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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Most humans seek for the meaning of their existence in the world. In seeking for the answers, they struggle against themselves, the world and others.
During the whole process, there are always some expectations. But the hope in the future and reality of the past does not always work out like what one planned or
predicted. Thus, people often feel disappointed, strange, and unhappy. Camus explained this condition with his own definition. He said that human feels
suddenly like “an alien, a stranger” when the past and future do not meet the expectations of the present Camus, 1955: 5. When it becomes severe and it
makes the person fall in despair, this absurd feeling triggers two options: the “recovery or suicide” Camus, 1955: 10. This absurd feeling underscores the
dilemma that a person has to face in their life, whether consciously or unconsciously.
The absurd is always challenging and interesting to analyze since it is related to human emotion and intellect. It analyzes the existence of human, the
way they live and die and face or not face their problems. Furthermore, the absurd as a condition has become question for literary thinkers to solve. In applying this
analysis of the absurd, a literary work also portrays the ideas and stories of human. A literary work becomes the medium of the human story. Therefore, the
absurd in real life can be found in the stories of the characters in most literary works.
Just like real people, the characters in a literary work also dream and desire for a better future. As the story starts, the reader understands that the
character has some hopes, goals and desires to fulfill. The results of those expectations in the beginning of a story are seen at the ending. This is similar to
the concept of a never-ending continuum of time involving the past, present, and future. The beginning of the story presents the past, while the conflict, climax and
denouement represent the present and the ending or the unread part of the story is the future time.
The desire for the future evokes the experience of the absurd since no one is able to move to the future without passing the present or the present becoming
the past. Albert Camus states this idea in his essay: Likewise and during every day of an unillustrious life, time carries us. But
a moment always comes when we have to carry it. We live in the future: “tomorrow,” “later on,” “when you have made your way,” “you will
understand when you are old enough.” Such irrelevancies are wonderful, for, after all, it’s a matter of dying…. Tomorrow, he was longing for
tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. That revolt of the flesh is the absurd. Camus, 1955: 10-11
As explained, a person has this confrontation inside of himself. While the mind is longing for the future, the body does not able to jump into the future as the mind
does. This desire to stop the time is the absurd condition that every person has to confront. Therefore, time and the absurd are closely related.
The Timekeeper 2012 is not an absurd novel. Some critical people have even stated that this novel has a cliché and weak plotline Draucker, 2012. This
novel also tends to simplify the complexity of life. However, this novel has the main idea of the relative concept of time in human life, which was above
mentioned as the trigger of the experience of the absurd of life itself. In this novel, there are three main characters. The first character is ‘The Father of Time’ who is
able to see how the other two characters act toward time. The second character, Victor, wants to slow down time since he wants more time. On the other hand, the
third character, Sarah, wants less time. The absurd conditions that each character has to struggle against are interesting to be critically analyzed in the important
examination of the human struggle with the absurd to find meaning in existence. The result of this research is going to be a bit simplified because of the plotline,
but the concept and conclusion from the research may be the basis to form another complex examination of existentialism problems in human life. Even though the
cliché and weak plotline may be very annoying to some critics, the fact that the cliché, and the weak plotline serve to portray the struggle against the absurd is not
so obvious. Therefore, this research will use The Timekeeper as the object of the study.
Furthermore, this thesis attempts to find the essential ideas of existentialism in the struggle of the characters. The main focus is to identify how
the three characters confront the dilemma of absurdity. However, the cause of the story that results in it having such plotline for some critics is also analyzed to
understand the struggle to find reasons for their existence in the world. This
approach is important to show how this literary work serves as a sample portrayal of peoples’ life and their struggle to find meaning in the human experience of the
absurd.
B. Problem Formulation