk di dalamnya adalah jurnalisme sastrawi. Jurnalisme sastrawi mengadopsi penulisan sastra, yaitu narasi, dalam penyampaian laporannya. Hasilnya tetap menjunjung tinggi fakta, tapi estetika penyampaian ceritanya juga menjadi senjata utama. Ada karakter, dialog, emosi, detail yang tidak ditemukan pada laporan jurnalisme konvensional. Terdapat empat pengaruh dari penggunaan narasi pada jurnalisme sastrawi seperti dilihat dari Hiroshima karya John Hersey. Pertama, narasi membuat laporan jurnalistik menjadi seperti novel. Kedua, narasi membuat laporan jurnalistik menjadi lebih panjang daripada laporan jurnalistik biasanya. Ketiga, narasi dapat mengelaborasi kepribadian karakternya. Keempat, narasi menajamkan emosi.

Penelitian ini memakai teori narasi dari Gorys Keraf dan memakai metode penelitian deskriptif kualitatif. Untuk membuktikan bahwa Hiroshima karya John Hersey ini adalah juga sebuah karya narasi, selain karya jurnalistik, pertama dipaparkan dahulu unsur-unsur narasi yang ada di dalamnya. Kemudian, dipaparkan pengaruh gaya penulisan narasi terhadap jurnalisme sastrawi sesuai analisis dari penulis. Penelitian ini dimaksudkan menjadi bahan bacaan informatif dan inspiratif, baik bagi pembaca dari kalangan sastrawan, jurnalis, maupun mahasiswa.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S DECLARATION COPYRIGHT DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of The Study 1.2 Problems of The Study 1.3 Objectives of The Study 1.4 Scope of The Study

1.5 Significances of The Study

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Narrative 2.1.1 Plot 2.1.2 Action 2.1.2.1Motivation 2.1.2.2Causality 2.1.3 Character 2.1.4 Setting 2.1.5 Point of View 2.2 Literary Journalism

2.3 Review of Related Literature

3.1 Research Design 3.2 Data Collection 3.3 Data Analysis

CHAPTER IV THE IMPACT OF NARRATIVE TO LITERARY

JOURNALISM AS SEEN THROUGH JOHN HERSEY’S HIROSHIMA

4.1 Narrative in John Hersey’s Hiroshima

4.1.1 Plot 4.1.2 Action 4.1.2.1 Motivation 4.1.2.2 Causality 4.1.3 Character

4.1.3.1 Dr. Masakazu Fujii 4.1.3.2 Dr. Terufumi Sasaki

4.1.3.3 Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge (Father Makoto Takakura) 4.1.3.4 Miss Toshiko Sasaki (Sister Dominique Sasaki) 4.1.3.5 Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura

4.1.3.6 The Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto 4.1.4 Setting

4.1.5 Point of View

4.2 The Impact of Narrative to Literary Journalism as Seen through John Hersey’s Hiroshima

4.2.1 Narrative Makes the Story is Like a Novel 4.2.1.1 Characters

4.2.1.3 Structure 4.2.1.4 Setting 4.2.1.5 Theme 4.2.1.6 Dialogue 4.2.1.7 Narrator 4.2.1.8 Image

4.2.2 Narrative Makes The Story Longer

4.2.3 Narrative Elaborates The Character’s Personality 4.2.3.1 Dr. Masakazu Fujii

4.2.3.2 Dr. Terufumi Sasaki

4.2.3.3 Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge (Father Makoto Takakura) 4.2.3.4 Miss Toshiko Sasaki (Sister Dominique Sasaki) 4.2.3.5 Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura

4.2.3.6 The Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto 4.2.4 Narative Sharpens Emotion

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

5.1 Conclusion 5.2 Suggestion

REFERENCES APPENDICES

i. John Hersey’s Biography and His Works

ABSTRACT

Sastra lekat dengan imajinasi sedangkan jurnalisme menyucikan fakta. Dua bidang ilmu yang bertolak belakang ini ternyata bukan tidak mungkin bisa berjalan beriringan. Pada 1973, seorang jurnalis sekaligus novelis dari Amerika, Tom Wolfe, menerbitkan buku The New Journalism, sebuah aliran jurnalisme baru yang termasuk di dalamnya adalah jurnalisme sastrawi. Jurnalisme sastrawi mengadopsi penulisan sastra, yaitu narasi, dalam penyampaian laporannya. Hasilnya tetap menjunjung tinggi fakta, tapi estetika penyampaian ceritanya juga menjadi senjata utama. Ada karakter, dialog, emosi, detail yang tidak ditemukan pada laporan jurnalisme konvensional. Terdapat empat pengaruh dari penggunaan narasi pada jurnalisme sastrawi seperti dilihat dari Hiroshima karya John Hersey. Pertama, narasi membuat laporan jurnalistik menjadi seperti novel. Kedua, narasi membuat laporan jurnalistik menjadi lebih panjang daripada laporan jurnalistik biasanya. Ketiga, narasi dapat mengelaborasi kepribadian karakternya. Keempat, narasi menajamkan emosi.

Penelitian ini memakai teori narasi dari Gorys Keraf dan memakai metode penelitian deskriptif kualitatif. Untuk membuktikan bahwa Hiroshima karya John Hersey ini adalah juga sebuah karya narasi, selain karya jurnalistik, pertama dipaparkan dahulu unsur-unsur narasi yang ada di dalamnya. Kemudian, dipaparkan pengaruh gaya penulisan narasi terhadap jurnalisme sastrawi sesuai analisis dari penulis. Penelitian ini dimaksudkan menjadi bahan bacaan informatif dan inspiratif, baik bagi pembaca dari kalangan sastrawan, jurnalis, maupun mahasiswa.

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of The Study

The mixture between literature with any other field of studies can easily be found, for example with phsycology, history, sociology, politics, and many other field of studies. For this thesis, the analysis will be literature studies that is connected with journalistic studies. What makes it really interesting to be researched for is these two fields are completely different. The only basic similarity is, both literature and journalism use words as their raw material.

Susanto (2011: 32) says that literary work is written in order to entertain readers and to express the author’s mind. While in the other hand, what journalism offers is essentially useful for the society and covering the public needs that could be entertaining or not.

Wellek and Warren (1989: 14) explain that literature is frequently used to refer to imaginative works. It has been generally considered that literature comes up from the imaginative minds of people who had talent to create stories. It is definitely upside-down from journalistic paradigm, which main responsibility is to the truth, as said by Kovach and Rosenstiel (2006: 38).

However, both literature and journalism are in the business of giving meaning to this world.

The explanation above is to emphasize how different literature and journalism is, but it is not impossible these two can go well together. Literary journalism is a result of the mixture between those two opposite study fields. Connery (1992: xi) says literary journalism is a type of writing that combines the

information-gathering methods of journalistic reporting with the narrative techniques or realistic fiction. For that reason, it also known as ‘narrative reporting’ because it adopts narrative writing style in reporting the news.

With the development of technology and massive needs to be up-dated, the public is capable to get information as quick as possible. It makes the mass media becomes an industry that competes with each other in delivering the fastest news. Live report from television or radio and accessing news from online media become the first choices compare to printed media that still need time to get published and distributed to the hands of the readers. Automatically, printed media these days almost cannot deliver the breaking news. Narrative becomes one form of solution as Kramer (October 2001) states that newspapers might both improve coverage and retain more readers by employing storytelling techniques to convey news. That is the whole point in literary journalism; employ storytelling techniques to convey news. Kurnia (2002: 3) tells that American journalists at mid 1960s commonly used literature approach because of two things. First, the form and style of novel writing was being a trendsetter at those times. Then, the ambition to compete with electronic media, which is more attractive and obviously faster in delivering whatever the media wants.

In Harsono and Setiyono (2008: viii), Roy Peter Clark, a writing teacher from Poynter Institute, Florida, explains that in conventional journalism we get used to 5W1H, that stands for ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’, and ‘how’. Literary journalism just expands the idea. ‘Who’ becomes characters, ‘what’ becomes the plot, ‘when’ becomes the chronology, ‘where’ becomes the setting, ‘why’ becomes the motives, and ‘how’ becomes the narrative. It turns out like a novel. Wolfe in

Kurnia (2002: 32) states that journalistic work in 1960s had indeed become like a novel.

Rogers and Kaswanti (2005: 30) state that a narrative is simply a story. Wellek and Warren (1989: 280) also say that narrative is a story, which linked to sequence of times. The generic structures of narrative according to Rogers and Kaswanti are orientation, complication, and resolution. Narrative deals with problematic events which lead to a crisis or turning point of some kind which in turn finds a resolution where the crisis is resolved for better or worse. Hiroshima as a literary journalism work which written in narrative style is expected to represent all said above.

Harsono and Setiyono (2008: ix) inform that Hiroshima by John Hersey was first published as an article in The New Yorker magazine, 31st August 1946. The article consisted of 31.000 words and took all pages in that magazine and in the same year, the article was published in book form. It is clear from its title that John Hersey’s Hiroshima tells readers something about the atomic bombing happened in Hiroshima, Japan in August 6th, 1945.

It is a masterpiece in journalistic world since it is awarded as ‘The Best Works of Journalismin the United States in the 20th Century’. The award was given in March 1999 at New York University as selected by 37 capable historians, journalists, writers, and academicians, as stated by Harsono and Setiyono (2008: xiv).

For Hiroshima, Hersey interviewed a clerk, a physician, a tailor’s widow, a German priest, a surgeon, and a pastor. A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan. These six were among the survivors and

Hersey tells readers their stories by reconstructing the bombing in Hiroshima through their eyes.

Rothman (January 1997) states that John Hersey studied at Yale University and Cambridge University. He worked several years as a journalist and in the beginning of 1947 he devoted his time mainly to writing fiction. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel A Bell for Adano, taught for twenty years at Yale University, was president of the Authors League of America, and as chancellor of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He died in 1993.

One thing that becomes an inspiration to create a literature thesis as also a learning about journalistic is because Kovach and Rosenstiel (2006: 2) tell that the development and the quality of society is dependent to the mass media they have, read, watch, and produce. The quality of journalism in a country is equal to the quality of its civilization. Therefore, by producing a good act of journalism, people are also producing a good kind of civilization.

There is another one strong reason why this thesis is narrowing its research to literary journalism. The article by Mark Kramer in January 1995 has triggered the author of this thesis to dig deeper about literary journalism:

Literary journalism helps sort out the new complexity. If it is not an antidote to bewilderment, at least it unites daily experiences – including emotional ones – with the wild plentitude of information that can be applied to experience. Literary journalism couples cold fact and personal event, in the author’s humane company. And that broadens readers’ scans, allows them to behold others’ lives, often set within far clearer contexts than we can bring to our own. The process moves readers, and writers, toward realization, compassion, and in the best of cases, wisdom. I’ll even claim that there is something intrinsically political – and strongly democratic – about literary journalism, something pluralistic, pro-individual, anti-cant, and anti-elite. That seems inherent in the common practices of the form. Informal style cuts through the obfuscating generalities of creeds, countries, companies, bureaucracies, and experts. And

narratives of the felt lives of everyday people test idealizations against actualities. Truth is in the details of real lives.

(Kramer, January 1995)

Kramer modifies literary journalism as a product of emotion that is able to hold the reader’s attention. Kramer even says that from literary journalism, both the writer and the reader are able to find wisdom because it tells story of everyday people.

1.2Problems of The Study

Based on the background of the study above, the problems of the study are: 1.What narrative indicators found in John Hersey’s Hiroshima?

2.How is the impact of narrative to literary journalism as seen through John Hersey’s

Hiroshima?

1.3Objectives of the Study

The purposes in analyzing this topic are:

1.To show the indicators in John Hersey’s Hiroshima that makes it be categorized as narrative.

2.To describe the impact of narrative to literary journalism as seen through John Hersey’s Hiroshima.

1.4Scope of the Study

John Hersey’s Hiroshima is chosen for this thesis as one of the example of literary journalism works to comprehend the impact of narrative to literary journalism. The result of this thesis is not intended to be the parameter for all other narrative found in any literary journalism works. By scoping the study, this thesis is

more focus to modify its main topic and is able to help readers to understand its content thoroughly. The scope of the study in this thesis is narrowed to identify the narrative structure in John Hersey’s Hiroshima and to explore the impact of narrative to John Hersey’s Hiroshima.

1.5Significances of the Study

By analyzing this topic, these significances below are expected to be acquired. The significances of the study are:

1.Theoretically, this thesis will enrich the knowledge of literature and journalistic, especially about the impact of narrative in literary journalism.

2.Academically, this thesis will be given to English Department, Faculty of Cultural Studies, University of Sumatera Utara, to enrich the collection of object of research and object of reading.

3.Practically, this thesis will be useful for readers as a learning about journalistic with literature concept in it. Readers are expected to get useful information, comprehension, and inspiration, about the using of narrative in journalistic work. Readers also are expected to be able to criticize and smartly filter the information that media gives today.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Narrative

Rogers and Kaswanti (2005: 30) state that a narrative is simply a story. Wellek and Warren (1989: 280) also say that narrative is a story, which is linked to series of times. Narrative deals with problematic events which lead to a crisis or turning point of some kind which in turn finds a resolution.

Narrative is a way to deliver deeper information by describing emotions and feelings. Therefore, narrative is considered as a contradiction to science like David Herman says in his book, Basic Elements of Narrative. Herman (2009: 2) states that narrative is a basic human strategy for coming to terms with time, process, and change. He elaborates that narrative is a strategy that contrast with, but is in no way inferior to, scientific modes of explanation that characterize phenomena as instances of general laws. Further, he gives example that shows how science could explains the atmospheric processes of snow, but it takes a story, a narrative, to convey what is it like to walk along a park trail in fresh-fallen snow.

Wellek and Warren (1989: 282) state that the main pattern of narrative fiction is its characteristic which covers the whole elements in the story. In English, narrative fiction itself is separated in two major kinds, they are romance and novel. In 1785, Clara Reeve in Wellek and Warren (1989: 282) explains the difference between both. Novel is a picture of real life and manners, and of the time in which it is written. While according to her, romance, in lofty and elevated language, describes what never happened nor is likely to happen.

Tarigan (2011: 167) says that the word ‘novel’ comes from Latin word ‘novellus’ which means ‘new’. Wellek and Warren (1989: 283) elaborate that novel is realistic and to pressure to details is important. In fact, the word ‘narrate’ in Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary is elaborated as ‘to tell (as a story) in detail’. People may find that narrative and novel are quite the same although they have some different structures. Generally, in analyzing a novel, there are three elements according to Wellek and Warren, they are plot, character, and setting. Further, Aziez and Hasim (2010: viii) show that novel contains of character, plot, structure, setting, theme, dialogue, narrator, and image.

Gorys Keraf (2004: 135) explains that there are two kinds of narrative. They are expositional narrative and suggestive narrative. Expositional narrative aims for expanding reader’s knowledge by giving information about an event. This kind of narrative bases on logic to deal with rationality and usually uses simple diction. While suggestive narrative aims for giving an implicit meaning of something and occurring imaginative sight into reader’s mind. Suggestive narrative does not strict to deal with logic and it inclines to use figurative diction. Keraf (2004: 145) says that narrative structure can be seen from the components that shape it. There are plot, action, characterization, setting, and point of view.

For this thesis, to prove that John Hersey’s Hiroshima has adopted narrative writing in its content, the analysis shows reader the narrative structure in Hersey’s

Hiroshima and analyzes further to the impact of it to literary journalism. By showing the narrative structure that is found in John Hersey’s Hiroshima, reader is able to comprehend that Hiroshima indeed adopts literary writing style in its content although it is all fact all the way. Gay Talese in Kurnia (2002: 17) says that literary journalism is not fiction, however fiction-like it is written. This thesis uses Gorys

Keraf’s theory that said that the narrative structure contains of plot, action, character, setting, and point of view. Keraf’s theory of narrative is used because it has wider elaboration than Wellek and Warren’s theory. It gives reader opportunity to understand the concept of the narrative clearer.

2.1.1 Plot

Keraf (2004: 145) says that every narration has a plot that bases on the coherence of events. Plot is an important basic need of a story. It arranges how one act must connects to another one, how one incident must connects to another one, how the character’s feeling involves to the event that is attached in a series of times, and how to picture the character to act in an event. A good plot is measured by its coherence during the story.

There are part that begins the story, part that is the development of the beginning, and part that ends the story. Reader may recognize where the beginning is or where the end is, because there is a plot in the story. Plot is marked by the climax during the narration. The ending of the story could be anything, whether the crisis is resolved for better or worse.

2.1.2 Action

Action distinguishes description from narration. Without action in a narrative, that story might as well become a descriptive passage. Keraf (2004: 157) explains that any action in narrative, also in descriptive, must be written in detail, so readers can feel like they witness the events all by themselves.

2.1.2.1 Motivation

Any action that is done in narrative is supposedly based on a motivation of the character in it. Although, as Keraf (2004: 160) says, expositional narrative might not contain the character’s motivation in the story. It is so because expositional

narrative is based on true events that explain experience which mostly is just happened. If expositional narrative has motivation in it, Keraf (2004:161) thinks that it will be just a bit. The element of implicit motivation can be concluded after reading thoroughly the whole story.

2.1.2.2 Causality

Keraf (2004: 161) elaborates that an action must lead into a causality state. There is always something that caused an event, just like there is always something that effected because of an event. Reader may figures out causality that is happened in a narrative by observing the story because it is said explicitly. Causality always exists in a logical order and serves rational series of events.

2.1.3 Character

Character, according to Keraf (2004: 164), is a person in the story. Characterization is how the author describes the character. Character’s image in a story can be shaped by physical description, character’s analysis, and other things that relate to the said character. In forming character in a story, whether it is fictional or not, the author does not rely only on details of the character. The author also needs to stitch the details into a comprehensive unity that can describe the individual’s personality properly.

2.1.4 Setting

According to Aziez and Hasim (2010: 74), setting consists of the description of time and place in the story. Further, Stanton (2007: 35) says that setting is the environment that covers event in the story. He adds that setting is a universe that relates to the on-going event in the story. It could be, time, place, whether, or a period of history. Keraf (2004: 169) gives more pressure to the elaboration of time

as setting. It is because a narrative presents a series of time instead of a fragment of time.

2.1.5 Point of View

Keraf (2007: 191) says that a point of view in a narrative story is about the connection between the storyteller and the events in the story. The storyteller is also called as the narrator. Point of view of the narrator is based on the function of the narrator itself, whether the narrator actually participates in the story or just observes without being involved. There are two main point of view of narrative according to Keraf, they are first person point of view and third person point of view.

2.1.5.1 First Person Point of View

The characteristic of using the first person point of view is the usage of the words ‘we’ and ‘I’ as the subject in the story. It indicates that the story is the experiences, whether it is fiction or real, of the narrator. This point of view is also called as the limited point of view because the author limits himself or herself to the event that the narrator hears or sees only.

First person point of view can be specified in three patterns. They are narrator as the main character, narrator as an observer, and narrator as a direct observer when the narrator involves in the story but is not the main character.

2.1.5.2 Third Person Point of View

The characteristic of using the third person point of view is the usage of the words ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘they’ as the subject in the story. The narrator in third person point of view acts as an audience who does not involve in the story events. This point of view is specified in three patterns. They are omniscient point of view, sharp focus point of view, and the mixture of those two points of view.

Omniscient point of view is also known as panoramic point of view. The narrator in this point of view knows everything that is happened in the story, even in all the character’s mind. Sharp focus point of view only tells the story from one character side. The narrator focuses on one character that is related to the story. The mix point of view is simply the mixture between omniscient and sharp focus point of view. For example in one story, the narrator describes the background of the World War II and the war itself at the beginning of the story, then the narrator focuses on one character’s side of story.

2.2 Literary Journalism

Focusing on time, mass media now just delivers shallow news that just gives the surface of the information. People can see the example from most daily newspapers, it contains straight news which barely reaches 500 words for each news. Let alone online media which writes news in less than 300 words. In television, bunch of news are delivered within minutes. While in literary journalism, properly the content is 10.000 words and up.

In this era, electronic media becomes the first choice to get the breaking news. However, printed media still exist although some are struggling, some are already moved onto electronic media. Many different actions are taken to hold out the existence of printed media. One of those, according to an American journalist, Mark Kramer, is by putting narrative in news report. Kramer (October 2001) says that narrative engages readers. In the age of mega-corporate media saturation, web sites, and “workaholism”, readers still are attracted to stories in which people’s lives and decision-making are vividly portrayed.

Kurnia (2002: 2) states that the pioneer for literary journalism is Tom Wolfe, a journalist-cum-novelist who worked at New York Herald Tribune newspaper in 1960s as daily reporter. His point of view of journalistic writing changed when he read an article in Esquire magazine in 1962 by Gay Talese. It struck him how someone could manage to compose such a close report. It felt like he himself could actually witness what was written in that report. Therefore, he started to do an observation on that and in 1973 Wolfe published a book entitled ‘The New Journalism’.

As stated by Kurnia (2002: 6), activists of the new journalism are began their exploration in writing because of the pressure on conventional journalism’s work ethic was becoming stronger. They felt tired, exhausted, and bored with the old fashion way which in turn they felt no chance to develop to be better. Kurnia (2002: 33) also says that in mid 1960s, it was the novel fever which triggered the emerge of innovations in journalistic writing.

In actual consideration, this ‘new’ journalism is really not so new itself, because the use of narrative in news had been started long time ago according to one of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation’s contributors, Mark Kramer. In his article, Kramer (January 1995) says that this kind of journalism in fact has proper pedigree. Daniel Defoe, writing just after 1700, is the earliest cited by Norman Sims, one of the few historians of the form. The roster also includes Mark Twain in the 19th century and Stephen Crane at the start of the 20th. Before and just after the Second World War, James Agee, Ernest Hemingway, A.J. Leibling, Joseph Mitchell, Lillian Ross, and John Steinbeck tried out narrative essay forms. Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, and Joan Didion followed, and somewhere in there, the genre came into its own – that is, its writers began to identify themselves as part of a movement, and

the movement began to take on conventions and to attract writers. Public consciousness of a distinct genre has risen, slowly.

The application of narrative writing in printed media is portrayed in The New Yorker magazine, National Geographic magazine, and many other media, mostly in United States of America. While in Indonesia, the usage of narrative for delivering news is rarely found. Intisari may be the only one which is closed enough, according to Harsono and Setiyono (2008: ix).

What separates literary journalism from conventional journalism is how it is written. Harsono and Setiyono (2008: viii) states that new journalism consists of scene by scene constructions, meaningful dialogues that describe the characters, third person point of view, and full of details like how someone dressed, moved, and so on. With such development, the new journalism had been perfected and be known as the literary journalism nowadays.

The first step in preparing a literary journalism work according to Kurnia (2002: 24) is diligently doing the research along with “crazily” paying attention to details. When journalists hunt down their news in order to accomplish a literary journalism work, they must use all their senses to catch everything that is going on around them. They must see whatever their eyes could manage to see, feel the temperature and material’s surface, smell the scent, hear any sounds, and if relevant, taste something to exactly know how it tastes. All the data that is relevant and potential to support the story will become descriptions in narrative, which helps to lengthen the story and build the interest of the reader.

Kurnia (2002: 5) states that the writing technique of literary journalism needs deeper information compared to conventional journalism, which is exactly becoming the one benefit in using literary journalism. Other benefit is, literary journalism

covers any information that were left behind by conventional journalists, that is emotion.

Robert Vare, a journalist who worked for The New Yorker magazine and The Rolling Stones magazine, is now lecturing literary journalism in Nieman Foundation in Harvard University, Cambridge. Vare in Harsono and Setiyono (2008: xi) states that there seven important things to be considered if someone is about to create a narrative in journalistic work.

First and the most important is fact. Journalism purifies fact. The term ‘literary’ in literary journalism is not a license to put fiction, even an iota of it, in the report. Names, places, times, events, words, basically everything mentioned in the literary journalism work, are real.

Second, conflict. Any story needs conflict to be interesting. In narrative, the part where conflict arises is called complication. Conflict in literary journalism is not made up or fake or anything imaginative. Journalist must able to find and see conflict surround them to build the story. Tarigan (2011: 135) says that there are external conflict such as between man and man, man and people, and man and environment. There are also internal conflict such as between an idea and another idea, and man and his own mind.

Third, characters. The more interesting the characters, the more interesting story the journalist can get. Characters help tie up the story. In conventional journalism, readers do not find the characters as closely as in literary journalism. Narrative provides enough space for journalist to explore the characters personalities by describing their features, minds, dialogues, and such.

Fourth, literary journalist needs a very good access. Access could be in a form of interview, document, correspondence, photograph, journal, picture, friend, enemy, and things like that to lead journalist in getting the information.

Fifth, emotion. This point also one that rarely is found in conventional journalism work. Literary journalist is able to dig deeper into characters’ emotion, whether it is love, hatred, glutton, loyalty, happiness, any other kind. Emotion creates the story.

Sixth, as Vare put it, “series of time”. Vare analogized the conventional journalism like a picture, a snap shot. While narrative is more like a video. The series of time matters, whether the journalist wants to put it chronologically, flashback, back and forth, or anything the journalist can comes up as long it is not make the reader confused. In literature, this is categorized as plot.

Seventh, novelty. As a journalistic work, it is normal to consider the most recent events. Although literary journalist needs way more time than conventional journalist in creating the story, however the element of novelty still needs to be considered.

2.3 Review of Related Literature

This thesis uses a number of appropriate and supportive reading resources in the analysis. Some of them that are highly helpful are reviewed below, beside John Hersey’s Hiroshima as the main data of this thesis.

1. Jurnalisme Sastra by Septiawan Santana Kurnia, a book published in 2002. This book is really helpful because its author explains literary journalism from its root and the development until today. The explanation in this book also consists of other form of journalistic, like advocacy

journalism, precision journalism, and alternative journalism. Kurnia works as journalistic lecturer in Faculty of Communication University of Islam Bandung from 1997 until now. Since he is a journalist himself, this book is written in a very neat concept. He explained his idea from general to specific and managed to keep an interesting way of writing. Kurnia publishes some literary journalism works, one of them tells about how Tom Wolfe started the idea of the new journalism.

2. Argumentasi dan Narasi by Gorys Keraf, a book that was published in 2004. This book contains of two major field of discussion, they are argumentation and narration. This book is the third from the Rhetoric Series by Keraf himself. The first two are Diksi dan Gaya Bahasa and

Eksposisi dan Deskripsi. This book is obviously very helpful because it has half of the book that focus on solely narrative. The explanation is understandable along with simple examples. Since 1963, Keraf has been a lecturer in Faculty of Letters, University of Indonesia.

3. Jurnalisme Sastrawi: Antologi Liputan Mendalam dan Memikat, a book edited by Andreas Harsono and Budi Setiyono in 2008. It is an anthology of eight literary journalistic works by eight Indonesian journalists. The introduction by Andreas Harsono is really helpful, where he explained the background in publishing the book, including his opinions and experiences when he studied journalistic in Harvard University, Cambridge. Reading all the stories in it also acknowledges about the form of literary journalism and how literature studies so much contributed to make the stories go well.

4. The Publication of “Hiroshima” in The New Yorker, an essay by Steve Rothman in January 1997. Steve Rothman was a student in Harvard University when he made this as an assignment in his class, Science and Society in 20th Century. This essay starts with an overview and historical background of John Hersey and The New Yorker magazine, where John Hersey’s Hiroshima was first published. Then, the analysis afterward is related to effect and reaction from the publication of John Hersey’s

Hiroshima. This essay by Rothman has quite complete and proper references and it is really helpful in the making of this thesis because such references are hard to find in Indonesia and do not available or accessible in the internet.

5. Menganalisis Fiksi: Sebuah Pengantar by Furqonul Aziez and Abdul Hasim. The book was published in 2010. In this book, Aziez and Hasim focus their concern in analyzing novel. It helps because this thesis considers narrative also is like a novel. This book serves quite simple explanation yet very complete information. Reader can find the explanation about the history of novel, kinds of novel, until some approaches to criticize a fiction. The two authors of this book regularly write for The Jakarta Post, Pikiran Rakyat, Kompas, Media Indonesia, and other mass media.

6. Teori Kesusastraan, a book written by Rene Wellek and Austin Warren. It was translated from the original title Theory of Literature. This book helps a lot because the authors explain their theory of literature by describing it in quite simple words. The content is also arranged from general to specific elaboration that makes the reader understand more

about the topic. Practically, this book is more like a guidance book among men of letters since many other literary books uses it as additional reading, for example A Companion to Narrative Theory, edited by Phelan and Rabinowitz, which is also a reference for this thesis.

CHAPTER III

METHOD OF RESEARCH

3.1 Research Design

The primary data of this thesis is a literary journalistic work by John Hersey,

Hiroshima. This book was first published in 1946 and remains in prints until today. The secondary data of this research conducted through library research. For library research, it concerns on finding appropriate yet supporting reading sources and getting reading resources by internet surfing. This is necessary because literary journalism can still be categorized as a new field of studies and develops dynamically. Therefore, the internet surfing is to find more recent resources or information which may not be available in library or book form.

In the making of this thesis, the analysis is categorized as qualitative descriptive methodology. It is qualitative descriptive because the result of this thesis is the form of words, not numbers as in quantitative, and this thesis is intended to describe the impact of narrative to literary journalism as seen through John Hersey’s

Hiroshima. A research is also called qualitative when the question format is open-ended and the data format is textual. Stokes (2003: xi) explains that this method is commonly used in cultural studies research, and many of them, like narrative analysis and genre analysis, had been developed for literature studies.

3.2 Data Collection

The data is collected by carefully reading on John Hersey’s Hiroshima first, then finding other appropriate datas from other objects of reading to broaden the knowledge about the topic.

3.3 Data Analysis

To support the main goal of this thesis, that is to describe and understand the impact of narrative to literary journalism, there are two major steps to be accomplished. First, this thesis shows reader the elements of narrative and novel in Hersey’s Hiroshima through careful reading and selection. This is to prove that

Hiroshima, as one of literary journalism works, really adopts literary writing style in its content because of the using of those elements in it. After that, this thesis describes its impact to literary journalism as seen through John Hersey’s Hiroshima

CHAPTER IV

THE IMPACT OF NARRATIVE TO LITERARY JOURNALISM AS SEEN THROUGH JOHN HERSEY’S HIROSHIMA

4.1Narrative in John Hersey’s Hiroshima

Based on the theory of narrative by Gorys Keraf, Hersey’s Hiroshima is categorized as expositional narrative. It is because Hersey’s Hiroshima expands the reader’s knowledge about the history of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, Japan, and the story of hibakusha, the people who suffer from the atomic bomb. Hersey’s

Hiroshima is written based on rational and logical order. Hersey uses plain and simple diction in Hiroshima.

The narrative structure that is based on Gorys Keraf’s theory contains of plot, action, character, setting, and point of view. Below is the elaboration and analysis of narrative structure in Hersey’s Hiroshima. By showing the narrative structure in Hersey’s Hiroshima, it is proven that Hersey’s Hiroshima adopts narrative writing style although it is actually a journalistic piece of work.

4.1.1 Plot

The plot in Hersey’s Hiroshima is written chronologically. First, the story starts by telling readers what the six main characters were doing at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima. Hersey describes the characters’ backgrounds and their activities, then the bomb is dropped. The climax in this story is when Hersey describes the agony and the suffering of the victims of the bomb, focusing on the six main characters situations. At last, Hersey describes how the struggling lives they faced after that bomb incident.

Keraf (2004: 148) says that plot organizes how every action is supposed to be related, how every incident has relation with another, and how the situation of the characters in the story. In Hersey’s Hiroshima, the six main characters are related by the same experiences of great event of torment and turmoil.

The passage in Hersey’s Hiroshima on page 15 tells the story of Miss Sasaki, one of six main characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima. The passage contains of 501 words. Keraf (2004: 146) mentions that there are small climaxes in a bigger climax in a plot. The passage is one example where a small climax is occurred, complete with the beginning, middle, and ending parts. The story begins very slowly with the introduction of Miss Sasaki’s family background and her activity in the morning at the day when the bomb fell. The tension to the climax starts to occur when the narrator mentions the former worker from the factory who committed suicide the day before. It reaches its climax when Miss Sasaki ‘paralyzed by fear, fixed still in her chair for a long moment’ because of the blinding light that was filled the room. The ending is when the narrator tells reader that Miss Sasaki was crushed by books from the bookcases that were right behind her. The elements of action, characterization, and mood are coherent. The quotation above is just a bit from a much longer story. But it still has elements that make it considerably as a plot. The small plot like the one above is needed to build the big plot.

4.1.2 Action

According to Keraf (2004: 160), action consists of motivation and causality. Below is the elaboration of motivation and causality in Hersey’s Hiroshima.

4.1.2.1 Motivation

Hersey’s Hiroshima is a journalistic piece of work that is demanded to deliver fact. It implies that all the characters, events, details, and everything in

Hersey’s Hiroshima are real. Based on Keraf (2004: 160), expositional narrative might not contain the character’s motivation in the story. It is because expositional narrative is based on true events that explain experience which mostly is just happened without motivation or planning. The six main characters in Hersey’s

Hiroshima are all victims from the atomic bomb that is dropped in Hiroshima. The story is about how they were struggling during and after the bomb incident.

4.1.2.2 Causality

Characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima might not have motivations in doing their actions as said in the story, but it does not imply that they do nothing. Since the six main characters were victims of the atomic bomb, they did what they could do at the moment, that is to survive. Although Hersey’s Hiroshima has six main characters with different experiences, reader is still able to comprehend it well without being confused. It indicates that the causality in Hersey’s Hiroshima is neatly arranged.

Through the story, the narrator tells the events after events and considers the series of time. Hersey wrote his story chronologically so reader can find the causality straight away. Automatically, reader can see the reason of the occurred events and what is happened after that. This quotation below is one example to show the causality in Hersey’s writing.

A year after the bomb was dropped, Miss Sasaki was a cripple; Mrs. Nakamura was destitute; Father Kleinsorge was back in the hospital; Dr. Sasaki was not capable of the work he once could do; Dr. Fujii had lost the thirty-room hospital it took him many years to acquire, and had no prospects of rebuilding it; Mr Tanimoto’s church had been ruined and he no longer had his exceptional vitality. The lives of these six people, who were among the luckiest in Hiroshima, would never be the same. […]

(Hersey, 1989: 87)

The quotation above shows the condition of the six main characters a year after the incident. It shows results. Hersey uses 86 pages before that to show reader

the reason of those results. Keraf (2004: 163) states that an author of narrative story must consider causality in a story so reader can answer the question of ‘why’.

4.1.3 Character

There are six main characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima. Approximately, a hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan. These six were among the survivors, later the Japanese called them as ‘hibakusha’, literally, ‘explosion-affected persons’. They tended to shy away from the term ‘survivors’, because in its focus on being alive it might suggest some slight to the sacred dead (Hersey, 1989: 92).

The six characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima are real people, not fiction characters. In some parts in the book, these six runs past another but there is not any parts where the six of them are in one act.

The six main characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima and all of them have equal parts in the story. No one is more stands out or more important. The characterization below is based on their physical description, family background, and their occupations. The analysis that is based on personality and dialogue is done later on some next points to prove more coherent purpose.

4.1.3.1 Dr. Masakazu Fujii

Dr. Fujii was fifty years old. There is no further description about his outer look in John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Hersey characterizes this character by showing his personality more. He explains Dr. Fujii’s way of thinking and behavior.

Dr. Fujii was a specialist doctor in medical and venereal when the bomb is dropped. Later in 1948, he did not go with any specialties. Besides medical and venereal cases, he performed operations on keloids, did appendectomies, and treated wounds. He had a wife and five children.

4.1.3.2 Dr. Terufumi Sasaki

When the bomb is dropped, Dr. Sasaki was twenty-five years old and lived with his mother. He had a very small figure and he wore glasses to help his errors of vision. Again, Hersey did not elaborate the character’s physical image into details. Nevertheless, Hersey still put down tiny detail that helps reader to know the character more. For example, Hersey states that Dr. Sasaki mastered German well and he was a heavy smoker.

He completed his training at the Japanese Eastern Medical University, in Tsinftao, China. Then, he backed to Japan and became the Red Cross Hospital junior surgeon. Ten years later, he got his actual doctoral degree from University of Hiroshima. He got married on March 1946. Eventually, he owned a private clinic in Mukaihara, where his mother was lived. His late father was a doctor. His older brother was killed in the war. His wife is died of breast cancer in 1972. He has two sons, Yoshihisa and Ryuji, by now both are doctors.

4.1.3.3 Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge (Father Makoto Takakura)

Father Kleinsorge was a German. He was thirty-eight years old when the incident is happened. He had thin face, prominent Adam’s apple, a hollow chest, dangling hands, big feet, and leaned forward a little when he walked. Hersey describes Father Kleinsorge’s feature in detail because in the story, Father Kleinsorge had been uneasy for being a foreigner in Japan.

He was a Jesuit priest of the Society of Jesus. He registered himself as a Japanese citizen under the name Father Makoto Takakura. There is no family history background of Father Kleinsorge in Hersey’s Hiroshima.

Miss Sasaki was about twenty years old when the bomb was dropped. She is not related to Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, one of the six main characters in Hersey’s

Hiroshima. Miss Sasaki was a medium-sized female. Her left leg was crushed by some heavy objects when the bomb fell and made her a cripple ever since. She had a low-spirited life because of the agony in her leg and talked to Father Kleinsorge for moral support. Then, she prepared herself for conversion to Catholicism and by September 1946 she was baptized.

Miss Sasaki was a clerk in East Asia Tin Works and she was in charge of the personal records in the factory. In 1957, she became a nun under the name Sister Dominique Sasaki. In the age of thirty-three years old, she became the first Japanese director that was in charge in the Garden of St. Joseph until twenty years ahead. Miss Sasaki had younger siblings, two brothers and a sister. One of her brother was killed by the atomic bomb, along with her parents.

4.1.3.5 Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura

There is no Mrs. Nakamura’s physical description in Hersey’s Hiroshima. Hersey only tells one habit of Mrs. Nakamura, that is she always does as she was told. No more personal description of Mrs. Nakamura. In describing Mrs. Nakamura, the narrator focuses on her actions and background.

She is a tailor’s widow. Her husband, Isawa, died in war. They had three children, Toshio who was ten years old when the bomb fell, Yaeko who was eight years old, and Myeko who was five years old. Mrs. Nakamura was a housewife but since the death of her husband, she supported the family by sewing. After the bombing, she lived check after check. Once, she did cleaning and laudry and washed dishes. Then, she became a bread deliverer. Also, she owned a small street shop for children afterwards. After that, she had a job of collecting money for deliveries of the

Hiroshima paper, the Chugoku Shimbun. Finally, the last job she had until she was retired, she helped wrapping the product of Paragen in its packages in Suyama Chemical for thirteen years.

4.1.3.6 The Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto

Mr. Tanimoto was a small man, his black hair parted in the middle and rather long, he had prominence frontal bones just above his eyebrows, and he had a small mustache. He was quick to talk, laugh, and cry. He moved nervously and fast. He spoke excellent English and dressed in American clothes.

He was a pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist Church and took on the chairmanship of his local Neighborhood Association. He had studied theology and graduated in 1940 from Emory College, in Atlanta, Georgia. By 1955, Mr. Tanimoto’s family is consisted of his wife, Chisa, his ten years old daughter, Koko, seven years old son, Ken, four years old daughter, Jun, and two years old son, Shin.

4.1.4 Setting

John Hersey’s Hiroshima is written in a chronological order. The story starts on August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb is dropped in Hiroshima, Japan. The atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima at exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning on August 6, 1945. Then, the series of event in Hersey’s Hiroshima is chronologically written until forty years after that. The story takes place in Hiroshima, Japan, when the World War II is at the highest peak of confrontation. It makes the story has typical war background, like planes, fire, and soldiers.

4.1.5 Point of View

There are six main characters in John Hersey’s Hiroshima and reader gets to know each character’s actions and minds. Hersey also gives elaboration about things that are not involving the six characters. The passage below is one example that is

not involving either the six main characters. Instead, it is the dialogue between Father Kleinsorge’s colleague and a theological student.

[…] Father LaSalle lay down and went right to sleep. The theological student, who was wearing slippers, had carried with him a bundle of clothes, in which he had packed two pairs of leather shoes. When he sat down with the others, he found that the bundle had broken open and a couple of retraced his steps and found one right. When he rejoined the priests, he said, “It’s funny, but things don’t matter possessions. Today, I don’t care. One pair is enough.”

Father Cieslik said, “I know. I started to bring my books along, and then I thought, ‘This is no time for books.’”

(Hersey: 36)

It indicates that Hersey’s Hiroshima uses the third person point of view and specifically Hersey acts as omniscient narrator who know all the things that are happened in Hiroshima.

4.2The Impact of Narrative to Journalistic Works as Seen through John Hersey’s Hiroshima

Beside as a journalistic work, John Hersey’s Hiroshima is also a narrative because it has every narrative structure in it. Below is the analysis of the impact of narrative to journalistic works as seen through John Hersey’s Hiroshima.

4.2.1 Narrative Makes the Story is Like a Novel

Reading a literary journalistic work, in this case is John Hersey’s Hiroshima,

is more like reading a novel instead of plain old news on newspaper. Kurnia (2002: 32) says that Tom Wolfe in his book, The New Journalism, entitles the second part of his introduction by ‘Like a Novel’. In early 1960s, novel got its high place in the society and it influenced journalistic works to adopt literature writing style. Aziez and Hasim (2010: viii) show that novel contains of character, plot, structure, setting, theme, dialogue, narrator, and image. Below are the elaborations on each elements of

novel according to Aziez and Hasim. There are no elaboration on character, plot, setting, and narrator because those elements have been explained in the previous point.

4.2.1.1 Structure

In its first publication in 1946, Hersey’s Hiroshima is divided in four chapters. Every chapter is consists of six different focuses according to the six main characters. Almost four decades later, thirty-nine years later to be exact, Hersey came back to the city of Hiroshima and wrote ‘The Aftermath’, the last chapter in the new publication of Hersey’s Hiroshima. It is still divided in six parts, describes the recent conditions of the six main characters.

Structure in Hiroshima is obvious from the five chapters they are divided. The story is written chronologically like A-B-C-D, instead of D-C-B-A or even D-A-B-C.

Chapter one is entitled ‘A Noiseless Flash’. The narrator describes the moment of the blast. There are six characters’ sides of story which are told in separate parts. Each of them has their own story before and during the bomb is dropped. Chapter two is entitled ‘The Fire’. The narrator describes the devastation that is experienced by the city immediately after the blast. Chapter three is entitled ‘Details are Being Investigated’. The narrator describes the rampant rumors throughout the city about what had happened, while the hibakusha provide help and comfort to one another. Chapter four is entitled ‘Panic Grass and Feverfew’. The narrator describes the weeks after the attack, as the hibakusha attempt to rebuild their lives. The blast and radiation effects induced the anomaly to their health and hampered their readjustment to normal lives. Chapter five is entitled ‘The

Aftermath’. The narrator describes the lives and death of the six main characters after Hersey came back to Hiroshima almost four decades later.

4.2.1.2 Theme

The theme of Hersey’s Hiroshima is atomic bomb victims’ survival.Written one year after the first atomic bombs were ever dropped on civilians, Hersey focused on how the six main characters survived the explosion and what lives they got through even after forty years later when he came back to write the final chapter.

4.2.1.3 Dialogue

Unlike other usual product of journalistic, literary journalism such as Hersey’s Hiroshima, uses dialogue in its story. In writing the journalistic article of

Hiroshima, Hersey uses dialogue to describe the situation and feeling that occurred at that time.

Here is the dialogue between one out of six main characters, Mr. Tanimoto, with one of the Army doctors at East Parade Ground. It describes the dilemma and rage that is felt by Mr. Tanimoto.

[…] Nevertheless, he went up to one of the Army doctors and said, as reproachfully as he could, “Why have you not come to Asano Park? You are badly needed there.”

Without even looking up from his work, the doctor said in a tired voice, “This is my station.”

“But there are many dying on the riverbank over there.” “The first duty,” the doctor said, “is to take care of the slightest wounded.”

“Why—when there are many who are heavily wounded on the riverbank?”

The doctor moved to another patient. “In an emergency like this,” he said, as if he were reciting from a manual, “the first task is to help as many as possible—to save as many lives as possible. There is no hope for the heavily wounded. They will die. We can’t bother with them.”

“That may be right from a medical standpoint—” Mr. Tanimoto began, but then he looked out across the field, where the many dead lay close and intimate with those who were still living,

and he turned away without finishing his sentence, angry now with himself.

(Hersey, 1989: 50)

Another example of meaningful dialogue in Hersey’s Hiroshima is between one out of six main characters, Father Kleinsorge, and Mr. Fukai, who apparently had been hopeless and just wanted to die.

[…] “Leave me here.”

Father Kleinsorge went into the room and took Mr. Fukai by the collar of his coat and said, “Come with me or you’ll die.”

Mr. Fukai said, “Leave me here to die.”

Father Kleinsorge began to shove and haul Mr. Fukai out of the room. Then the theological student came up and grabbed Mr. Fukai’s feet, and Father Kleinsorge took his shoulders, and together they carried him downstairs and outdoors.

“I can’t walk!” Mr. Fukai cried. “Leave me here!”

Father Kleinsorge got his paper suitcase with the money in it and took Mr. Fukai up pickaback, and the party started for the East Parade Ground, their district’s ‘safe area’. As they went out of the gate, Mr. Fukai, quite childlike now, beat on Father Kleinsorge’s shoulders and said, “I won’t leave. I won’t leave.” […]

(Hersey, 1989: 27)

4.2.1.4 Image

According to Aziez and Hasim (2010: 80), image is usually presented as a concrete quality. Image visualizes material object and immaterial object such as taste, smell, and sound. It is quite the same with what people called as description, and Hersey’s Hiroshima is full with it. Image or description helps reader to really feel or see or contemplate with the situation that has been told in the story. It makes reader to feel like they are really being there, watching the situation by their own eyes.

Several parts in Hersey’s Hiroshima have images of how awfully wounded the victims are. Hersey uses simple diction and straight forward writing style. But, it does not make the story on the state where it is brutal or vulgar. If anything it would be, it is heartbreaking.

[…] When he had penetrated the bushes, he saw there were about twenty men, and they were all in exactly the same nightmarish state: their faces were wholly burned, their eyesockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks. (They must have had their faces upturned when the bomb went off; perhaps they were anti-aircraft personnel.) Their mouths were mere swollen, pus-covered wounds, which they could not bare to stretch enough to admit the spout of the teapot. […]

(Hersey, 1989: 51)

The passage above shows an excruciating image of some soldiers with melted eyes and other heavy wounds. Readers supposedly are able to catch the image of them easily with that kind of description. Hersey adds a note in the brackets to elaborate how the soldiers could end up by the melted eyes.

4.2.2 Narrative Makes the Story Longer

Hersey’s Hiroshima is first published as an article in The New Yorker magazine in August 31st 1946. The editors for this article are William Shawn and Harold Ross. They decided to deliver the story in one edition. By that, the edition of The New Yorker in August 31st 1946 consisted of Hersey’s article only, from the first until the last page. This breakthrough article is opened by one editorial paragraph entitled ‘To Our Readers’.

The New Yorker this week devotes its entire editorial space to an article on the almost complete obliteration of a city by one atomic bomb, and what happened to the people of that city. It does so in the conviction that few of us have yet comprehended the all but incredible destructive power of this weapon, and that everyone might well take time to consider the terrible implications of its use. –The Editors

(Hersey, August 1945)

Hersey’s Hiroshima consists of more than thirty thousand words. In Indonesia, most of journalists used to write news in a thousand or two thousand words per story (Harsono and Setiyono, 2008: ix). Literary journalism is long

because it is full of details and covers what mainstream journalism does not cover. Details help create images and building the story. Below is one example out from many of details that clearly create image, until readers feel like they watch a movie.

Immediately after the explosion, the Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, having run wildly out of the Matsui estate and having looked in wonderment at the bloody soldiers at the mouth of the dugout they had been digging, attached himself sympathetically to an old lady was walking along in a daze, holding her head with her left hand, supporting a small boy of three or four on her back with her right, and crying, “I’m hurt! I’m hurt!” Mr. Tanimoto transferred the child to his own back and led the woman by the hand down the street, which was darkened by what seemed to be a local column of dust. […]

(Hersey, 1989: 17)

Those sentences begin the second chapter in Hersey’s Hiroshima, ‘The Fire’. It is movie-like because the details are really tiny. Even the narrator states which hand that holds the old woman’s own head and which hand that holds the boy. These kind of details are scary because it is all true.

In Hersey’s Hiroshima, reader will not find the details about the exact number of victim, no information about the planes that dropped the bomb, and no explanation of the bomb itself. Hersey’s Hiroshima only tells about the fates of six people in Hiroshima that experienced same tragedy. Hersey covers their story from before, during, and after the bomb fell. That is all. Hersey’s Hiroshima indeed covers unusual things that are not usually be covered by mainstream journalistic works. Hersey describes the feelings of the characters, works on extreme details, focuses on humanity aspects rather than the World War II itself.

The passage below is one example of things that any other form of journalistic may not consider to write in their news. It tells about Dr. Sasaki who lost his glasses then took glasses of a wounded nurse.

[…] He grabbed up some bandages and an unbroken bottle of Mercurochrome, hurried back to the chief surgeon, and bandaged his cuts. Then he went into the corridor and began patching up the wounded patients and the doctors and nurses there. He blundered so without his glasses that he took a pair off the face of a wounded nurse, and although they only approximately compensated for the errors of his vision, they were better than nothing. […]

(Hersey, 1989: 25)

The phrase ‘they were better than nothing’ expresses how the distress that may occur in that state of situation. It describes the surviving action in a rush and chaos situation.

4.2.3 Narrative Elaborates the Character’s Personality

The power of Hersey’s Hiroshima is placed on its detail in narrating the six main characters. Hersey covers their story from before, during, and after the bomb fell.

Hersey’s Hiroshima is divided in five chapters. Each of them focuses into six parts which elaborates the six characters. Hersey managed to describe the situation of each character until the smallest details. Although the story background is World War II, Hersey focuses on delivering the humanity side rather than the detail on World War II itself. Reader will get attached to these six main characters by reading Hersey’s Hiroshima page by page. They will know less about the war and more about each character personality.

4.2.3.1 Dr. Masakazu Fujii

In Hersey’s Hiroshima, Dr. Fujii’s personality is mainly hedonistic and always has an interest to foreign languages. At the age of fifty, he was healthy, convivial, calm, and always pleased to pass the evenings drinking whiskey with friends. He had five children who later followed in their father’s footsteps.

Dr. Fujii was openly eager to learn foreign languages, such as German and English. Even though Hiroshima was bombed by the Americans, he did not grow quite hatred toward them. He actually honored them.

[…] Then he heard about a vacant private clinic in Kaitachi, a suburb to the east of Hiroshima. He bought it at once, moved there, and hung out a sign inscribed in English, in honor of the conquerors: M. FUJII, M.D. Medical & Venereal.

Quite recovered from his wounds, he soon built up a strong practice, and he was delighted, in the evenings, to receive members of the occupying forces, on whom he lavished whiskey and practiced English.

(Hersey, 1989: 78)

His personality is shown clearer in the last chapter of Hersey’s Hiroshima, ‘The Aftermath’, which Hersey wrote almost four decades after the explosion. In this chapter, the narrator shows reader how Dr. Fujii really enjoyed himself. His happy-go-lucky attitude did well for his health. Dr. Fujii suffered from none of the effects of radiation overdose.

[…] He was compassionate toward his patients, but he did not believe in working too hard. He had a dance floor installed in his house. He bought a billiard table. He enjoyed photography and built himself a darkroom. He played mah-jongg. He loved having foreign houseguests. At bedtime, his nurses gave him massages and, sometimes, therapeutic injections.

(Hersey, 1989: 128)

In 1960s, Dr. Fujii seemed different and was not as happy-go-lucky as before. His relationship with his wife was growing difficult. In 1963, he was found unconscious in his room. For the next eleven years, he remained in the hospital, fed through a tube for two and a half years, and then was taken home. Dr. Fujii died in 1973 under his wife’s care in home.

4.2.3.2 Dr. Terufumi Sasaki

He was twenty five years old and was a surgeon at the Red Cross Hospital when the atomic bomb incident. Dr. Sasaki personality that showed in Hersey’s

Hiroshima was an idealist and ambitious. Many of his actions in Hersey’s Hiroshima

represents those points.

Reader can tell the idealist side of Dr. Sasaki when the narrator explains the distress of Dr. Sasaki of the inadequacy of medical facilities in his country town that made him begun visiting sick people, without a permit. He had been scolded seriously by his fellow doctor about this but nevertheless continued to practice. In the morning before the bomb was dropped, he hesitated to go to work because he felt sluggish and slightly feverish. But his sense of duty finally forced him to go.

At the moment when the atomic bomb was dropped, Dr. Sasaki was one step beyond an open window and immediately ducked down on one knee. Miraculously, he was untouched. He found himself as the sole uninjured doctor in the hospital. He could not bother to go back to his house to make sure the safety of his family. Dr. Sasaki had way too many wounded people who pleaded to be taken care of and he could not ignore his sense of duty.

[…] The people in the suffocating crowd inside the hospital wept and cried, for Dr. Sasaki to hear, “Sensei! Doctor!,” and the less seriously wounded came and pulled at his sleeve and begged him to go to the aid of the worse wounded. Tugged here and there in his stockinged feet, bewildered by the numbers, staggered by so much raw flesh, Dr. Sasaki lost all sense of profession and stopped working as a skillful surgeon and a sympathetic man; he became an automaton, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding, wiping, daubing, winding.

(Hersey, 1989: 26)

Dr. Sasaki worked without method for nineteen straight hours, rested for an hour before some wounded people complained and asked him to get back to work. For three straight days, Dr. Sasaki worked with only one hour sleep. In the afternoon at the third day, he got permission to go to check on his mother. He went bed and

slept for seventeen hours. The following day, he went back to the Red Cross Hospital and worked for another three straight days without much rest.

The ambitious side of Dr. Sasaki is showed when the narrator describes how Dr. Sasaki fights over a woman who later became his wife. The father of the woman was wary because Dr. Sasaki had a reputation of having been a very bad boy when he was young. He also knew about the illegal treatment patients Dr. Sasaki had done. But Dr. Sasaki was persistent and eventually won the parent over.

Dr. Sasaki was also ambitious to open his private clinic in his country town, so he decided to quit working for the hospital. The way he went through to complete his ambition was long and rough, but in the end, he became a successful wealthy man, still with the strong idealism.

Every morning, Dr. Sasaki met with the entire staff of the clinic. He had a favorite lecture: Do not work primarily for money; do your duty to patients first and let the money followed; our life is short, we don’t live twice; the whirlwind will pick up the leaves and spin them, but then it will drop them and they will form a pile. (Hersey, 1989: 108)

4.2.3.3 Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge (Father Makoto Takakura)

He loved Japan with all his heart and was a thirty eight years old German priest at that time. In Hersey’s Hiroshima, reader may find his main personality was his habit to help people even until he forgets his limit, until the state which eventually suffers himself. He also felt insecure as a foreigner in Japan.

Father Kleinsorge’s rather self-destructive habit can be concluded after reading some actions that Father Kleinsorge did in Hersey’s Hiroshima. Before the bomb was dropped, he was in a rather frail condition because of diarrhea. After the bomb fell, his body, especially his back, was badly wounded. With all that slacking

health, he still managed to carry Mr. Fukai piggyback. Mr. Fukai was his fellow in church that was hopeless and refused to be saved.

Even with his constant hospitalizing in the hospital in Tokyo, back in Hiroshima, he would do too much works he actually could not handle as a

hibakusha. His German Jesuit colleagues were on the opinion that he was a little too much concerned for others, and not enough for himself. They thought he might kill himself with kindness to others. Apparently, Father Kleinsorge had taken on himself the Japanese spirit of enryo, means to set the self apart, putting the wishes of others first.

Father Kleinsorge was in love with Japanese and their ways. However, he could not ignore his feeling of strain of being a foreigner in an increasingly xenophobic Japan. Hersey made it clear in several scenes in Hiroshima.

[…] Father Kleinsorge had, at thirty-eight the look of a boy growing too fast—thin in the face, with a prominent Adam’s apple, a hollow chest, dangling hands, big feet. He walked clumsily, leaning forward a little. […]

(Hersey, 1989: 11)

The quotation above shows the image of Father Kleinsorge’s figure that quite opposite from most Japanese figure. The phrase ‘leaning forward a little’ shows how Father Kleinsorge was self-conscious with his height and unconfident about that. Another obvious remark for his uneasiness for being a foreigner also shows in this following passage.

[…] A little before noon, he saw a Japanese woman handing something out. Soon she came to him and said in a kindly voice, “These are tea leaves. Chew them, young man, and you won’t feel thirsty.” The woman’s gentleness made Father Kleinsorge suddenly want to cry. For weeks, he had been feeling oppressed by the hatred of foreigners that the Japanese seemed increasingly show, and he had been uneasy even with his Japanese friends. This stranger’s gesture made him a little hysterical. […]

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APPENDICES

i.John Hersey’s Biography and His Works

John Richard Hersey was born in Tientsin, China, in 1914 and lived there until 1925, when his family returned to the United States. He studied at Yale and Cambridge, served for a time as Sinclair Lewis’ secretary, then worked several years as a journalist.

Beginning in 1947 he devoted his time mainly to writing fiction. His works such as Men on Bataan (1942), Into the Valley (1943), A Bell for Adano (1944) and Hiroshima (1946). He won the Pulitzer Prize for A Bell for Adano.

He taught for two decades at Yale, and was president of the Authors League of America and Chancellor of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Hersey died in 1993.

ii. Summary of John Hersey’s Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb is dropped from an American plane on the 245,000 residents of Hiroshima, Japan. Most of the city is destroyed and thousands of its inhabitants die. Some of its citizens survive and suffer the debilitating effects of terrible burns and radiation illness. The lives of six of those survivors are recounted in the days following the bombing.

When the bomb detonates, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura is watching her neighbor's house and overseeing her sleeping children; all end up covered in debris when their house is destroyed. Miss Toshiko Sasaki, an office clerk, is leaning over to speak to a fellow worker when she is blasted out of her desk and trapped under heavy bookcases. She sustains a severely broken leg. A medical doctor, Masakazu Fujii, is reading on his porch when he is catapulted into a river and squeezed between two large timbers. Still another doctor, Terufumi Sasaki, falls to the floor in the corridor of the Red Cross Hospital and gazes in wonder at the scene outside the window. Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge awakens in the vegetable garden of the Catholic mission house, injured and dazed. The Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto throws himself between two large rocks and is hit with debris from a nearby house. Most of the six survivors are hurt, but they are all alive.

In the hours following the bombing, each survivor attempts to free himself or herself, find loved ones, and help others if possible. Dr. Sasaki grabs bandages and works 19 hours at a time, trying to bandage the 10,000 injured people making their way to his hospital. In the hours and days after the bombing, he becomes an automaton, going from one patient to another. Dr. Fujii, injured badly himself, attempts to help his nurses and find

his way to his family's home where he can get first aid supplies. Mrs. Nakamura works relentlessly to uncover her three children in the debris; they appear unhurt but

dazed and shaken. She takes them to Asano Park where they can find some shelter under trees. Miss Sasaki spends days and hours in the debris, but she is finally rescued although semi-conscious and in pain and left in a lean-to. Father Kleinsorge helps those trapped under houses and makes his way to Asano Park along with Mr. Tanimoto. Both ministers help people in the park put out fires and get medical help.

During the evening of August 6, the survivors struggle to endure and help each other. The city is a ball of flame, and the park is filled with radiation rain and whirlwinds. The suffering of thousands of people and their wounds and burns are described repeatedly. Mr. Tanimoto must remind himself that these creatures are human beings. Relentlessly, he ferries boatloads of people upstream to get to higher ground. Several injured priests and the Nakamura family are evacuated to the Novitiate in the hills. The injured and dying are so numerous that the doctors no longer help the badly injured because they are not going to survive. Miss Sasaki is finally evacuated and begins many days and weeks of being moved from one hospital or aid station to another.

As time goes by, order is slowly restored, but the overwhelming scene of misery and human suffering is a sharp counterpoint to the official news released from various governments. On August 9, a second bomb is dropped, this time on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. On August 15, the Emperor of Japan gives a radio address telling his people that Japan has surrendered.

Next, the horrible revelations of radiation illness commence. Dr. Kleinsorge must go to a hospital in Tokyo. He will never again regain his energy or health. Miss Sasaki, also in a hospital, is so depressed over being crippled for the rest of her life

years analyzing the effects of the radiation and how best to treat it; he marries and begins a medical practice. Dr. Fujii also opens a medical practice and begins socializing with the occupation officers. Mrs. Nakamura and her children lose their hair and suffer from various illnesses, but because they are so poor, they cannot afford to see a doctor. Mr. Tanimoto attempts to operate his church out of his badly destroyed home. The survivors struggle on with the effects of the radiation, and attempt to find ways to manage despite their injuries.

A fifth chapter, "The Aftermath," was added later, detailing the lives of the survivors after the bombing (up to 1985). Mrs. Nakamura is receiving medical help for her many radiation illnesses and staying away from political rallies by the survivors, who are now called "hibakusha." The hibakusha have become the targets of politics and the peace movement. Mrs. Nakamura's children are grown, and she has retired from a job at a chemical company. Dr. Sasaki ran a lucrative medical practice. He lost his wife to cancer, and he is still haunted by the souls of those who

died as a result of the bombing.Father Kleinsorge spent many years ill, both in and

out of the hospital. In 1976, he slipped and fell on ice, resulting in fractures that left him bedridden. The following year he weakened, became comatose, and died. Miss Sasaki endured numerous surgeries on her leg. She converted to Catholicism and became a nun, helping people die in peace. Dr. Fujii died of cancer, but his life after the bombing was one of wealth and the pursuit of pleasure. The Reverend Mr. Tanimoto, after traveling to America several times to raise money to aid the hibakusha, has retired quietly, living out the rest of his life with vague memories that day forty years ago.