Hirata’s description about filicium tree in certain part of the novel reinforces the fact that the old tree brings special meaning. The filicium tree is the
center of life for all living things around. The gorgeous parkeets, the jalak kerbau birds, the ashy tailorbirds birds eat the small fruits of the filicium or peck at
caterpillars on the tree. Like the birds, The Rainbow Troops also enjoy being around the old filicium tree:
That tree was a witness to the dramas of our childhood. In its branches we constructed tree houses. Behind its leaves we played hide-and-seek. On its
trunk we carved our promise to be forever friends. On its protruding roots, we sat around listening to Bu Mus tell the story of Robin Hood. And under
the shade of its leaves, we played leapfrog, rehearsed plays, laughed, cried, sang, studied, and quarelled p. 52.
Here, the tree symbolizes the relation between human and nature. Harmonious life of the birds and the members of The Rainbow Troops shows a harmonious
relation between human and the nature. Both the birds and The Rainbow Troops’ members love being around the tree without disturbing each other. They are
blended together. This shows how they naturally respect each other. In short, the appearance of filicium tree in the novel symbolizes the
relation among God or Heaven, nature, and human. In this novel, it is shown how close the connection between all the characters with God is and how harmonius
their relation with the nature is.
4. The Ferris wheel
Ferris wheel is the place where A Ling and Ikal spend their unforgetable night after the Chiong Si Ku or the snatching ritual. Chiong Si Ku is “the most
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highly anticipated cultural event on the Island” which is held every year. Ferris wheel is a part of the event.
Ikal is very excited to meet her. He comes as soon as he finishes doing the isya
prayer. He has been waiting for almost five hours, but A Ling is yet to come. It causes a great despair in his heart. His excitement when for the first time
reading A Ling’s message on the chalk box turns into despair and hopelessness: I had been waiting for almost five hours, from isya prayer until midnight—
A Ling had not shown up. She had broken her promise. Maybe she was picking bean sprout and had forgotten her promise? Didn’t she know how
much the message on the chalk box meant to me? She wasn’t even coming p. 221-222.
He is so suffered because of “longing mixed with hopelessness” p. 222. He almost gives up. Fortunately, shortly before he leaves, A Ling comes. She then
takes and draws his hand. They run together toward the Ferris wheel: The Ferris wheel operator had already killed the lights. He was getting
ready to go home. A Ling begged him to let it go round one more time. The operator apparently understood the plight of a couple drunk with
love...and then we were silent, just silent, spinning around on the Ferris wheel, not wanting to get off p. 223-224.
Here is the first appearance of the Ferris wheel. Ferris wheel is considered as a symbol because it “has an emotional or
intellectual power beyond its literal importance” Kennedy and Gioia, 1999, p. 242. Although the Ferris wheel does not appear by repetition, its appearance in a
very crucial moment for Ikal and A Ling brings power which can be recognized “intuitively” with unknown reason Kennedy and Gioia, 1999, p. 242. Here, it is
reasonable to include Ferris wheel as one of symbol because it is related with the emotional feeling of the author himself. By using Ferris wheel, the author avoids
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the novel from excessively talking about love. Thus, the novel still constantly talks about injustice, discrimination and the dynamics of life without losing one
important aspect of life called love. There is no reason explained by the writer about why A Ling is interested
in riding the Ferris wheel. It can be caused by her feeling that the Ferris wheel is such a private and romantic place where she feels comfortable or because she is
used to ride the same Ferris wheel every year. No matter what the reason is, the wheel brings certain emotional power to be conveyed by the author.
Ferris wheel as a symbol is related with its circular shape and rotation. Here, it symbolizes Ikal’s up and down feeling and emotion.
Up is another way to say a feeling of happiness and down refers to despair, suffer, or longing. Ikal’s
feeling toward A Ling can be illustrated by the following figure:
Figure 4.1: Ikal’s Feeling Represented by The Wheel
It is all begun with Ikal’s routines of buying chalk in the Sinar Harapan Shop:
Longing
Recovery from a
broken heart
Loss of love A Ling
’s departure First date at the
Chiong Si Ku A Ling’s invitation
First love at
the first sight
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There were times when I felt curious to see what the owner of these heavenly nails looked like. Was she as lovely as her nails? Were the nails
on her left hands as gorgeous as those on her right? Or did she only have one hand? Did she even have a face? But all of these thoughts were only in
my heart. I had no intention of sneaking a peek at her face. The opportunity to look at her nails was more than enough to make me happy.
My friend, I was not one of those boorish boys p. 167.
This moment triggers the “wheel” to start spinning. Ikal’s feeling crepts up. He starts to feel curious about who is sitting “behind the wooden wall in the back that
separated the stockroom from the rest of the shop” p. 165. One day, after some years of knowing each other there is an accident which brings blessing. Because
of her carelessness, A Ling drops the chalk box into the floor. Unexpectedly, when Ikal gets down to pick the scattered chalks under the curtain, A Ling draws
the curtain back that causes their “faces to collide” p. 169: We were staring at each other closely...it was suddenly very quiet...at that
moment it seemed as if all the hands on all the clocks in the entire world stood still. All moving things froze as if God had captured their movement
with a giant camera from the sky...My heart stopped beating for a few seconds before starting up again with an irregular rhythm, like an SOS
distress code. I guessed the young girl with the heavenly nails standing stunned before my nose felt the same way p. 170.
This feeling of happiness brings him into the top of the “wheel”. He is falling in love at the first sight:
The slam of the door woke me from an intoxicating spell. I was swaying, my head dizzy, my vision flashing. I fell to my shaking knees and tried to
catch my breath. Blood tingled throughout my clammy body. I had just been hit forcefully by my very first love at very first sight—at most
incredible feeling that only some are fortunate enough to experience p. 171.
Love puts him in a strange feeling of happiness. He is now sitting on the top of the “wheel”. He is soaring:
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...I was flying again through the stars, dancing on a cloud. Oh God, right there, among the stinky candlenut sacks, cans of kerosene and sacks of
jengkol beans, I found love...I had become a man with unlimited strength,
and I was more than willing to cart Syahdan on the back of the bike to anywhere in my world. My friend, if you really want to know, that is what
they call being madly in love p. 172-173.
Like a wheel which always spins up and down, all of a sudden, Ikal’s feeling jumps down. He suffers from a great longing for a young Hokian girl named A
Ling: I didn’t even understand myself, always daydreaming, unsatisfied by food,
unable to sleep well. I was struck by an odd feeling that I had never known before. I had turned into a restless fawn. Everything I thought I knew was
turned upside down by a new word that had taken over my life: longing...I felt breathless all the time. I longed for her face, her smooth nails, her
smile when she looked at me p. 202.
One day, Ikal gives A Ling a poem entitled Chrysanthemum Flower. Unexpectedly, A Ling replies the poem by writing on the bottom of the chalk box
“meet me at Chiong Si Ku” p. 212. Like a Ferris wheel, his feeling spins up again when he reads the message:
What? A message from A Ling It must have been A Ling’s writing The hidden message made me lose control of the bicycle, which wobbled and
plopped itself down into a ditch....At home, I read the message over and over. The message stayed the same any way it was read: she wanted to
meet with me...I just couldn’t believe it. But in the end I concluded that I, Ikal, would soon meet with my first love It was indisputable, let the world
be jealous p. 212-213.
While waiting for her at the Chiong Si Ku, Ikal’s feeling spins down again. He suffers from despair and impatience to meet with his first love:
I was tired of listening to the Malay dangdut song Gelang Sipatu Gelang, a song that asked those in attendance to go home because the show was
over. I stared blankly at the traders tidying up. I was so sad to see the masses leave. My hope was broken. Apparently, the happiness I had felt
all this time buying chalk was felt by me alone. I was no more than a wolf howling at the moon, an unfortunate man with an unrequited love p. 222.
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Here, Ikal feels almost desperate. He has been waiting for so long, but A Ling has not come yet. His feeling is like being on the bottom of a wheel. But once again,
everything can always change. A Ling comes at the time he almost gives up. This absolutely reawakens his spirit:
She had come from a completely unexpected direction because all this time, she had actually been inside the temple watching me. At the very last
minute, when I was about to give into despair, she came and turned my feelings of disappointment upside down p. 223.
A Ling then takes his hand. They run together toward the Ferris wheel. On the Ferris wheel, she tells him that she read his poem Chrysanthemum Flower in front
of the class and says it is beautiful. This succesfully makes his feeling soar. Like a Ferris wheel, Ikal’s feeling is always spinning up and down.
Meeting with his first love and getting the compliment from A Ling have brought him up. But longing has taken him down. However, the saddest part of all that
shows Ikal’s up and down feeling is A Ling’s departure: A Ling’s departure left pain and sorrow in my heart. I wanted to burst into
Sinar Harapan Shop. But I knew that such dramatic action—the kind I had
seen in Indian movies—would only be greeted by bottles of bean paste and heaps of rotten shrimp seasoning. I was miserable, just miserable p. 262.
This does not only spin his feeling down, but also drops it down far away: I shut myself off for days. I randomly was overcome with a feeling of
emptiness. It wasn’t easy to forget A Ling. A void filled my chest, and my longing made it hard to breathe. Before, when I found my first love, I
became a strange person. Now that I lost love, I became a different person. Before, when I found love, I was hit over the head with an awkward
happiness, a feeling I had never felt before. Now that love left me, I felt sadness I had never felt before. A sadness that made my joints ache p.
267-268.
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But once again, the wheel is always spinning up and down. Life will never put someone down forever. Miraculously, Ikal is able to cure himself from a broken
heart. The book If Only They Could Talk given by A Ling shortly before her departure has inspired him:
That evening I finished reading Herriot’s tale and immediately adopted it as a representation of A Ling and the picture of my feelings for her
now...Miraculously, I was suddenly cured. I had a new love right inside my worn out bag. That love was Edensor. After 480 hours, 37 minutes,
and 12 seconds of mourning my loss of A Ling, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and dwelling on my first love p. 271.
Another time, Hirata uses the Ferris wheel to symbolize ups and downs of
human life. Here is shown how humans, even the strongest one, cannot refuse God’s fate. The PN Timah is, formerly, considered as the strongest and the most
influential power who has monopolized the whole Belitong island for hundreds of year. Yet, the company, twelve years later, is “suddenly collapsed in a matter of
days” p. 446 due to not only global economic crisis, but also the successful discovery of substitute materials for tin:
Back when PN was at the top of the Ferris wheel...God punished the three of them by shattering them to humiliating pieces.
... Without warning, the Gulliver company that had reigned for hundreds of
years suddenly collapsed in a matter of days...God had destroyed arrogance in Belitong, just as he had destroyed decadence in Babylon.
... The plummet in world tin prices was not only because of a global
economic crisis, but also because substitute materials for tin had been discovered p. 445-446
In short, the Ferris wheel is considered as a symbol because of its
emotional power beyond the literal meaning. Once again, Ferris wheel in the novel is a symbol of Ikal’s up and down feeling toward A Ling and also ups and
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downs of human life. However, both of them refer to one thing: human life and everything in the world are always spinning up and down.
5. The Crocodile
