The Dragon Princess of Komodo

The anticipation stage of the story introduces the main characters and their characteristics. The main characters are a young man and Ina Materia. The young man takes Ina Materia because she is beautiful for him. Being married, the young man’s father gives Ina Materia a sarong, a piece of cloth as a symbol of devotion for the couple to one another. The sarong is particular that none is perfectly similar to it. The couple live in a distance from the main village. The young man has two reasons for living not too close to the village. First, the young man likes to live solitarily for the peace. Second, he feels jealous whenever other men staring or flirting with her. 11 “But secretly he was jealous, too – he did not like the idea of the other men of the village staring at his beautiful wife, or worse, flirting with her.” A12518 The last reason seems to be the feeling that becomes the central motive in the story. Instead of a plain desire, the plot is developed based on this feeling. Further, this feeling is the one that moves them away from the village. However, later the young man actually still keeps this feeling inside his heart. In the next stages of the story, this feeling might be a cause of the problem. The dream stage presents the harmonious life of the couple. They shared roles in their daily life. The husband as the bread winner goes hunting for deer and wild pigs in the forest. Ina Materia does the works in the kitchen. She prepares for the meals, collects woods, and cleans their households. They carry out those routines for another year with no problem even until Ina Materia gives birth to their son. Their life seems to be ideal accordingly to the custom. The frustration stage starts by Ina Materia’s failure to keep the sarong, the particular cloth given by her father in law. To be clear, the sarong falls and get into the mud. This failure might indicate the lack of care to the bond of marriage. However, this failure is an incident. Ina Materia does not purposefully get the cloth in to the mud since she gives a great care to the cloth for so long. 12 “Ina Materia treated her sarong with great care, so she was dismayed at what had happened” A12529 In this stage, Ina Materia has limited options. In one hand she needs to go back home to perform her role in the family. In the other hand, his husband might get angry knowing what has happened. Her cousin passses by and offers a help. He lends Ina Materia his sarong and his wife will wash Ina Materia ’s sarong. Ina Materia considers the help as a sound solution, thus, she goes home with his cousin’s sarong. The frustration has an impact also to the young man, Ina Materia ’s husband. Realizing that his wife wears an unknown sarong, the young man accuses his wife to be unfaithful. The anger is also trigered by his jealousy. He does not give a chance for Ina Materia to elaborate any explanations. 13 “ ‘Liar You have betrayed me and given yourself to another man’ he shouted, consumed with jealousy. A12544 The fact that Ina Materia wears an unknown sarong gives the young man a legitimation and gratification to blame his wife. He thinks that Ina Materia does not show respect to their marriage. Because of that, he conducts a bad treatment to his wife by striking her wife a blow to her head. The plot develops to the nightmare stage as soon as Ina Materia leaves the house and heads the mountain. By the time, the couple loses the bond of love. There is no mention about the husband. The focus shift to Ina Materia. She shows her despair by praying to her god. If what his husband suspects is true, she is willing to be cursed into a stone. 14 “...I ask then that you turn me to stone so that all will know thatI did not commit the sin of which I have been accused” A12555 The last plot is the destruction of the main character. Ina Materia turns into stone in this plot since she asks for that to her god. From another perspective, his husband might also live alone. However, this might not be evident in the story since there is no single mention about the husband anymore. Ideologically speaking, the story presents the society’s perspective about jealousy and faithfulness. The idea of jealousy might be common and prominent in the society that it presents in the story. Interestingly, it seems that a husband might feel jealous as a sign of posessiveness. In the other hand, a wife should be faithful to her husband at all cost. From another perspective, a woman should keep the pride of being a faithful wife. Once she gets accused of being unfaithful, she might go away from the house. This story also delivers an ideology that supernatural power is powerful. Even though the supernatural being is not visible in the story, the power has the impact to the main character. Human beings might not play around with their prayer and wish to supernatural power. They should be careful in uttering their prayer since their wish might come true.

4.1.1.7. Ideological Plotting

This thesis means to highlight two prominent ideologies transmitted through the folktales and this subtitle presents the focus of which each folktale delivers the ideologies. The first ideology is the ideology of submissiveness. It is that an individual as a society member must obey the customs of the society. Any disobedience to the custom might bring consequences. The second ideology is the ideology of dependency. This ideology might be said as the sub-ideology of the first one. The custom that an individual should obey in the first ideology includes the ideology of dependency to supernatural beings. Human being is depicted as powerless before supernatural beings. The supernatural beings are realized widely in terms of physical phenomenon, experience, or sensible power. Importantly, the folktales share those ideology in their own narrative events and plots. Thus, the folktales might exhibit different aspects of the ideology. The folktales conclusively highlight two ideologies of both submissiveness and dependency. The ideologies are the summation of the particular aspects of ideologies in each folktale. In other words, each folktale brings about different focuses in delivering those ideologies. Each folktale contributes partsof the ideology. Thus to draw the ideologies, ideological plotting seems urgent. The ideology of submissiveness to custom is prominent almost in all the folktales but in the Pirates of Gili Montong. The folktale about Pirates of Gili Montong depicts the carelessness and recklessness of human being. From the plot analysis, the folktale does not explicitely convey the two ideology but it supports the findings by depicting the negative characteristics of human being. In the first folktale about Empu Mburing, the ideology of submissiveness pushes the main character to live away from the society. The society does not like the habit of the main charater, which is eating teri fish. From the plot, the main character is secluded from the society because of his habit. To point this ideology, the tragedic fate happens to the main character due to his disobedience to this custom. The custom is held also by another character, who is a supernatural being. The supernatural being obliges the main character not to eat teri fish. After breaking the custom held by the society and obliged by the supernatural being, the main character suffers from poor living condition. Thus, through the folktale, the custom is delivered as strongly as the ideology to obey it. The submissiveness to custom in the second folktale about Siti Fari and Empu Rencak is about the conduct of marriage. There are two customs presented in the folktale. The first custom is intrinsically evident in the folktale. It is the custom that any women entering someone house might be taken as the wife of the owner. This custom applies to all society members regardless their social statuses. The princes entering the main character’s house might be taken as the wife. The princess might not neglect this custom. However, possessing high social status, the princess sets a condition in obeying the custom since it might not beneficial for her. The second custom is more extrinsic than the first one in a sense that it emerges as a conclucion of the plot. The custom is that an ordinary person might not marry ones from higher social status. The custom is depicted from the failure of the main character to fulfill the condition sets by the princess. By delivering the failure, it