ignores historical, sociological, biographical, or psychological dimensions of literary discourse. It regards an artwork as an independent entity and privileges
phonetic structures, rhythm, rhyme, meter, and sound as independent meaningful elements of literary discourse. Formalism tries to analyze structural elements of a
text. Formalism studies literary discourse without looking at the facts of the
author’s life, the genre of the work, or its social surrounding. It concerns with demonstrating the harmonious involvement of all parts to the whole. The formalist
approach puts the emphasis on the literary object itself and its esthetic meanings . Rohrberger and Woods, 1971.
Guerin 2011 suggests that the process of formalist analysis, in which reader should be alert to “form”, begin with close reading. In other words, there
must be sensitivity and awareness to the words of the text and all their denotative and connotative values and implication.
In retrospect, we can say that what the author did was to make us see that internal relationships gradually reveal a form, a principle by which all
subordinate patterns can be accomodated and accounted for. When allthe words, phrases, metaphors, images, and symbols are examined in terms of
each other and of the whole, any literary text worth our efforts will display its own internal logic. When that logic has been established, the reader is
close to identifying the overall form of the work p. 74 – p. 75.
B. Theoretical Framework
The issues in this study are summarized in two research questions. The first issue is about symbols that exist in Andrea Hirata’s The Rainbow Troops
while the second is about the significance of the symbols on the theme conveyed in the novel.
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Since this study applies formalist approach, it will emphasize the intrinsic aspect and structural elements of the novel without looking at the author’s
background or the social surrounding. Based on the previous research questions, the theory of symbol will be used as a guidance to reveal symbols in Andrea
Hirata’s The Rainbow Troops as intended by the first question. The definition of symbols as suggested by Wellek and Warren, Odgen and Richard, and Arp and
Johnson will be the basic of identifying symbols that exist in the novel. While, Stanton’s explanation about clues in determining symbols is referred to discover
which object that can be considered as symbols in the novel. The theory of symbols as suggested by Robert and Jacobs, Kennedy and Gioia, Stanton, Arp and
Johnson, and Barnet et al., helps to see how symbols are revealed or shown by the author.
The second question, meanwhile, is answered by the help of Stanton’s theory about functions and effects of symbols. It is to see what the significance of
the existing symbols on the theme conveyed in the novel is.
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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
Research methodology is a way in achieving the objectives of the study. This chapter consists of four sub-chapters including the object of the study which
deals with the issue to be discussed, followed by the approach used in this study, and the last is the method containing the procedure in conducting the study.
A. Object of the Study
The object of this study is a novel written by Andrea Hirata entitled The Rainbow Troops
which was first published in 2005 by Bentang Pustaka. This novel is the first novel of The Rainbow Troops Quartet before the other three
books: Sang Pemimpi The Dreamer, Edensor, and Maryamah Karpov. The novel was first written in Bahasa Indonesia entitled “Laskar Pelangi”. It has been
translated into many languages and was translated into English by Angie Kilbane in 2009. Andrea Hirata’s The Rainbow Troops has been sold for more than five
million copies and has been adapted into movie by Miles Production in 2008. The Rainbow Troops
consists of 470 pages. It is divided into 48 chapters. The first 43 chapters are about their childhood memories while the rest 5 chapters
are about twelve years later memories. It tells about life portrait of ten poor students of Muhammadiyah Elementary School and their beloved teacher, Ibu
Muslimah. It inspirationally portrays the irony of life, chronic poverty and educational discrimination in a fabulously-rich-in-natural-resources island named
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