Background of the Study

1

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Human being is created as a social creature, that is why there is no one who can live by himself in this world. In doing their interaction, people may face differences as they have different characters. When they do not find any agreement, those differences may cause conflicts or even war. War always brings impacts to human being’s life. They can be bad or good. Considering the bad impacts, more people from year to year try to prevent and put an end to any kinds of war. Although in some conditions and cases it can not be avoided. There are many reasons why people or nations have to do wars. They might be related to political, social, cultural, or economic factors. According to Hornby, war is a state of fighting between nations or groups in which those nations use military force 1995:1339. Wars occurring in the past usually were aimed to defend or conquer territories. In this modern life, wars still occur in some places because people in those places have different principles and point of views, for example war that is still happening in Iraq. It goes without saying that war causes material, cultural heritage and even people lives to get lost. It often demands men to exert powers to defend and fight. Many of the soldiers were wounded and dead. As a result, many families lost their family heads; children lost their fathers; wives lost their husbands. This condition makes women be the ones who have to take all the family responsibilities, both being mother and father for themselves and their families. They have to earn money and at the same time they have to look after their children and family members. For these reasons, more people campaign for world peace and anti-war. Some of them express it through literary works in various forms, such as song lyrics, poems, novels, short stories, movies, and many others. Movie is a form of audio visual literary work, which is popular as a medium to convey values and messages ultimately. Movie or film, according to Hornby, is a story recorded as a set of moving pictures to be shown on television or at the cinema 1999: 434. Most people from any ages like watching movie, because movies give vivid visual entertainment that attracts them with a depiction of people and place. Language in movies as revealed in the characters’ dialogues is usually expressed in a short conversational style, so that it is easier to catch than that of prose fiction. Nowadays, people can enjoy watching movies at home by playing VCD or DVD. Cold Mountain is a movie that tells about the life struggle of women characters’ living in hardship as the aftermath of the American Civil War in 1864. In this movie, we can see the condition of American people life and how they struggled for their life, especially women, during the uncertainty of the war time. This bad condition had caused many changes in society.

1.2 Reason for Choosing the Topic