Structuralism Approach THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

A. Structuralism Approach

Structuralism approaches to literature challenge some of the most beliefs of the ordinary reader. The literary work, we have long felt, is the child of an author’s creative life, and expresses the author’s essential self. The text is the place where we enter into a spiritual or humanistic communion with an author’s thoughts and feeling. 4 In literary theory , structuralism is an approach to analyzing the narrative material by examining the underlying invariant structure, which based on the linguistic sign system of Ferdinand de Saussure . The structuralism claims that there must be a structure in every text, which explains why it is easier for experienced readers than for non-experienced readers to interpret a text. Hence, they say that everything that written seems to govern by specific rules, a grammar of literature, that one learns in educational institutions and that are to be unmasked. 5 Structuralism literary criticism argues that the novelty value of a literary text can lie only in new structure, rather than in the specifics of character development and voice in which that structure expressed. One branch of literary 4 Raman Selden and Peter Widdowson, A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3 rd edition. Kentucky, the University Press of Kentucky, 1993, p.103 5 Selden, Raman Widdowson, Peter Brooker, Peter: A Readers Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory Fifth Edition. Harlow: 2005, P. 76 6 structuralism, like Freudianism , Marxism , and transformational grammar , posits both a deep and a surface structure. In Freudianism and Marxism, the deep structure is a story, in Freuds case the battle, ultimately, between the life and death instincts, and in Marx, the conflicts between classes that are rooted in the economic base. According to Alison Assiter, there are four common ideas regarding structuralism that form an intellectual trend. Firstly, the structure is what determines the position of each element of a whole. Secondly, structuralism believes that every system has a structure. Thirdly, structuralisms are interested in structural laws that deal with coexistence rather than changes. Finally, structures are the real things that lie beneath the surface or the appearance of meaning. 6 Dalam penelitian strukturalis memandang karya sastra sebagai teks mandiri. Penelitian dilakukan secara obyektif yaitu menekankan aspek intrinsik karya sastra. Unsur-unsur itu tidak jauh berbeda dengan sebuah artefak atau benda seni yang bermakna. Artefak tersebut terdiri dari unsur dalam teks seperti ide, tema, plot, character, dsb. 7 Strukturalis secara langsung atau tidak langsung sebenarnya banyak dipengaruhi oleh konsep struktur linguistic yang dikembangkan oleh Ferdinand de Saussure yang intinya berkaitan dengan konsep sign dan meaning bentuk dan isi atau seperti yang dikemukakan oleh Luxemburg sebagai significant-signifie dan Paradigma – syntagma. Pengertiannya adalah tanda atau bentuk bahasa merupakan unsur pemberi arti dan yang diartikan. Seperti yang diungkapkan oleh Ferdinand de Saussure bahwa makna bukanlah yang tersembunyi secara rahasia dalam suatu tanda bahasa kata, melainkan bagaimana fungsi tanda tersebut sebagai hasil dari pembedaan tanda-tanda yang lain. Dalam kaitan ini, karya sastra harus 6 Assiter, A , Althusser and structuralism, The British journal of sociology, vol. 35, no. 2, Blackwell publishing 1984, pp.272-296. 7 Suwardi Endraswara, Metodologi Penelitian Sastra. Epistemonogi, model, teori, dan aplikasi . FBS Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta 2008, pp. 51-52 dipandang sebagai sebuah struktur yang berfungsi. Sebagai sebuah karya yang bersifat imajinatif bisa saja hubungan antara penanda dan petanda merupakan suatu hubungan yang kompleks. Dalam karya yang lebih luas seperti drama, film, novel, struktur tidak hanya hadir melalui kata dan bahasa, melainkan dapat dikaji berdasarkan unsur-unsur pembentuknya seperti tema, plot, karakter, setting dan point of view. 8 Structuralism has assumption that literary work is a construction that based on signs. Structuralism considered that interrelated in this structure can give great meaning. Moreover, the object of structuralism is the inner structure of literary work.

B. Character