THE FEELING OF MEANINGLESSNESS OF THE 1990s YOUNG URBAN AMERICANS IN CHUCK PALAHNIUK’S FIGHT CLUB AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters

  

THE FEELING OF MEANINGLESSNESS OF

THE 1990s YOUNG URBAN AMERICANS

  

IN CHUCK PALAHNIUK’S FIGHT CLUB

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

  

By

  EKA ADI NUGRAHA Student Number : 994214056

  

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME

FACULTY OF LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2007

  

THE FEELING OF MEANINGLESSNESS OF

THE 1990s YOUNG URBAN AMERICANS

  

IN CHUCK PALAHNIUK’S FIGHT CLUB

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

  

By

EKA ADI NUGRAHA Student Number : 994214056

  

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME

FACULTY OF LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2007

  

This is my curse, this is my gift

• - Spiderman -

  

He who knows a ‘why’ for living,

will surmount almost every how

• - Friedrich Nietzsche -

  

I dedicate this thesis to:

God, Father, Mother, Dian, and Ida

with love and gratitude

  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I thank to God for endless blessing, lesson, gift, and even hardship that have shaped my momentous life and sculpted me as a better being than I was.

  High-regard and prayer may always attribute for my biggest inspirer, Muhammad, his families, companions, and his devotees.

  I would like to convey my indebtedness to my former advisor, Dr.

  

Novita Dewi, M.S., M.A. for her guidance, assistance, and encouragement in

  working this thesis. I should also like to express my gratitude to my major sponsor, Gabriel Fajar Sasmita Aji, S.S., M. Hum, for his guidance in completing this thesis. My gratitude also goes to the lecturers and staffs of English Letters Department for their aids during my study in Sanata Dharma University.

  I would also like to express my gratitude to my beloved family: my father, Sudaryono, and my mother, Suparmi, for their ceaseless love, support, patience, and pray. I understand it takes a lot not to give up on me. I also thank especially to my sisters: Dian Anggraeni and Ida Nuraini Dewi Kn for their support, joke and patience. I thank, once again, to my family for loving me.

  I am grateful to my best buddies: Penya, Sukri, Singgih, Siest, Willy,

  

and Imam that have shared experiences with me. I am grateful also to my friends

  at the Gupon, the Budijaya, and other friends that I could not mention one by one down here.

  Eka Adi Nugraha

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE……………………………………..……………………………. i APPROVAL PAGE…………………….…………………………………….... ii

ACCEPTANCE PAGE………..……………………..…………………………iii

MOTTO PAGE……………………………………………….………………... iv

DEDICATION PAGE………………………..……..…………………………. v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………..……..……………………………… vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS………...…………………………………………….vii

ABSRACT...…………………….………...……………………….…………… ix

ABSTRAK…………...…………...………..………...…………………………. x

  CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION…..………………………………………… 1 A. Background of the Study.......……..…………………………………... 1 B. Problem Formulation..……......…...…………………………………...

  4 C. Objectives of the Study…………..……………………………………. 5

  D. Definition of Terms...……....……..……………………………………6

  

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW……………………………………9

A. Review of Related Studies......…….…………………………………... 9 B. Review of Related Theories...……...…………………………………..10

  1. Theory of Character and Characterization………......…..........……10

  2. Theory of the Feeling of Meaninglessness…………………………11

  3. Review on Cultural-historical Context of the United States in the 1990s..……………………………………………………………...14

  C. Theoretical Framework …………………………………......................21

  

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY…………………………………..……….23

A. Object of the Study………...……...……………………………………23 B. Approach of the Study……...………………………………………..... 24 C. Method of the Study…………………………………………………....25

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS..……………..…………………………………… 27

A. Depiction of the Characters…………………………………………… 27

  1. Depiction of the Character “I”…………………………………….. 28

  2. Depiction of the Character Tyler Durden..…………………………37

  B. The Feeling of Meaninglessness of the 1990’s Young Urban Americans in Chuck Palahniuk’sFight Club………………………….. 50

  1. Palahniuk’s Fight Club Reflects the Feeling of Meaninglessness of the 1990’s Young Urban Americans …………...…….………... 51

  2. Palahniuk’s Fight Club as Responds the Feeling of Meaninglessness of the1990’sYoung Urban Americans …………. 74

  

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION…...…….…………………………………..… 83

BIBLIOGRAPHY…...………………………………………..……………….. 86

APPENDIX…...………………………………………..………………………. 88

  

ABSTRACT

  EKA ADI NUGRAHA. The Feeling of Meaninglessness of the 1990’s Young

  

Urban Americans in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Yogyakarta: Department

  of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2007 Meaning of life is something that is essential in a human’s life without which a person would be profoundly preoccupied by the sense of purposelessness and futility in his/her life. In the novel of Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, The character “I” represents a person who feels that his life is empty and meaningless. His decision to escape from facing such meaninglessness leads him to meet with Tyler Durden, his split character, who then teaches him to deal with the pain caused by such meaninglessness.

  This thesis is aimed at solving two problems. The first problem is the characterization of the characters (the character “I” and Tyler Durden). The second problem is the revelation of the the feeling of meaninglessness of the 1990’s young urban Americans communicated by the novel.

  The method applied in this thesis is the library research. The data are Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club and other sources that closely related to the topic discussed in this thesis. The approach applied in this thesis is the socio-cultural historical approach. There were four processes that are done respectively in analyzing this novel. The first was having a thorough reading of the novel. The second was compiling and reading some references and theories needed by this thesis. The third was was to meet the theory with the data and information that had been compiled, to employ the approach, and to conduct the analysis within the scope of the questions constructed in problem formulation. The last process was drawing the conclusion. .

  This thesis reveals that the character “I” and Tyler Durden are contrastively characterized. The character “I” is characterized as anonymous character of which represent his quality as a common man, who instead of dealing with his inner frustration, he tends to disregard it and run to anything that provide him relieve. Tyler, on the contrary, is characterized as impressive and revolutionist person who is adored by many people. Unlike, other character Tyler bravely deals to banish such a frustration. Tyler’ characteristics represents the epitome of a hero for many people in his world. This thesis finds that the feeling of meaninglessness that overcomes the young urban Americans during the nineties is communicated in the novel through three symptoms; depression, addiction, and aggression that clearly preoccupy the both characters (the charcter “I” and Tyler Durden) and some people described in the novel to cope with it. It is through Tyler Durden that the novel attempts to respond such a culture.

  

ABSTRAK

  EKA ADI NUGRAHA. The Feeling of Meaninglessness of the 1990’s Young

  

Urban Americans in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Yogyakarta: Department

  of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2007 Arti hidup adalah sesuatu yang esensial dalam kehidupan seorang manusia, yang tanpanya seseorang akan sangat tersakiti oleh suatu rasa ketidakmemiliki tujuan dan ketidakbergunaan yang menguasai hidupnya. Dalam novel karya Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, si karakter “aku” mewakili seseorang yang merasa bahwa hidupnya terasa kosong dan tanpa arti. Keputusannya untuk melarikan diri dari berhadapan dengan perasaan ketidakberartian membawanya untuk bertemu dengan Tyler Durden, karakter keduanya, yang kemudian mengajarnya untuk menghadapi suatu kesakitan yang diakibatkan oleh ketidakberatian tersebut.

  Thesis ini bertujuan memecahkan dua permasalahan. Permasalahan pertama adalah penjabaran para karakter (karakter “aku” dan Tyler Durden). Permasalahan kedua adalah novel ini untuk mengkomunikasikan perasaan ketidakberartian yang dialami orang-orang muda kota di Amerika pada dekade 90-an.

  Metode yang diterapkan dalam thesis ini adalah studi pustaka. Data-data yang digunakan adalah novel karya Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, dan sumber- sumber lain yang erat kaitannya dengan objek yang didiskusikan dalam thesis ini. Pendekatan yang digunakan dalam analisis di tesis ini adalah socio-cultural- historical. Terdapat empat proses yang akan diselesaikan secara urut untuk menganalisa novel tersebut. Langkah pertama adalah membaca novel tersebut secara menyeluruh. Langkah kedua adalah mengumpulkan, dan membaca referensi-referensi dan teori-teori yang dibutuhkan oleh thesis ini. Langkah ketiga adalah merangkaikan teori dengan data-data, menerapkan pendekatan yang dibutuhkan dan mengerjakan analisis dalam cakupan pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang telah disusun di rumusan permasalahan. Process terakhir adalah membuat kesimpulan

  Thesis ini menyingkap bahwa karakter “aku” dan Tyler Durden dikarakterisasikan secara kontrast. Karakter “aku” dikarakterisasikan sebagai seorang yang anonymous, yang merepresentasikan kualitasnya sebagai manusis pada umumnya. Sebaliknya, Tyler dikarakterisasikan sebagai seorang yang menarik dan revolusionis, yang dikagumi banyak orang. Thesis ini menemukan bahwa perasaan ketidakberartian yang menjangkiti orang-orang muda kota di Amerika selama peride 1990-an dikomunikasikan di dalam novel melalui tiga symptom; depresi, adiksi, dan agresi yang telah membuat sibuk kedua karakter (karakter “aku” dan Tyler Durden) untuk mengatasi perasaan tersebut. Thesis ini menemukan bahwa melalui Tyler Durden novel ini merespon budaya yang telah membuat orang untuk cenderung lari dari menghadapi perasaan tersebut. common subject were born. These young witers chronicle creatively and comment critically on the current problem of the contemporary culture while, at the same time, offer a new awareness and insight into reality of our stale daily experience that has been so dominated with materialism tendency. They are comparable to a generation of writers labelled as “the lost generation” in their eagerness to express their fears, doubts and frustrations through writing. If the writer of lost generation’s fears and frustration were originated from the experience of war, this new lost generations’ frustration is caused by their confusion to cope with the sense of loss and futility of the late American culture. The tide of this new lost generation was begun in Douglas Coupland’s Generation X. It was followed then by Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, and Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting. Shortly after the publication of these works, the emergence of Chuck Palahniuk’s

Fight Club endures the attack of the new lost generation on such ailing culture.

  Being specifically distinct in style, these new generation of writers share a common tendency revealed in their effor t to crystallize the anxiety and frustration of contemporary generation live in the late culture of improvement .

  American culture as the ultimate icon of the advanced modernism does not carry us merely into such fun pleasure and desirable exiting experience. It introduces us to a realm of ever-wonder and confusion when many things that used to be of fantasy has now been represented in its ultimate shape, such as Disneyland, Seaworld, supersonic train, picnic to the moon and let alone the internet that enables us to do time and space travel. We have conceived, on the one hand, that all these new realities may indicate progress and improvement. On the other hand, we could have perceived that there are many problems are left unsolved by the work of this predominant culture, such as environmental damage, emasculation of local values and virtues, irresponsible freedom of the media, children pornography, politics turns into spectacle, a culture of cynicism for us to fix. Nevertheless, this is not simply the double-standard thing of the late modernism. Christopher Lasch in The Culture of Narcissism states that such paradox that is coexisting in today’s age has weighted down individuals with uncertainty just to define what is real that is indispensable to get relief from the void of meaning and lack of direction (Lasch, 1979: 169-170). In fact, such circumstances become the very engine of this new lost generation’s works.

  Amongst those figures of the new lost generation, Chuck Palahniuk comes out as the most popular figure. His first novel, published in 1997, gained several awards, yet having adapted into film with the same title, its paperback edition was sold over 300,000 copies (www.stirrings-still.orgss22.pdf), particularly among young people who are known for their reluctance to read. Moreover, the charm of his novel Fight Club had transcend some of its core readership to bring fight club

  the club founded by the character “I” of the novel into daily reality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/palahniuk). Thus, for all these reasons, it would be reasonable to credit him as the spokesman for these previously mentioned generation of writers who have strong tendency to scrutinize the anxiety and frustration of the contemporary generation live in the late culture of improvement.

  Presumably, psychological affliction in concomitant with violence is apparently central to the story. It may correspond to the feeling of meaninglessness or inner frustration have afflicted thousands of young people in the U.S. (http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jan1996/v52-4-article.htm). However, the novel still spares many spaces to discuss various other impacts of contemporary culture of improvement, that is not less significant to be discussed, such as support group culture, which is prevailing lately in the U.S., the idea of self-destruction in comparison with the predominance of self-improvement culture, emasculation of manliness, the ever struggle for authenticity (http://roger.ucsd.edu/search/htm). Such apocalyptic issues that Palahniuk evokes in Fight Club do not necessarily to reflect the pessimistic voice of the author. It is perhaps a mere sort of strategy to defamiliarize our faded perception on something which we have faced everyday, or, perhaps, it could be the genuine description of today horror situation that goes unnoticed from our perception. Despite the previous presumption, those issues can be appropriated thanks to himto mirror today’s contemporary culture through the reflection of which we could perceive some of its flaws.

  Palahniuk’s Fight Club discusses a middle-aged American urban young man who is entrapped in his desolation of the feeling of meaninglessness from the resulting meaningless daily experience. The character “I” in this story is desperately longing for a change in his life. The emergence of Tyler Durden with all of his revolutionary things as the ultimate embodiment of his crave for such a change seems to provide the character “I” with many experiences the character “I” never had been familiar with. Moreover, Tyler Durden does not merely provide the character “I” with many “new” experiences, he provides also the character “I” with lesson through which he is encouraged to view his life from a different perspective and, thus, renew the way he responds situation in his life. Thus, while the novel attempts to portray the mass anxiety of today’s young urban Americans, namely feeling of meaninglessness, it seemingly tries to offer a stance to such a feeling of meaninglessness that may inspire its readers to re-evaluate the way they live.

  In order to bring into view the focus of this thesis so as to make it better organized, it is necessary to set up some questions that will be answered throughout this thesis. The process of which thesis is conducted can be framed at the questions formulated below:

  1. How are the characters (the character “I” and Tyler Durden) depicted in Palahniuk’s Fight Club?

  2. How does the depiction of the both characters (the character “I” and Tyler Durden) helps Palahniuk’s Fight Club to communicate the feeling of meaninglessness of the 1990s young urban Americans?

  This thesis is primarily aimed to answer the questions set up in the Problem Formulation. From two questions constructed in the problem formulation, it is obvious that the focus of this thesis lies in the depiction of the character “I” and his alter personality, namely Tyler Durden, in the novel. Such focus is intended to bring into view the reality that has been captured and reproduced in the novel.

  With regard to the fact that Fight Club, which is the object of this thesis, is presented through the perspective of an uncertain narrator, it is important, then, to know and understand his characteristics. Such understanding is crucial in order to comprehend what Fight Club says about. Therefore, the main objective of this thesis is to know how the character “I” is depicted in the story. Nevertheless, since the character “I” of Fight Club is afflicted with a sort of personality disorder by which he has another personality, known as Tyler Durden, it is ineluctable for this thesis to understand as well the character of Tyler Durden.

  Understanding the both characters’ personality will make this thesis’ next task less problematical, for such an understanding will function as our vehicle using which we are able to travel to a world of their version, namely Fight Club, in order to meet with the central issue of why this story takes place. The secondary objective of this thesis is, therefore, to reveal the way the depiction of the both characters (the character “I” and Tyler Durden) helps Palahniuk’s Fight

  

Club to contextualize the feeling of meaninglessness of the 1990s young urban

Americans.

  To make a better understanding on the discussion in this thesis, it would be necessary to understand some essential terms used in this thesis. They are:

  1. Self-improvement In this thesis, the term self-improvement refers generally to today’s late capitalism culture in which the individuals’ tendency is aimed at material success, improvement, and completeness. Such tendency is framed in the intention of experiencing the pleasure of possessing things and, more important, presenting a decent self-image as a successful, respectable, significant kind of person. Therefore, self-improvement is the orientation of the individuals in today’s late capitalist society that aimed at fulfilling immediate pleasure by means of material posession and improvement.

  2. Feeling of Meaninglessness The term ‘feeling of meaninglessness’ used in this thesis is a term that frequently mentioned by Viktor E. Frankl in his book entitled The Unheard Cry For

  

Meaning and Psychotherapy and Existentialism. He uses this term to mention a

  psychological condition of a person whose life is profoundly afflicted by the sense of loss, futility, and emptiness. It must be noted here, that this terms does not ever refer to any psychological or mental disease. It must be understood to refer to mental frustration (Frankl, 1985: 30). Given this consideration, this thesis uses the term feeling of meaninglessness in substitution with other terms, such as inner frustration and inner problem.

  “Representations of violence, masculinity, and gender in Fight Club seem all too willing to mirror the pathology of individual and institutional violence that informs the American landscape, extending from all manner of hate crimes to the far right’s celebration of paramilitary and protofascist subcultures” (http://roger.ucsd.edu/search/htm).

  Despite his opinion quoted above that implied the way Palahniuk’s Fight Club reflects its socio-cultural problems, he argues that Fight Club has reduced the violence as one significant social problem to senseless brutality and an indifference to human suffering. Jesse Kavadlo, in his writing about Palahniuk’s Fight Club’s aesthetic and moral imperatives, argues that Giroux’ latter argument shows that he has been trapped to read the novel as a story about Tyler and his anarchism. Kavadlo state s that although Tyler seems attractive to the character

  

  “I” and many other people described in the novel, Tyler’s existence cannot be separated from the narrator. He argues that in order to understand the novel, the reader must best of all start to re-read the novel from the beginning by using a perspective that the narrator and Tyler Durden are not two separate person, but precisely different personalities that each has its distinctive traits. The readers must beware to the lure of Tyler Durden just so they are able to analyse the novel more objectively. Readers must put concern to Tyler to the extent that he is closely connected to the narrator (www.stirrings-still.orgss22.pdf ). Reading the

  9 way Palahniuk kept secret his sexual background as a significant means to alternatively read Palahniuk’s works, particularly Fight Club, Kavadlo notifies that the act of violence and rebellion discussed in Fight Club has concealed the more crucial issue the novel attempts to communicate, that of the long suffering for spiritual fulfilment (www.stirrings-still.orgss22.pdf). Hence, he suggests readers to pay more attention to the novel’s subtext and implication rather than its context or language.

  Kavadlo’s argument about the way Fight Club attempts to communicate the long suffering for spiritual fulfilment is supported by Antonio Casado de Rocha’s writing about disease and community in Palahniuk’s early works. He considers that the rebellion in the novel is aimed at the commodification of life and to articulate human response to such a dehumanization of life. He believes that the crisis afflicts the characters in Fight Club is existential crisis; to live a more authentic life (www.stirrings-still.orgss22.pdf).

  This thesis agrees to Giroux’s writing to the extent that Fight Club reflects the socio-cultural problems occurred in the U.S. This thesis will employ Kavadlo’s suggestion on the peculiar way to read Fight Club. This thesis combines Henry A. Giroux’s (2001), Jesse Kavadlo’s (2005) and Antonio Casado de Rocha’s study (2005) on the way the novel attempts to communicate the inner crisis of the individuals in urban society and to reveal the way such an inner crisis has correlation with violence and destruction.

  10 B. Review of Related Theories In order to answer the question stated in problem formulation, it will be helpful to discuss briefly the theories that will be employed later in analysing the novel. Those theories are as follows:

  It is through its characters a story often presents its ideas, since through the character can the readers identify themselves with. According to Abrams in A

  

Glossary of Literary Terms, characters are persons presented in dramatic or

  narrative work. The character is interpreted as having moral, disposition, and emotional qualities through their action and their dialogues in the story(…..).

  Harvey Birenbaum in The Happy Critic argues that a story often presents its idea through the pattern of relationship among characters (Birenbaum, 1997: 132). A character must have particular personalities, characteristics, attitudes and view of life that are used to distinguish him from other characters in a story.

  Characterization is the way through which the author creates and presents the figure, nature and qualities of the characters. In order to evaluate the characterization of the characters, Birenbaum in suggests some aspects of consideration, it comprises: “…how the characters are seen by the narrator and other characters, how the characters see themselves, how they behave, what their behaviour expresses, and what it conceals, how they experience themselves, and what it is like for them to be who they are” (1997: 108).

  11 According to Birenbaum, the attempt of the modern literature to break off the old values has caused the emergence of a new conception of literary form (1997: 146). The central character of a story was conventionally characterized as the hero of the story

  whether he triumphantly wins or tragically lose, still he is the hero. Birenbaum mentions that the hero in a literary work is the center of consciousness through whom readers experiences the other though, he adds, this hero does not necessarily means that s/he is an admirable character (1997: 105).In such new conception, the central character of a story is often characterized as anti- hero. Anti-hero, Birenbaum notes, is a character central or main characterthat is characteristically described to posses the quality of an ordinary person (1997: 146).

  Frankl in his works, Psychotherapy and Existentialism and The Unheard Cry for

  

Meaning to mention the mental condition of a person whose life is profoundly

  afflicted by the sense of loss, futility, and emptiness when s/he is fail to fulfil the will to meaning of life. This kind of feeling is less to do with one’s failure in his struggle to gain material success, such as promotion in career, profit in trade, academic achievement though in someway it may be a factor of its emergence and more to do with one’s ‘spiritual’ emptiness that in spite of his or her material success in life, s/he feels that his or her life is purposeless. However, this is does not necessarily mean that it is a kind of mental disease, since, according to Frankl

  12 in The Unheard Cry for Meaning, one’ quest for meaning to life is human natural and, indeed, a distinctive characteristic of being human and nothing pathological (Frankl, 1985: 30). It refers rather to a mental distress than a mental disease or simply means that one who experiences such a feeling cannot be regard mad person.

  Frankl has proposed a symptomatology of such a mental frustration he calls as mass neurotic triad. It comprises depression, addiction, and aggression.

  Depression is emerged when one feels that his/her life seems lack of direction. In this situation, one often does not know what he wants to do. S/he fells profoundly that his/her life is purposeless and, hence, meaningless. In its extremity, such depression might lead one to wish for suicide. Frankl finds that the drug involvement and the addiction to alcohol are strongly related with one’s purpose in life. He states that the one’s attraction to drugs and alcohol is often grounded by the desire to find meaning in life and the search for meaningful experience (1985: 28-29). Frankl contends that aggression never exists by itself. Rather, it exists as a response one takes against something or toward which one takes a response against (Frankl, 1985: 80). Further, Frankl states that the notion of aggression is closely related with one’s search for tension an artificial tension, since, he said, not only too much tension but lack of tension will result an inner frustration (Frankl, 1985: 106-107).

  Feeling of meaninglessness does not merely caused by difficult condition of a person’s life. It possibly threatens even a person whose life seems successful and complete. Given this consideration, Frankl contends that meaning

  13 in life may be found even when a person experiences hopeless situation or facing a fate that cannot be changed. This kind of meaning fulfilment is on the way that such a person is able to transform his tragedy or suffering into a personal triumph.

  Frankl identifies this kind of person as homo patiens. In order to avoid confusion, it would be helpful to draw a illustration Frankl has provided.

  Homo sapiens, Frankl suggests, refers to ordinary man who know how to be success. It moves between the success/failure axis. Homo patiens or, Frankl calls, the suffering man is the man who know and able to transform his suffering into a triumphant. It moves on fulfillment/despair axis. This illustration is useful to explain that there are people who in spite of their successful lives are found distress in despair and meaninglessness and, on the other hand, there are some people who in spite of their failure are found in high spirits having fulfilled meaning in his life.

  To conclude, Frankl emphasizes that when a man can find the meaning he seeks in his life, he will likely to experience suffering and torment, to offer something to be sacrificed even if, in an extreme scale, it is his life for the sake of the meaning to his life he has gained. On the contrary, if there is no meaning, a

  14 person will seem lethargic to take his life even if all the means he needs to live have been satisfied (1997: 20).

  

3. Review on Socio-cultural-historical Context of the United States in the

1990s

  It was in the beginning of the 1990s, Americans were being introduced with the term of ‘Angry White Male’. The term was not quite popular, since it was not widely used. It was being used mostly in the political arena in the United States to mention those urban people; working-class and lower-middle class, who experienced scarcity opportunity to work in industrial jobs, since such jobs had being displaced to rural areas or to third-world counties, such as Mexico (www.beggarscanbechoosers.com/2007/06/angry-white-male-its-mostly-about- money.html). In order to enter other kind of job, they must compete with people who have a better education and skill. These people, then, were thrown into low paying service jobs. In short, they were people who feel out of place in the late economy of computers and high technology. However, the term ‘Angry White Male’ used in this thesis is not mentioned to include any sociological problem, particularly the racial problem that opposes the white people, statistically in numbers as the majority of the American with other people from the statistically minority races. Rather, it is used simply with the consideration refers to numbers.

  The fact that may be understood from the phenomena of the angry white male is that the sense of promising future that was flourishing in the postwar period was more and more waning in the 1990s as being experienced by some people who

  15 feel useless and less significant to work in such a job that mostly considered unwanted.

  Certainly, such reflection is not a generalization. At this period, the sense of economic opportunity had been decreasing in the United States and standard work becoming increasingly unavailable to the urban people (http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jan1996/v52-4-article.htm). The sense of economic insecurity was particularly being experienced by the young workers in the work force who had once lived in fairly good economic family. They supposedly grew up to foster a dream that they could own more than that of their parent. Experienced such difficult economic situation, these American young workers maintained to work harder and longer with the intention of material accumulation. Such gesture may reflect that these American young workers had not yielded their desire to economic security and material comfort. However, such desire is understandable, since it was the age where the role model was not anymore a kind of humble person, but instead a media-star with all his materialistic splendor. Thus, it became intolerable for these young people of being unsuccessful person, or simply a loser. It is then understood that their desire to obtain material progress was framed within a higher desire, that of to appear as successful person. Such a goal had consequently forced these urban young people to tolerate working in jobs they were unprepared for (www.beggarscanbechoosers.com/2007/06/angry-white-male-its-mostly-about- money.html). Thus, the sense of declining economic opportunity did not merely confined to afflict those people who were seeking job to enter, but was being

  16 experienced also by those who had been in the work force. Instead of gaining their wage raised, it remained stagnant or, worse, declined (http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jan1996/v52-4-article.htm). The word future and ‘career’, therefore, remained unarticulated.

  The diminishing sense of future and the loss sense of self-belonging and the threat to one’s self-esteem that occurred in the U.S. after the period of its industrial transition or, Donald L. Kanter in The Cynical American says, de- industrialization (Kanter, 1989: 138) has inevitably caused the sense of self fell into crisis. Heavily distressed and disappointed by their reality, it was reasonable that many of these urban young people attempted to seek a way to cope with predominant sense of loss, anger, emptiness, and meaninglessness that preoccupied them.

  The most popular means these urban young people embraced to cope with their inner frustration was consumerism. Although consumerism was not a culture peculiar to the 1990s, it had been transformed with different background and motive. Consumerism had since long ago been promoted as a way of life that people, particularly in urban society, were to conform. In the nineties, it was offered not simply as a way of life, but a kind of answer to disappointment in life.

  It promised to fill the empty void of the American urban people who experienced the economic insecurity and upcoming uncertainty of the resulting of the change in its industry. The anxiety that preoccupied the 1990s American young workers has consequently dissolved all together the old values their parents had taught to them, such as moderation, self-discipline and avoidance of debt. It was then being

  17 replaced by a prevalent passion to live for the moment. Such ethical transformation could not, of course, be separated from the role of media and advertising that played seduction to these disappointed young workers. Indeed, Wachtel in his reflection states,

  “ …[W]e have sought to quell the vulnerability through our possession. When we can buy nice new things, when we look around and see our homes well stocked and well equipped, we feel strong and expansive rather than small and endangered.” (Wachtel:…)

  As Wachtel reflects, the nineties American young people bestowed a meaning upon their devalued lives through consumption.

  Advertising, as the main engine of consumerism, that had victimized women began to prey man as well in the nineties. The shift from industrial and manufacturing based to a service and information-based economy according to Susan Faludi, had offered men fewer and fewer meaningful occupation (http://roger.ucsd.edu/search/htm). To cure the sense of disappointment, advertising seductively promised men a way to gain back meaning of men’s existence through presenting images of successful or heroic man for men to emulate with. Such images of successful man scattered in various product of advertisement, from car, suits and clothes to hair spray, body spray or perfume, face cream, moisturizer, even furniture and interior stuff. In these images, the term success symbolized or referred to, according to Dianne Barthel in her writing entitled A Gentleman and a Consumer compiled in Signs of Life in The U.S.A., physical power, financial power and, most of all, sexual power (Sonia Maasik and

  18 Jack Salomon (eds.), 1997: 145 – 154). Hence, men entered an identity crisis in which the old opposition between masculine and feminine has been so blurred.

  Another thing meant by the 1990s young American to alleviate their pain of inner frustration was to consume self-help book. It was reported by the trade publication American Bookseller that during the period from 1991 – 1996 there was inclining trend in self-help book sales. In fact, by the beginning of 1998, the total sales for books categorized as self-help book was constituted to 581 million dollars U.S. (http://www.selfhelpinc.com/excerpt). Such fact was in contrast with the decline of the publishing industry for several unsupported factors. Such phenomena, however, occurred at the same time when American must face the period where future becomes uncertain, insecurity in economic condition and the acute sense of meaningless life. Thus, it was not surprising that psychological and spiritual theme was dominant subject in so many self-help books. Something that can be induced from such a fact is that there were hunger in the shelves of those exhausted new breed workers of the nineties for emotional and spiritual immediacy. This was due to a reason that after spending many hours in their job, these workers must spend some time more to improve themselves through joining trainings or courses, continuing their study and perfecting their appearance just so they remained in the competition. Supposedly, there was barely enough time to maintain intimate interpersonal relationship. To fill their emotional emptiness, therefore, self-help book seemed to provide perfect answer. Other possible reason was the diminishing self-esteem of the resulting uncertain reality they were to face.

  19 Other thing that similar with self-help book is the culture of support group or twelve-step program that was so prevailing in the U.S. during nineties.

  The economic insecurity experienced by many American workers’ families has eroded the interpersonal relationship among the family members or the larger community. The sense of crisis made people to focus so sharply on their own need that they had ground apart from others. Such attitude, then, had them to lose their capacity for intimacy and community. When eventually their struggle to gain the sense of well being were failed, they ended up sad in loneliness and depression; drunk, smoke, eat a lot, go to prostitute, etc. Longing for such intimacy they gathered themselves to support each other against the forces that threaten their lives. Until recently, it is reported that such a community as support group or encounter group is still prevailing in the United States (http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jan1996/v52-4-article3.html).

  Along with the massive consumption that overwhelmed the U.S. in the nineties, the uncertain condition had inescapably raised violent and destructive activities. The jobs that were open in the economic transition from heavy industry to service and technological industry required good deal of education and skills that many people from lower-middle class could not afford. Disappointed working in low paying service jobs or, at all, unemployed, the sense of pride and confidence of many American young men diminished. Lost meaning in life saturated the U.S. during the nineties. Hence, violence as pathological response of spiritual search for self-identity became epidemic. Gibson Winter in his writing

  America in Search of It’s Soul reports,

  20 “…[V]iolence and threats of violence are present in all parts of America. The bombing of Federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, the spread of militias, the increase in abused of women and children, the escalating numbers of rapes, the constant threats against government agents who try to enforce rules…terrorist bombings of family-planning clinic…reflect a deep crisis of violence in American life” (http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jan1996/v52-4- article3.html). The horror condition in American society had increasingly perceivable as ‘spiritual’ or inner frustration. White males, who felt that their lives have been stolen by immigrant, women, or people from minority races, gathered themselves in racist group like skinheads or white separatist community or many various kind of progressive movements in urban area in the U.S.. All these violent activities makes clear of how hunger for sense of identity and hope for the future fuel this violence (http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jan1996/v52-4-article3.html).