22 seven chapters. Basically, the plot in the novel is told using a narrator point of
view. This novel portrays some characters of people from a lot of backgrounds and areas in Indonesia, such as Yogyakarta, Kediri, Pulau Buru Island, and
Jakarta. It tells Indonesian history related to the 1965 tragedy which is covered through the love affair of Bhisma and Amba.
The story in the novel begins with the description of Buru Island in which Amba is attacked by a woman named Muka Burung, a woman who marries
Bhisma according to customary law. Her purpose of coming to Buru is to look for her lovely man, Bhisma. She is accompanied by Zulfikar, one of
Bhisma’s friends when they become political prisoners. In the ship to Buru, they meet Samuel who
later on always accompanies Amba in exploring the island to find Bhisma. Sadly, she finds the fact that Bhisma has passed away. However, Bhisma leaves her
some letters which she found through Manalisa’s guidance.
The story is back to the time when Bhisma and Amba in Kediri. At that time, Amba is working as a translator for Bhisma, who works as a young doctor in
a hospital. Then, they fall in love and go to Yogyakarta together. Bhisma has to heal his CGMI friend, as requested by Untarto
, while Amba returns to her aunt’s home in a horrible political situation of communist massacre. One day, Bhisma
invites Amba to come to CGMI’s meeting in Res Publica, the place for them to be
together. After Bhisma finishes his speech, there is a gunshot incident. Because of the incident which makes Bhisma separates from Amba forever.
Bhisma is then accused of being a communist and imprisoned in Buru Island. In contrast, Amba continues her life in Jakarta and marries Adalhard, an
23 American. Nevertheless, Amba still keeps her only love for Bhisma so that she
travels to Buru. At the end, Amba knows the reason why Bhisma lost. Then, Amba returns to Jakarta, invites Samuel, a man who always accompanies and
cares about her during her journey in Buru. He sees Srikandi, Amba’s daughter,
who holds a painting exhibition.
B. Approaches of the Study
This study focuses on the meanings of the struggles as shown in Bhisma, as the major character in The Question of Red. In order to find the meanings of
Bhisma ’s struggles, the researcher applies both Marxism and Katresnanism
approaches. The study analyses the deeper meanings of Bhisma’s struggles, as the
major character which is supposed to be influenced by Marxism approach. Besides, Katresnanism theory is
applied to know the meanings of Bhisma’s struggles from Javanese point of view. The researcher uses both Marxism and
Katesnanism approaches to answer the second problem formulation. As a result, the researcher find
s several meanings of Bhisma’s struggles.
C. Method of the Study
The method that was used to conduct this study was library research. Library research is a research method which is conducted by reading and
analysing the sources. There were two sources in this study: the primary and secondary sources. The primary source was The Question of Red, a novel by
Laksmi Pamuntjak which was written in 2013. The secondary sources were some relevant books and journals named Murphy’s Understanding Unseen. In addition,
in order to comprehend literature theory, th e researcher read Barry’s Beginning
24 Theory and
Kennedy and Gioia’s Literature: An introduction to fiction, poetry and drama. Then, in order to understand the Marxi
sm approach, Barry’s Beginning theory
and Bertens’ Literary theory were applied. In addition, the researcher applied Katresnanism approach as proposed by Herujiyanto.
There were some steps that the researcher did when conducting this study. The first step was reading the whole novel in order to understand the story. The
researcher focused on Bhi sma’s characteristics, struggles, and his details stated in
the novel. Then, the researcher reread the novel again and tried to understand it more. The researcher focused on Bhisma as the main character and noted some
useful, related information to Bhisma. It could be obtained by observing the description by the narrator or the author as well as the description or thought by
the other characters. Then, the researcher provided two formulated problems in order to limit the topic being discussed and other char
acters’ thoughts about him. The second step was finding more data in relation to the two formulated
problems from other books and sources, for example, theory of character and characterisation to answer the first problem formulation: how Bhisma is portrayed
in the novel. In addition, theory of Marxism and theory of Katresnanism were applied to answer the second problem formulation: the
meanings of Bhisma’s struggles. The third step was analysing the two formulated problems by applying
all Marxism theory and the second aos of Katresnanism theory. At this point, the researcher did the analysis from both primary and secondary sources to support
the findings. Finally as the last step, the researcher drew a conclusion for this study.
