Object of the Study Approaches Sources

26 Wilcox 1969. These books gave some clues and the relation between the social cultural – historical and the novel.

3.4 Procedure

There were some steps that could be used to describe the effect of poverty toward the character‘s personality. As the first step, the writer read the novel and then tried to understand the content and concentrated on the main character‘s reaction and action, so the writer understood the character‘s personality better. Then the writer quoted some important points of the related events and linked it to the analysis and then showed the description of the main character. As the second step, the writer gathered some books which contained relevant socio-cultural historical background of the novel. The writer focused on the French Revolution era, and the writer elucidated into its social and economic condition. As the third step, the writer tried to find out the possibilities of critical theory that can be applied in analyzing whether the poverty in France in the early 1800‘s really depicted in Fantine. Then the writer chose the socio-historical – cultural theory and related it to the novel. To analyze the socio – economic condition in the French Revolution era, the writer employed the description of French during the French Revolution from the beginning to the end by Jules Michelet 1958. The last step, the writer analyzed the novel to prove whether this book was written as Hugo‘s description when French was in the French Revolution and 27 poverty was the impact of it. To find out the answers to the formulated problems, the writer had to relate the characters, the setting of place and events in the novel socio-cultural historical facts. 28

CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS

This chapter discusses the description and experience of how Fantine struggles to survive through the poverty as seen in Fantine in the novel. The description of how she struggles to survive through the poverty can simply be described as extremely poor, despicably abject, and completely miserable.

4. The Poverty in France in the Early 1800’s as Depicted in Fantine

After being left by her husband, Tholomyes, Fantine has to work harder to fulfill her daily needs as she also has a little daughter to provide for. After being dismissed from the factory, she has to find another job to get the income. The income is actually cannot cover her life and her daughter ‘s but she does not have any other choice. An anthropologist, Lewis 1959 develops the theory of the culture of poverty. The culture of poverty is a specific syndrome that grows up in some situations. According to Islam 2005, it requires an economic setting of cash economy, a high rate of unemployment and under employment, low wages and people with low skills. In the absence of voluntary or state support and stable family, the low-income population tends to develop the culture of poverty against the dominant ideology of accumulation of the middle class. The poor realize that they have a marginal position within a highly stratified and individualistic capitalistic society that does not offer them any prospect for upward mobility. In