Ford became a billionaire man and influential figure in the twentieth century of America. However, he was also a controversial industrialist as in 1914 he declared
to share his profit with his workers and he gave high wages to his workers, 5 a day. Moreover, he provided and produced war equipments and supplies during
World War I. In 1927, Ford Motor Company faced a problem since the sales of Model T
dropped. Ford only gave his attention to reduce the price of the Model T and ignored the fact that the consumers wanted something new and changes.
Meanwhile, his competitor had produced more stylish and comfortable car. As the result he stopped the production of Model T in 1927 and his son took over the
company. Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947 in the age of 83.
C. Previous Research Finding
Previously, there are three researches that use Marxist literary criticism to analysis ideology in literary works. The first is the study conducted by Irfan
Roshadi 2012 entitled American Dream as An Ideology for American Immigrant Workers In Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
. In this research, Roshadi disccuses the roles of the ideology of American Dream for immigrant workers as
represented in Sinclair’s novel The Jungle. The reseacher applies the concept of Marxist ideology, especially Althuser’s concept on Ideological State Apparatus
which attampts to reveal the operation of America Dream as the ideology of the ruling class.
Meanwhile, Jafrudin Nasser 2015 conducts a study entitled Sinclair’s Criticism Toward American Capitalism In 1900’s Reflected In The Jungle
. In this research, Nasser tries to explain the Sinclair’s criticism toward American
capitalism particulary on the manipulation of American classes’ relation reflected in The Jungle. The study reveals about various concerns on the ideology, which
are manipulations from the ruling class through institutions seen in the total control of the economy, politics, and law. The reseacher also uses Althuser’s
concept of Ideological State Apparatus and Repressive State Apparatus as the theory of his study.
The third is The Ethical Patriotism of Green Day Represented in Its Album American Idiot
written by Herdian Praditya in 2014. The research focuses on how the lyrics in American Idiot album carry the ideology of Green Day. The
researcher uses the theory of ideology by Karl Mark to reveal the ideology in American Idiot
album. The result of the research shows that ethical patriotism is the ideology of Green Day in its album America Idiot.
This research has a similar concern with those three previous studies which try to reveal the presence of ideology in a literary work. In their research
both Roshadi and Nasser only attempt to reveal the dominant ideologies that are contained in Sinclair’s work, The Jungle but they do not focus on the ideology of
Sinclair. This research attempts to reveal the ideology of Sinclair but it uses a different work of Sinclair. Thus, the goal of this research is to reveal Sinclair’s
ideology in his work, The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America. To achive the goal of this research, the researcher uses the same Marxist concepts as Herdian
Praditya’s study, the theory of ideology by Karl Marx since the theory is relevance to discover author’s ideology. In addition, there is no single study on
The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America that can be found by the researcher.
Those facts show that this research is new and different.
D. Conceptual Framework
