Object of the Study

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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS ON DEPRIVATION IN LENINGRAD DURING WORLD WAR

II DEPICTED BY DAVID BENIOFF IN CITY OF THIEVES This chapter consists of two main parts. The first part is absolute deprivation, and the second part is relative deprivation. According to The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology, deprivation is divided into two kinds, they are absolute deprivation and relative deprivation. Absolute deprivation is a deprivation determined against an independent standard of measurement. It happens when one social group or individual does not have enough resources to survive or fill the minimum standard to live, while relative deprivation is a condition when it is based on a comparison with the resources of other groups “Deprivation”.

A. Absolute Deprivation

According to International Encyclopedia of Sociology, deprivation happens when one social group or individual does not have enough resources to survive or fill the minimum standard to live “Deprivation”. The sociologists Park and Mason categorize deprivation into those affecting survival needs, belongingness needs, leisure needs, and control needs. It is not the outsider’s objective measure of deprivation that is important, but the group’s own internal sense of lack “Deprivation”. Booth and Rowntree state that poverty supposedly absolute in the sense that it was said to be understood as lack of sufficient money to meet basic physical needs to subsist and survive. Townsend as cited by Turner state that poverty in terms of exclusion from the living condition, and inability to participate in the activities, taken for granted by the wider society because of lack of material sources as cited by Turner, 2006, p. 503. Using the theory of absolute deprivation above, this part discusses about six parts of deprivation. They are extreme winter, the shortage of food supply, the other shortages of supply, the activity restriction, the waves of evacuation, and the mass death of Leningrad people. Each part describes about the absolute deprivation suffered by people of Leningrad as depicted in City of Thieves.

1. The Extreme Winter

Winter is mentioned in this discussion because without enough food and proper shelter, winter made the situation getting even worse. To survive in the winter was not an easy thing to do. The city was poor at some times, but the Leningrad people felt they were extremely poor during the winter. This statement is mentioned by Lev as the main character in the beginning of the story, “In June of 1941, before the Germans came, we thought we were poor. But June seemed like paradise by winter” p. 7. The Siege of Leningrad happened for almost 900 days, it started from September 8, 1944 until January 27, 1945. Benioff mentions about the coldness in his novel, although they are not specific. In the first chapter of the novel, Lev said how the condition at that timewas, “You have never been so hungry; you have never been so cold” p. 7.