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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter consists of five parts, namely, Background of the Study, Objectives of the Study, Problem Formulation, Benefits of the Study and Definition
of Terms. The first part, Background of the Study, explores the urgency of this study and my personal reasons in selecting the topic of the study. Secondly, the Objectives
of the Study, presents the aims of conducting this study. Thirdly, the Problem Formulation presents some problems to limit the scope of study. Fourthly, the
Benefits of the Study elaborates the advantages that the reader may gain from reading this study. And the last, the Definition of Terms presents some definitions of key
terms used in the study.
1.1. Background of the Study
Literature may function as a depiction of the socio-cultural and even ideological situation of certain period of time Little 1. As one kind of the literary
writings, novels are widely read given that they contain certain interesting knowledge about historical background of certain societies. Not only are novels important to
provide valuable knowledge, they are also endowed with qualities that delight our aesthetic sense. Through the characters of novels, we are led to experience the
feelings, the conflicts, and the life in a certain social situation. How the author explores the characters reveals hisher way of describing particular condition.
The interrelationship among characters in a novel can reveal the complexity of human phenomena. Unlike any other living creatures, human beings have the capacity to
discern and comprehend various phenomena in society and have the ability to react towards them. On the one hand, human beings are endowed with universal emotional
capacity that make them united, have the sense of solidarity, caring and loving to each other. On the other hand, they have the intellectual capacity to cope with the
complexity of nature and human phenomena itself. They have the capacities to differentiate between good and evil, truth and wrongness, fact and illusion. Those
emotional and intellectual capacities combined make human beings progress through reacting towards the phenomena. And through exercising those capacities, men and
women can acquire new knowledge, new understanding, new revelation and even new life.
This thesis analyzes a novel Mother, written by a celebrated Russian author, Maxim Gorky. Mother, which was written in 1906, is said to be one of Gorky’s
phenomenal works during his lifetime, which later became the pioneer of the Soviet genre of Socialist Realism. A socialist literature, Terry Eagleton says, must present
the realities of the working people without giving any clear-cut solution. He also adds that it must also reveal the struggle of working people to free from oppressions
Eagleton vii. Both qualities that Eagleton says appear in Mother. The novel tells about the life of a mother named Pelagea Nilovna, widow of a
drunkard worker, with her son, Pavel Vlassov, a leader of a workers’ movement. Gorky reveals in the novel the life of the mother which undergoes a progress—from
being an ignorant and ordinary woman into being a militant activist. The mother has undergone social consciousness. The shift occurs during her acquaintance with and
involvement in Pavel’s movement. The movement, whose pledge is to pursue the truth and liberate the working people from the oppressive authority of feudalism,
challenges the authority by spreading leaflets into the factories and organizes protests and rallies. Therefore, the topic of the study concerns on the analysis of the reactions
of the ordinary woman, Pelagea Nilovna, towards the political situation as seen in her involvement in Pavel’s revolutionary movement.
I am particularly interested in the topic of the study because I am impressed about how Maxim Gorky explores the characters, specifically Pelagea Nilovna, in
facing an oppressive authority of feudalism. Furthermore, it is overwhelming to learn the major shift that happens to Pelagea Nilovna in the novel. It is highly appealing to
learn that one can acquire such a shift from being a simple person into being a revolutionary activist. Besides, I am keen to verify that such an extraordinary
transformation is not gained from a pure spiritual or emotional search, rather, it is with help of Pelagea’s being able to comprehend and analyze the actual conditions
that affect her life. I desire to prove that Pelagea’s transformation is a rational choice derived from her analyses of the surrounding phenomena. Moreover, I want to learn
why Maxim Gorky reveals a character of mother in a revolutionary movement. The study is a Marxist study, which attempts to reveal that the novel is not an
independent literary work, rather it is a product of socio-political situations at the time of the writing. Moreover, it is highly interesting for me to incorporate Marxist
ideas to analyze the topic of the study given that it considers various aspects including the author’s political tendency and the prevailing ideology at the time he
wrote the novel.
1.2. Objective of the Study