4 . The Relation between Literature and Society
There are many opinions about society in life between analyst. However, the general view of society refers to the human relationship. Rose 1977: 87-89, in the
study of society says that the basic fact of human behaviors is oriented in so many things in the world. Not only do men live together and share common opinions,
values, beliefs and customs, they also continually, interact, responding to one another. According to Staub 1978: 5, there is very strong relationship between
values, beliefs and personal goal and behavior in the society. The primary focus of a person in an action. A person is helped by action not by beliefs that one ought to act.
Values and empathy are important as motivation of social action. From Rose’s and Staub’s statements, I can conclude that society is the
interaction between people. People live together and they also interact each other. They share their beliefs, opinions, values and customs in their interactions. They do
their activities in society based on their personal goals, beliefs, and values. Literature is a social institution and traditional literary device, it may
symbolize society. In a literary work, there are convention and norms, which could have arisen only in society. Further, literature represents life and life itself is a social
reality, though the natural world and the inner or subjective world of the individual have also been object of literary intuition. Thus, the topic which is raised in literary
study is the problems in the society Wellek and Waren, 1956: 94. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Wellek and Warren also gives a comment in their book that Literature as 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 would have arisen only in society. Furthermore,
literature `represents` ‘life’; and ‘life’ is, in large measure, a social reality, even through the natural world and the inner or subjective world of the individual have
also been objects of literary ‘imitation’. Literature which also a social function or ‘use’, which cannot be purely individual. Thus a large majority of the questions
raised by literary study are, at least ultimately or by implication, social questions: questions of tradition and convention, norms and genres, symbols and myths. 1956:
94. It can be seen from Wellek and Warren’s statement above, that literature has
a close relation with society because literature `represents` ‘life’; and ‘life’ is, in large measure, means social. Wellek and Warren in their book, theory of literature, state
their argumentative opinion about those relationships as follows. The relation between literature and society is that literature is an expression of
society, but if it assumes that literature, at any given time, mirrors the current social situation correctly, it is also, its vogue if it means only that literature
depicts some as poet of society reality. To say that literature is mirror of expression life is even more ambiguous. An author in edibility expresses life
is total conception of life, but it would be manifested untrue to say that he expresses the whole of life even the whole life of a given time completely and
exhaustively 1956: 95.
Dealing with the analysis, Literature represents the novel, Cry, the Beloved Country while society represents the South African society at the time Paton wrote the novel.
Wellek and Warren also give three actual relations between literature and society, which are explained in descriptive way. The descriptive relations between
literature and society can be classified as follows. First, there are the sociology and the profession of the author and institutions
of literature. The problems appearing in this case are the economic basic of literary production, the social provenance and status of the author, his social
ideology, which may be found in extra literary pronouncement and activities. Second, there are the problems of the social content, the implications and the
social purpose of the works of literature themselves. Third, there are the problems of the audience and the actual social content of works themselves
and the influence of the literature on society 1956: 95-96.
From the quotation above, It is clear that the relation between the author’s work and literature can be seen from its influence on society. Those ideas are
expressed through the related events and characters in a literary work. Literature can be a medium to criticize the society. Furthermore, Rohrberger
1971: 10 mentions that the humanist takes the view that literature is a criticism of life that affects men in society and that great literature should express the values of
order, restraint and human dignity. A person can learn about society through the study of art. It is because the
idea of a literary work is taken from society. It means that the literary work can be the imitation of life in society itself.
C. Review on the South Africa Social Condition in the Early 20
th
Century
South Africa is one of the largest and most powerful states situated in the southern part of Africa. South Africa is a beautiful country with many natural
resources. However, it is handicapped by lack of water and by soil erosion. South Africa’s population is diversed racially and ethnically. Blacks make up 72,2 of the
population, whites 15,9, coloureds person of mixed racial origin 9,1 and Asians 2,8 . The black population consists of nine main ethnic groups, the largest are Zulu
and Xhosa The Encyclopedia Americana, 1995: 262-263. South Africa is also well-known as the most industrialized and prosperous
nation in Africa. South Africa is the world’s leading gold-producing nation, ranks second as a producer of diamond and manganese, and holds third place in output of
uranium. It also has an abundance of chrome, coal, iron, and manufactures three fifth of Africa’s steel. Besides the mineral resources, South Africa also produces wool,
fruit, and wines Joy, 1967: 128. The primary problem of South Africa starts from the rule of a huge African
majority by a small European minority. During the end of the 15
th
century, some countries came to explore South Africa, but the European colonial powers’ scramble
for Africa reached its peak at the last quarter of the 19
th
century. By 1876 only 10 of Africa’s territory had been seized, this figure reached 90 by 1900. British was in
the lead Ketelbey, 1959:529. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
At the turn of the century, for the first time, South Africa had an extremely valuable resource that attracted foreign capital and large-scale immigration.
Discoveries of gold and diamonds in South Africa exceeded the natural resources in any other parts of the world, and more foreign capital had been invested in South
Africa. The white population expanded eightfold, while hundreds of thousand of Africans sought work each year in the newly developed mines and cities of
industrializing areas. However, not all shared equally in this newfound wealth. Diamond and, in particular, gold mining industries required vast amounts of
inexpensive labor in order to be profitable. Therefore, there must be a group of people to be sacrified that were the native African Wallbank, 1969: 78.
The situation forces Black Africans to relocate in urban areas for employment, and to struggle in the workplace and in the township outside the cities, has eliminated
the essential of traditional tribal life and relationships. African workers were subjected to a confusing arrangement of discriminatory laws and practices, all
enforced in order to keep workers cheap and pliable. For example, they were not allowed to join in black trade union. Laws restricting the movement of Black
Africans outside the reserves were instituted. Breaking a labor contract became a crime under the Master and servants laws. Black Africans were also subjected to
special taxes. It can be seen that the life of the black African themselves really did not change, even it went worse. Earlier, they had often been low-paid farm workers.
Then, in the development of their country, the native African still became the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
unskilled, low-wage mine workers, while a much smaller number of whites held the skilled positions with much higher salary Wallbank, 1969: 78.
Not only the men suffered because of the discriminatory treatment, but women and children did too. In the much rural areas, the wives and children of these
migrant laborers had to struggle hard in continuing their life with the limited remittances sent back by the men. It was a familiar story that they would live in
poverty and shortage of everything because wages were too low to feed and clothe and old age, and public revenues insufficient for public services which would give the
African the basic necessities for a reasonable standard of living Wallbank, 1969: 78. In short, many of the discrimination features as the typical of twentieth-century South
Africa—pass laws, urban ghettos, impoverished rural homelands, African migrant labor—were first established in the course of the South Africa’s development.
Fortunately, the presence of the Christian missions with all of their activities could bring a little fresh air in the daily life of society. The good influence of the
missions have extended over a wide area and have been sustained over a long period. They helped many people by providing the principal vehicle for education and they
had brought to many Africans a personal religion and morality which had helped to fill the gap caused by the disintegration of the society Wallbank, 1969:79.
Cry, the Beloved Country takes place after these upheavals and immediately before the implementation, in 1948, of apartheid, which codified the systematic
inequalities depicted in the novel. During the time in which the novel is set, black PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
workers were permitted to hold only unskilled jobs and were subject to “pass laws” that restricted their freedom of movement. In 1913, the Natives Land Act radically
limited the amount of land that black South Africans were permitted to own. As the character Arthur Jarvis states in the novel, just one-tenth of the land was set aside for
four-fifths of the country’s people. The resultant overcrowding led many black South Africans to migrate to Johannesburg to work in the mines. Those in power welcomed
the influx of cheap labor but failed to provide adequate housing or services to address the mass migration. These are the circumstances under which the character Stephen
Kumalo leaves his impoverished rural village to search for his son in Johannesburg http:www.sparknotes.comlitcrycontext.html.
Though Paton’s novel helped raise the social consciousness of white South Africa, things got much worse before they got better. In 1948, the National Party
representing Africaner and conservative interests gained power and introduced apartheid. Under apartheid, every South African was classified according to race, and
the Group Areas Act enforced the physical separation of blacks from whites. Every aspect of South African life was racially segregated. Under the leadership of Nelson
Mandela, the African National Congress ANC, which had been founded in 1912 as the South African Native National Congress and renamed in 1923, began protests
against the new laws in the form of strikes and marches. After decades of struggle and bloodshed, the ANC prevailed, and South Africa held its first free election in
1994. Mandela was elected president, apartheid was dismantled, and the country PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
