means that readers interpret the work the way it seems to invite them to interpret it. Whereas, reading “against the grain” happens when readers interpret the text of
which the text itself seems unaware. Based on that definition, the researcher applies the second way, “reading against the grain” when examining and
interpreting The Laskar Pelangi Quartet. Decolonising of the mind is also attempted in this study, to observe the process of revealing colonialist power
whether by challenging or affirming the continuing and enduring influences of Eurocentrism as the colonialist values.
The procedures of this astudy are as follows. Close reading to each novel is the first step to understand the issue and the story itself. The second step is to
find the pattern which always appears in each novel. Comprehending the issue to find its meaning is the third step. The last step is analyzing it using postcolonial
approach.
F. Definition of Terms
The title of this thesis is Becoming Europeanized “Native” in Andrea Hirata’s The Laskar Pelangi Quartet. To enlighten the reading of this thesis,
some important terms in this study are defined: 1. Postcolonialism. Referring to Loomba’s concept of postcolonialism “not just
as coming literally after colonialism and signifying its demise, but more flexible as the contestation of colonial domination and the legacies of
colonialism”,
16
it can be seen as a theoretical attempt to engage with the colonial aftermath whereby the contemporary resistance to colonialism and to
dominant colonizers’ culture included.
16
Loomba, p. 16
2. Colonial discourse. According to Aschcroft et al. colonial discourse that implicated in ideas of the centrality of Europe is a system of statements and a
system of knowledge and beliefs.
17
3. Colonialist ideology. According to Tyson, colonialist ideology refers to the way colonialist thinking is expressed.
18
The colonizers express their own superiority, an assumption gained by contrasting it with the inferiority of the
natives as the people they invaded. The superiority assumption gives direction on classifying people’s characteristics based on the colonizers’ claim to
strengthen their own position as the controller. 4. Othering. Spivak points out that the term: “…the native states are being
distinguished from “our [colonial] governments””,
19
is the process by which imperial discourse creates its ‘others’.
5. Hybridity. This term has frequently been used in postcolonial discourse to mean simply cross-cultural ‘exchange’.
20
Bhabha contends: “Hybridity is the sign of the productivity of colonial power, its shifting forces and fixities; it is
the name for the strategic reversal of the process of domination through disavowal …”
21
6. Europeanized “native”. This term refers to the hybrid condition, the in- betweenness condition of the natives generated by colonialism. The result of
17
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies London: Routledge, 1998 p.42
18
See Tyson, p.419
19
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, The Rani of Sirmur An Essay in Reading the Archives, Vol. 24, No. 3 Oct., 1985 p.255 http:www.scribd.com
20
Ashcroft et al, p.119
21
Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture London: Routledge, 1994 p. 112. I thank Paulus Sarwoto M.A., Ph.D for alerting me with this useful reference on the issue of hybridity
“mental miscegenation” of colonial educational policies, to educate natives for becoming the Europeanized natives.
22
7. Native. This term is used in the translated version of the novels. The word native is choosen to translate the Belitung people or Belitungese orang
Melayu Belitung, it is written as “the natives of Belitong” TRT: 30, “the native Belitong-Malays” TRT: 39
8. Culture. This study uses the term culture in relation to the way people perceive themselves as an individual and their relationship to the world, or culture as
the tool of self-definition. The term is referring to Thiong’o: “To control a people’s culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to
others.”
23
22
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism London: Verso, 2006 p. 91
23
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 1994 p.16
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
