Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

In this paper, the writer is interested in analyzing a dramaplay for two reasons. Firstly drama is kind of a representation or a mirror of life trough action or dialogues. Secondly is that drama is written to perform. Reaske says, “A drama is a work of literature or composition which delineates life and human activity by means of presenting various actions and dialogues between groups of characters” 1970: 5. The writer chooses The Matchmaker, a farce written by Thornton Wilder in 1954 and published as the revised edition from The Merchant of Yonkers 1938, as the play that would be analyzed. The Matchmaker is based upon a comedy by Johann Nestroy, Einen Jux will es sich Machen Vienna, 1842, which was in turn in based upon an English original, A Day Well Spent London, 1835 by John Oxenford. Travis Bogard in a book entitled The Modern American Theatre says that the revision are very slight, amounting in effect only to the kind of judicious pruning and tightening which any play may expect to undergo in production Kernan, ed, 1967: 65. However, both original play version and the revised edition have farce basic concern, folly, money, and love; developing its story with its complex and improbable plotting: filled with screen scenes involving sudden discoveries and disguise Kernan, ed, 1967: 62 1 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI The Matchmaker is written as a farce. As it is criticized by many literary critics, farce is not more worthy than making laugh. Abrams categorizes farce as low comedy which makes little or no intellectual appeal, but arouses laughter by jokes, humors, or physical activities Abrams, 1981: 25. Although The Matchmaker is categorized as a low art, which according to Nietzsche that it is the decadence art form, Thornton Wilder still puts values in his works. Wilder, who is also the playwright of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, explicitly tells that he has certain aims in writing The Matchmaker. One of his aims is that to shake off the 19 th century staging and to show the aspiration of the young for participation in life. In this case, Wilder has lift farce from its emptiness or its meaningless. Kernan thinks that 19 th century staging was nothing but like entertainer who only conveys the beauty but not the use Kernan, ed, 1967: 50. The middle class people had gained control over the theatre since the early of 19 th century; they wanted the theatre to be soothing. The middle class people were very influenced by money, and they use theatre to be something that only can entertain them. The fact still remained until the time of Wilder. The abnormality of course bothered Wilder, and wanted to change the perception by writing his farce The Matchmaker. The Matchmaker itself tells a lot about the relationship among the characters. Wilder writes The Matchmaker to show that the relation between people, especially in 1950’s, that it is more about lower class and upper class, and the only thing that distinguish them is basically money. The story itself tells us about love, which is based on money. In the story, we can see someone adores someone else because they want to have the money. The writer’s reason of writing the paper is to see the behavior of the character in doing courtship as seen in Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. From the play, the writer sees that there are three points that become the center of doing courtship which is done by the characters of The Matchmaker. First is that the character tries to be someone else in order to attract someone they like. Second, they dare to lie between one and another in order to have someone’s trust. And the third, the effect of the love makes everything better compared from the beginning. When someone is falling in love, they tries to ‘escape’ from which they really are, and trying to become someone else so they can be considered different. This thing also happens in the play, where Cornelius tries to be someone else in order to attract a beautiful woman, Mrs. Molloy. He pretends that he is as rich as Mr. Vandergelder, although he is only Mr. Vandelgelder’s clerk. The reason why people try to be someone else is because they feel that the ‘someone else’ is usually better than themselves and the motive why they do that is to be likeable. It is very difficult to be ‘yourself’ rather than someone else because we never know whether it is acceptable or not, especially from someone that we like most. The characters also dare to lie between one and another. For example, Mrs. Levi lies to Mr. Vandergelder about the existence of Miss Simple, who makes Mr. Vandergelder turn from Mrs. Molloy for a moment. Lie is usually done to cover the truth, or in order to gain something. It means that there is a motive in PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI doing the lie. In this story, each character has their own motive when they tell lie, but we can see that they did their lie in order to get the love from someone they like. In the play The Matchmaker, it is lovely to see the happy ending that how loves finally makes everything better than before. The play shows that the way in searching love is not easy, but in the end it will change the previous life to be better. It seems that love has the power to change life to be more colorful and meaningful. The interesting part of the play is how Wilder characterized the characters become one unity. Each character has different characteristic, and those differences lead the story becomes more and more interesting. Wilder shows to the audience how those characters with different characteristics do their own way in searching love. The writer chooses the issues of courtship between a man and a woman to know the basic motive of what really they seek in loving each other as seen in Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. The focuses of the issue of courtship are Mrs. Levi and also Cornelius. Mrs. Levi did courtship towards Vandergelder and Cornelius did courtship towards Mrs. Molloy. The writer tries to understand the basic motives of the courtship that is done by Mrs. Levi and also Cornelius. The motive is known by looking how the characters do their courtship. Basically, the courtship that is done by women is different from the courtship that is done by men. This is because the feeling that women had is different from men. Women act and react based on their feeling and intuition, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI while men act and react based on their thought, whether it is rational or not. Those are what makes the courtship that had been done by Mrs. Levi were different from the courtship that had been done by Cornelius. By knowing that fact, which becomes the most interesting reason of choosing the subject, the writer tries to find out and describe the main character characteristics and also to find out how the courtship influence them so much in their life, especially in the way those characters ‘escape’ from who they really was and trying to become someone else, lie between one and another in order to have someone trust, and also the effect of the courtship, or may called also as love, which can make something become much better than before as seen in the character of Mrs. Dolly Levi and also Cornelius Hackl in Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker .

B. Problem Formulation