relation to the first opposition, those acts might present human disobedience to customs. In conducting those acts, human characters need and, sometimes, give up
to supernatural being or supernatural power. Those acts further leads the human characters of the folktales to despair or unfortunate fate. In other words, and in
causal relationship, the unfortunate fate of the human characters is due to their own acts. In addition, the supernatural being or power never fail or undergo unfortunate
fate. The folktales are developed by using three types of plot proposed by Booker
2003 namely Tragedy, Voyage and Return, and Overcoming the Monster. The elaboration of the interpretation of the types of the plot will be based on the nature
of the plots and the character development along the progression of the plots. The following table is the configuration of the folktales with their types of plots.
Table 4.1. The Folktales and their Plots No.
Folktales Types of plot
1. The Tears of Empu Mburing
Tragedy 2.
Siti Fari and Empu Rencak Tragedy
3. The Mesa Itch
Voyage and Return 4.
The Pirates of Gili Montong Tragedy
5. The Dragon Princess of Komodo
Overcoming the Monster
6. The Sad Tale of Ina Materia
Tragedy
In general, the stories employing Tragedy are characterized by the characters’ eminent sadness in the end of the stories. In the The Tears of Empu
Mburing, the main character, Empu Mburing, underwent a typical sadness of being
separated from the beloved one and from the wealth. In the Siti Fari and Empu Rencak,
the sadness laid in the failure of the main character, Empu Rencak. His failure was followed by the separation of him and Siti Fari. In addition, Empu
Rencak live alone. Loneliness is also a characteristic of tragedy. In the The Pirates
of Gili Montong, the sadness occured when the pirates slew their own family. The
tragedic moment is in a sense of separation. The Sad Tale of Ina Materia depicts the concepts of exclusion. The main character, Ina Materia, was excluded from the
society and bore the consequences of being accused of unfaithfulness. The stories employing the other plots are The Mesa Itch and The Dragon
Princess of Komodo. The Mesa Itch is developed under the plot of Voyage and
Return. The essence of the plot is that the main character, The captain, went to sail and happened to visit unfamiliar world. The visit gave the captain the motives to go
back to the problems and the further actions. In the end, the captain overcame the problem he found and returned back to his home. The last story is The Dragon
Princess of Komodo. The story is believed and told as the legend of the society of
Komodo islands. The plot of the story falls under the Overcoming the Monster. However, the analysis should pay careful attention to the monstrous character, the
Dragon, since it was not the one who deserved bad treatment nor the one who
caused the trouble. Based on the story, the dragon was the sister of human main character. However, the essence of the plot that there was almost a conflict between
the human character and the monstrous character exists. The following discussion is about the elaboration of each story in terms of
the plot. The stories are segmented into parts regarding the plot types. In relation to Critical Discourse Analysis, the goal of this analysis has to be finding evidences of
power imbalance practice. Thus, the focus might be the development of the plot in relation to the characters’ fate.
4.1.1.1 The Tears of Empu Mburing
The folktale presents the ideology that human as a member of a particular society should obey the customs. It presents the opposition between human being
as the member of a society and the society to which the customs belong. Further,the folktale is actually a tool to deliver a custom of the society. The particular custom
is about eating teri fish. From the story, eating the fish is forbidden. Any breaks to the custom might bring serious consequences. The consequence taken by the main
character of the story is the exclusion from the society. Empu Mburing is depicted to have a strong desire in eating teri fish. Consequently, he must live alone. To
exaggerate the exclusion, previously, Empu Mburing is characterized of being solitary at the first hand. He seems not to get mingle easily with others. The habit
of eating teri fish is taken as additional reason. However, the motive might be because there is no way to not let anyone to eat teri fish. The custom might have
been handed down from generation to generation with no preservation of the reason behind.
1
“the people of his village did not eat teri and they disapproved of his
habit. ” A1216
In relation to the plot, the society puts the ideology by the ‘reward and
punishment’. In other words, any society members who follow the ideology get a reward and those who oppose the ideology receive a punishment. For instance,
EmpuMburing has experienced both the reward and the punishment. In a causal
relationship, both the reward and punishment that Empu Mburing experiences are due to his desire to eat teri fish.
