Background of the study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the study

Literary works are means of expression for writers to communicate their ideas about conditions in a society. Though considered imaginative products among the society, literary works actually reflects social tendencies in the people surrounding. “Literature is one of the great creative and universal means of communicating concerns of mankind.” The artists use literary works to express their ideas, imaginations and feelings and to communicate social issues happening in society. As imaginative products, these literary works cannot be separated from life because they reflect society with certain social, philosophical, religious values as norms in the society. Literary works are parts of social life. As imaginative products, literary works are resulted from observations that are arranged by values and norms in society. The artists adopt them for the purpose of inspiring people for better life. They hope that people understand the conditions in their society and make some changes in their social life; in literary works there are lives of individuals that involve relations among humans and even among groups of society. Literature 1 gives a lot of benefit to public. It will inform about social condition, moral, and history of society where the literature is published to public 1 The term literary is a”acquaintance with letters” as in the first sense given in the oxford English Dictionary from the Latin “littera” meaning “an individual written character letter”. The term has generally come to identify a collection of texts of work of art, which in Western culture are mainly prose, both fiction and non-fiction, drama and poetry. Anonymous, Literature, Literature. Accessed on April 11, 2007. http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiLiterature , p.1 through author’s idea. So public can learn more about the past, present and future prediction by wandering in the literature. Sometimes public can not catch the author’s mean and it can create misunderstanding. Therefore public need more research in literature to clear the misunderstanding and explain what the author wants for his work. Meanwhile, there is an argument that literary work is an autonomy structure. It is a unit which elements built it has relation each other, that way to understand literature; literary work must be analyzed based on its own structure, without correlating it with historical background, author’s mean and readers. Literary work is used to describe what the author catches about life in his surrounding. It reflects the condition of a certain society. However that reflection is not exactly the same. The author expresses hisher own opinion view of that society based on hisher understanding which may be different from the real one. Novel, as parts of literary work often represent a certain society which are not similar from the real one. For example Da Vinci code 2 , as a historical thriller novel, is one kind of those novels which represent a certain condition in society. That novel represent Opus Dei 3 their activities and rituals. The sect is existing in catholic religion; however the description of that sect in the novel is different from the real one. The different representation of opus Dei in the Da Vinci code with the real one raises many questions of what the novel actual intention is. 2 The Da Vinci Code, is thriller history written by Dan Brown which is essentially uncover the marriage of Jesus and his descendent. 3 Opus Dei is a catholic organization with around 85,000 members world wide and about 500 members in the UK. By analyzing how the Opus Dei is represented in the novel, it reveals the ideology of the book which represent such description. The Da Vinci Code is thriller history essentially uncover Vatican conspiracy for centuries which hidden about the marriage of Jesus and Maria Magdalena and his descendent. Based on the view, The Da Vinci Code which is believed as literary work that has controversial issues of Opus Dei, So the writer is interested toward Opus Dei sect to be used as object of this research in writing his thesis.

B. Focus of the study