HAROUN AND THE SEA OF STORIES
TALE PLOT STRUCTURE IN SALMAN RUSHDIE’S HAROUN AND THE SEA OF STORIES AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillments of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
STELLA SOEHARDI
Student Number: 074214039
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2012
TALE PLOT STRUCTURE IN SALMAN RUSHDIE’S HAROUN AND THE SEA OF STORIES AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillments of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
STELLA SOEHARDI
Student Number: 074214039
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2012
EVER TRIED. EVER FAILED. NO MATTER.
TRY AGAIN. FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER.
- Samuel Beckett-
,
If you want to be happy BE!
- Anonymous-
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- Anonymous-
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to thank to Jesus Christ for giving me all the blessing.Thank you for all the process and things that I went through and finally get me into.
Thank to my parents, Poppa and Momma, my sister and brothers Tuafie, Fencus, and Rydud for the supports.
To my advisor Elisa Dwi Wardani S.S., M.Hum., thank you so much for being patient, for giving me guidance, suggestions, and corrections. I would never be able to finish this thesis without you. To Masinting, thank you for the novel you introduced me. Thanks to Masji the person who gave me knowledge about the literary theory. For all people in Lidahibu, thank you to push me to always write and read.
I also would like to thank Azibo Nurul Laily, Adolphus Satria Mumu Kurniawan, Umek Lestari, Robertus Jujud, Laurencya Popong, and Enyan Fabri Hartanto, the persons who technically helped my thesis and borrowed me books. To some friends who that in so many times support me through short message service or wall on Facebook, or tweet mention on twitter.
To whom always motivate me in finishing my thesis, Lita Talitong Anggelina, Cicilia Cicscong Laury Lintong, HannyBling, Cahyarini Abro, Lidwina Wichan, and Ardhina Acoy Trisila S thank you very much for always motivating and supporting me.
Stella Soehardi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE .................................................................................................... i
APPROVAL PAGE .......................................................................................... ii
ACCEPTANCE PAGE..................................................................................... iii
MOTTO PAGE .................................................................................................. iv
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH…..…………….. v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................... vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................... vii
ABSTRACT......................................................................................................... ix
ABSTRAK ............................................................................................................ x
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………… 15
A. Object of the Study…………………………………………………… 15 B. Approaches of the Study …………………………………................... 16 C. Method of the Study………………………………………………….. 18CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ……………………………………….................... 20
A. The Plot of Haroun and the Sea of Stories……………………………. 202. The Subplot of Haroun and the Sea of Stories……………………….. 30
e. Resolution ……………………………………………………...... 29
d. Climax …………………………………………………………… 27
c. Crisis ……………………………………………………………... 26
b. Complication …………………………………………………….. 22
a. Exposition ……………………………………………………….. 21
1. The Main Plot of Haroun and the Sea of Stories ……………………. 21
C. Theoretical Framework ………………………………………………. 14
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………. 1
A. Background of the Study ……………………………………………2. Theories on Narratives ………….......................................................... 12
1. Theories on Plot …………………………………………………….... 9
6 B. Review of Related Theories………………………………….............. 9
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ………………………………… 6
A. Review of Related Studies ………………………………..................4 D. Definition of Terms ………………………………………………….. 5
4 C. Objectives of the Study ………………………………………………
1 B. Problem Formulation ………………………………………………...
a. Exposition ………………………………………………………... 31
c. Crisis ……………………………………………………………… 38
d. Climax ……………………………………………………………. 40
e. Resolution ……………….……………………………………….. 43
B. The Narrative Structure in Haroun and the Sea of Stories……………. 45
1. Narrative Structure in the Main Plot Haroun and the Sea of Stories ………………………………………………………………………… 45
2. Narrative Structure in the Subplot of Haroun and the Sea of Stories ………………………………………………………………………… 48
C. The Meaning Constructed through the Narrative ……………………. 53
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION …….………………………………………….. 57
A. Concluding Remark …………………………………………………... 57 B. Suggestion and Recommendation ……………………………………. 60BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………................. 61
ABSTRACT
STELLA SOEHARDI. Tale Plot Structure in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the
Sea of Stories. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata
Dharma University, 2012.Why does the building stand firm? It is because the building has framework or foundation. In fiction, story can be said as a building, it also has a narrative framework which constructs the story. In a story, there is a plot that has significant contribution in presenting all events in a story. The aim of this research is to find out the frameworks of the work through the plot structure.
Based on the chosen topic, the writer formulates three problems: First, how is the plot formed in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories? Second, based on the plot analysis, how is the narrative of Haroun and the Sea of Stories structured? And the last, what is the meaning constructed through the narrative?
Since this research is a library research, then the first source used is the novel itself, Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. The secondary sources include several theories and criticisms taken from books and internet. This research use Narratology approach, in which the writer analyzes the narrative structure and the narrative itself. The theory used in this thesis is theory of plot which is used as a tool to analyze the whole stories that can help the writer to find the details from every single event in the novel. The other theory used in this thesis is theory of narrative which is about the method of Vladimir Propp. This theory is used to expose the framework of the work, which is the novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
Through the analysis of the plot, the form of plot is clearly described and the events of it are seen. Through the analysis of narrative, the construction of the Propp’s functions shows the narrative structure of the novel. Through the interpretation of the narrative structure, the finding of the meaning of the novel will be revealed.
ABSTRAK
STELLA SOEHARDI. Tale Plot Structure in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the
Sea of Stories. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas
Sanata Dharma, 2012 Mengapa sebuah bangunan dapat berdiri tegak? Bangunan dapat berdiri tegak disebabkan karena adanya kerangka atau fondasi. Di dalam karya fiksi, cerita dapat dikatakan sebagai sebuah bangunan, cerita pun memiliki sebuah kerangka cerita yang dapat membuat cerita terbentuk. Di dalam cerita terdapat plot yang mempunyai kontribusi penting yang berperan dalam menghadirkan semua kejadian-kejadian di sebuah cerita. Tujuan daripada penelitian ini adalah menemukan kerangka-kerangka yang terdapat pada karya lewat struktur plot.
Berdasarkan topik yang telah dipilih, penulis menciptakan tiga masalah: Pertama, bagaimana plot dalam novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories terbentuk? Kedua, berdasarkan analisa plot, bagaimana naratif Haroun and the Sea of Stories terstruktur? Dan yang terakhir, apa makna yang terbangun lewat naratif?
Karena penelitian ini merupakan penelitian perpustakaan, maka sumber utama yang digunakan adalah novel itu sendiri, Haroun and the Sea of Stories karya Salman Rushdie. Sumber-sumber sekunder meliputi beberapa teori dan kritik yang diambil dari buku dan internet. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan Naratologi, dimana penulis menganalisa struktur cerita dan cerita itu sendiri. Teori yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah teori plot yang digunakan sebagai alat dalam menganalisa keseluruhan cerita yang dapat membantu penulis menemukan detil-detil dari setiap kejadian di dalam novel. Teori lain yang digunakan adalah teori naratif tentang metode Vladimir Propp. Teori ini digunakan untuk membongkar kerangka daripada karya, yaitu novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
Melalui analisis plot, bentuk plot dijabarkan secara jelas dan kejadian- kejadiannya tampak. Melalui analisis struktur naratif, konstruksi daripada fungsi- fungsi milik Propp menunjukkan struktur naratif pada novel. Melalui interpretasi dari struktur naratif, penemuan makna pada novel akan tampak.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study Some literary works are composed and consumed by readers in silence, but
some others are designed to be read aloud, such as some which are designed to be cited and acted out by live actors. Literature is usually classified into three genres, being prose fiction, poetry, and drama (Roberts, 1989: 1-2).
The subject of this study is one type of prose fiction, Haroun and the Sea of
Stories , a novel written by Salman Rushdie’s novels. This novel is written when
Rushdie hid from the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who wanted him dead because of his previous controversial novel The Satanic Verses. The Satanic
Verses was published in 1988. Its story revolved around two Indian actors who
struggled with religion, spirituality, and nationality. It won the Whitbread Award, but on February 14, 1989, the novel was banned in India when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an Iranian leader, announced that the writer, Salman Rushdie, and also all of the publishers and translators of The Satanic Verses should be put into death because of their contribution in the production of the novel. Not only in India, this novel was also banned and burned in many countries. Several major bookstores in England and the U.S. had bomb scares and the novel was temporarily removed from the shelves of America’s largest book selling chains (http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Salman_Rushdie.aspx).
Published in 1990, Haroun and the Sea of Stories was Rushdie’s first novel after his fleeing. It is dedicated for his son by first marriage, Zafar (www.notablebiographies.com, 2010). Haroun and the Sea of Stories is written as means of explaining his situation to his son.
The writer is interested in this novel as the work to be analyzed in this study because Haroun and the Sea of Stories is different to other novels Rushdie has written. It is a children’s story and is written on purpose by Rushdie for his son. The writer also gives special attention to the fact that Rushdie wrote Haroun and the Sea
of Stories while he lived in exile and was far away from his son. Underground life is
not easy to face, but Rushdie was able to come up with a piece of literature which is heavily laden with imagination.
The novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories is about the adventure of Haroun to an imaginary world to bring back his father’s ability of storytelling. It begins with Rashid Khalifa, a story-teller and father to Haroun, who loses his ability to make up and tell stories when his wife, Soraya, leaves him for Mr. Sengupta, a man who always complains to Haroun and Soraya about the uselessness of storytelling. Haroun, the only child of the Khalifa family, blames himself for the breakup of his parents and his father's disability. Then, Haroun sets off to Kahani, the Earth’s second moon where stories are fabricated, on one mission: to bring his father’s ability back. to save the ocean of stories and the princess of the Guppes by defeating Khattam Shud, the villain of the story.
When reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories, the writer noticed that the plot of the novel has a particularly important role. Stanton in How to Read Fiction, said that plot is the backbone of the story (1965:15). Plot has the major contribution to the whole story. This thesis will be focused on the analysis of the plot of Haroun and the
Sea of Stories . The writer intends to analyze the work’s plot formation by using
method postulated by Vladimir Propp in his The Morphology of the Folktale: tale plot structure. A bit of information about Propp’s map of tale plot, it is based on a study of a ‘corpus’ of a hundred tales, from the analysis of which comes up the conclusion that all these tales are constructed by selected items from a basic repertoire of thirty-one ‘functions’ and these ‘functions’ are the frameworks of the narrative. The ‘functions’ means possible actions that could appear in such tales (Barry, 2002: 218-220).
The plot in Haroun and the Sea of Stories has not yet been given much attention to since it seems to be clear that the usual immediate interest of researchers when studying the novel is the intricate characterization of the dramatic personas involved. However, this is not the writer’s primal reason for her specific interest in the plot of the novel. It is because the writer sees the plot in Haroun and the Sea of
Strories as a prominent tool to weave the narrative of the story. A descriptive analysis
of the plot will give a firm foundation for the writer to go deeper into mapping out the structure of the narrative itself; in other words, explaining how the narrative is essential meaning of the novel; or in other words, what the author is trying to say. The structure of the narrative is crucial to the production of meaning.
B. Problem Formulation
In order to be able to reach the end-point this study is aiming at, the writer has prepared three problems whose answers would serve as benchmarks of the analysis.
Those three problems include:
1. How is the plot in Haroun and the Sea of Stories formed?
2. How is the narrative of Haroun and the Sea of Stories structured?
3. What is the meaning constructed through the narrative? C.
Objectives of the Study
The study aims to answer the problem formulation stated previously. As in the first problem, the analysis will demonstrate the formation of the plot of the novel. In the second problem, the analysis will go further to presenting the structure of the narrative. Finally for the third problem, the writer will come up with an answer about the meaning constructed through the narrative, first of all by showing how the narrative itself is constructed and how it contributes to the production of primal meaning in Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
D. Definition of Terms
To provide a clear understanding on the terms that will appear frequently in this thesis, the writer presents their definition below.
1. Plot In Forster’s Aspect of the Novel, plot is defined as a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality (1974: 60).
2. Story In Aspects of the Novel, Forster has defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time sequence (1974: 60).
3. Tale The term Propp used, tale, refers to the folktale. In A Glossary of Literary
Terms , tale is defined as a short narrative in prose of unknown authorship which has
been transmitted orally; many of these tales eventually achieve written form.Folktales are found among peoples everywhere in the world, they include myths, fables, tales of heroes, and fairy tales. Many peoples called ‘fairy-tales’ which are not stories of fairies but of various kinds of marvels (Abrams, 1999: 101).
4. Narrative In A Glossary of Literary Terms, a narrative is a story, whether told in prose or verse, involving events, characters, and what the characters say and do (Abrams,
1999: 173).
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW This chapter is divided into three parts. The first part is the review on related
studies conducted on the novel. The second part is the review on theories used to define the analysis. The last part is the theoretical framework. It explains the contribution of the theories in solving the problems of this study.
A. Review of Related Studies
This part contains three studies conducted by different literary critics. These studies are related to the work and could be used to help the writer develop the thesis and to show that the thesis is different from other previous studies done to Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
The first article reviewed focuses on all names in Haroun and the Sea of
Stories .The article is written by Aron R. Aji entitled ‘All names mean something’:
Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Legacy of Islam . It is taken from Contemporary
Literature, Spring 1995, vol. 36. This article presents the names of the book’s main characters and settings that have relationship with the legacy of Islam. Aji explains that he explores correlations between Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Islamic legacy. In his article, he explains the opening verse in the novel that the first letters of each line spell Z-A-F-A-R, the name of Rushdie’s son (which means “triumph” in Arabic), and the middle line voices the caution “Fairy lands are fearsome too.” The verse encapsulates the spirit of the fairy tale about the little boy Haroun and his dream-journey to the moon Kahani, an adventure which involves as much fear as it does fantasy. Aji firmly says that the narrative abundantly draws from doctrinal and cultural Islam in shaping both the main characters and the entire milieu of Haroun’s journey. The names are Haroun and Rashid Khalifa, Khattam-Shud, and Kahani (1955: 107).
Haroun is the Arabic version of Aaroun, Moses’ brother, who in Islam plays a special role with regard to God’s revelation. Meanwhile, the name Rashid means “The Guide” (also one of the ninety-nine names of God). In Haroun and the Sea of
Stories , Rashid serves as a guide to Haroun. Furthermore, Aji also explains the name
of Khattam-Shud, the villain of the Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Khattam-Shud resembles Iblis or Shaytan, the Satanic figure in Islam. Aji also showed that the name of Khattam-Shud is shaped from Islam concepts (1) khatm either means (a) “seal,” or refers to (b) the ultrapious act of reciting the “complete” Koran; (2) shuhud means (a) “consciousness” or refers to (b) the Transcendental Self, the Omniscient; (3) khata and (4) ithm respectively mean “error” and “sin”. Each of these concepts seems to inform Khattam-Shud’s character. He is khatm-shuhud (1a and 2a) because he attempts to seal human consciousness by perpetuating his doctrine of silence. He is also Khatm-Shuhud (1a and 2b), an antiprophet, because he wants to seal the Wellspring, the very source of all stories (1995: 114-115).
The next article is written by Suchismita Sen entitled Memory, Language, and
Society in Salman Rushdie’s “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” . This article is also
taken from Contemporary Literature in Winter 1995, vol. 36. Sen argues that in Haroun’s story, Rushdie provided a child’s-eye view of the intricacy of interpersonal communication. Sen specifically focused on Rusdie’s use of the South Asian variety of English and how this language evokes a lost childhood for Rushdie. Sen in his article mentions that,
Rushdie accurately captures a child’s astonishment at the meaningless way in which adults often behave as he tell us the story of the great battle between the Guppees and Chupwalas from Haroun’s perpective. In so doing, he calls up his own childhood vision to look at the world in which the adult Rushdie exists. Readers of Rushdie are aware that the author has an almost obsessive interest in the power of words to recollect and re-create past experiences (1995: 655).
In the article, Sen wants to show that through Haroun, Rushdie has managed to re- create his Indian childhood through images and language. Rushdie’s style in Haroun
and the Sea of Stories shows that the language and perspective of the story resound
with associations that can evoke memories in individual readers according to personal experience and world-view.
The third essay reviewed is taken from a book entitled Nabokov, Rushdie, and
the Transnational Imagination: Novel of Exile and Alternate Worlds , which is written
by Rachel Trousdale an Associate Professor of English. This book shows how
Vladimir Nabokov and Salman Rushdie, two of the most controversial and uncategorizable writers of the twentieth century, use real-world references and metafictional games to create a series of possible communities. In the subtitle
Nabokov and Rushdie , the biographies of Nabokov and Rushdie are presented. It is
mentioned there that the biography of Rushdie looks very different from Nabokov’s.In comparing Nabokov and Rushdie’s narrative technique, unlike Nabokov who disdained politics, Rushdie writes political fiction. Shame (1983) and Haroun and the
Sea of Stories (1990) criticizes Pakistani leaders. Nabokov often writes about death,
generally of a beloved individual; Rushdie tends to write about migration. Besides, critics of Nabokov’s work often classify him as a modernist and Rushdie is one of the major postmodernists.
B. Review of Related Theories
Two theories would be explained on this part. The first explanation is on the theories on plot. It would be reviewed from some sources. The second theory to be review is theory on narrative.
1. Theories on plot
In Aspects of the Novel, Forster has defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. He differentiates story and plot by giving the reader a statement.
“The king died, and then the queen died” is a story. While, “the king died, and the then queen died of grief” is a plot. From that statement, plot clearly shows the sense of causality. According to Forster, in a story we ask “And then?”, but, in a plot we ask “Why?” (1974: 60).
In An Introduction to Fiction, Stanton states that plot of a story is the entire sequence of events and it is also the backbone of the story. It means plot is the most important thing in the story, that it has the major contribution to the whole story (1965: 15). Stanton postulates that the important elements of plot are conflict and climax. Every work of fiction contains obvious internal conflicts, which mean conflicts between the two desires within a character, or external conflicts, which mean conflicts between the character and his environment. The other important element is climax, the meeting point of its lines of force and determines how their opposition will be resolved (1965: 16).
Stanton also mentions that subplot is sequence of events, at least partly distinct from the main plot and often the form of a subplot parallels that of another section of the plot (1965: 14). Meanwhile, in A Glossary of Literary Terms, it is stated that Aristotle had developed the type of structural unity that can be achieved with double plots. In this form, subplot is a second story that is complete and interesting in its own right. The subplot which skillfully invented and managed it serves to broaden reader’s perspective on the main plot and to enhance rather than diffuse the overall effect (Abrams, 1999: 226). The article ‘What is Subplot’ explains main reasons for including it is to expand the scope of the main story (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-subplot.htm).
Another article, titled Adding Subplots to a Novel, explains subplot as precisely the same thing as a novel’s central plot, only it is much smaller in scale.
They are there to enhance and strengthen the main story, not to compete with it. This article explains the simple analogy about the plot. It begins with the statement ‘Think of novel like a length of rope. At one end is the beginning and at the other the ending.’ Then it states the rope itself is actually made up of several mini-ropes braided together. These represent the sum total of all plot lines in the novel. The point is although the strands are all interwoven, they actually remain separate. In other words, it should always be possible to remove in individual storyline from a novel but it might weaken it, just as removing a strand from a rope would cause it to lose strength, but the story should still make sense (http://www.novel-writing- help.com/subplots.html).
In addition, Roberts and Jacob in An Introduction to Reading and Writing present five elements the backbone in plot (1989: 101-102). First is exposition.
Exposition is the laying out of the materials in the story. It presents everything important in the story. Usually, it may appear at the beginning of the story, but sometimes it may be found anywhere. The second element is the complication. It marks the major conflict in the story. The protagonist and the antagonist represent whatever ideas and values, such as good and evil, childhood and age, love and hate, in this part, the separation between what has gone before and what will come after should be revealed here. And it is usually a decision or action undertaken to resolve the conflict. The fourth is the important element in plot, climax, which is the highest point in the action or the point when all the rest of the actions become firmly set. In other words, climax is the point of inevitability and no return. The last is resolution, or denoument, which is the set of actions bringing the story to its conclusion. It usually managed as quickly as possible that the conflict or conflicts are over, the major conflicts are resolved, and for keeping readers’ interest (1989: 101-102).
2. Theory on Narrative
In Abrams’ A Glossary of Literary Terms, a narrative is a story, whether told in prose or verse, involving events, characters, and what the characters say and do (1999: 173). Meanwhile, according to Mcquillan’s The Narrative Reader, narrative is about the narrative as a story and the way in which they are told. This separation is known by the terms story, what is told, and discourse, how it is told (2000: 4-5).
One of the theorists of narrative, Vladimir Propp, focused on identifying structures and situations in such tales. His book The Morphology of the Folktale, is about structures and plot formations of tales. Vladimir Propp’s system provides data to consider some of the surface specifics of plots. Propp concludes that all tales are constructed by selected items in his thirty-one ‘functions’ lists. The ‘functions’ means possible action that could appear in such tales that such possible action are the narrative frameworks used in this thesis. Here, the complete lists are quoted as follows (Barry, 2002: 218-220):
1. One of the members of a family absents himself from home.
2. An interdiction [that is, a prohibition] is addressed to the hero.
3. The interdiction is violated.
4. The villain makes an attempt at reconnaissance.
5. The villain receives information about his victim,
6. The villain attempts to deceive his victim in order to take possession of him or his belongings,
7. The victim submits to deception and thereby unwittingly helps his enemy.
8. The villain causes harm or injury to a member of a family/ or, 8a. one member of a family either lacks something or desires to have something.
9. Misfortune or lack is made known; the hero is approached with a request or command; he is allowed to go or he is dispatched.
10. The seeker [that is, the hero in ‘questor’ mode] agrees to or decides upon counteraction,
11. The hero leaves home.
12. The hero is tested interrogated, attacked, etc., which prepares the way for his receiving either a magical agent or helper,
13. The hero reacts to the actions of the future donor.
14. The hero acquires the use of a magical agent [that is, an object, and animal, etc.].
15. The hero is transferred, delivered, or led to the whereabouts of an object of search.
16. The hero and the villain join in direct combat.
17. The hero is branded.
18. The villain is defeated.
19. The initial misfortune or lack is liquidated.
20. The hero returns.
21. The hero is pursued.
22. Rescue of the hero from pursuit.
23. The hero, unrecognised, arrives home or in another country.
24. A false hero presents unfounded claims.
25. A difficult task is proposed to the hero.
26. The task is resolved.
27. The hero is recognised.
28. The false hero or villain is exposed.
29. The hero is given a new appearance.
31. The hero is married and ascends the throne Tales do not contain all the items in Propp’s list function, but all are constructed by selecting items from it. Then, the selection of items from these functions will always occur in the order listed. Propp proposed four theses, claiming that (1) the functions are stable, constant elements no matter which actor carries them out; (2) the number of possible functions is limited to 31; (3) the sequence of functions is always identical, though no tale contains all the functions; and (4) all fairy tales are of one structural type (Keen, 2003: 84) C.
Theoretical Framework
There are two group of theory used in this study. Those are theories on plot and theory on narrative. The theories on plot, based on the book of Roberts and Jacobs, are used by the writer to analyze the movements of the story. The theory on narrative is used to reveal the narrative structure of the work. It helps the writer show what the author is trying to say. The using of these theories is to identify the meaning constructed through narrative.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY This chapter is divided into three subtitles. The first subtitle describes brief
data or information about the work. The second subtitle is the explanation of the approach used in analyzing the work and the reasons why the approach is used. The last subtitle of this chapter is about the way taken in analyzing the work.
A. Object of the Study The object of the study is Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
The novel was published in 1990 by Granta Books, in association with Penguin Books. It contains 218 pages, divided into 12 chapters. In 1992, Rushdie was awarded The Writer’s Guild Award for best children’s book because of this novel.
Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories is about Haroun’s adventure to fantasy world. The story begins with the fact that Haroun’s mother, Soraya, leaves him and his father, Rashid Khalifa, with a clerk, Mr. Sengupta. Because of that, Rashid Khalifa loses his ability as a story-teller. The story then moves from the real world to the Earth’s second moon, Kahani. Kahani is the fantasy world that was created by Rushdie. The adventure of Haroun happens in Kahani. In addition to the fact that Haroun wants to get his father’s ability back, the situation in Kahani makes Haroun should help the Guppees defeat the Chupwalas. By defeating the leader of Chupwalas, Khattam-Shud, Haroun and Guppees win. Then, Haroun and Rashid Khalifa finally come home and surprisingly find that Soraya is already at home asking for mercy. Soraya is back, the ability of Rashid is also back. At the end of the novel, it is mentioned that Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a tale that Rashid tells.
B. Approach of the Study
This thesis uses narratology as the approach. Narratology is a branch of structuralism and it is the study of narrative structures (Barry, 2002: 214).
Meanwhile, in A Glossary of Literary Term, Abrams postulates that narratology concerns with the general theory and practice of narrative in all literary forms, dealing with types of narrators, the structural elements, the modes of combination, recurrent narrative devices, and how a narrative is told (1999: 173). Similar to Abrams, in Culler’s Literary Theory, it is stated that narratology relies on theories of narrative structure, which is on notions of plot, of different kinds of narrators, and of narrative techniques (1997: 83).
The writer will apply narratological approach by focusing the analysis on the plot structure of the literary work. In this case, the literary work being analyzed is the novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
Narratology has developed to phases in its history of study and concepts until today. According to Jan Christoph Meister in 1966, French Structuralism gave the decisive impulse for the formation of narratology as a methodologically coherent, structure-oriented variant of narrative theory (http://hup.sub.uni- hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Narratology). From 1966 to 1972, narratology focused mainly on the former which influenced by structuralist Barthes, Eco, Genette, Greimas, Todorov and film theorist Metz. In this phase three traditions had informed the new structuralist approach toward narrative which is Russian Formalism and Proppian morphology, structural linguistics in the Saussurean tradition as well as the structural anthropology of Levi-Strauss, and the transformational generative grammar of Chomsky. And according to Radu Surdulescu a Professor of English and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Bucharest, in his article Form, Structurality in
Critical Theory , in the 1960s and 1970s, the structuralist narratology made significant
steps toward refining the concepts already introduced by its predecessors, establishing new formulae and distinctions. The narratology of this age analyzed the insides of both ‘story’ (fabula) and ‘discourse’ (sjuzet). (http://ebooks.unibuc.ro/lls/RaduSurdulescu-FormStructuality/Pre- Structuralist%20and%20Structuralist%20Narratology.htm).
Meister concludes that in 1980-1990 narratology is dominated by two major trends: a widening of narratology‘s scope beyond literary narrative and the importing of concepts and theories from other disciplines. This phase is influenced by Chatman, Bal, Culler, Lanser, who concern in feminist studies, and many others. As for from 1990 to today, Meister groups narratology as Post-classical Narratology and “New” Romance Language at University of Pennsylvania, the tension between structuralist narratology’s original concern for systematicity and logical coherence and the need for a response to calls for a more pragmatically oriented theory of narrative could no longer be ignored (http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Narratology).
Of these phases on history of concepts and its study of narratological approach known, this thesis uses the beginning phase which follows the phase in1960s that the French narratologist A. J. Greimas pursued the classification of the elements which make a story move on by proposing a well-known actantial schema, whose source is in Propp’s typology. From the perspective of the Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp, the author of Morphology of the Folktale (1928), a classification of fairy tales should set out from the functions, the actions performed by characters, and from the functional roles. There are 31 functions, defined by their significance for the plot development, which remain practically the same in the whole corpus of Russian.
Using the theory from Vladimir Propp, certain narrative elements which construct the work will be exposed.
C. Method of the Study
This thesis is a library research, which means that the data are collected from written sources. The primary data used in this thesis is Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and
the Sea of Stories . The secondary data used in this thesis are several books and
articles related to the works, the literary works, the books of theories, historical and biographical data, and other studies related to the approach. There are also data that are taken from the internet.
There were several steps taken in analyzing the literary work. The first step was collecting the data needed for the analysis. The data were collected chapter to chapter. Then, the second step was reading the book, the data, and some sources related to the problems formulation. It means, in chapter two of this thesis, the writer focused on the data or the theories used for answering the problems formulation, such as theories on plot and theory on narrative. In chapter three, the writer focused on the approach required in this thesis: narratology. Afterwards, the writer continued to analyzing the first problem formulation, to describe the plot of Haroun and the Sea of
Stories involving the central character, Haroun. Done with the first problem
formulation, the writer began to analyze the second problem formulation, to show the narrative structure using Propp’s functions. In her effort to answer the third problem formulation, the writer tried to get the meaning constructed through the narrative
Haroun and the Sea of Stories . Then, the last step, the writer continued to conclude
the analysis.CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS This chapter presents the analysis and the explanation to answer the problems
formulated. It is divided into two parts. In the first part, the writer will illustrate the plot analysis of Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Meanwhile, in the second part, the writer will show the narrative structure of the work based on Propp’s functions and the third part, the writer will explain the meaning constructed through the narrative.
A. The Plot of Haroun and the Sea of Stories
In this part, theory on plot in Chapter II will be used as the tool to analyze the plot in Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. The following two sections serve as an elaboration on the division of the plot into main plot and subplot. It will be separately explained because the plot can not be seen as a single plot. Although these main and subplot are related, each of them has its own story which needs separated explanation to describe.
The main plot of this work takes place in “the earth”, precisely in the country of Alifbay, Town of G, Valley of K and the Dull Lake. On the other land, the subplot takes place in the earth’s “second moon”, in Kahani. Each plot, the main and sub, will be analyzed using theory from Robert and Jacob who theorize that plot consists of five elements: exposition, complication, crisis, climax, and resolution or denoument.
Therefore, this part is divided into sub-sections.
1. The Main Plot of Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Basically, plot clearly shows the sense of causality. The main plot of Haroun
and the Sea of Stories takes place on earth and it starts with the exposition, which
provides the background information.