Valkyrie Journey True Meaning

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C. Problem Formulation

The problems of the study can be formulated as follows: 1. How are Paulo and Chris portrayed in the novel? 2. What is the true meaning of Paulo and Chris‘s journey in the desert as seen in the novel?

D. Definition of Term

The following part is the meaning of certain words used in the study. The purpose was to avoid misunderstanding in perceiving some important terms in this research.

1. Valkyrie

According to The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols by Jean Chevalier, Alain Gheerbant, and John Buchanan Brown 1996, Valkyries are the nymphs from Wotan‘s palace who have often been compared with the Amazons. As messengers of the gods and war leaders, they led heroes to their death and having brought to the paradise, they poured their beer and meat. They incited the heroes to battle by the love which their beauty instilled into their hearts and by the bravery they displayed at the forefront of the battle on horses charging as swiftly as the clouds or the storm-wracked waves. The Valkyries stood for the risks inherent in love conceived as a struggle, with its alternations of triumph, disaster, life, and death p. 1059. As for this novel, the Valkyries refer to a group of women riding a powerful motorcycle roaming around the desert preaching about the kingdom of heaven. 4

2. Journey

Literary, journey means the act of travelling from one place to another. Here, the journey refers to Paulo, the main character‘s forty-day journey in the Mojave Desert in searching for the Valkyries.

3. True Meaning

The true meaning here is the extrinsic aspects of the literary works. The definition of meaning in this study refers the definition of meaning explained by Audi. According to Audi 1999, ―Meaning is the conventional, common, or standard sense of an expression, or of a non-linguistic signal or symbol. Literal meaning is the non-figurative. Synonymy is the sameness of literal meaning. In another sense, meaning is what a person intends to communicate by a particular utterance. Meaning means the extrinsic aspects in the literary works. It is not the literal meaning. It is has two aspect, literal meaning or surface meaning and non-literal meaning or deeper meaning ‖. p. 545 In this study, the true meaning refers to the deeper meaning of the journey conducted by Paulo and Chris in the Mojave Desert.

4. Careless