Object of the Study

started to work as an activist and help Ned Weeks with his campaign for gay people to stop having sex. They receive a lot of provocation and disbelieve from their own people. After a couple of months, gay people kept on dying. Ned Weeks was provoked by this and the gay liberation movement and AIDS awareness are him and his colleagues‘ main focus for the rest of the story New York, along with San Francisco, and Los Angeles, became the ground zero of the first wave of AIDS epidemic. At that time, there was a believe that AIDS could eradicate the entire population of homosexual men and the gay community. In the play, one of the problem that faced by homosexual men is how the AIDS campaign had a clash with the gay liberation a decade back. Gay men are intensely urban and only a few of them that lives in a country free by choice on a permanent basis. Most of them live in a city because of the variety that city offers them to enjoy one‘s live. Based on the play, the setting of the place is at New York. The famed city is also known for the violent demonstration that occurs in 1969 that widely considered as the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and became the early stages of the LGBT rights movement. In 2014, The Normal Heart was adopted to a movie with the same title and receive a hugely amount of positive reaction from all layers of the society. Most of the actors who involves with the movie itself are publicly open gay. B. Approach of the Study This study uses cultural studies approach because it is focused on the finding and questioning of the historical impacts it brings to layers of society throughout the literary text. Queer theory tackles many queer related issues and the researcher will focus more on the rise of the queer politics. According to Michael Warner Warner, 1993:7 Queers live not only to engage coitus with partners, but it implies that they want to have a ―mark‖ in the world. Since the HIVAIDS and The Stonewall Riot taken its place in the world, gay people started to emerge from its closeted world. According to Berlant and Warner, Warner, 1998: 547 the sexual convention in society i.e. pornographic videos, phone sex, etc. are all related to heterosexuality, but what if the sex acts are not in your usual and conventional ways. The world of politics in queer view can be seen through that same glasses. The contextual approach of this study also can be seen explicitly on the details that surrounds the play with the actual events that occurred during the HIV crisis of New York. It is a form of protest and message to the people worldwide that related with LGBTQ rights. Another approach that the researcher use is cultural studies approach. ―Arising from the social turmoil of the 7960s, cultural Studies is composed of elements of Marxism, poststructuralism and postmodernism, feminism, gender studies, anthropology, sociology, race and ethnic studies, film theory, urban studies, public policy, popular culture studies, and postcolonial studies: those fields that concentrate on social and cultural forces that either create community or cause division and alienation.‖ Guerin: 2005, 276 Which means that cultural studies can be derived from many form of theory and studies. The bottom line of this epic study is to focus on social and cultural idea which eventually created diversity. For this undergraduate thesis, the researcher uses Queer theory, labeling theory, and socio- cultural background. It is not a single, standardized approach to literature or anything else but a field that binds its adherents through some common interests and purposes, although they are addressed in widely divergent ways. ―The intent is to connect historical, social, and economic knowledge surrounding the topic, a topic that may not seem to be very literary at all. Because any context is virtually unending, the critic never knows enough. As a result, interpretations made from a cultural studies perspective tend to be opened and continue to evolve as they are affected by new information. ‖ Dobie: 2012, 175 Another point of interest quoted from Dobie is the intention of Cultural Studies itself which is to connect historical and social knowledge in The Normal Heart. Cultural Studies can help the researcher for the reinterpretation of the play from an open perspective.

C. Method of the Study

The research of this study is library research. The sources can be collected throughout the written form of the data and supporting data. The object can be collected from libraries and internet sources. The primary source is the original play written by Larry Kramer. Before analyzing furthermore on the main objectives, the researcher reads the play repeatedly to understand more about the play and to formed problem formulations. After formed the problem formulations, the researcher gathered the theories and the previous studies which are related to the play and to help solve the problem formulations. After gathered enough evidence and theories, the researcher started to apply them into the play by using queer theory are used after the researcher finished analyzing the main characters which are Ned Weeks, labeling theory, and the HIVAIDS historical development to answer the problem formulations.

CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS

In this chapter, the researcher answers the problem formulations that have been stated in chapter I. The first part of the analysis deals with the society implemented according to the play. The second part talks about the relationship between the rejection of the disease and the rejection of Homosexual as seen in the play. The focus on this undergraduate thesis is the Gay men and the society how the majority of people react at that time of AIDS according to the play in the United States of America in New York City. By the end of this undergraduate thesis, the researcher creates a correct timeline of gay politics and determine how The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer‘s plays a monumental part in the rise of gay politics.