Messages conveyed in the blind pig related to Jakson`s view on crime world : a new criticism study - USD Repository
MESSAGES CONVEYED IN THE BLIND PIG RELATED TO JACKSON’S VIEW ON CRIME WORLD: A NEW CRITICISM STUDY
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
ALSTONIA EPAFRAS
Student Number: 004214053
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2008
MESSAGES CONVEYED IN THE BLIND PIG RELATED TO JACKSON’S VIEW ON CRIME WORLD: A NEW CRITICISM STUDY
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
ALSTONIA EPAFRAS
Student Number: 004214053
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2008
“And I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given you; seek,
and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”
(Luke 11: 9)This undergraduate thesis is dedicated to: My beloved family and My special friends
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Jesus Christ for His guidance. Thanks for His blessings. He is my encouragement to do this thesis and I am sure that without Him, I am nothing. I would also like to express my gratitude to the following persons who are directly involved in the process of the thesis writing.
I really thank my advisor, Mr. Hirmawan, who has given his knowledge and guidance during the thesis. Thanks for his patience in helping my thesis writing. Special appreciation also goes to my co advisor Mr. Harris, for helping me in dealing with my thesis.
My next gratitude goes to my parents, my father Mr. Pradoso and my mother Mrs. Gabriel, for their prayer and worship during my study in the Deparment of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University. I also thank Ivan, Wiwin, Anto, and Risa as my brothers and sister. Thanks for your kindness and supports in helping my study. My thanks also go to all my friends in the Faculty, especially for 2000’s class. Thanks for being my friends during my study in Sanata Dharma University. I have learned many experiences and lessons from all of you.
I give my last special thank to my beloved girlfriend, Agustina Nila, who has given her support and spirit to me. Thanks for your attention and love for my success. I really thank God to have you in my life. Thanks for being my girlfriend.
Alstonia Epafras
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ........................................................................................... i APPROVAL PAGE ................................................................................. ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE ............................................................................ iii MOTTO PAGE ........................................................................................ iv DEDICATION PAGE .............................................................................. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................... vii ABSTRACT ............................................................................................. viii ABSTRAK ................................................................................................ ix CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ..........................................................
1 A. Background of the Study .........................................................
1 B. Problem Formulation ................................................................
4 C. Objectives of the Study .............................................................
4 D. Definition of Terms ..................................................................
4 CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW .......................................... 6
A. Review of Related Studies ........................................................ 6
B. Review of Related Theories ...................................................... 8 C. Theoretical Framework .............................................................
17 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ....................................................... 19 A. Object of the Study ...................................................................
19 B. Approach of the Study ..............................................................
19 C. Method of the Study .................................................................
20 CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ...................................................................
22 A. The Ideas that Represent Jackson’s View on Crime World ....
23 B. The Message of the Novel .......................................................
33 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ..............................................................
40 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................
43 APPENDIX : Summary of The Blind Pig ……………………….........
45
ABSTRACT
ALSTONIA EPAFRAS (2008). Messages Conveyed in The Blind Pig Related
to Jackson’s View on Crime World: A New Criticism Study. Yogyakarta:
Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.This undergraduate thesis, basically, views the evil side done by human beings in their life. The writer uses Jon A. Jackson’s The Blind Pig to discuss the messages revealed in the story. The analysis focuses on the actions of the characters and the setting of the story.
In this thesis, the writer formulates two objectives of the study. The first is to find out the ideas that can be seen in the novel related to Jackson’s view on crime world, while the second is to find out the messages conveyed in the novel.
This study relies on library research as the method. Primary data are taken from the novel itself, The Blind Pig written by Jon A. Jackson. Other books, dictionaries, websites on the related topic also become the sources of the data, which are significant for this study. The formalistic criticism approach is used to be the basic concept of thinking for the writer in doing the analysis of the study. This approach is suitable in order to find the answers of the thesis.
Having analyzed the novel, the writer discovers that detective Mulheisen as one character of Jackson's The Blind Pig, is a significant character for the study of this work. From that point, the writer can reveal what ideas appear in story relates to Jon A. Jackson's view on crime world. The writer finds three main ideas in his thesis. So, from the analysis of the first problem formulation, Jon A. Jackson wants to show how exactly life is going. And, the writer finally concludes it into a moral message. Human beings have many ways in facing and solving their own problematic life by experiencing all situations.
ABSTRAK
ALSTONIA EPAFRAS (2008). Messages Conveyed in The Blind Pig Related
to Jackson’s View on Crime World: A New Criticism Study. Yogyakarta:
Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.Skripsi ini pada dasarnya memperlihatkan tentang kejahatan yang dilakukan oleh manusia di dalam kehidupan mereka. Penulis menggunakan karya Jon A Jackson, The Blind Pig, untuk membahas pesan yang tersampaikan dalam cerita tersebut. Karya ini terfokus pada tindakan-tindakan dari karakter dan pentingnya peran tempat-tempat yang ada dalam cerita tersebut.
Dalam penulisan skripsi ini, penulis merumuskan adanya dua masalah utama, yang nantinya juga akan menjadi sasaran penelitian.Sasaran yang pertama adalah menemukan ide-ide cerita yang berhubungan dengan pandangan Jackson terhadap dunia kriminal. Sementara yang kedua adalah menemukan satu pesan terselubung yang ada di dalam cerita tersebut.
Penelitian ini berdasakan pada studi kepustakaan dalam metode penelitiannya. Data utama diambil dari novel itu sendiri,The Blind Pig karya Jon A. Jackson. Buku-buku, kamus, dan website yang terkait dalam topik penelitian juga menjadi sumber data yang penting bagi studi ini. Pendekatan berdasarkan kritik formal yang diterapkan, menjadi konsep dasar pemikiran penulis dalam melakukan pembahasan masalah dalam penelitian. Pendekatan tersebut sangat berperan dalam menemukan jawaban atas penelitian ini.
Setelah menganalisis novel ini, penulis menemukan bahwa detektif Mulheisen sebagai salah satu karakter dalam karya Jackson, The Blind Pig, berperan penting dalam novel ini. Berdasarkan hal tersebut, penulis dapat menemukan idea-idea yang muncul di dalam cerita yang berhubungan dengan pandangan Jon A. Jackson terhadap kriminal. Penulis menemukan tiga idea utama dalam tesisnya. Dengan adanya peran Mulheisen, Jon A. Jackson ingin menunjukkan bagaimana sebenarnya kehidupan kita berjalan. Penulis akhirnya merealisasikannya dalam sebuah pesan moral. Manusia mempunyai banyak cara dalam menghadapi dan menyelesaikan masalah-masalah kehidupannya dengan mencari pengalaman-pengalaman di dalamnya.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study Literary works reflects human expressions. They are expressed in words
by the author. By reading a literary work, we can get some experiences of life because many authors use their own experiences of life in their works. People begin to write literature when they had in their mind about anything that they want to share with others.
The results of their works are then published so that it would be known and read by the public. What is pictured there is generally based on the fact and experience which happened in the past. Hudson says in An Introduction to Study
of Literature ,
Literary is the expression of life through the medium of language. It can be regarded as something essential since it contains about real life, people, thought, and the feeling about life (1958: 10). Since literary is the expression of life, it might contain an essential idea about life that can be learned. Therefore, every literary work has a meaning, no matter what the form is. The meaning of it can be gained. The literary work, in this case novel, is commonly a long written story. This is one of the genres that literature has.
The term novel emerged in England during the eighteenth century. Indeed, for the first time, novel is mainly about the social and historical condition of the eighteenth centuries of England. Following the rise of an educated middle class,
2 the spread of the printing press and a modification of the economic structures, the novel then stand in the front row as genres and tolerate many innovations in literature.
The making of the novel, as the making of other kinds of literary works, is based on the real human life. In the other words, it is an imitation of real life.
However, a novel must have its own world. A history-based novel, for example, is sometimes made by considering the real human life, yet the author expresses his or her ideas by using his or her own imagination in order to make it more interesting to read.
In writing a literary work, an author uses his or her imagination, feeling, and also emotion. The context of a literary work depends on how an author makes it, what is thought and will be written. Between an author and his or her works, there is a close relationship that cannot be separated because the one who makes a literary work is an author. We can see an opinion about the relationship between an author’s life and his or her works below.
Directly or indirectly, conscious or unconsciously, every novelist necessarily presents in his novel a certain view of life and some of the problems of life. He represents incidents, characters, motives, etc in such a way as to reveal more or less directly and clearly the way in which he looks upon the problems of life (Van Der Laar and Schoonderwoerd, 1969: 174).
From the quotation, we know that in writing his or her works, an author may use his or her experiences of life no matter it are in concious or unconscious. in fact, personal experiences can magnetize the author to write it in the form of literary work as a novel. Sharing personal experiences might be one of the author’s main aims in writing literary work.
3 The novel that the writer would like to discuss is Jon A. Jackson’s The
Blind Pig . This is the best American novel written by Jackson after his previous
famous work The Diehard. It was published in 1978 by Random House, New York. Actually, The Blind Pig is the second series of his crime mystery novel. In this novel, the author used a lot of material he had gathered in his wild and reckless youth, in Detroit. Not just the setting of the work, Jackson also gives another item related to his life in The Blind Pig, is about the main characters of the story. The story is full of intrigues, especially about crime world.
Finding how interesting the story is revealed, the writer is eager to find many aspects related to Jackson’s The Blind Pig that also reflecting his life. The writer needs more attention in order to get some details from the novel in answering the problems revealed in this thesis.
The next interesting point that appears in the writer’s mind is finding the messages conveyed in Jon A Jackson’s The Blind Pig. Through the story and many aspects that are delivered clearly in the novel, the messages are found. There are many aspects in the novel that support each other and cannot be separated.
Since there are still no other theses discussing the study, the writer comes to the idea to go deeper in analyzing the novel in order to find out the message conveyed in the story. The message of the story is crucial because it gives an impact or “point” to the readers.
4 B. Problem Formulation As guide lines in analyzing the novel, the writer has formulated two problems related to his topic of the thesis:
1. What ideas can be seen in Jon A. Jackson’s The Blind Pig that represent Jackson’s view on crime world as revealed by analyzing the characters and setting?
2. Related to the author’s view on crime world, what are the messages conveyed in Jackson’s The Blind Pig?
C. Objectives of the Study
Related to the questions that the writer wants to answer, this study is focused in analyzing Jon A. Jackson’s second novel, The Blind Pig. The writer tries to explain further the answer of the problems above. The first study is finding out the ideas that can be seen in the novel related to Jackson’s view on crime world. The study itself also tries to discover the messages in the novel.
D. Definition of Terms
Before the writer discuss further the main things in his study, it is better to define the key terms used in this thesis. The explanation is meant to avoid misunderstanding. Below are the terms desired by the writer related to the topic of the study.
5
Crime
A Sociologist named Edwin M. Schur explains in his book Our Criminal
Society: The Social and Legal Sources of Crime in America , that “crime” is a kind
of wrong behavior that is viewed as being more of a core problem and requiring urgent action (1969: 24). Kelly in his book Criminal Behaviour: Reading in
Criminology defines crime as evil acts which are harmful to social welfare and
which carry the possibility of a penalty imposed by the state (1980: 11).Message
Message is also an important element in a literary work. According to Beaty and Hunter in New World of Literature, message is the real meaning or some easy conclusion that can be simply stated or summarized inside a work of art (1989: 899).
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies In this study, the writer will discuss Jon A. Jackson’s The Blind Pig and its
relation to his life, in revealing the author’s messages about life in writing the novel. Some American reviewers give their comments on Jon A. Jackson’s The
Blind Pig . One of the reviewers named James Crumly says that The Blind Pig is
without a doubt one of the finest detective novels ever written-smart, funny and completely convincing. He has re-read the novel a dozen times and it's always a great read. This novel has become Crumly’s favorite novel <http://www.ffbooks.co.uk/n12/n60211.htm>.
Another view was also given by Michael Connelly. As a crime-mystery novelist, he also gave a statement related to Jackson’s The Blind Pig.
This is an absolutely fantastic book. As an ex-Detroiter, I especially enjoyed it. Mr. Jackson writes one of the best humorous crime type books available. His information about Detroit is perfect; I guess he lived there too! I honestly hated to finish this book because I knew that it would take me a long time to find a novel that I would enjoy as much as this one. <http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440217148/702-5084441- 6567203>
The same argument was agreed by L. Greenberg who has a nickname “lgwriter49”. He said that the plotting of The Blind Pig is excellent. In this book, there are a lot of threads that the author knows how to interweave, and giving a good story. Sometimes the story is also presented in funny line. Greenberg thought that the characters are nicely drawn. The main character, detective “Fang”
7 Mulheisen, is portrayed as one of the cooler heads on the force, gets drawn into a few different crime threads. A mysterious intruder at the home of a young wealthy trucking tycoon is killed by two patrolmen. Two gangsters come into a local watering hole and shoot up both the jukebox also the cigarette machine, purportedly owned by the same young trucking tycoon. A great looking woman, a friend of the tycoon, attracts Mulheisen with her sexiness and charisma, and, later disappears. A lot of matter going on here, but Jackson pulls it all together well. Mulheisen has to put the puzzle pieces together and does an admirable job, for sure <http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/tg/detai/-/0802137067>.
Gregory L. Morris in Magill Book Reviews also gives his judgment to Jackson’s works. As a mystery writer, Jon A. Jackson has more or less claimed the landscape of Detroit as his territory. He has made it his own over time, and through the splendid series of novels he has written that feature the character and voice of Detective Sergeant "Fang" Mulheisen. Jackson enriches his novel with the rich detail of the Detroit jazz culture. As always, Jackson is interested in what makes his city mark; because so much of the urban spirit of Detroit is wrapped up in the music of that place, Jackson immerses readers in the complex traditions of that music.
Ultimately, perhaps the finest thing about this novel is the compelling voice of "Fang" Mulheisen. It is Mulheisen who tells us this story, and it is Mulheisen whom readers come to believe as storyteller and as historian. Jackson has succeeded in creating--and sustaining--a vital, human, engaging character in this detective/hero.
8 This undergraduate thesis is developing the previous criticisms that are mentioned above; especially those are related to the characters and settings in the story. It intends to discover the message revealed in The Blind Pig. The writer agrees that Jackson’s The Blind Pig is good to read. Jackson gives many effects to his novel related to his personal life. It seems that Jackson has experiences with the situation in the novel. The writer concludes that Jon A. Jackson’ The Blind Pig is a portrayal of the American crime mystery, especially in Detroit. Many details and information is not just simply the author’s imagination. The characters and settings analyzed will guide the writer in defining a study on messages inside the novel.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theories of Character and Characterization
Abrams categorizes the characters as the main and minor characters. If we see some literary works, the main character can be the center of the story. He or she is the most important character in the story and the acts of the story are focused on the character from the beginning to the ending of the story.
Characters are the persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with moral and dispositions qualities through their dialogue and their action (1981: 20). Milligan also gives similar statement about character. In his book The
Novel in English: An Introduction , Milligan divides characters of the story into
two parts. Those are the major and minor character (1983: 155). According to Rohrberger and Woods in Reading and Writing about Literature, they state that
9 character also plays an important role in the story; they can help the readers to participate in the characters in the experience in the story by sharing imaginatively the feelings or the activities of the characters in the story (1977: 19).
Another thing that has to known about character is characterization. According to Perrine in Literature: Structure, Sounds, and Sense, characterization must observe three other principles. First, the character must be consistent in their behavior in the story. Second, he or she must be clearly motivated in all their actions, so the reader can understand the reason of their actions. Third, the character must be plausible, a life like figures (1974: 68).
From those descriptions, we can see the difference between character and characterization. Character is a figure or individual that always appears in a story and has an importance role to develop the story. Meanwhile, characterization is related to character’s disposition (characteristic) in the story that can be seen from characters’ speech, behavior, thought, and reactions in a story.
2. Theories of Setting
In the theory of setting, the writer uses Kenney’s How to Analyze Fiction about three kinds of setting. Those are the use of setting as metaphor, the use of setting to create atmosphere, and the last is the use of setting as dominant element (1966: 40-44). The first function of the setting as metaphor has a purpose in the character’s internal states. Then, the use of setting to create atmosphere is more talked than defined. It is a kind of mood or emotional feeling of the setting and also helping to create the expectation of the readers.
10 Meanwhile, setting as the dominant elements consists of two kinds, which are time and place. Time as the dominant element is the time when the action occurs in the importance of many work of fiction. Second, place, as the dominant element is the place dominates in the whole story that tries to find out the effects in a particular character of geographical setting. Murphy also explains that setting of a novel is the background of the characters’ life. The setting can be concerned with the place and time where the characters live (1972: 141).
The theory of setting above show that setting can give some information of the story in detail. Setting of a story can make the readers understand the situation or environment that the author creates in a story. Settings give the readers illustration or portray about the society in a story. It is important for the readers to know the setting of a story, because they can decide whether the setting is based on the actual event or just a creation (fictional). Like what we find in Jon A.
Jackson’s The Blind Pig, the author gives a factual setting there. The readers are shown on the description of a hard life in Detroit, America. Besides, it also can help the writer to find out the message of the story.
3. Theories of Message
According to Beaty and Hunter in New World of Literature, message is the real meaning or some easy conclusion that can be simply stated or summarized inside a work of art (1989: 899). The term leads to simplification and gives the illusion that a work of literature exists for its statement that tempts the readers with sweetness of the story to get the real meaning. Meanwhile, John Sinclair in
Collins Cobuild Essential Dictionary defines message as an idea that someone
11 tries to communicate to people, for example in a play or a speech or the meaning (1988: 490).
Sometimes, message is considered identically with theme although in fact they do not always refer to the same meaning. Beaty and Hunter say that the difference between theme and message is that while message seeks to inform or convince, theme seeks to have the readers understand and empathize so that the ideas are more broadly accessible (1989: 899).
Both message and theme can be viewed as two elements that have a kind of similarity or own the looking like. Nevertheless, theme is more complex than message. Message has no direct value as suggestion addressed to the readers. Message, thereby, can be viewed as one of the elements that form a theme in simple form. But not all of themes are considered as message.
When we are talking about message, we are also discussing morality. It can be said briefly that generally moral means a teaching of good and bad (Kenney, 1966: 89). According to Nurgiyantoro’s Teori Pengkajian Sastra, moral in a work of literature is called a message. This element actually is the background of the work of literature; it is the idea that forms the background of creating the work of literature (1955: 322). Of course there are many types of message conveyed. The type of message occurs in a literary work depends on the author’s belief, thought, wish, and interest. The message could involve many problems in life.
12 4. The Autobiography of Jon A. Jackson.
Jon A. Jackson was born in 1938, in northern Michigan. Then he grew up in Detroit. He attended Wayne University in Detroit, graduated with a B.A. from the University of Montana, and an M.F.A. from the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. He now lives in the Montana Rockies. Besides being a cracker-jack crime fiction writer, Jackson is a devoted jazz fan, an enthusiastic angler, a father, a bird-watcher, and a restaurant critic <http://www.bedrockbooks.com/jonjackson.htm> (24 March 2005). There are many events in his life that meaningful to his career as an American crime fiction writer.
From the time he was fifteen he smoked a pipe. It was influenced by the Arthur Conan Doyle stories of Sherlock Holmes. After a few years, when he was first creating ‘Mulheisen’, he had to provide him with a physical appearance and a certain style. He said that not all of Mulheisen’s styles are borrowed from Jackson’s appearances <http://www.jonajackson.com/cigars.htm> (22 April 2005). Jackson also said that many characters created in his novels, were a kind of prototype of people who also related to him <http://www.jonajackson.com/fang.htm> (25 April 2005).
In his life, he ever had a broken home with his first wife. Then, Jackson went back to Montana, now with an MFA degree, but still no novel. There, he had written a mystery novel, with the help of David Morrell. This novel was never published, although parts of it became The Blind Pig. He went to the Blackfoot River, where he was living and writing his second mystery novel, The Diehard
13 (the first to be published). Jackson went down to southern California, in 1975, to build houses, and recently learned that Random House had bought The Diehard.
In 1978, his second novel, The Blind Pig, was out <http://www.jonajackson.com/autobio.htm> (6 April 2005). Jack Webb was planning to make a film of it, but his wife was killed in a plane crash. Eventually, my literary prospects having dried up (Jack Webb had died without making the movie and no one seemed to want Grootka, or any of the following novels I started. Then, Grootka was published by Countryman Press’ imprint, Foul Play Press. The Atlantic Monthly Press published Hit on the House. A few years ago Grove/Atlantic published Deadman, Dead Folks, and most recently, Man with an Axe <http://www.jonajackson.com/autobio.htm> (6 April 2005). Although he wrote many mystery novels, Jackson was never gaining any nominations for best mystery novel, from the Mystery Writers of America.
During his life, Jackson has written eleven novels, which are divided into two kinds of novels. There are nine mysterious series novels and two fictions.
Jackson’s mysterious novels are The Diehard (1977), The Blind Pig (1978),
Grootka (1990), Hit on the House (1993), Deadman (1994), Dead Folks (1996),
Man With an Axe (1998), La Donna Detroit (2000), and No Man's Dog (2004).
Beside that, Jackson also wrote two fiction which titled Go by Go (1998) and
Badger Games (2002) <http://www.jonajackson.com/bibliography.htm> (20 April
2005).14 5 . The Relation between an Author and His or Her Works.
The author is the important person of literary works because he is the one who creates literary works. There is a close relation between the author and his works that cannot be separated. According to Renne Wellek and Austin Warren (1956: 75-78), there is a close relationship between the work of art and the life of the author, but the work of art is not mere copy of life. A work of art may be only a place to hide his weakness and so that in writing a literary work the author depends on his mood.
The other writers also state the relation between the author and the works. Rohrberger and Woods in their book Reading and Writing about Literature, say that there is an indirect relationship and similarity between the work and that author. An author’s work including character perhaps is “a kind of mask which is surely based on the author’s experience of life” (1971: 8).
The use of author's background then is quite helpful in this study. The novel reflects to the author’s thoughts, so that by the using of a new criticism approach, the readers share her consciousness and response to the thoughts. The readers should attempt to learn as much as they can about life and the development of the author, and apply this knowledge to understand his writings.
According to Sherwood Anderson in George Perking’s The Theory of
American Novel about the relationship between the author and his works, he says
that the result of the work of an author must be influenced by the experiences of the author.
Now, when it comes to talking about the experiences of writer, I think I should say something that perhaps most of you realize. The work of any
15 writer, and for that matter of any artist in any of seven art, should contain within it the story of this own style (Perking, 1970: 293). The writer also takes Perrine’s books Literature: Structure, Sounds, and
Sense , says that human life began, we are told when the God breathed life into a
handful of dust and created Adam. The fictional life begins when an author breathes life into his characters and makes us believe their reality, so that there is a tight relationship between the author and his works (Perrine, 1947: 71).
6. Jon A. Jackson’s View on Crime World.
The crime fiction writer, Jon A. Jackson is a great American novelist. During his life, many good novel and short stories was created. His entire novels describe about crime world. He has written eleven books, which are divided into two kinds of novels. There are nine mysterious series novels and two fictions <http://www.jonajackson.com/bibliography.htm>.
As a crime fiction writer, he certainly has many events in his life that meaningful to his career, especially about crime world. He just thinks that crime world is a unique phenomenon. Wherever we are, we might find this thing. And, Jackson does not see this bad phenomenon as obstacles related to his career rather as an advantage in his life. Jackson’s cleverness is shown when he uses this phenomenon for his objective in the works. For Jackson, a crime world is like his ‘partner’ for his career as an American crime fiction writer.
Jackson grew up in Detroit which is known as the ‘best second’ crime city in America after Chicago <http://www.americanhistory.com/detroit>. Jackson thought that America was a criminal society. This statement was support by
16 Edwin M. Schur in his book Our Criminal Society: The Social and Legal Sources
of Crime in America that America is a criminal society. So, this condition just
gives him more guts in writing his crime fiction story. If we look at his works, all of his stories are fully motivated by a crime world. It is indicated that Jon A.
Jackson had many experiences in his life related to crime world. But it is wrong if we guess that Jon A. Jackson is a criminal. Jackson is different from others novelists who mostly talk about love or other things related to people life.
From the time he was fifteen, he was influenced by the Arthur Conan Doyle stories of Sherlock Holmes. This was a step stone for him in literature world. After a few years, he began to create the first main character, Mulheisen, for his career in writing crime fiction. When he was first creating Mulheisen, he had to provide the character with a physical appearance and a certain style. He said that not all of Mulheisen’s styles are borrowed from Jackson’s appearances <http://www.jonajackson.com/cigars.htm>. Jackson also said that many characters created in his novels, were a kind of prototype of people who also related to him <http://www.jonajackson.com/fang.htm>. As Jon A. Jackson says in his The Blind
Pig ,
There is a Detroit of the mind........................., and the events and people described in this book exist in Detroit, which is in my mind. And nowhere else (1978: viii). Jackson is a good writer. His entire stories are fully adapted from his experience of life, although he had edited some part of the stories. But, it makes
Jackson’s stories look ‘life’. If we look at his works, we will assume that his stories are fact.
17 In the story, Jackson put on some things that connected to the crime world.
We can see guns, illegal pubs, intruder, robbery, murders, crime cases, crime informants, violence, and so on. Like Jackson’s The Blind Pig, the author is very outgoing in telling those crime things. Jackson just notes that it is usual in America especially a city like Detroit.
C. Theoretical Framework
In this study, the writer wants to analyze the relation of the author’s work toward his background of life. The writer finds that the novel has a close relation to the author’s life. In his writing, the writer uses one major theory in order to help his thesis process, beside he also uses some theories of literature. The major theory used by the writer is theory of the relation between an author and his or her works.
In answering the first problem about the ideas appear in the novel; the writer firstly uses the theories of literature that have been explained before in the previous chapter. They are the theories of character and characterization, setting, and message. The theories of character support the writer to select several characters as main characters in the story. The analysis of characterization also helps the writer in finishing the first problem formulated.
Meanwhile, the theories of setting support the writer in analyzing the setting of time and place of the story. One by one, the writer tries to find some details in the novel that useful for the second step; it is finding the interrelationship between the aspects found in the novel with the author’s
18 background. Therefore, the theory of the relation between the author and his work is applied. The theory will help the writer to analyze the relation in more detail.
In this part, the description of Jon A. Jackson’s view on crime world is also needed. Jackson’s view about crime world surely gives an advantage for the writer in finding the data. This data is fully supporting the writer in finishing the thesis. The last analysis to be done is finding out the messages of the story related to the topic. Thus, the theory of message here gives a main support for the writer in his final result of the analysis. From that point, the writer can get a deep understanding to the story from the beginning until the end, in order to arrange the important aspects that related with each other.
By using those theories above, the writer aims to analyze correctly and find the value or messages inside and can be useful for the readers in understanding this study. Hopefully, the writer can give brief explanations and reasonable ideas about the work after analyze them and know deeper the purposes of the author in writing the work.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY A. Object of the Study The object of this study is a novel written by Jon A. Jackson, The Blind Pig . It is an American mystery novel published in 1978 by Random House, New York. It is another in-depth novel about the urban violence which the author describes with such excitement and vitality. The novel consists of 228 pages and is divided into 22 chapters without
any subtitle in each chapter, which have relation, one chapter to another as one unity of the novel. The setting takes the place in one of the bad cities in America, Detroit.
The story itself describes about a crime world in one part of the United States, Detroit. It is fully about ‘Guns’. The word ‘guns’ here refers to crime, a kind of metaphors. The main character, Mulheisen, is a tough detective in his division of police. In his mission, Mulheisen has to solve an intrigue in a trucking company. His guts take him to a mysterious case which involves some illegal pub namely ‘Blind Pig’.
B. Approach of the Study
In this thesis, a certain approach is needed to analyze a work because the way we use to view work is based on that approach. Since the writer chooses the topic that related to the author’s life, a new criticism approach is suitable to use in
20 analyzing the topic. Wilfred L. Guerin in his book A Handbook of Critical
Approaches to Literature states that a new criticism approach concentrates on the
work itself (1979: 20). It also maintains that literature has an intrinsic worth, that it is not just one of the media of transmitting biography and history. Means that the approach beside talk about its work (intrinsic elements) also share about the author's sociological history.
To explain something in the work as a representation of the author’s life or to find out the author’s reasons of creating the work, the author has to learn about characters’ life through his background. Mary Rohrberger in her book Reading
and Writing about Literature states that in order to apply the biographical
approach in the paper, we should learn as much as possible about the life and the development of the author in order to understand his work better (1971: 8).
C. Method of the Study
The research procedure that the writer used in his thesis was a library research or a desk research. The writer also tried to gather some data from the internet as his supporting data. Many major and supporting data were collected from books, which had valuable information. The most important source used was certainly the novel The Blind Pig written by Jon A. Jackson.
There were some steps taken in order to analyze The Blind Pig. The first step in analyzing a literary work was reading the novel for many times in order to get a deep understanding. After the work was rightly understood, we could come to the interpretation and then finding the main problems in the novel.
21 The second step was reading and understanding the biography of the author by gathering all related information to the author’s life. From this step, the writer knew more about Jon A. Jackson’s life and the writer found out that there was a close relationship between Jackson’s life and his novel.
The third step was finding some information in The Blind Pig that also represented Jon A. Jackson’s experience of life. And, the writer would try to find what actually Jon A. Jackson tried to present in his novel related to life.
The last step was drawing conclusion. The conclusion contained the statement of the writer’s findings in the analysis presented in his paper. The conclusion here also can be the description of the messages of the thesis.
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS Based on the problems stated in the problem formulation, this chapter
discusses and answers the two questions appeared in the previous chapter. To be more specific, the discussion is divided into two parts. The first part is dedicated to find the ideas in the novel seen through characters and setting in the story related to the author’s view on crime world. This part also talks about the relationship between those two analyses and the author’s background. In this section, the writer makes the discussions into several parts of topic.
Meanwhile, the writer aims to divide the first sub chapter of this analysis into three significant ideas. First, the thesis would talk about how crime could be a familiar thing in life. Second subchapter, the writer relates crime as an advantage to life. After that, the thesis would explain how crime could be a “wife”. This will be discussed in a fine way.
And finally, the last part is done to reveal the messages based on the answer of the first problem. In this part, the writer specifies the message into several things so that could be understood by the reader. Although the writer notices the messages revealed into several thought, all of them just already become a unity. Means that those messages should be supported each other.
23 A. The Ideas that Represent Jackson’s View on Crime World.
In answering the first problem, the writer would discuss the ideas related to the author’s view on crime world that can be seen in the novel. Precisely, these ideas would be presented through the analysis of characters and setting of the story. In analyzing the characters, the writer mostly relates it to the conversations and acts of characters.
There are many characters supporting the story but the writer mostly uses detective Mulheisen as the center of the characters’ analysis. For the analysis of setting, the writer uses some major places appear in the novel. The writer assumes that using the characters and setting of the story in finding the ideas of the novelist are very helpful in answering the first problem. So, the readers would know what exactly the ideas of Jon A Jackson related to his view on crime world.
There are some ideas that appear in the novel related to the author’s background, especially his view on crime world. Below are the ideas that have been analyzed by the writer through the existence of the characters and setting of the story.
1. Crime as a “Friend”.
The first idea appears in the novel is crime as a friend. Generally, friend is categorized as something familiar. So, through The Blind Pig, we could see a different perspective of friend that showed by the author. To get a brief explanation, the writer uses some characters’ speeches and settings that really support with the ideas.
24 a. Seen through the Characters.
In the work, we can see many uncommon words or figure of speech written by the author. If we just look at the words, we are simply confused with the meaning. We cannot just enough to read it. Sometimes we need a deep understanding to the words.
“If it’s dope, he’s selling,” Marshall said. “If it’s guns, he’s buying.” (1978: 3). We are simply known what is meant by dope and guns. But, we also need to a close reading to the conversation. The readers must be questioned about the meaning of the words behind the conversation. It gives us a lesson that in the police case (especially in America); an illegal trade should have their own pattern.
If a criminal shown bring a dope, it means that he or she wants to sell it. But, if a criminal just come to the illegal trade without things, so he tries to buy a gun. The author Jon A Jackson gives us a brief description about that.
In the other part of the story, the author also brings readers to an unusual conversation.
The radio whispered to them, “Nine-three, dispatch.”......Stanos keyed the microphone: “Dispatch, nine-three.”...... “A man with a gun, nine- three.”...... “Nine-three en route, ten-four.” (1978: 4). “Nine-three, dispatch....” “You forgot to give him a ten-ninety-seven,” Jimmy said to Stanos. “Ten-ninety-seven” meant “Arrived on scene.” (1978: 7).
In the conversation, we could see some numbers spoken randomly. It is not purely a number, it is a code. The numbers are presenting a situation that police faced.