CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of Analysis
Literature is the artistic expression of feeling and emotion which poured into words. The word ‘literature’ derives from the Latin ‘letter’ which
primarily refers to the written or printed words. Literature grows from the imaginative mind of the writers and by using their creative imagination,
everything happened around their community can be put into literary work. Kasim, Razali 2005 : 2
A literary work can move human’s feeling and emotion. A literary work gives more lessons through the aspects of human life such as social, cultural,
moral and religious aspects. There is a close relationship between literary work and society or real life that we are experiencing.
According to Wellek and Austin Warren 1967 : 1 , Literature represents ‘life’ and ‘life ’itself in a large measure comes from a social reality, even though
the natural world and the inner or subjective world of the individual have also been object of the literary imitation. It means, that literature, as with any art form,
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should hold a mirror up to society and reflects what is happening there. Besides using his creative imagination or the ability of writing, the writer should connect
his work to the real life or what he sees in the society. But sometimes, a literay work doesn’t represent life directly but it just indirectly appeared that there is a
social life issue showed inside. Novel as a genre of literary works can be defined as: “a work of
prose fiction, usually an extended narrative that tells a story or uses incidents to dramatize human experience and individual characters” Grambs,David 1925: 93.
A novel can be analyzed in several points of view. It can be analyzed from the moral, social and religious point of view. Social life has many aspects to
analyze, such as social history, social condition, and social cultural. Those aspects are poured into literary works by writers to convey their messages.
Social condition of one period can be reflected by a literary work. In the other words, A literary work is a reflection of one period when the literary work
written. By creating a novel, the author usually reflects his viewing about the social condition he sees into his novel.
To analyze social condition of a novel, we need to know the relationship between the background of the author’s novel with the condition of life he is
watching, because a novel which contains messages is appeared when the author finds something wrong or unfair where he lives even in any other places. As the
form of his dislikeness toward this condition, he struggles and reveals his opinion by writing to convey something that according to him seems to be true. It
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probably gets any responds from the readers who lives in any sides of the world about the topic or issues.
To Kill A Mockingbird is Harper Lee’s realistic novel. It was published in July 11, 1960. The novel was based on Lee’s researching toward family and her
neighbours, with the moments happened around in 1936 when Lee was 10 years old. The story seemed to be set in the middle of 19th century in Alabama. To Kill
a Mockingbird was written and published amidst the most significant and conflict- ridden social change in the South since the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Inevitably, despite its mid-1930s setting, the story told from the perspective of the 1950s voices the conflicts, tensions, and fears induced by this transition
.
Every novel usually springs from the context of its time and place. Like the personal experience of Harper Lee’s life, the social considerations must be
weighed more heavily in this novel than in others for the obvious reason that Lee was more socialy conscious than others. The events at the time the novel is
written are reflected completely in this novel. In 1950’s black people in America were rejected by white people who assumed that the black people is in lower class
than them . This was occured in any side of life at that time. There was a class classification between black and white people where caused negative impacts to
the black people. Lee saw this as an issue and raised it into his novel.
To Kill A Mockingbird is an interesting topic to be discussed as it concerns with Harper Lee’s experience on American social condition. It deals much with
the historical details and the characters are described to be deeply involved in
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them. The readers of this novel may have a good knowledge on the historical and social background of the novel in order to understand it.
1.2. Statement of Problem
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