The significance of mask toward the idea of human`s existence as seen in dunbar`s ``we wear the mask`` - USD Repository
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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MASK TOWARD THE IDEA OF HUMAN’S EXISTENCE AS SEEN IN DUNBAR’S “WE WEAR THE MASK”
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
JIMMY FREDRIKUS ELO
Student Number: 014214131
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2007
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iii iii ivGuta cavat lapidem non vii sed saepe cadendo (Latin Adagium)
And in the end, All we take is equal with all we give (The Beattles)
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This undergraduate thesis is dedicated to
My parents PapaLongginus Mon and MamaY. Maria Fita
My angels Inchik and Leony My brothers Ito and Neiv vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, all gratitude and gratefulness is only for God The Almighty, The Holy Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is the only one Creator, all existences belong to Him. The Son is my Savior and my Shepherd; if only the words can represent my thankfulness. And the Holy Spirit is my power to do more than I can; He raise me up when I am down, He is sent to lift my liveliness, I am very thankful for the enlightenment.
Secondly, I would like to thank my father and mother, the person who always have the best place in my heart. Papa Longginus Mon is my best teacher. In his silence he speaks so much for me, the teaching how to live in action not just in words.
Mama Yustina Maria Fita, I am your craziest son in the family. Whatever I do it
always bothers you. I always wonder how to make those things going right. Ende- Ema, I am very grateful being given the chance so far.
Thirdly, my big appreciation is dedicated to two ‘silly creatures’; Kristo Andang Jaya and Antonius Karunia M.S. They are my brothers who always be there when I need. They deserve my best regard.
Fourthly, my special gratitude belongs to two angels in my life, Maria Wahyuningsih and Leony Maria Monello. They are my soul mates. Inchik and Leony, I have each beautiful picture for you both and I keep in a place where only us can find it. Weta, I am very delightful for the support and inspiration. I‘ll never leave it behind. vi vii Fifthly, I also thank my advisor, Mr. Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum. the person who has given the best considerations for this thesis. Mrs. Dewi Widyastuti, S.
Pd., M. Hum., my co-advisor, is the person who has a big role in finishing this thesis. Only God can reward for the encouragement and countless support.
Sixthly, my deepest gratefulness is given to Father Hary Susanto, SJ who is my counselor through some criticism and encouragement in doing this tiring and demanding object.
And finally, I give my best thank to all my friends who are my companions. Big family of Arimbi, Mbetuk and Echa, Amang Beben (I am still waiting for inang), Ronny and Reynold Kabut, Induk, Lale, Khilus and Entok, Aldo and Felly Heno, and also Amang Gode Bombang. Sefri, amang Njalek (thanks for jarangnya), Mandik, Adi, Safe. Big family of Society, Onchik and Handry, Anye and Ipank, Edja, Nenik ‘Donkeng’, Kae Frans cs. My big appreciation is also for the big family of Petung,
Kae Vickus, Ichen, Sensi and Vivi, Njeik and Ngawis, all the times we spend were
very precious my friends. Bapa Herry Bardata and Mama Ulin, my best respect is only for your advice and courage. My best regard is for my friends of 2001, especially Bertus, where are you bro? Thank you guys, may we never forget all days in past to picture our way at last.
Jimmy Fredrikus Elo vii
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE .................................................................................................. i APPROVAL PAGE ........................................................................................ ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE ................................................................................... iii MOTTO PAGE ............................................................................................... iv DEDICATION PAGE ..................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................ vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................ viii ABSTRACTS .................................................................................................. x ABSTRAK ....................................................................................................... xi
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 1 A. Background of the Study ................................................................ 1 B. Problem Formulation ...................................................................... 6 C. Objectives of the Study .................................................................. 6 D. Definition of Existence ................................................................... 7 CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ............................................... 8 A. Review of Related Studies ............................................................. 8 B. Review of Related Theories ........................................................... 11
1. Theory on Understanding Poem ................................................. 11
2. Mask............................................................................................. 13
3. Human Existence ........................................................................ 15
C. Theoretical Framework .................................................................. 21
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ............................................................ 23 A. Object of the Study ......................................................................... 23 B. Approach of the Study .................................................................... 24 C. Method of the Study ....................................................................... 25 CHAPTER: IV ANALYSIS ......................................................................... 27 A. The Idea of Human Existence in the Poem .................................... 27
1. The Paraphrase of the Poem “We Wear the Mask ...................... 27
2. The Interpretation of the Poem Related to the Idea of Human Being (Existence) ..................................................... 28 B. The Significance of the Mask Toward
Human Existence in the Poem ....................................................... 32
C. The Values of the Idea of Human Existence in the Poem .............. 47
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION .................................................................... 51 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................... 53
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APPENDIX: “We Wear the Mask” ............................................................ 56
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ABSTRACT
JIMMY FREDRIKUS ELO (2007). The Significance of Mask toward the Idea of
Human’s Existence as Seen in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”.
Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.“We Wear the Mask” is one of Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poems that was written in 1896. The poem introduces the speaker who wears the mask. In the poem we can find out that the speaker is wearing the mask that grins and lies. Those characteristics can conceal the genuine existence of human being. The speakers also questions the involvement of the society which he says being over-wise toward his problem. The speaker is also suffering and crying to God but he does not know when it ends. He only has a hope, the society dream their free existence.
There are three problems that the writer wants to discuss in the poem. The first problem questions how far the idea of human existence described in the poem. The second problem questions the significance of the mask toward the human’s existence. And finally the third problem tries to figure out how the ideas of human’s existence are conveyed in the poem.
The approach used is moral-philosophical approach which particularly focuses on the existentialism point of view. Existentialism is a fully responsible philosophy whose prime intention to bring back the freedom to human individual if only man has the courage to pay the price for it, to determine the value of his own life. The writer thinks that human’s existence is an integral part of a human. Therefore man should be responsible for it. The responsibility appears through his/her choices to be free and out of any interest upon him/her. The writer also uses some theories such as theory on understanding poem, theory of symbol and theory of human’s existence.
In the analysis the writer figures out that the idea of human existence is described vividly through the mask. The mask signifies the inability of human being in dealing with a certain situation. In the poem we know how the choice to wear the mask leads the speaker in the poem to the inauthenticity of their existence. Wearing the mask means the speaker leaves his genuine self (identity) behind and put on other one before the society. x xi
ABSTRAK
JIMMY FREDRIKUS ELO (2007). The Significance of Mask toward the Idea of
Human’s Existence as Seen in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”.
Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.“We Wear the Mask” adalah salah satu puisi Paul Lawrence Dunbar yang ditulis pada tahun 1896. Puisi ini memperkenalkan orang yang berbicara dalam puisi yang mengenakan topeng. Dalam puisi kita bisa menemukan dia mengenakan topeng yang menyeringai dan berbohong. Ciri-ciri topeng tersebut bisa menyembunyikan eksistensi manusia yang sesungguhnya. Orang yang berbicara dalam puisi juga mempertanyakan keterlibatan masyarakatnya yang dia katakan ‘kelebihan bijak’ dalam berhadapan dengan masalah yang dialaminya. Dia juga mengalami penderitaan dan menangis kepada Tuhan tetapi tidak tahu kapan itu akan berakhir. Satu saja harapannyabahwa masyarakatnya bisa memimpikan kebebasan dirinya/eksistensinya.
Ada tiga masalah yang penulis ingin bahas dalam puisi. Masalah yang pertama mempertanyakan sejauh mana ide eksistensi manusia dideskripsikan di dalam puisi. Sementara itu masalah kedua mempertanyakan signifikansi topeng terhadap eksistensi manusia. Dan masalah ketiga berusaha mengungkap sejauh mana ide tentang eksistensi manusia dibahas dalam puisi
Pendekatan yang digunakan adalah pendekatan filsafat moral yang secara khusus berfokus pada ide tentang eksistensialisme. Eksistensialisme adalah sebuah filsafat yang bertanggung jawab penuh untuk mengembalikan kebebasan (kemerdekaan) kepada setiap manusia jika saja manusia berani untuk menetukan apa signifikansi hidup bagi dirinya sendiri. Penulis berpikir bahwa eksistensi manusia adalah bagian integral dari seorang manusia dan oleh karena itu manusia harus bertanggung jawab terhadapnya. Tanggung jawab itu terlihat pada pilihannya untuk bebas dan tidak terikat pada kepentingan lain. Penulis juga menggunakan beberapa teori seperti teori dalam memahami puisi, teori tentang symbol dan topeng, dan teori tentang eksistensi manusia.
Di dalam analisis kita bisa menemukan bagaimana keputusan untuk memakai topeng menghantar orang yang berbicara dalam puisi pada ketidaksejatian dirinya. Memakai topeng berarti dia meninggalkan dirinya (identitas) yang sejati dan mengenakan identitas yang lain dalam berhadapan dengan masyarakat. xi
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study Man is the most complex individual found in the world. By his complexity,
man is trusted to conquer the world; of course he must be responsible for whatever he has done, as the sign of his integrity as human life. But after conquering the world, man faces the most complicated thing, man has to face himself. Man is just like a mystery to recover. Karl Jaspers wrote, “man, in his empirical reality can be a subject of research in many directions, but man is always more than he knows or can he know about himself” (Jaspers, 1956: 151). Although man is a perfect creature among others, he still has many works to do about himself. Man then has to answer the question, what the worth of living as a man is.
The question above is just an example of many other questions that have to be figure out. The question who a man is relates to the existence of human. Existence of human is very important because existence is only for man; (although the word existence also has been used for larger scope, such as to show the presence of something) none can exist except man. Therefore man is also called as an existence (being). Man is called an existence because he is aware or conscious of his being. But actually, the meaning of existence is more than just being existed. Existence is derived from the Latin words eks and sistere. Eks means out, and sistere means to stand. So, eksistere means to stand outside, and in this point it means to get outside of
2 himself. Getting outside of himself means man has to live with other men or other existences in the world. Man cannot live alone; he is ens sociale who interacts with other humans in the world. By getting outside of himself, a man can experience his real being, his origin being. In achieving his real being, a man sometimes faces some obstacles in which he cannot totally avoid. The obstacles may come from inside or outside him. The obstacles from inside can be caused by his limitation as a human being. And the obstacles from outside can be transformed into several things, and one example is slavery. Slavery can prevent man to gain his ideal being because of its characteristics that subordinates and marginalizes other people (Drijarkara, 1981: 61- 62).
The evidence that a man has to build a relationship with other men can be found by getting involved in society. Involving in society does not only means to show his presence but he also has to be a part of it by playing his own roles, such as students, lecturers, teachers, farmers, white collar workers and even the occupations that are forced to be played such as thieves, junkies or prostitutes. These kinds of roles definitely contain certain purpose, intention, or objective; namely to survive.
But the question is ‘what is being survived?’ It is life. Man can do anything just to survive his life, from the good thing to the harmful one. Surviving life that is being pursued here is not merely to maintain life from the physical needs but also mental. Psychological needs include the man’s fight to show his authentic existence. Literature as the mirror of human experiences always discusses the way man acts in facing the problems in maintaining his true existence. After reading Dunbar’s poem
3 many times, the writer finally found this kind of problem, how the speaker in the poem tries to maintain his true existence; he decides to choose not to be authentic by wearing mask. This is also the standpoint of the writing; to build a bridge that relates philosophy and literature. Philosophy that will be talked about here is seen from existentialism point of view. Existentialism, according to Walter Kaufmann,” is not a philosophy but a label for several widely different revolts against traditional philosophy” (1966: 11) and Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy says existentialism is “philosophical and literary movement that focused on the uniqueness of each human individual” (Audi, 1999: 296), but according to Jaspers,”…genuine philosophizing must well up from a man’s individual existence and address itself to other individual to help them to achieve true existence” (Kaufmann, 1966: 23).
According to A. MacIntyre, there are some key themes in existentialism such as; the individual and the system, intentionality, being and absurdity, the nature and the significance of choice, the role of extreme experiences, and the nature of communication (1999: 147-149). The choice of Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask’ is caused by the appearance of some of these themes above. The theme such as the individual and the system, the nature and the significance of choice and the role of extreme experiences can be seen through the effort of the speaker in achieving their authentic existence.
Paul Laurence Dunbar was a son of a slave who escaped to Canada and then lived in Dayton, Ohio. His work entitled “We Wear the Mask” talk about the struggle of Black American community in facing the issue of slavery. The speaker in the poem
4 is facing the dilemma, being the person who was not free by the stigmatic identity being the slaves for many years (wear mask) but he was tortured by their feeling, or otherwise, being the person who built his own image in freedom or had the origin existence.
In the poem there is a group of people who wear the mask. The reason why they do it is to hide their identity. But we have to figure out the reason why they hide their face by wearing mask and the reason why they have to hide their selves / their existence. And if we read the poem closely and respond to it, we come to a question, what human existence really is.
Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher, is the person who dedicated his life in the study of being (human existence) (1999: 370). He is concerned on the study to answer the “question of being” (seinsfrage). His study on the study of being has introduced the new composition of the meaning of being. The words he introduced are sein, dasein, and seiende. Sein means being, dasein means being there (German word for human existence), and finally seiende means the modes of being. His work has changed the old perception of being from ancient Greek philosophy. He stated that many philosophers including Plato have gone astray in defining the meaning of being, because they have tended to think being as property or essence enduringly present in things, a substance. According to Heidegger, the question of being relates to the prior understanding of things that is human existence or dasein. Therefore, when we are talking about being, we are also talking about existence (Prior, 1967: 141). Heidegger defines existence as the possibilities of a man to be or not to be
5 himself (Abidin, 2000: 157). This kind of definition refers to the choice to be himself (being authentic) or not to be himself (not being authentic).
The relation between literature and philosophy is always an interesting topic to discuss. The philosopher like Heidegger also talks about literature, in this example he takes poetry as a genre in literature. He said,” poetry has the capacity of returning man to his most fundamental form of existence, a poem existence” (James,1973: 288) because poetry is man’s greatest achievement and the inner side of his nature. He once reacted to H
őlderlin (German famous romantic poetry) who stated that writing poetry is the most innocent of all occupations. He supported the statement saying that poetry is harmless and ineffectual because it remains merely saying and speaking. And, he continued, in taking poetry we also have to take its essence (James, 1973: 329). Poetry is the art of the poet. The art of the poet can be found through the messages he intends to speak.
Jaspers said that the genuine objective of existentialism is to make human being aware of his true existence (1966: 23). Achieving true existence means to live in authenticity, the one that man has to search for during his lifetime. In relation with this problem, the writer is also interested in Karl Jasper’s idea which distinguishes being (existence) into two categories; Being as Freedom and Being as Status, to analyze my thesis. As the result, the writer finds two terms related to the poem closely, which will be used, refers to those terms above; they are “unmasked being” and “masked being”.
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B. Problem Formulation
To analyze the idea of human existence, there are three questions that have to be answered in this writing:
1. How is the idea of human existence described in the poem? 2.
What is the significance of mask toward the human’s existence as described
in the poem? 3.
What are the values of the ideas of human existence as described in the
poem?
C. Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is mainly to answer these problems above. It is also to know how far the implementation of the being can be understood in the poem from philosophical perspective. First of all, we have to figure out the description of human existence in the poem. It is described that the speaker is facing the dilemma in his life. The dilemma is about the fact that the speaker is wearing the mask. We know that by wearing mask, man is about to act something, or we can say that there is something lies behind the reality of wearing the mask.
After we see the first problem, we come to the second one, which is the main analysis of the writing, what the significance of the mask is as described in the poem.
The analysis will mainly focus on the philosophers’ idea about human existence, and particularly about the authenticity and inauthenticity of human existence, which Jasper formulated in terms Being as Freedom and Being as Status. Being as Freedom
7 means it is free, independence, origin, the authenticity of human existence and “the unmasked being”. While Being as Status means it is given, not origin, influenced by others, the inauthenticity of human existence or the “masked being”.
Finally, the third question aims to find out the values of the idea of human being (existence) in the poem. Related to the American community at that time, the third question criticizes the involvement of American community in the slavery era. American community was considered as those who legalized the slavery only for their interests and they considered black people as inhuman.
D. Definition of Existence
According to The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, existence means “the kind of being that belongs to ‘real’ (wirklich) objects, things of the sorts investigated by the scientist other than psychology and pure mathematics” (1999: 887). From the definition above we know that existence is a particular being. The form “being” is the participle of ‘to be”. The verb “to be” means “to exist” and “to have existence”. The participial “being” means, “having existence”. The term “being” is usually taken a noun, and in this substantive form it is equivalent to “that which exist”, or “that which has existence” (Bittle, 1939:12). Therefore when we are talking about being we are also talking about existence because the word being itself encompasses existence also.
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies Plato and Aristotle stated thousand years ago that art is the imitation of reality. Dunbar proved it. He composed and created art through the poem “We Wear the Mask”. The poem is the composition that represents the reality or the condition in
which he experienced, saw, heard intentionally or not. The poem “We Wear the Mask” is seen as the representation of reality of American in nineteenth century especially, in which slavery is legally accepted in the community of American people.
Paul Laurence Dunbar was a son of a slave who was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. Toward the inequality of race, skin-color, and creed, or briefly the inequality between American and “color people” (a term that is introduced by Frederick Douglass, a great abolitionist, who tent to use color people instead of black), which is obviously seen in America during the nineteenth century, Sam S. Brackett and Theodore B. Strandness stated that, “the country tend to belong, in fact, to men who were not only white but also Christian and Protestant as well” whereas the Black had been slaved for more than a century and the Indian had been ruthlessly pushed aside, and even a good many white men were not so sure if the country were theirs if they were from immigrants and religious minorities (1962: 660).
9 One of Dunbar’s poems that spoke out the racial injustice felt by the black
American is “We Wear the Mask”. According to Joanne M. Braxton in the book The
Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar , “the ‘we’ of the poem is the black folk
collective, the speaker a Dunbar persona, or perhaps the real Dunbar lifting … about the double nature of the black experience” (
ion in which the black had been
treated unfairly because of the anguish of slavery. Therefore, he spoke the voice of the hurt black experience. Braxton also states that the black experienced double nature meaning that they had to face their life in two stages; the existence of free human being and also the existence of ex-slaves.
On the other side, William Dean Howells remarked that Dunbar’s great accomplishment was “to have studied the American Black objectively and to have represented him as he found him” (Brackett and Strandness, 1962: 660). Howells continues that Dunbar is the first black ‘to express’ the life of Black aesthetically and … lyrically (Williams, 1994: 486).
Another person who had studied Dunbar’s poem is Peter Revell. According to Peter Revell, "We Wear the Mask," is arguably the finest poem Dunbar produced a moving cry from the heart of suffering. The poem anticipates, and presents in terms of passionate personal regret, the psychological analysis of the fact of blackness. Revel said that the speaker in the poem is suffering from a certain kind of injustice situation, a situation in which the black were incapable to avoid. Peter Revel also states that it should be noted that the poem itself is "masked," its link to the black
10 race, though obvious enough, not being openly stated e poem is an apologia for all that his own and succeeding generations would condemn in his work.
In Revell’s opinion, the poem itself is already masked in the meaning that the ideas that are found in the poem are not directly understood as they are but there must be something that lies behind them.
Another comment comes from James Emmanuel. In Emmanuel’s point of view, as he described in Racial Fire in the Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, states a similar datum about the speaker in the poem, “it is spoken by black people and for black people” ( ). Emmanuel said that the speaker is the black man due to the fact that the poet himself is an American black man. And the most important thing is that he is the supporter of the abolition of the slavery. Emmanuel’s statement is in accordance with Braxton’s comment. But he added the addressee of the poem namely the black. It is understandable since the poem is a kind of appeal toward the black and the explanation can be seen in the analysis.
In 1893, he met a famous abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, a slave who become a very noticeable person in voicing the rights of slavery in the U.S., and Douglass mentioned him as,” the most promising young colored man in America did not want slavery in the U.S. continued even after the slavery was abolished.
Moreover Williams L. Andrews and Patricia Robinson Williams stated that "We
11 Wear the Mask," which warns of "the mask that grins and lies," Dunbar spoke eloquently and individually to the complexity of his struggle to articulate an African American poetic voice to a white American audience.
The critics like Brackett, Strandness, Braxton, Revell, Andrews, Williams, Emmanuel and Howell mentioned that Dunbar is concerned about his black race in
th
particular and American people in general at the end of 19 century. Particularly Howell mentioned that Dunbar was a talented poet that has aesthetic sense. By using the critics’ ideas the writer is able to find how human existence is defined in the condition when black people were treated unfairly by their society at that time.
As we see in through the comments before, there are some critics who speak about the mask in the poem although it is not the main focus of their study. But in the writer’s opinion, the mask is the integral part of the poem. This study tries to answer why the mask becomes so important and what the importance of the mask in the poem is.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theory on Understanding Poem
All literature works need comprehensive study to deal with. A poem as a part of literature also needs specific treatments. There are some experts who suggest some ways in studying a poem. M.J. Murphy wrote in Understanding Unseen: An
Introduction to English Poetry and English Novel Overseas , the meaning of the poet
is someone who is “usually more sensible than most to the sight, sounds, and
12 sensations” around him. As a poet he has ability to “feel” and “see” the behavior of the people, their follies, sufferings, their mobility; to the thoughts, that human asks about themselves and their world” (1972: 21). So a poet is someone who can sense the conditions around him in society, he has ability to articulate the actual situation by arranging the verses to be a meaningful message toward the reader. He could evoke the reader’s emotion in reacting to the facts he gives in the poem. To understand this kind of ‘complexity” owned by a poet, and also his message, some comprehensive steps are absolutely needed.
According to Brooks and Warren in the book Understanding Poetry, there are some steps that should be considered in exploring a poem. The first by ourselves to the narrative poems, the second is paraphrasing by familiarizing ourselves to the descriptive poems, the third is by getting the important message of the poem through the metric, tone, imagery, theme; statement, idea, etc (1968: ix).
Seymour Chatman in An Introduction of The Language of Poetry states that most of us try to understand the poetry by reducing the poem into idea, to a pattern-to a myth, whereas we do not pay much intention to the simplest and the easiest approach that is by using the language that the poetry used (1968: ix). He offers us to search the messages in the poem by familiarizing with the language. The ideas that we have to consider are familiarizing ourselves with the senses of words, grammar, persona and addressee, paraphrase, the explication of metaphor, the connotation of words, drawing inferences, interpretation and poetic form.
13 Sometimes the poet is different from the speaker in the poem. According to
Laurence Perrine,” a cardinal error of beginning reader is to assume always that the speaker is the poet himself. A far safer course is to assume always that the speaker is someone other than the poet himself” (1967: 572). It is obvious that we should distinguish between the poet and the speaker in a poem. A poet is the person who writes the poem, and it is not always that the person who speaks in a poem is the poet. It might be possible that the poet is echoing the condition in a society. It can be the society who speaks, or a person in a society. It can be found properly if we pay attention more to the message and to whom the message is addressed.
The theories above are the guidelines in understanding the poem. On the other hand, this writing will focus on the mask, which personally the most important part of the poem. Mask is seen not just a covering part of the face but also it is seen as the medium to show the human existence. We also have to distinguish the poet and the speaker in the poem in order to avoid false interpretation. The more we adept to the theories, the easier we understand the poem and the easier we get the message in the poem.
2. Mask
Understanding a poem is a process. The process includes the reading, responding and also interpretation. In the process, the writer found that mask is the central point of the poem. The decision of choosing mask as the main focus in the analysis is because of its close relationship and understanding with the idea of human
14 existence, moreover toward the authenticity of human existence. Therefore, it is quite reasonable for the writer to put some notation about mask in this part. Mask is known since the early history of Western civilization in noticing the person. Since the old human history that was represented by the Greek and the Rome, mask is used as identification of character, not as a deception or disguise. From the Plato’s era to the Shakespeare’s era, human life is considered as puppet show. In the theatre of life, people who engage in situation-appropriate behavior are playing their own ‘roles’ or wearing mask (Tseelon, 2001: 5).
The mask has represented two approaches to identity. The first approach says that mask represents the existence of an authentic self. This approach sees the mask – real or metaphoric-, used as covering in some situation and it is even deceiving by pretending to be the real self. The other approach states that every manifestation is authentic. Therefore the mask has revealed the multiplicity of our identity (Tseelon, 2001: 10).
Furthermore, the concept of masking reveals a broad and more paradigmatic notion of disguise. The mask is considered as the tool for self-definition and deconstruction. As the tool of self-definition, mask has the characteristics to construct, represent, conceal, reveal, protest, protect, highlight, transform, defend, give license to, empower, suppress, and liberate. And as the tool of deconstruction, the mask is treated as the moment of reflexivity. This kind of tool reflects the prototypical postmodern device to destablish categories, question, challenge overdetermined images, problematise certainties, challenge established meanings,
15 expose the seams of crafted facades and the rules of narrative, the practices of ritual, the mechanics of the act, the stylised elements of the performance (Tseelon, 2001: 5- 11). Efrat Tseelon quoted Edward Napier’s statement on masks as,
Testify to an awareness of the ambiguities of appearance and to a tendency toward paradox characteristics of transitional states. They provide a medium for exploring formal boundaries and a means of investigating the problems that appearances pose in the experience of change (2001: 2).
Furthermore, according to Tseelon, in relation to mask, we have to consider two other terms that have the same characteristics with mask; they are disguise and masquerade. Mask is defined as concealing in the sense of ‘protecting, or hiding from view’. On the other hand disguise is defined as concealing in the sense of ‘misrepresenting’ (assuming false elements), while masquerade is defined as ‘assuming false appearance (2001: 2).
3. Human Existence
As it is said in the introduction, there are some themes of existentialism found in the poem. They are the individual and the system, the nature and the significance of choice and the role of extreme experiences. The themes also become the central of the existentialists whose ideas are taken in this chapter. Kierkegaard is famous of his theme about the importance of individual against the system, Heidegger’s and Jaspers’ contribution in the theme the nature and the significance of choice.
According to Koeswara, human being consists of two important parts; they are being and non-being. Being is the measure of human existence. A human being
16 appears and exists by being, experiences himself as conscious subject who is active and in process. Non-being is seen as the dimension of human nothingness, which refers to human objectness, including the weakness and determinants of life (1987: 9).
Martin Heidegger used the German word sein in referring to being. Heidegger states that being cannot be grasped except by taking time into consideration. “Time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon for the understanding of Being, and in terms of temporality as the Being of dasein, which understands Being” (1962: 39).
Therefore, being or existence has a tight relation with temporality of future dimension. This temporality leads to the possibility of human existence to be authentic or non-authentic. Heidegger was strongly against the definition of existence that states that existence is something that precedes essence. He argued that existence is the possibility of to be or not to be authentic which will be implemented in the future (Abidin, 2000: 183). Another mode of sein is dasein. Dasein means being- there, which is also interpreted as human existence. Dasein’s preontological understanding of being embodied in everyday practices, opens a “clearing” in which entities can show up as, for example, tools, protons, numbers, and so on (Audi, 1999: 371).
Heidegger sought to single out the authentic being in three developed concept; they are dread, conscience and destiny. Dread is the appropriate translation for the German word Angst. What is really anxious for man is man cannot live forever. There is the time when man has to end his life, the condition in which the existentialists say
17 as boundary situation (Grenz Situationen). The end of human life is death, the situation in which man cannot avoid. Toward the dread of death, Heidegger says the knowledge that reveals death as the end, ground, and boundary of life brings to human beings its proper freedom, transforms the alien absurdities of stubborn facts into an essential possibility of being itself. An authentic existence is the being that is conscious toward his death. The second concept is conscience. Conscience is the voice speaking in secrecy and silence. It is the call of the self to itself the call of the self to get out of the distraction of self-forgetfulness. The phenomenon of conscience challenges human being to escape from enslavement into freedom and by the same act to transform historical necessity into resolution. And the third concept is destiny.
Destiny has relationship with time-historical time, death and birth; the present itself is raised out of forfeiture to an authentic present. Destiny is a pattern achieved only by the rare individual who in dread and silence has come face to face with his own nothingness and has shaped his life in the light, or the darkness, of that encounter (Grene, 1967: 460-461).
In talking about being, we cannot forget the contribution of another philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, because he was the founding father of existentialism (Drijarkara, 1981: 67). Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher. He took Danish word
Vaeren in referring to being. “Existence cannot be predicated of the eternal,
immutable being, since to exist means to be engaged in becoming, time freedom, and history (Collins, 1954: 15). According to Kierkegaard, the term “being” as used in the above definition, must therefore be understood (from the systematic standpoint) much
18 more abstractly, presumably as the abstract reflection of, or the abstract prototype for, what being is concrete empirical being. Kierkegaard’s idea about being is much more abstract than the other. Kierkegaard states, if being,…is understood as empirical being, truth is at once must be transformed into a desideratum, and everything must be understood in terms of becoming, for the empirical object is unfinished and the existing cognitive spirit is itself in process of becoming (Nauman Jr., 1972: 14). For Kierkegaard, a man has abandoned a very invaluable thing by constituting himself in a system named society (he referred to the Established State Church). In a system or Kierkegaard noticed as ‘crowd’, a man is ridden by a ‘total forgetfulness’ and each individual in the ‘crowd’ tends to behave as a whole, leaving behind the value of an integrated person. He states, “the crowd, in fact, is composed of individuals; it must therefore be in every man’s power to become what he is, an individual. From becoming an individual no me, no me at all, is excluded, except he who excludes himself by becoming a crowd” (Hassan, 1973: 71).
There are three characteristics of Kierkegaard’s idea of the importance of being an individual against the system: a. the rejection of any closed system of thought that attempts to explain the meaning of life and human existence by reference to some rationally comprehensible reality outside of man himself, b. the emphasis on the uniqueness and the importance of the individual,
19 c. the freedom and responsibility of the individual human being who wills to do a particular thing in a world that there are no moral certainties (1967:
462). Kierkegaard found three basic spheres of human life. They are: the first is esthetic life, that is, in the stage human’s thought is only focused outside of himself.
Esthetic here does not mean simply as art but in this meaning, human is totally outside of his own self, he does not experience his own self, he does not think as a human but he think just to think. The second sphere is ethical life. In the stage, man focuses himself inside. He concentrated himself on the things about himself as a human being. The stage is contrasted to the first stage. The third stage is religious life, in which man is integrated with God, he gives himself totally and surrenders before God, and in the stage man experiences his authentic existence; man experiences his authentic and original being. Toward Kierkegaard’s thinking, James Collins, the author of A Critical Study of Existentialism, states, “but man is the one being that endowed with conscious freedom and hence with the possibilities for existing at various level of adequacy” (1952: 6).
Jaspers’ idea of being appears through his book Philosophie. Jaspers writes, “Being is not the sum of objects; rather objects extends, as it were, toward our intellect in subject-subject division, from the Encompassing of being itself, which is beyond objective comprehension...” (Jaspers, 1956: 151). According to Jaspers, man becomes existence through his choices. Jaspers focused on two parts in his works, existence and transcendence. Having existence means to stand before transcendence
20 while transcendence is a mystery and it talks to human through signs, chiffers. And the signs, chiffers can be read by human through his existence (Hamersma, 1985: 9).
Jaspers is suspicious with the over-confidence in science and he stressed the irrational in man. He argued that philosophy begins where reason suffers shipwreck.
Therefore, we must live philosophy by philosophizing it; we have to threat it as an activity of becoming, not static as a body of facts. Furthermore, to appreciate philosophy insights, we must arrive at them ourselves.
Meanwhile, Karl Jaspers, according to James Collins in his book, The
Existentialist A Critical Study, stated that as fact we can find a man in two
perspectives; a.
As Dasein (empirical being), man is put as object; man is just of contained ideas, thinking. Empirical being is the reality of the given or objective world, b.
Existence (Existenz). As Concrete Existence, man finds himself in a certain situation, and man can experience his concrete existence in society. The way man experiences the social situations can be different; he can give up and surrender and cannot prevent his authenticity by living in society without his identity, or he can live in society without loosing his identity. He can only do that by communicating with other existences (1952: 101).
Karl Jaspers developed the definition of being by maintaining that being cannot be defined unequivocally because being generally represents authentic reality, it is unconditional, infinite, all-encompassing, and all transcending primal source. In the next phase, Jaspers refers being to “being as freedom” and “being as status”. In
21 the “being as freedom”, Jaspers stressed on the origin of being that means the origin of a self in existence (Dasein) and, but, not the origin of being as such (Nauman Jr., 1972: 14).
Freedom is central to human; and identifies with choices, awareness, and selfhood. To choose means to be free and a man’s freedom is his being. Basically a man is free, but his freedom constitutes his existence means that in practicing his freedom in everyday life, he has to be responsible as much as his rights to be a man.
To know and use his freedom is the prime reason of human existence. This is the real being, the original one. On the other side, “being as status” means, being is acknowledged as a thing, and a man can do something with it and he can grasp it. Status means something that is predicated, given or gained. Therefore, a man can do something with it, for certain intention or purpose. Because it is given, predicated, this kind of being is not free anymore, it has been interfered by someone’s interest or briefly others under control it. Everywhere it is an objectively given being (Nauman Jr., 1972: 14).