CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1 Literature and Society
Kennedy 1995 in his book Literature said, “Literature helps us grow, both personally and intellectually. It provides an objective base for knowledge and
understanding. It links us with the broader cultural, philosophic, and religious world of which we are a part. It enables us to recognize human dreams and struggles in
different places and times that we would never others wise know. It helps us develop mature sensibility and compassion for all condition of all living things.” From the
quotation above, Kennedy gives the understanding of the literature effect toward many aspects. They are linked with literature. Literature helps us develop mature
sensibility and compassion for all condition of all living things means that how the literature gives its effect toward life. Kennedy 1995:1 also said that literature refers
to compositions that tell stories, dramatize situations, express emotions, and analyze and advocate ideas. It is expression of feeling and emotion of writer.
Warren and Wellek in Theory of Literature book 1982:94 state, “Literature is a social institution, using as its medium language, a social creation. Such
traditional literary devices as symbolism and metre are social in their very nature. They are conventions and norms which could have arisen only in society. But,
furthermore literature represents ‘life’; and ‘life’ is, in large measure, a social reality, even though the natural world and the inner or subjective world of the
individual have also been objects of literary ‘imitation’. From the quotation above literature is known as social institution, it is expression of society. Literature
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represents life with social reality. Literature is the way, the connection among human to others and life. Warren and Wellek in Theory of Literature also explain that
literature has also a social function, or use, which cannot be purely individual. Literature is a reflection of life in a social reality.
Zeraffa 1972 in Sociological Perspective book said that literature is an attempt to make sense of our lives. Sociology is an attempt to make sense of the
ways in which we live our lives. In the sociology of the novel, sociology is dealing with an art. Narrative fiction is contained within language and takes most of its own
character from; the form and content of the novel derive more closely from social phenomena than do those of other arts, except perhaps cinema; novels often seem
bound up with particular moments in the history of society: we are none the less concerned with a specific art. From the quotation, novel is one of literary form. It is
closely with social phenomena, it also bound up the history of society. Henry James, one of novelist analyses the data of social life. Then he
interprets them, and tries to determine their essential features in order to transmit them in writing. Literary work is reflection of social life. Its data is derived of
phenomena in social life. So literature is related closely with society. Warren and Wellek 1982 elaborate that literature has claimed to be both a superior form of
knowledge and a form also of ethical and social action. Literature as a form of ethical and social action will be discussed through a literary work, for example a novel.
Specifically analysis of ethical and social action refers to moral of characters.
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2.2 Character
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