Objectives of the Study Definition of Terms

“summer” in William‟s Summer and Smoke will form different ideas or concepts in other texts. The word “summer”, thus, can only be understood in the c omparison between “smoke”. The same goes for the analysis of the characters. One cannot only takes one character into hisher study without bothering to go through the same procedure in dealing with the other character that becomes its opposition. The second study is Utari Dewi‟s “A Study of Character Development of Alma Winemiller and John Buchanan in William‟s Summer and Smoke.” Here, Dewi notes the untimely swap of both main characters‟ characteristics. She reveals a significant point that Alma and John succeeds in influencing one another to develop their characteristics to the others‟ direction. This means that Alma turns to be more mundane in her way of thinking and John starts to embrace Alma‟s belief which is spirituality-ridden. Unfortunately, they both do that in simultaneous time which makes them walk their separate ways again. Thus, they never met in one point since they “move in different circle” Dewi, 2000:05. This second study puts great emphasis on the untimely swap of both characters‟ directions of transformation. By this, Dewi points out where the tragedy starts coming into the surface in this play. She explains that it is both characters‟ love for each other that urges them to change. They hope that by being more alike, their chance to end up being together is bigger. However, this awareness, that is supposed to bring happiness for both of them, turns out to be their downfall. Thus, Dewi argues that the tragic ending of this play is caused by both characters‟ consciousness that come in the wrong time 2004: 52. In Dewi‟s study, she implies that both characters in the drama text, is like water and oil, which will always walk their separate ways. Responding to this study, writer considers the need to elaborate the previous study‟s main argument to prevent simplistic ideas. For example, when Dewi argues that both characters succeed in influencing one another to go to their opposite‟s direction, she overlooks the symbolic actions of the characters in their process to embrace their opposites‟ beliefs such as John‟s action suggesting stone pieta in which he seeks comfort from Alma as he mourns over his summer‟s debauchery and Alma‟s admittance upon her feelings resembling a water lily in Chinese Lagoon. These are the epitome of scenes depicting the process of Alma‟s and John‟s releasing their second self. With this, writer wants to argue that the second previous study needs to be elaborated in terms of the identifications of such binary patterns that construct the narrative plot of the drama text. The third study is a paper titled “The Discovery of Dionysus in Tennessee Williams‟ Summer and Smoke” written by Jerome J. Pryor, S.J. The objective of his paper as he puts it is “…to chart the ApollonianDionesiac polarities as defined by Friedrich Nietzsche in his Birth of Tragedy as presented in Tennessee William‟s play, Summer and Smoke” 26 August 2014. In other words, the paper is going to compare the two Greek Gods, i.e. Dionysus and Apollo with the two main characters, Alma and John in the play. As Pryor proceeds to his exposition on the comparison, he argues that Alma represents Apollo, the God of Sun while John acts as the Dionysus, the God of wine-making and party. This finding is motivated by the parallel characteristics of the two Gods to those of Summer and Smoke’s characters. As Pryor puts it, Dionysus, the god of the irrational and lack of control a person who is Dionesiac in the extreme is insane, since the rational has no part in the definition of the Dionesiac, symbolizes emotions, spontaneity, and inebriation, but also creativity. Apollo, the sun god, personifies logic, order, precision, conscious planning, and indirect rather than direct experience. Apollonian tend to be judges and lawyers, and in the extreme can be cruelly inhuman and rigid Pryor, 26 August 2014. Therefore, John who is depicted as the cavalier hedonistic character indeed resembles Dionysus whose tendency is to act based on his impulse and thus spontaneity. Meanwhile, Alma who is a very disciplined and high-strung spinster indeed shares the same qualities of Apollo since he is noted as one with “inhuman and rigid” tendency. In his further elaboration, Pryor also notes the contrast opposition between the two characters in t he play as he refers to Alma‟s, “…self-conscious mannerisms and excessiv e propriety” which is in contrast with “the carefree, uninhibited John” Pryor, 26 August 2014. Other than pointing out the parallelism between the two Greek Gods and the two characters and the distinction between the two characters, Pryor also introduces writer with three symbols used in the play, i.e. smoke and water lily in Chinese Lagoon. He states that sm oke is “a sign of death, of the soul leaving the body”, while in his exposition on water lily in Chinese lagoon he notes that “this image of this flower carries with it a reference to interior activity and to self- realization”, however, in the end of the play, it “can also refer to transmigration of