Background of the Study

1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Literature somehow reflects humankind and also the life itself. Authors not only wrote fiction, but also they are framing the picture of life and everything about it within their works. Framing life means that authors also framing humanity too. The author has experienced many things and poured it into his writing that it is a proof that what is actually happened in the reality. As the author makes it as a basic in his fiction, it can depict what the society is looked like. Before the writers explains any further about the society and it relation with the society, this is a definition of society that written by Henry Pratt Fairchild in his book Dictionary of Sociology. Society means a group of human beings co-operating in the pursuit of several of their major interest, invariably including self-maintenance and self-perpetuation. The concept of society includes continuity, complex associational relationship, and a composition including representativeness of fundamental human types, specifically men, women, and children. Ordinarily, also, there is the element of territorial establishment. Society is a functioning group. It has to be sharply differentiated from fortuitous temporary or non-representative groups or aggregations such as a mob, the passenger on a steamship, the spectators at ball games, or the inhabitants of army camp Fairchild, 1970:300. According to the quotation above, society is a bunch of people who are form into groups that living in specific place in a long term and co-operating to each other in order to make a harmonious life. It is not same with a crowd of people in a place like passenger in a bus or a spectators of any sport games because there are just hang out together in a specific time. As it is written above that “Society is a functioning group” that it is means that the society has a specific function that in this case that society has the privilege to control people‟s behavior and attitude. According to Rene Wellek and Austin Warren in their book Theory of Literature, they wrote about the relation of society and literature. It can be seen in the quotation below. Literature is a social institution, using as its medium language, a social creation. Such traditional literary devices as symbolism and metre are social in their very nature. They are conventions and norms which could have arisen only in society. But, furthermore, literature „represents‟, „life‟; and „life‟ is, in a large measure, a social reality, even though the natural world and the inner or subjective world of the individual have also been objects of literary „imitation‟Wellek and Warren, 1956:94. According to the quotation above, about „literature is a social institution, using as its medium language, a social c reation.‟ means that literature is created by the society and the literature itself, according to the quotation above, means represented of life or imitation of life. The author is a member of society and the literary works he or she writes is imitate the life and represent the way people life in the society and there are the norms and rules that society has which is people have to obey and act accordingly to those rules and norms. In this thesis, the writer is discussing about the unusual topic that sound taboo for some people, generally by the society. It is about homosexuality. Mostly people know about homosexual as a relationship between the same genders. It is not completely wrong but the word homosexual has broader meaning. According to Huffman, homosexual is a person who has sexual attraction tendency toward members of his or her own sex Huffman, 1997:340. That means it is not only covering men but also women. In this thesis, the term homosexual focus in the meaning of relationship between men. The terms which are commonly used to refer homosexuals, such as gay for men and lesbian for women, are considered more refined than the word homosexual itself. Homosexuality, being one of many different kinds of sexual deviations, has aroused many pros and cons. Many people think that it is unusual behavior but considers it as one of sexual orientation and they think it is normal, but some other considered it to be a sin or a crime. They cannot accept homosexual as normal people and they tend to avoid them or blaming them for their odd behavior. However people who consider homosexuality as a normal thing, thinks that to be a homosexual is part of human right. People can choose what they want and what they will be. No one can judge them wrong or not. Homosexual tends to separate themselves from the society because they know that they are different from normal people. They are being judged as sinful people and mostly normal people will misjudge them, even though the homosexual never did anything wrong to the people whom talking bad about them. The perspectives towards homosexuality are diversed, by religion and mental health professional. According to religion, the leader of some religion consider homosexual as a sinner and treating them like a criminal and as for the mental health professional, in this case a psychologist, homosexuality is a psychological disorder. “Although these perspectives differ and are at points mutually exclusive, the underlying message is clear. Homosexuality is bad and shameful, to be feared and suppressed ” Branon, 1996:293. Because of it, the homosexual feels suppressed and they face some difficulties to express their feeling to their beloved one in public and choose to isolate themselves in small group. From the history of Japan itself, the Japanese tends to be in a group and they do not like being differentiated or being treated differently so they prefer to follows what the dominant side is doing. In Forbidden Colors by Yukio Mishima, the theme of this novel is homosexuality at post-war era in Japan. Through this novel, the writer wants to find out about homosexual attitude and how the society is seeing it at the time the story takes place. The reason why the writer does this study is to know how the Japanese society sees homosexuality. It is known that nowadays some people seem to not mind about homosexuality and start to accept is as a common thing, not as sexual disorder. Japan has a long history about homosexuality and based on this, the writer wants to give the reader a better understanding of Japanese society perspectives in seeing homosexuality and the cause of the changing history of homosexuality at that time. This is a quotation from Mark Mclelland from his book related to the writer‟s reason for choosing the topic of this thesis. In Japanese society the two paradigms of homosexuality as act it is something that you do and identity it is something that you are coexist. The traditional nature of personal identity defined through social role and the prioritisation of exterior role over interior desire in Japanese society make it easier for same sex desiring men to marry women and define themselves through social roles rather than sexual acts Mclelland, 2000:239-240. As stated in the quotation above that in Japanese society, homosexuality has two paradigms as act and identity which are coexist. What it means as an act is homosexual is regarded as an unusual act and it can happened to someone because of any influence from the surrounding of that people to be homosexual and it is not consider as someone‟s identity. The identity here means that the people who have an identity as homosexual usually feels that he is born as homosexual and it is not influenced by other people. It is written above that the people who have an identity as homosexual prioritized a social role that stated himself as a normal person and decides to marry a woman in order to hide his identity as a homosexual because of society‟s demand. This is a further explanation from the quotation above. Homosexual men in Japa n are aware of being trapped in someone else‟s discourse. Unlike America or Europe where there are a variety of discourses which seek to define the meaning of same-sex love, some of which are controlled by homosexual people themselves, in Japan these discourses are primarily the product of heterosexual fantasy. Although Japan does have extensive gay media, they reflect the general tendency in Japanese society to treat sexuality as a form of entertainment; this has resulted in homosexual men being largely ca ught up in other people‟s projections which either ridicule them or idealize them. Unlike some western countries, Japan has exceedingly few organisations or facilities where gay men can meet for purposes other than sex. If a gay man wants to meet other gay men, he has to go to bars or cruise spots: further emphasising the idea that homosexuality is simply about sex Mclelland, 2000:240. The quotation from Mclelland‟s book above is explaining how the homosexual men in Japan are trapped in other people‟s thought. In this case, homosexual men in Japan is being criticized by other people regarding to their identity. It is written in the quotation that in western countries, homosexual men is ruled by their own kind and normal people cannot disturb their identity or treat them poorly. The homosexual men in Japan are treated by the society as a form of entertainment. They make fun of them and ridicule them and they have the idea that homosexuality is just about sex and nothing else. The homosexual men in Japan do not have any rights to identified themselves in the society because the society do not want to acknowledge them as society‟s member.

B. Problem Formulation