Birmingham, Alabama. She says that the way Lapierre’s portray the people in Anand Nagar, their spirit, and their love of God is so beautiful.
2.2. Theoretical Framework
In order to analyze the problem of this study, socio-cultural background by Rohberger and Woods is applied. The socio-cultural is used to answer the first
problem and the second problem, what the socio-cultural background of India during 1960’s-1970 as seen in The City of Joy and how karma influences the struggle for
survival of poor people as seen in The City of Joy. It is significant to know the socio- cultural background of India because the reader can have clear vision about India, the
culture the custom, the people, the situation, the climate, etc. After knowing the socio-cultural conditions in India, it will be easy to find out why there are many poor
people in India and how karma influences these poor people struggle for survival. The City of Joy is one of a literary work that is written based on the reality
life of India. That is why in order to understand the reality of life in the novel, it is important to relate the real condition in society to the social condition in the novel.
Besides the explanation above, referring to the socio-cultural background of the setting of time is also done. This thesis will present the socio-cultural background of
the story during 1960s-1970s. Then review of Indian culture by Lemaitre, Zimmer, Zaehner, Hiriyanna,
Segal, Sen and Renou are applied to support the analysis. Review of India culture is divided into two parts; the first part is religion, the people, and the ways of life.
Religion consists of karma, dharma, reincarnation, mokhsa and caste system. The ways of life consists of family, languages, health, village life and city life. By
knowing those Hinduism doctrines and the socio-cultural background of Indian
people, the influence of karma on the struggle for survival of those poor people is easy to be revealed.
Reincarnation, dharma, moksarelease and caste system are also explained in this study because these doctrines cannot be separated by the law of karma. These
doctrines cannot be separated by karma because these doctrines are tied together. Dharma
is duty in which every human being has his own duty. Human being who does not do his duty will the consequences bad karma and human who do his duty
will also get the consequences good karma, but the good one or Hindu people usually called it reward. Human can accept karma the consequences in the present
life or future. The example of the consequences is human beings who get good karma will reborn in higher caste, but those who get bad karma will reborn in lower caste.
Hinduism believes that people will reincarnate as human or other creatures depend on their karma. Then people who do not get karma anymore because they have done
all of the dharma will gain freedom moksa.
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CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY
3.1 The Subject of the Study
During his frequent stay in Calcutta, Dominique Lapierre decided to write a book that tells a story about people who live in Calcutta. After his two years research
in India, he published his book in 1985. The title of the book is The City of Joy, which is taken from one of a slum area in Calcutta. In his book The City of Joy
1986: 1, Dominique Lapierre mentions that the story concerns men, women, and children who have been uprooted from their homes by implacable nature and hostile
circumstances. Pressinter, S.A, published the City of Joy at the first time in 1985. This
International Bestselling novel consists of 519 pages which are divided into 72 chapters including epilogue, afterwards and acknowledgements. There are many
characters in The City of Joy. Those characters represent the characters of people in Calcutta. Each character in the story has different origin, occupation, and religion.
Dominique Lapierre writes the story of each character clearly such as how the characters survive, seek a job, face problems and help others. Lapierre shows in his
novel good values of poor people who live in a slum through the character’s actions. The most important value is the struggle of each character to survive in the middle of
poor life and natural disaster. There are many heroic people arise in Anand Nagar, the place in which each people have to struggle in order to survive.
3.2 The Approaches
To analyze the problem, the writer applied approach from Rohrberger and Woods 1971: 6-15. In Reading and Writing about Literature by Rohrberger and Woods,
