buku hiski 1compressed

“Kontribusi Sastra dalam Menumbuhkembangkan Nilai-nilai

Kemanusiaan dan Identitas Nasional”

XXII

The 22

nd

International Conference

on Literature

Konferensi

Internasional

Konferensi Internasional Kesusastraan XXII UNY - HISKI

“

The Role of Literature in Enhancing Humanity

and National Identity

”

Editor:

Nurhadi, Wiyatmi, Sugi Iswalono, Maman Suryaman, Yeni Artanti

PROSIDING

PROSIDING

SASTRA SEBAGAI IDENTITAS NARATIF

DAN UPAYA SASTRA DALAM MENGHADAPI

MASALAH MASYARAKAT DAN BANGSA

SASTRA SEBAGAI IDENTITAS NARATIF

DAN UPAYA SASTRA DALAM MENGHADAPI

MASALAH MASYARAKAT DAN BANGSA

FAKULTAS BAHASA DAN SENI UNIVERSITAS NEGERI YOGYAKARTA

Himpunan Sarjana Kesusastraan Indonesia (HISKI)

FAKULTAS BAHASA DAN SENI UNIVERSITAS NEGERI YOGYAKARTA

Himpunan Sarjana Kesusastraan Indonesia (HISKI)

Buku 1

XXII

The 22nd International Conference

on Literature

Kontribusi Sastra dalam Menumbuhkembangkan

Nilai-nilai kemanusiaan dan Identitas Nasional

“The Role of Literature in Enhancing Humanity

and National Identity”

FAKULTAS BAHASA DAN SENI UNIVERSITAS NEGERI YOGYAKARTA

Himpunan Sarjana Kesusastraan Indonesia (HISKI)

FAKULTAS BAHASA DAN SENI UNIVERSITAS NEGERI YOGYAKARTA

Himpunan Sarjana Kesusastraan Indonesia (HISKI)

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Prosiding

Konferensi Internasional Kesusastraan XXII UNY-HISKI

“The Role of Literature in Enhancing Humanity

and National Identity”

BUKU 1

SASTRA SEBAGAI IDENTITAS NARATIF

DAN UPAYA SASTRA DALAM

MENGHADAPI MASALAH MASYARAKAT

DAN BANGSA

Editor:

Nurhadi, Wiyatmi, Sugi Iswalono, Maman Suryaman, Yeni Artanti

(Rumpun Sastra FBS UNY)

Fakultas Bahasa dan Seni Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta

Himpunan Sarjana Kesusastraan Indonesia (HISKI)

Prosiding

Konferensi Internasional Kesusastraan XXII UNY-HISKI: “The Role of Literature in Enhancing Humanity and National Identity”

SASTRA SEBAGAI I DENTI TAS NARATI F

DAN UPAYA SASTRA DALAM MENGHADAPI

MASALAH MASYARAKAT DAN BANGSA

vi + 241 hlm; 21 x 29 cm ISBN :

Hak Cipta Dilindungi Undang-Undang Memfoto copy atau memperbanyak dengan cara apapun, sebagian atau seluruh isi buku ini tanpa seizin penerbit

adalah tindakan tidak bermoral dan melawan hokum

Judul Buku : Sastra sebagai I dentitas Naratif dan Upaya Sastra dalam Menghadapi Masalah Masyarakat dan Bangsa

Penyunting : Nurhadi Wiyatmi Sugi Iswalono Maman Suryaman Yeni Artanti Cetakan Pertama : November 2012

Penerbit : Fakultas Bahasa dan Seni Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta Alamat : Fakultas Bahasa dan Seni Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta

KATA PENGANTAR

Puji syukur kami panjatkan kepada Tuhan Yang Maha Esa karena prosiding Konferensi Internasional HISKI XXII ini akhirnya dapat kami selesaikan sehingga dapat diapresiasi oleh pemerhati sastra dan budaya Indonesia, khususnya bagi para peserta konferensi ini.Tema utama konferensi kali ini yaitu “The Role of Literature in Enhancing Humanity and National I dentity” sebuah usaha mempertinggi nilai kemanusiaan dan

identitas nasional melalui peran sastra. Tentu saja hal tersebut merupakan suatu kajian yang relatif cair karena apa yang ditampilkan dalam konferensi ini tidak hanya difokuskan pada kajian tentang tema tersebut, tetapi juga menyangkut hal-hal lain yang seringkali mengkaji sesuatu yang lebih luas dari sekedar nilai kemanusiaan ataupun identitas nasional. Meski demikian, hal tersebut tidak terlepas dari kajian yang berkaitan dengan sastra ataupun karya sastra sebagai bidang kajian yang digeluti oleh sejumlah pemerhati yang terkait dengan HISKI (Himpunan Sarjana Kesusastraan Indonesia).

Dalam konferensi kali ini, tema utama tersebut dipilah menjadi lima subtema yang terdiri atas: (1) “Sastra sebagai Identitas Naratif dan Upaya Sastra dalam Menghadapi Masalah Masyarakat dan Bangsa”, (2) “Sastra dan Masalah Lingkungan serta Masyarakat”, (3) “Peran Sastra dalam Pendidikan Moral dan Karakter”, (4) “Sastra Anak dan Kesadaran Feminis dalam Sastra”, dan (5) “Sastra, Kultur, dan Subkultur”. Kelima subtema tersebut kemudian dijadikan sebagai prosiding.Subtema keempat karena terlalu tebal kemudian dipecah menjadi dua prosiding sehingga semua berjumlah enam buah prosiding.

Pemilahan dan pengelompokkan masing-masing makalah ke dalam lima subtema tersebut bukanlah perkara yang mudah mengingat seringkali sebuah makalah menyinggung sejumlah aspek sub-subtema secara bersamaan. Dengan demikian, seringkali ada sejumlah pengelompokan yang terasa tumpang tindih atau ada ketidaktepatan penempatannya.Awalnya, abstrak yang diterima panitia untuk dipresentasikan dalam konferensi ini sebanyak 180-an. Dalam perkembangannya hanya sekitar 150-an artikel yang memenuhi kriteria untuk dijadikan prosiding.

Prosiding yang berjudul Sastra sebagai I dentitas Naratif dan Upaya Sastra dalam Menghadapi Masalah Masyarakat dan Bangsaini merupakan satu dari serangkaian enam

prosiding yang kami bukukan. Judul prosiding ini merupakan judul pertama dari judul-judul lainnya yang secara lengkap meliputi: (1) Sastra sebagai I dentitas Naratif dan Upaya Sastra dalam Menghadapi Masalah Masyarakat dan Bangsa, (2) Sastra dan Masalah Lingkungan serta Masyarakat, (3) Peran Sastra dalam Pendidikan Moral dan Karakter,(4) Sastra Anak dan Kesadaran Feminis dalam Sastra[ Bagian 1] ,(5) Sastra Anak dan Kesadaran Feminis dalam Sastra [ Bagian 2], dan (6) Sastra, Kultur, dan Subkultur.

Penyusunan prosiding kali ini yang dipecah menjadi 6 buku tersebut dilandaskan pada alasan teknis belaka, yakni guna menghindari kesan buku tebal sekiranya makalah-makalah ini dijilid dalam satu buku.Selain mudah dibawa, buku-buku prosiding ini diharapkan lebih nyaman untuk dibaca.

Sebenarnya makalah-makalah yang terdapat dalam prosiding ini belumlah diedit secara menyeluruh. Panitia, khususnya seksi makalah, mengalami keterbatasan guna melakukan penyuntingan terhadap 150-an artikel dalam waktu yang relatif mendesak.Pada waktu mendatang hal ini bisa dilakukan sebagai bentuk revisi atas kekurangan tersebut.Meski demikian, sebagai sebuah kumpulan tulisan,

prosiding-umum.Konferensi internasional semacam ini selain sebagai bentuk silaturahmi secara fisik, sebagai wahana pertemuan pemerhati sastra dari Indonesia dan luar negeri, juga pada hakikatnya adalah wahana silaturahmi pemikiran.

Akhir kata, atas nama panitia, kami mengucapkan terima kasih yang sebesar-besarnya atas partisipasi pemakalah, baik dari dalam maupun luar negeri, yang turut menyukseskan konferensi internasional HISKI XXII kali ini. Sebagaimana diharapkan oleh panitia pelaksana konferensi sebelumnya di Surabaya tahun 2010, kami selaku panitia konferensi kali ini yang berlangsung di Fakultas Bahasa dan Seni, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, juga berharap agar penerbitan prosiding-prosiding ini menjadi tradisi yang terus dikembangkan dalam setiap konferensi HISKI di masa yang akan datang.

Selamat membaca. Salam budaya!

Yogyakarta, Awal November 2012 Ketua Konferensi HISKI XXII,

DAFTAR I SI

 HALAMAN JUDUL ... i

 KATA PENGANTAR ... iii

 DAFTAR I SI ... iv

 Achibe and Ngugi: Literature of Decolonization (Lutfi Hamadi) ... 1

 Borneo in the Eyes of Joseph Conrad (Suhana binti Sarkaw i, Datu Sanib bin Said) ... 10

 Looking at India Through “Yhe Perforated Sheet” in Rushdie’ Midnight’s Children (Nita Novianti) ... 21

 Negotiation in Diasporic Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Third and Final Continent and This Blessed House (Retno Wulandari) ... 27

 Religious Identity in Chapter Ten of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass American Slave ( I .M. Hendrarti, M.A., Ph.D.) ... 34

 Preparation and Validation of Literature and Multi- Intelligence based Lessons in Reading for Children with Hearing Impairment ( Joel J. Pineda) ... 40

 Pewacanaan Identiti Bangsa dalam Sastera Seepas Meredeka: Pengalaman Malaysia ( Mohamad Saleeh Rahamad, Ph.D.) ... 51

 Nasionalisme dalam Dua Novel Emigran Malaysia ( Suharmono K.) ... 73

 Menelusuri Pemikiran Mantan Perdana Menteri Malaysia Melalui Karya Puisi: Ke Arah Model Pemerintahan Negara ( Tuan Nordin Tuan Kechik)... 79

 Malay Identity in Malaysian and Indonesian Literature ( Mugijatna) ... 87

 Cerminan Masyarakat Jajahan Melalui La Colline Oubiee Karya Moulaud Mammeri ( I w an Khisnanto, M.Hum.) ... 99

 Social Ills in the Short Stories of Filipino Natonal Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose ( Jayson E. Parba) ... 105

 Revitalisasi Film Sastra dalam Pembangunan Budaya Bangsa ( Ali I mron Al-Ma’ruf) ... 113

 Pengajaran Sastra Frankofoni dalam Rangka Peningkatan Kesadaran Berbangsa ( Tania I ntan, S.S., M.Pd.) ... 124

 Subjek Matter “Liyan/ The Others” dalam Novel Sastra Indonesia Kontemporer ( Arif Budi Wurianto) ... 132

 Literature, Revealing Personality Identity ( Mamik Tri Wedaw ati) ... 139

 Krisis Identitas Manusia Indonesia dalam Fiksi Posmodernis ( Dr. Pujiharto, M.Hum) ... 147

Sejarah Sastra ( Yoseph Yapi Taum) ... 158

 Kuasa Bahasa terhadap Sastra, Sejarah, dan Wacana Kekuasaan ( Nurhadi) .. 172

 Peranan Sastra dalam Pembelajaran Sejarah Untuk Membentuk Karakter

Siswa ( Supardi) ... 180

 Tafsir Atas Pasar, Pengakuan Pariyem, dan Gadis Pantai untuk Meredefinisikan

Konsep Pembangunan Bangsa ( Ratun Untoro) ... 187

 Karya Sastra sebagai Media Pembangunan Budaya Bangsa ( Umi Faizah,

M.Pd.) ... 195

 Refleksi dan Prediksi Nilai-nilai Kemanusiaan dalam Novel gadis Pantai dan Nyanyi Sunyi Seorang Bisu Karya Pramudya Ananta Toer: Menuju Masyarakat

yang Humanis ( I .B. Putera Manuaba) ... 205

 Identitas dan Resistensi Budak pada masa Kolonial dalam Novel Surapati dan

Robert Anak Suropati Karya Abdul Moeis ( I Nyoman Yasa, S.Pd., M.A.) ... 214

 Peran Pendidikan Moral dalam Sastra Jawa (Afendy Widayat) ... 222

 Logika Hati dalam Sastra “Kiri” Indonesia (1950-1965) (Rhoma Dw i Aria

Yuliantri, M. Pd) ... 232

 The Archeology of Football Fans: Footballl, Media and Identity (A Paper on Siwi Mars Wijayanti’s Novel Koloni Milanisti) ( Muhammad Taufiqurrohman,

S.S., M.Hum.) ... 243

 Konstruksi Identitas Hibrid Pascakolonial dalam Lagu-lagu Populer Makulu

( Falantino Eryk Latupapua) ... 254

 The Dare Game: Space and Identity Consruction ( I rna Febianti Evi

Eliyanah) ... 266

 Antara Jenderal Kayu dan Jenderal Kopi dalam Hikayat Mareskalek Karya

Abdullah Bin Muhammad Al-Misri ( Djoko Marihandono) ... 275

 Njoo Cheong Seng dan Pemikirannya tentang Nasionalisme dan Bangsa ( Dw i

Susanto) ... 287

 Membebaskan Fetish “Babu” dalam Sastra Indonesia? – Cerpen “Bukan Yem”

oleh Etik Juwita ( Shiho Saw ai) ... 295

 Peran Kompeni dalam Percaturan Politik Dinasti Mataram: Studi Kasus dalam

Babad Tanah Jawi (Dr. Kundharu Saddhono, M.Hum.) ... 306

 Peningkatan Ketrampilan Apresiasi Sastra Dalam Pembelajaran Bahasa Jawa Dengan Media Campursari Pada Siswa Kelas XI IPA 1 SMAN 2 Banguntapan

( Venny I ndria Ekow ati) ... 315

 Mencari Sumber Rujukan Pendidikan Karakter Dalam Karya Sastra Jawa ( Sri

Decolonization

Lutfi Hamadi

Beirut Arab University, Beirut, Libanon < lutfihzj@hotmail.com> ;

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the role postcolonial literature plays in European ex-colonies in rewriting history and establishing an identity by comparing and contrasting two of the most eminent contemporary African writers, the Nigerian Chinua Achebe and the Kenyan James Ngugi, known later as Ngugi wa Thiong’o. For this purpose, the paper traces the most common and different features in these writers’ works, which explore the histories of Nigeria and Kenya in pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial times. Like their characters, both writers were at crossroads of traditional culture and Christian influence, where they faced the dilemma of growing up in two different worlds as Africans and as Westerners. Their suffering from the corruption and violence practiced by post-colonial dictatorships and their incessant attempts to establish an independent personality and identity found their vent in remarkable creative writings of opposition and decolonization. Despite a few differences, Achebe’s and Ngugi’s works reveal the unspeakable effects of colonization on the natives and its persistence in the form of chaos, coups, corruption, civil wars, and bloodshed. Emphasizing on Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, and Anthills of the Savannah and Ngugi’s Weep Not, Child, The River Between, and Petals of Blood, the paper demonstrates how

the conflicts between the powerful colonizers and the defenseless colonized end up with the destruction of local cultures, histories, values, and languages, and the distortion of the image of the colonized subjects in the Western discourse, all done in the name of enlightening and civilizing them. It also highlights the corruption and oppression of the post-colonial regimes, reflecting the writers' disbelief in the independence African countries are supposed to have gained. Believing in the important role of literature and narratives in writing history and uncovering the truth, Achebe and Ngugi attempt to raise awareness to the horrible psychological, social, and political repercussions of the oppression and humiliation the Africans long suffered from by the white colonizers and, perhaps, help restore a lost identity.

Achebe and Ngugi: Literature of Decolonization

Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o not only witnessed but also were highly involved in and influenced by the critical political events their countries have been undergoing since the arrival of the white Europeans by the end of the Nineteenth century. Both of them were at crossroads of traditional culture and Christian influence, where they faced the dilemma of growing up in two different worlds as Africans and as Westerners. As young boys, both Achebe and Ngugi went to missionary schools where students were not allowed to speak their indigenous languages. On this matter, Ezenwa-Ohaeto, in his

Chinua Achebe: A Biography quotes him saying that the children had to "put away their

different mother tongues and communicate in the language of their colonizers" (30) Similarly, Lynne Duke wrote in the Washington Post how Ngugi was 12 when he

"witnessed the beating. Teachers at his British colonial school in the 'white highlands' of Kenya caught one of the school chums speaking Gikuyu,"(1) the native language and how the child was humiliated and harshly whipped.

Born in a Christian family in 1930, Achebe grew up in the Igbo village of Ogidi in South Nigeria and witnessed the horrors of colonization, Nigerian dictatorship, and civil

wars. When Biafra’s movement to break away and form an independent republic in 1967 was brutally crushed by the central government supported by the British, Achebe and his family narrowly escaped, but their houses had been destroyed. The loss and later harassment against Achebe's family such as banning him from traveling were so heavy on him. Such incident-packed life, however, found its vent in remarkable creative writings, where the characters in Achebe's novels reflect to a far extent the miserable conditions the Nigerians have been passing through for more than a century.

Ngugi's personal experience in Kenya is not much different from Achebe's. Born in 1938 of Kikuyu descent in a Christian family, Ngugi saw his father losing his land after the British Imperial Act of 1915. During the Mau Mau armed rebellion of the Kenyans against the British, Ngugi's family suffered a lot as his stepbrother was killed, and his mother was arrested and tortured. While at mission school, he became a devout Christian, but renounced Christianity and English in 1967, changing his name, James, which he considered a colonial name. He was 24 years old when Kenya became independent, but his criticism of the Kenyan dictatorship led him to spend a whole year in prison, where he wrote Devil on the Cross, the first modern novel in Gikuyu on prison-issued toilet paper.

After that, he lost his job and his family was harassed so he left on self-exile for London. Achebe’s and Ngugi’s painful experiences, together with the instability their countries have been long suffering from, are evident in their works. Like Edward Said's discourse in

Orientalism, Achebe and Ngugi believe that the consequences of colonialism are still

persisting in the form of chaos, coups, corruption, civil wars, bloodshed, and dictatorship. This has, in fact, been the situation in colonial and postcolonial Africa, of which Nigeria and Kenya are striking examples. Such conditions are common themes in Achebe's and Ngugi's works. Like other postcolonial writers, they try to show how cultures, histories, and languages of the natives have been not only ignored but also distorted by the colonialists in their pursuit to dominate these peoples and exploit their wealth in the name of enlightening, civilizing, and even humanizing them.

For Achebe and Ngugi, as for other African writers, it was high time that they write their own history and reflect their own culture; it was time, as Bill Ashcroft entitles his remarkable book, that the empire writes back; it was time, to use Gayatri Spivak’s words, that the “subaltern speak”. Distorting Africa and stereotyping Africans in Western texts such as Joyce Cary's Mr. Johnson and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness have provoked

Achebe to say that "the story we had to tell could not be told for us by anyone else, no matter how gifted or well-intentioned" (qtd in Tonkin 1). In his essay "An Image of Africa", he reasons that "Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as 'the other

world', the antithesis of Europe and, therefore, of civilization" (1043). After criticizing how Conrad describes Africans as 'rudimentary souls', he furiously attacks what he calls Conrad's "dehumanization of Africa and Africans" (1048). Likewise, in Postcolonial literatures, Michael Parker and Roger Starkey quote Ngugi criticizing the African figure in

the Western discourse, saying that “great tradition of European literature [ which] had invented and even defined the world view of the Calibans and the Fridays of the new literature were telling their story which was also my story” (9).

Despite all these strikingly common points in Achebe's and Ngugi's views and themes, reflected in their literary works, still one important difference should be mentioned, namely their view towards the use of English by postcolonial writers. While Achebe's works are all written in English, Ngugi has quit it and moved to write in Gikuyu, his indigenous tongue. Ngugi argues that writing in African languages is a necessary step toward cultural identity and independence from centuries of European exploitation. In his Article, “The Language of African Literature”, he asserts that language has always been a tool of colonization, where the lives of Africans were more firmly put in the control of the colonists, thus his assurance that African literatures could only survive if they were written in native African languages. He says, “The bullet was the means of the physical subjugation. Language was the means of spiritual subjugation” (519). Achebe, on the other hand, disagrees, saying in a talk at West Chester University published in Global Literacy Project "It doesn't matter what language you write in, as long as what you write

is good." He adds that "language is a weapon, and we use it… There's no point in fighting a language” (2).

Nevertheless, believing in the importance of the role of literature and of the narratives in uncovering the truth, both present the tribal African societies from within, with their own strengths and weaknesses, agreements and disagreements, and positive and negative values, just like other society, unlike the stereotypical image given to Africans in the Western discourse. Besides, in their attempt to raise awareness of the oppression and humiliation that the Africans suffered from on the hands of the white man, Achebe and Ngugi describe the clash between African and the European traditions, values and religions. In addition, their works depict the corruption of oppressive post-colonial regimes, which reflects the writers' belief that the independence African countries are supposed to have won is totally devoid of any content, and that the white colonialists are still in power through a few black representatives.

In Things Fall Apart, Achebe depicts the culture of the Umuofian society before

colonialism, showing that the Ibos had their own system where, according to Jago Morrison in The Fiction of Chinua Achebe, "decision making centers around the

democratic consultation of elders, and power is exercised with detailed regard for the peace and equilibrium of the community as a whole" (20). In other words, the Igbos had their moral and ethical principles on which their society was based. When a member of the clan violates these principles, he is punished no matter how powerful he is. The protagonist, Okonkwo, for example, is penalized when he beats his wife on the sacred Week of Peace, and he has to make some sacrifices to show repentance. And when he accidentally kills a young man, he is deprived of his property and exiled for seven years. Again Achebe's point here is that African societies weren't those primitive cannibals as they appear in Western texts. In her "The Tragic Conflict in Achebe's novels", Abiola Irele asserts that "Achebe presents the society as one that has positive qualities of its own. The coherence and order that make social life one long ceremonial, the intense warmth of personal relationships and the passionate energy of the religious life, all these reveal the other side of the coin" (171). Inclusion of ceremonial dancing, folk songs, story telling,

Ibo proverbs, vocabulary and sayings all "serve as a reminder of cultural distinctness and integrity of the community being described" (Morrison, 21). In the first chapter of Things Fall Apart, for example, we read, "Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very

highly, and proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten" (6)

This society has its weaknesses too. With no room for feminine characteristics in a patriarchal community, we see through Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, how some practices are unconvincing and brutal: the newborn twins are left in the forest to die alone; those who do not live up to the established standards, like Okonkwo's father, die in disgrace; and Ikemefuna, the boy raised and loved by Okonkwo, has to be killed according to the Oracle. Even Obierika, the wise man, is skeptical of some Igbo practices.

This definitely reflects a main theme of Achebe's, which is the clash between the traditional African society and the Christian imperialism of Britain. Unlike Western discourse, in Things Fall Apart, even the white characters are not stereotyped. While Mr.

Brown, the missionary leader criticizes the Igbo religions, he does that moderately and does not allow his followers to antagonize the clan. On the other hand, Reverend James Smith, who succeeds Mr. Brown, is so strict and intolerant that Enoch, a converter, dares to unmask an egwugwu during a religious ceremony, an infuriating act that is equivalent to killing a spirit. The villagers are told that their gods are false, so violence breaks out between the African clans and the white missionaries, resulting in Village Abame being destroyed, and the leaders of Umuofia insulted and imprisoned by the Whites. Unable to accept such humiliation, Okonkwo kills a white messenger, but being let down by his clansmen, he hangs himself, in an end not unlike his father's, a disreputed one. The title of the book that the British District Commissioner is writing according to the novel, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger, ironically summarizes the Whites'

view towards the Africans. In their attempt to dominate the Africans, they are indifferent about their lives or about their culture. Okonkwo’s death, for the commissioner, does not even deserve a chapter in his book, though it “would make interesting reading” (Things Fall Apart 187). Parker and Starkey see that "the novel insists that the Igbos have a story.

This needs to be insisted on, for in the District Commissioner's eyes Okonkwo has no narrative of his own” (41).

It can be clearly seen that Nwoye's conversion and Okonkwo's death in addition to other incidents are symbols of the falling apart of the old order, which cannot stand firm in the face of the powerful colonialists. In response to portrayal of Africans in Conrad's

Heart of Darkness, says Patsy Daniels in The Voice of the Oppressed in the Language of the Oppressor, "Achebe was especially offended by the lack of speech, the lack of voice,

of Conrad’s African characters” (68), thus his project to correct this situation by speaking up for Africans, by giving voice to the voiceless and showing the humanity of the dehumanized. Daniels concludes that “Achebe had to use the platform of imperialist literature in order to revise the history of Africans as written in literature in English” (4).

Like Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God explores the intersections of Igbo and

European traditions, shedding more light on the catastrophic results of this confrontation on African societies. The novel fictionalizes a true story that did happen in Colonial Nigeria

"in the village of Umuchu in 1913 [ where] the chief priest of that village, Ezegu, was imprisoned by the colonial administration for refusing to take on the role of Warrant chief" (Morrison, 102). Set in the village of Umuaro in the Igbo land in the 1920s, when British colonization was well underway, the novel tells the story of Ezeulu, a chief priest of Ulu, who fails to stop war against a nearby village. This war makes their society vulnerable enough to be dominated by the British, who stop the war and break all the guns in both villages. Although Ezeulu is not as reckless as Okonkwo, he is trapped and crushed by the intervention of the British officers and Christian missionaries.

Like in Thing Fall Apart, Achebe insists on depicting the well-established

socio-economic and religious order in Umuaro long before the British arrival. For a century, the villages there have organized different aspects of their lives, starting from religious offers and rituals, to the agriculture calendar of the community, and not ending with matters of security. Morrison sees that "Within the political and religious structure of Umuaro, Ezeulu's power is importantly held in check by the council of elders" (103), which shows that "Achebe's fiction seems keen to establish the democratic credentials of the Ibo, especially by contrast to colonialism's autocratic tendencies" (102). However, no matter how well-established this system is, it fails to face the power of the British colonialism, and the consequence is inevitable disintegration and destruction, obviously not civilization brought to a group of cannibals. The novel exposes the Westerners’ false claims of a civilizing mission by showing their disrespect of the African elders and their religions. In short, both novels try to show that the triumph of the Christian God and the white man has destroyed not only Okonkwo and Ezeulu, but even "forever deviated the course of Umuaro's history" (Irele, 177) and, consequently, the continent's history.

Another significant theme in Achebe's works is corruption and oppression of post-colonial regimes. For Achebe, the dictatorial post-colonial regimes were replaced after independence by corrupted governments which continued oppression, repression and persecution in all aspects of life. Achebe explores the plights in postcolonial Nigeria in several novels, the latest of which is Anthills of the Savannah, in which he shows that

Nigeria is still undergoing the consequences of colonialism by tracing the failed leadership and the betrayed hope. In this novel, it is quite clear that Achebe cannot ignore the deaths of three million of his fellow Easterners out of war and famine during and after the Biafra experience. Nor can he turn his back to other catastrophic events across the continent, thus his concern of rewriting the history through narratives "creating a timeless and autonomous version of events [ which] can speak to future generations [ with] new forms of narration that might have the power to liberate us from the circle of our post-colonial moment" (130). In his The Trouble with Nigeria, Achebe comments on the failure

of postcolonial regimes saying on the first page that "the Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility and to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership."

Anthills of the Savannah is set in Kangan, an imaginary African country, where the

President, Sam, or his Excellency, and his boyhood classmates, Chris , the information minister, and Ikem, an independent-minded writer, but still the poet and editor of the

Government Gazette, are supposed to handle the country's affairs after a military coup brings Sam to power. However, instead of leading the country into peace and prosperity, Sam and his regime turn it to a dictatorship. Upon the advice of his commissioner for Home Affairs, Prof. Okong, a devout Christian, and Ikem's antagonism to his despotism, Sam is convinced that Chris and Ikem are Heretics and untrustworthy. As a result of a conspiracy by Sam and his men, both men are turned into outlaws and get killed. However, Achebe leaves a space for hope through Beatrice, Chris's girl friend, who recognizes the real story of Kangan, unlike the stories of the three friends. According to Morrison, the birth of Ikem’s and Elewa’s baby girl "in a period of social unrest through a union between a middle-class male intellectual and an illiterate working class woman suggests the emergent bonding between classes and the unlimited possibilities that a new path opens up” (145).

Like Achebe's early novels, Ngugi’s The River Between depicts the conflict of

cultures and the role of Christianity and English education in the Kenyans' lives. It is similar to Achebe's Things Fall Apart in showing the beginnings of clash between native

Africans and white Europeans. Unlike Achebe, however, Ngugi does not go back to depict the Gikuyu life and traditions before the arrival of colonialists. He does that indirectly through the contrast between both cultures.

The story takes place in two mountain ridges, where a Kenyan tribe lives on each, separated by the Honia River, which means cure, or bring-back-to life, a river which Edward Said sees as totally different from Conrad's river in Heart of Darkness. He believes

that it "seemed to possess a strong will to live, scorning drought and weather changes" (Culture and I mperialism 211). The conflict here is internal, between the two tribes rather

than being external, between the colonizers and the colonized. Waiyaki, the novel's protagonist lives on the Kameno ridge, whose inhabitants still stick to cultural traditions, while the inhabitants of the Makuyu ridge have changed and adopted Christianity and British values. Like Achebe's Ezeulu of Arrow of God, Waiyaki's father sends him to "learn

all the wisdom and all the secrets of the white man. But do not follow his vices. Be true to your people and the ancient rites" (qtd in Gikandi17). Waiyaki’s belief that education will unite his people is opposed by those who want direct action against the other tribe. Like several of Achebe's characters, or perhaps like Achebe and Ngugi themselves, Waiyaki is stuck in the middle of two different cultures. His books, finally, seem unable to face either culture, and his education fails to solve the problem. The novel makes it clear that before the white man's arrival, peace had been prevalent in the region. In Ngugi Wa Thiong’o: An Exploration of His Writings, David Cook sees that the two villages "were in relative

social harmony before being affected by alien religion and colonial politics" (29).

Again like Achebe, Ngugi doesn't idealize the African society. On the contrary, he, too, shows that without internal weakness, traditional values wouldn't have given way and succumbed to the exigencies of colonialism. In The River Between, traditional culture has

its flaws, mainly circumcision of girls. Ngugi criticizes this custom, but at the same time attacks the Christian's attitude towards it, considering that Christian missionaries condemn the act only because it acknowledges female sexuality, a point which makes

sense at a time when Europe was associated with masculinity juxtaposed against femininity of the "Other", who is here, the African.

In Weep Not, Child, Ngugi shifts the light to the direct conflict between the

colonizers and the colonized when white settlers, in cooperation with the wealthy Blacks, have already taken the native's land, and when nationalist awareness has been formed against oppression and humiliation. Through Njoroge, a young boy, and his family, Ngugi dwells on a variety of conflicts: political, cultural, religious, and class struggle. Njoroge’s high hopes for further education are crushed between his idealistic dreams to help his family and country through learning and the violent reality of the colonial exploitation. The violent resistance of the Mau Mau rebels against the British domination in Kenya and the government's repression of this resistance not only shatter Njoroge's plans to attend university but also destroy his family. His father and brother, Boro, are killed by the Regime, and Kamau, another brother is imprisoned for life. As a third brother had been killed in World War II, Njoroge remains alone with his mother and stepmother, a situation which means that all his dreams have come to an end, thus feeling depressed for being unable to offer any help to his family or country.

Like Okonkwo's family, Njoroge's family likes to sit together and tell stories, an emphasis on the importance of African oral tradition. One of these stories is a folktale on how God created Gikuyu and his woman Mumbi, and offered them the most beautiful land. But this land was taken from them by the white man. During a strike, Kiarie explains how this happened saying, "Later, our fathers were taken captives in the first Big War to help in a war whose cause they never knew. And when they came back? Their land had been taken away for a settlement of the white soldiers" (Weep 65) Not unlike Achebe’s novels, Ngugi's Weep Not, Child shows the destructive role of Christianity on indigenous

people. Kiarie, an activist, told the people on strike “how the land had been taken away, through the Bible and the sword. The Bible paved the way for the sword” (65).

Petals of Blood, Ngugi's last novel in English, reflects Ngugi's change from

portraying the colonial era to focusing on exploitation and corruption in present-day Kenya. Like Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah, yet more furiously and from a leftist point

of view, Petals of Blood addresses contemporary social, moral, and political deterioration

in urbanized Kenya, together with the indifference and oppression of its regime. The story takes place in the small remote village of Ilmorog, where each of the four main characters have arrived in an attempt to escape the ills of the city, the ills which have afflicted Kenya after independence. Ngugi paints a harsh picture of life in the neo-colonial period, or more accurately after what Frantz Fanon calls "the farce of national independence" (qtd in Boehmer 237). The novel harshly condemns the ruling elites who, mired in corruption and hypocrisy, exploit the country's workers and peasants through rotten religious, political, educational, and financial institutions. Cook summarizes the novel as an exposition “of the nature of capitalism, of the insensitivity, callousness and insatiable ambition of those who control vested interests in order to gain power and wealth, impoverishing the unprivileged, imposing misery and suffering upon the majority” (87).

The village which was once a thriving commercial center has been turned dead “in the process dispossessing and making destitute its inhabitants” (Cook 89). It is evident that the harmonious relationship between its people and nature in the pre-colonial past explains its previous prosperity. However, as Gikandi contends, "The peasants' impoverishment in both the colonial and postcolonial economy could come to be represented in terms of the drought and the images of death associated with it" (135). Even when the village is transformed into another metropolitan center, it is not at all a kind of resurrection. It is merely false economic boom, as the village no more belongs to its people; it belongs to the greedy capitalists, instead. The destruction of the Mwathi's place is a clear symbol of heading towards mere materialistic values and vice, or, as Gikandi puts it, "the old community is destroyed by the more advanced forces of industrial capitalism" (145).

In short, Petals of Blood depicts how those who are supposed to lead Kenya to

real independence and true freedom have become the cause of its woes. According to Gikandi, the main characters, Munira, Karega, Wanja, and Abdulla "are defined by their acute awareness of the gap between the promise of independence and the travesty of colonialism" (137). Ngugi refers to Gikuyu culture and the lost traditional Kenya in a kind of nostalgia to a beautiful romantic past, a past that has been crushed by the forces of colonialism and postcolonialism.

To summarize, in an attempt to rewrite the history of their countries, which has long been suppressed by European missionaries and colonialists, Achebe and Ngugi believe that before colonization, the Africans lived peacefully, having their own clashes, but living their daily life on their own land. When the whites came, things changed. Not only did family relations worsen and did people experience much harm but even the course of their history was deviated, and forever. The powerless natives couldn't but succumb to the powerful Europeans and suffer from what Frantz Fanon calls the psychological and sociological consequences of colonization (qtd in Ashcroft 124). Both writers dwell on the colonial and postcolonial situation in Africa, exposing colonization as being responsible for introducing a feeling of rootlessness among Africans, or to use Fanon's words, a kind of "cultural genocide". Both Achebe and Ngugi participate in what Ashcroft calls the process of literary decolonization, which "has involved a radical dismantling of the European codes and post-colonial subversion and appropriation of the dominant European discourses" (195). In a word, in their attempt to restore a lost identity, Achebe’s and Ngugi’s works are striking examples of a new discourse, a discourse which writes the history and culture of subordinate peoples from within, a discourse of decolonization, of opposition and resistance, against the political and cultural hegemony of the West.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Ed. Brydon. Vol. III. 1042-1054.

--- Anthills of the Savannah. New York: Doubleday Anchor,1988. --- Arrow of God. London: Heinemann, 1964.

--- “Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Chinua Achebe on the politics of Language and Literature in Africa.” Global Literacy Project. Dec. 16, 2008 < ww.glpinc.org/ classroom> . --- No Longer at Ease. London: Heinemann, 1960.

--- The Trouble with Nigeria. London: Heinemann, 1984. --- Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann, 1965.

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Fiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London and New York: Routledge, 1989.

Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. USA: Oxford University Press,

1995.

Brydon, Diana ed. And introduction. Postcolonialism: Critical Concepts in Literary

and Cultural Studies. 5 vols. New York: Routledge, 2006

Cook, David. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o: An Exploration of His Writings. 2nd. ed. Oxford:

James Curry Ltd., 1997.

Daniels, Patsy J. The Voice of the oppressed in the Language of the Oppressor. Ed.

William E. Cain. Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory: Outstanding Dissertations. New

York: Routledge, 2001.

Duke, Lynne. The Washington Post. Sept. 17, 2006. D O1. Sept. 15, 2008.

< washingtonpost.com> .

Ezenwa-Oheto. Chinua Achebe: A Biography. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1997.

Gikandi, Simon. Ngugi wa Thiong’o. England: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Irele, Abiola. “The Tragic Conflict in Achebe’s Novels.” I ntroduction to African Literature. Ed. Ulli Beier. London: Longman Group Limited, 1970, 167-178.

Morrison, Jago. The Fiction of Chinua Achebe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Petals of Blood. London: Heinemann, 1977.

--- “The Language of African Literature”. Ed. Brydon. Vol.II, 514-540.

--- The River Between. London: Heinemann,1965.

--- Weep Not, Child. London: Heinemann, 1967.

Parker, Michael and Roger Starkey. Ed. Postcolonial Literatures: Achebe, Ngugi,

Desai, Walcott. London: Macmillan Press Limited, 1995.

Said, Edward. Culture and I mperialism. New York: Vintage, 1994.

Spivak, Gayatri. "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Ed. Brydon. Vol IV. 1427-1618

Tonkin, Boyd. “Chinua Achebe: the Storyteller”. The I ndependent. June 16, 2007.

Borneo in the Eyes of Joseph Conrad

Suhana binti Sarkaw i, Datu Sanib bin Said,

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia < suhana_sar@yahoo.com.my>

Abstract

The adventure and experience of European sailors in the Malay Archipelago in the 19th century narrated through the eyes of Orientalists had evocated the world of postcolonial literature. Joseph Conrad, a seaman turned a writer had constructed the identity of the native community in the Malay Archipelago region with particular reference to people of Patusan, Borneo. Conrad wrote his ‘Lord Jim’ and ‘Almayer’s Folly’ by reading other writers’ works and a brief encounter with the islands native communities at sea. His perspective about the natives that he read about and saw had become the constructed reality in his works representing the whole the native community. With the content analysis method through the perspective of postcolonial and with the approach of in-depth reading, this paper presents the views of Conrad of native Borneo society, especially the Malays, and how their identity was built in ‘Lord Jim’ and ‘Almayer’s Folly’. Hero characters in the stories had actually lost their integrity in the eyes of their own society.

Keywords: the Others, postcolonial, marginal, superior, identity

Introduction

This paper is to present about two Borneo-based fictions entitled “Almayer’s Folly” (1895) and “Lord Jim” (1899) by Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski ), a Polish-born English novelist who fictionalised account of British side of Borneo through a postcolonial discourse. Almayer’s Folly was written before he left Africa between the autumn 1889 and the end of winter 1894 after his stay in Congo. In this paper I will use LJ as reference to Lord Jim and AF for Almayer’s Folly.

His first novel, AF, had a sentimental touch to Conrad as it was finally completed when his uncle who was also his guardian, Tadeusz Brobowski, suddenly passed away. It portrays Conrad’s traumatic past experience with his family, Poland, Russian colonialism and Belgian Congo.1 _{LJ was at first published in serials in 1899-1900.}2 _{It contains two}

parts of Jim’s exploration to the Eastern waters. First, it tells us about Jim’s life at sea. Second part is where Jim arrives in Patusan and it is to a failed heroism with ends with Jim’s tragic death to redeem his honour.

Conrad used incidents from real life, hearsay and readings to create the environment and reconstruct the characters of his novels. He admitted it in his Notes on Life and Letters:

“Fiction is history, human history, or it is nothing. But it is also more than that; it stands on firmer ground, being based on the reality of forms and the observation of social phenomena, whereas history is based on documents, and the reading of print and handwriting — on second-hand impression. Thus fiction is nearer

1

Allen, Jerry. 1965. The Sea Years of Joseph Conrad. Methen & Co. Ltd. London: xix.

2

Lord Jim. http://www.conradfirst.net/view/periodical?id=35 retrived on 16.10.2012 at 10.00 pm.

truth. But let that pass. A historian may be an artist too, and a novelist is a historian, the preserver, the keeper, the expounder, of human experience.” (Conrad, 1921:17).

His writing was also influenced by other people’s works as noted in The Last Twelve Years of Joseph Conrad as “... over and over again ... Wallace’s Malay Archipelago was his favourite bedside companion.’ (Ridchard Curle, 1928: 120-121). It was also said

that Brookiana and James Brooke’s memoirs, journals and letters in his way of becoming the ruler of a native state had been Conrad’s references to write LJ and AF. He constructed the setting and characters to suit the expectation3 _{of the Victorian readers of}

his time of writing. He also ‘feels no responsibility to remain systematic in a universe itself.: two universes may exist in the same place in the same time.’4 _{Conrad shifted the}

reader’s perspective from seeing the image construction of the natives or the colonised to the identification of the colonisers. It shows the conflict of identity between being the colonised and the coloniser. He wrote about Almayer, a Dutchman, who lived among the natives whom he sees as less superior and less charismatic than him. In AF, Conrad gave the readers the notion that it was Almayer who was not ‘one of them’ (the natives) rather than ‘one of us’ point of view.

AF and LJ were written and shaped not only by Conrad’s psychological side but also his life as a seaman. His contact to the natives was very limited even though his observation was taken into account to the minimum as ‘Conrad’s knowing of the East as a seaman posits a special relationship between himself and the Eastern world which provided his source material” (Sherry, 1966: 6) in his Eastern novels. This makes us ponder: Can Conrad’s three visits to the East and a few months stay in Eastern land experience dictate the whole image of the natives represented in his novel be regarded as the truth? So, in this paperwork we can see how Conrad marginalised the natives in his narratives. The exoticness and bewilderness of the Eastern inhabitants that he built in his writings in “words, groups of words, words standing alone...” present the very thing you wish to hold up before the mental vision of your readers. They are ‘as they are’ exist in words would appeal to his audience imagination and by orientalist writings like in LJ and AF.

AF and LJ show us how the representation of the Malays in Borneo is portrayed in various points of view5_{: Marlow- the narrator, Jim and Almayer- the protagonists and of}

Nina and Jewel- the females who have ‘the voices’ in the novels. The ambivalence feeling has successfully been created upon the completion of reading both fictions. He “did not really know anything about the Malays.”6 _{To Conrad, evil and savageness are equally}

embedded in both the colonised and the colonisers.7 _{Hybridity can be traced in Nina and}

3

Arendt, Hannah. 1973. The Origins of Totalitarianism Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich (New edition). Orlando, USA, p.125.

4

In Garnet, Letters: 143: as cited in Bonney, W. Wesly. 1980. Thorns &Arabesques Contexts for Conrad’s Fiction. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore, p. 5.

5

S. Koon, Wong. “Pertemuan Kolonial dan Strategi-Strategi Naratif di dalam Karya-Karya Conrad dan Clifford”, Jurnal Ilmu Kemanusiaan. Jld/Vol 1. Oktober 1994, p. 31.

6

Ibid., p. 31.

7

Jewel but the Others’ traits in them win as opposed to the European traits8 _{to be}

discussed in the next section of this paper.

The Malays: a construction of identity

Who are the Malays as one of the Borneo natives through Conrad’s eyes? To enable us to see the construction of the Malay identity in his fictions, comparison between what had been written by cultural researchers and travellers to Borneo and The Malay Archipelagoes in their books and memoirs. The writings of Tom Pires, Baring-Gould, Brookes, Spenser St John, Swettenham, Hugh Low, and many others give us the insight of Malays and its society mirroring who and how the Malays were during their times of observation and travel. Their writings have generally been acknowledged as pioneering and important contributors to Malay cultural and historical studies. Shahruddin Maaruf (2002) noted that “...colonial writings on the Malays. They had left us valuable descriptions of culture and institutions of pre-colonial days to be sure for contemporary researches. We would be poorer academically or intellectually speaking without the records left behind by the colonials. In all objectivity, we can even say that they left us more records of the pre-colonial culture and society than the indigenous elite themselves.”9 _{Perhaps referring to this statement, Conrad wanted to prove that what the}

travelers had documented was true so Conrad imposed the idea of women in being less respected and therefore silenced (AF, Chapter VII:45) in his Eastern writings. In the general views of the Malay-Muslims, women are highly respected and their pride is protected from the evil men’s intentions. Limiting their contacts with the males and non-mahram10 _{is the sign of honour and preservation of dignity.}

Baring Gould states that [ t]he Malay has been very variously judged. The Malay Pangiran, or noble, was rapacious, cruel, and often cowardly. But he had a grace of manner, a courtesy, and hospitality that were pleasing as a varnish. The evil repute that the Malay has acquired has been due to his possession of power, and to his unscrupulous use of it to oppress the aboriginal races. But the Malay out of power is by no means an objectionable character11_{. In LJ and AF, the Malays make up most of the characters, some}

Arabs and some mentions of Chinese. He did not quite really give the Malays and natives characters names as a symbol of respect. He would just call them ‘half-castes’ (AF, Chapter 1:7) (LJ, Chapter2:9), ‘savage’ (AF, Chapter II:11) (LJ, 41:224), ‘savage-looking Sumatrane’ (AF, Chapter IV:25) or merely mentioned the physical characteristic that he can see and relate it to the persons. Everytime he sees and encounters a Malay, he will describe the Malay’s from the European’s standard. He describes and ridicules the person as a physically and mentally immoral being as low as he could put into words. (AF,

8

Ibid., p. 37.

9

Maaruf, Shaharuddin. 2002. Possibilities for Alternative Discourses in Southeast Asia: Ideology and the Caricature of Culture, Singapore: National University of Singapore, pp. 4-5.

10

Non-mahram

means a legible partner to be married with.

11

Baring-Gould, S., & Bampfylde, C. A. 1909. A History of Sarawak under its Two White Rajahs, 1839-1908. London: H. Sotheran & Co., p. 28.

Chapter 1:6) For example, Conrad through a European labels the Malay pilgrims onboard Patna as “cattle,' said the German skipper to his new chief mate” (LJ, Chapter 1: 10) and also when he speaks about the passengers in Patna, the pilgrims to Mecca by relating them with "She was full of reptiles." (LJ, Chapter 5: 30)

But in in History of Sarawak (Baring, 1909), a different view from the Ranee of Sarawak was cited about the characteristic of the Malays of Sarawak as opposed to Conrad’s constructed image of the Malays.

Indeed her [Ranee of Sarawak] presence in Sarawak has always been greatly valued by all, natives and Europeans alike. … She was the moving spirit in the promotion of the social and industrial welfare of the women and children, and was always an honoured and welcome guest at the social functions of the Malays, (p.414)

Natives in Patusan, the setting of LJ did not know his abandonment of responsibility in Patna and this had made it rather easy for Jim to poise himself as a superior stranger in a Malay village. They did not aware that his going there to a rural and less known place by a river was an escapism from his guilt and to mend his Eurocentric personality among the less fortunate and troubled native settlement. The presence of Dain Waris and Dain Marolla as brave and intelligent noble Malay men was felt and the impact of losing Dain Waris paved a memorable and tragic ending. The success of Dain Marolla in his homeland satisfies all Almayer’s jealousy’ over his gun power trade in his royal territory.

In AF, Tom Lingard, a European, living in Sambir, Sarawak. After Lingard successfully ‘bribed’ Almayer with future wealth into marrying his adopted daughter of native blood, Lingard left him to pursue more hidden treasures elsewhere. At first, he was reluctant to marry her but after he thought of the treasure that his father in-law promised him to inherit, Almayer bitterly agreed with intention to divorce her as soon as he got it. Lingard actually wanted to make an offer to sell his adopted daughter to Almayer like a slave (AF, Chapter 1:8). The daughter was not given a proper personal name! He found her among the corpses if ‘pirates’ after a battle with them in the waters. Lingard assumed that it was his responsibility to raise this savage child as her pirate’s family was killed by him. Unfortunately, the adopted child viewed the act as a kidnap and imprisonment.

She was treated badly by Lingard (AF, Chapter 2:13). Maybe to get rid of her for a certain mission of fortune in another place, he discussed with Almayer and convinced him to marry her. He promised Almayer his treasures will be Almayer’s if he agrees on the arranged marriage (AF, Chapter 1:8). AF and LJ show us how the representation of the Malays in Borneo is portrayed in various points of view12_{: Marlow- the narrator, Jim}

and Almayer- the protagonists and of Nina and Jewel- the females who have ‘the voices’ in the novels. The ambivalence feeling has successfully been created upon the completion

12

of reading both fictions. He “did not really know anything about the Malays.”13 _{To Conrad,}

evil and savageness are equally embedded in both the colonised and the colonisers.14

Hybridity can be traced in Nina and Jewel but the Others’ traits in them win as opposed to the European traits.15

Spenser St John16 said the Malays are found on the whole to be very truthful, faithful to their relatives and devotedly attached to their children. Remarkably free from crime and when they commit them it generally about jealousy, Brave when they well led, they inspire confidence in their commanders; highly sensetive to dishonour, and tenacious as to the conduct of their countrymen towards them, remarkably polite in their manners, they render agreeable all inter-course with them. Malays are greatly accused of great idleness; in one sense they deserve it; they do not like continous work, but they do enough to support themselves and families in comfort, and real poverty is unknown among them. No relative is abandoned because he is poor, or because an injury or an illness may have incapicitated him for work. I like the Malays, although I must allow that I become weary of having only them with whom to assosiate17_{. In my opinion, the}

Europeans sailing and expedition are viewed as exploration and holy mission to civilise the Eastern inhabitants however if the Malays do the same, venturing and exploring new routes or territories, they are viewed as ‘lanun’ or ‘pirates’. Jim, too, become quite lofty in Patusan. He impresses the natives and tries to do things ‘for the people’s good’ and gains himself a ‘Lordship’ (LJ, Chapter 1: 4). Jim is trapped in his new world in the process to cover his guilt over unwise decision on Patna. He is there in the mercy of the native leader, Doramin. (LJ, Chapter 23: 137)

After a visit to Santubong, Sarawak in 1885, Alfred Russel Wallace agreed that ‘in the character, the Malay is impassive. He exhibits a reserve, diffidence, and even bashfulness, which some degree attractive and leads to think that the ferocious and bloodthristy character imputed to the race must be exaggerated18 _{(Chapter 40:442).}

Conrad condemns Doramin, his ally in Patusan as well as his former captor, Rajah Allang.

This is where I was prisoner for three days," he murmured to me (it was on the occasion of our visit to the Rajah), while we were making our way slowly through a kind of awestruck riot of dependants across Tunku Allang's courtyard. "Filthy place, isn't it? And I couldn't get anything to eat either, unless I made a row about it, and then it was only a small plate of rice and a fried fish not much bigger than a stickleback--confound them! … .. Some poor villagers had been waylaid and robbed while on their way to Doramin's house with a few pieces of gum or beeswax which they wished to exchange for rice. "It was Doramin who was a thief," burst out the Rajah Allang. (LJ, Chapter25:146)

13

Ibid., p. 31.

14

Ibid., p. 38.

15

Ibid., p. 37.

16

St. John, Spenser. 1862. Life in the forests of the Far East. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, as cited in G, Baring & C. A. Bampfylde. 1909. History of Sarawak. London: Henry Southen Co., p. 29.

17

St. John, Spenser, op. cit.

18

He detests the ways the natives bow and enslave themselves to Doramin. If Doramin were an evil person, the Patusanis may have rebelled and joined Rajah Allang side.

He [ Doramin] was the chief of the second power in Patusan. … intelligent, enterprising, revengeful, but with a more frank courage than the other Malays, and restless under oppression. They formed the party opposed to the Rajah. (LJ, Chapter 26 : 150)

Conrads portrays Jim as a hero through Marlow’s narration. The natives then acknowledged the wisdom and guidance from this foreign man who is not ‘one of them’ so truthfully abide his advise not to charge the white pirates by the name of Gentleman Brown who secretly makes a plot to attack Dain Waris camp that causes his life and later Jim’s.

I know that Brown hated Jim at first sight. Whatever hopes he might have had vanished at once. This was not the man he had expected to see. He hated him for this-- … he cursed in his heart the other's youth and assurance,… (LJ, Chapter 41: 222)

Conrad placed ‘Jim’ as a pure and accessible. Marlow and Jim narrate to ‘us’ what are they doing, thinking and feeling. This ‘Jim’ must go through the dirt, stench, and mud-stained natives to regain the honour after the Patna Affair19 _{(LJ: Chapter 13: 89). Dain}

Waris is the only son of Doramin, the leader of Patusan (LF: Chapter 26:152). Jim is betrayed not by natives but his fellow Europeans, namely Cornelius and Gentleman Brown. He lets Brown passes through Patusan as an act of being a gentleman to a person who knows his secret. He regards Brown as one of his (kind) and this unwise decision makes him lose his sidekick, Dain Waris in the hands of Brown’s band.

Tamb' Itam, disordered, panting, with trembling lips and wild eyes, stood for a time before her as if a sudden spell had been laid on him. Then he broke out very quickly: "They have killed Dain Waris and many more. (LJ, Chapter 45: 23)

However, in order to show that he is an honourable white man, he had to choose whether to run for his life as asked by his mistress, a half-bred Jewel or to face the music (LJ, Chapter 9:65 ). He had ‘jumped off Patna’ once and had been feeling so guilty about it so he decided to see Doramin and die as a noble man

Eight hundred living people, and they were yelling after the one dead man to come down and be saved. 'Jump, George! Jump! Oh, jump!' (LJ: Chapter 9: 64)

In my observations, ‘Where there are seas and rivers, there will be Malays’. They look for food just enough to be consumed by their families and if there is extra, they will

19

A ship carrying 800 Muslim Pilgrims to Mecca that Jim and the crew abandoned out of fear it may sank. He went to a public Inquiry for it and was discharged from all his seafaring position before he went to Patusan.

give it away as sedekah20 _{to their neighbours or relatives and rarely for them to sell it.}

They like to work by themselves and at their own convenient time. By this, they are not under anybody’s order. This way of life did not agree to what the coloniser wanted them to become. Working freely and not governed by the rules of the coloniser had cause them to be seen as living their lives as pirates – not complying to the Western standards. In a way, I personally feel think the colonisers have the oppurtunity to interfere with the Malays’ world to ‘save’ them from committing uncivilised act.

Anthony Milner (2011) says being Malay means “...different things in different places, and at different times,”21 _{and that Malay identity has “...entailed a fusion of}

Western notion of ethnicity and older, local ‘Malay’ concepts of community.”22 _{In other}

words, the formulation of Malay identity is a construct that is based on the changing circumstances surrounding the Malay communities, and that there are differences in the meaning of Malay identity in the different communities identified as Malay. Within this tradition are also those studies which assert that Malay as a group does not exist, and that Malay identity is not based on the group’s inherent cultural values and traditions, and that Malay identity is a construct of the British colonialists. These some how gave them the green light to civilise and modernise the ‘savage’ society. We can see in AF, Chapter II, 16: “You can’t make her white. It’s no use you swearing at me. You can’t. She is a good girl for all that.”

MacIntyre (1967:71) states that the colonial reports emphasise the inordinate influence of colonial ideologies and the element of ‘racial superiority’ that as a whole represents how the Western generally perceived the indigenous world. Jim came to Patusan when the village was in the middle of a conflict with the aristocrats in powers. The village was caught in the power struggle between Raja Allang and Doramin. Let me show some contradicting notes describing the Malays.

Generally, it is assumed that Conrad felt guilty of his betrayal to Poland and his writings in English Language. Reading his writings can make us feel confused of in what position actually Conrad was.23 _{He was seen as ambivalent towards the subject of his}

writings – the Malays. The Malays are stereotyped like the way the blacks are seen by the Victorian society. His portrayal of the Malays as dependent and indecisive thus they need to have a leader out from their circle from a greater knowledge and civilisation to rule. As the Malays are traditionally benevolent and loyal to their ruler, they empower the new leader from the West as seen in Lord Jim. In order to remain in the powerful alliance

20

A gift to (usually) less fortunate as a token of charity or goodwill, hoping to be blessed and may be receiving helps in the future if they are bound to any shortcomings.

21

Milner looked at different communities where the term Malay had been used to identify the communities, for example, Malays of Patani (South Thailand), Malays in Eastern Sumatra, Malays in Northeast Sumatra or Riau regions and Malays on the Peninsula. Anthony Milner, 2008. The Malays. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publication.

22

Ibid., p. xi.

23

Bignami, Marialuisa. 1987. “Joseph Conrad, The Malay Archipelago, and the Decent Hero”,

when chaos struck their village, the Malays followed and respected the ‘white stranger’ whom their leader befriended. To endorse their acceptance of him, he was given a ‘Lordship’ title ‘Tuan Jim’ or ‘Lord Jim’. (LJ, Chapter 1:5)

In Lord Jim, Marlow24 _{reported to the Court of Inquiry}25 _{about his amazement}

regarding the attitude of the two Malay helmsmen. He said that “They were amongst the natives of all sorts brought over from Aden to give evidence at the inquiry. One of them... was very young, ... smooth... yellow,... looked younger” (LJ, Chapter 9:58). The image of youthfulness here suggests immaturity and inferior intelligence of these witnesses. Marlow added that the only contribution of the Malays witnesses of the Patna incident was by saying “nothing” and “thought of nothing” (LJ, Chapter 9:58).

Marlow met Jim at the Inquiry. He introduced him to Stein26 _{and brought him to}

Patusan (LJ, Chapter 19:117). Starting from here, we can see how Conrad described more on the characteristics of the Malays or some time the natives of Patusan and their surrondings. Jim described “Doramin and his little motherly witch of a wife, gazing together upon the land and nursing secretly their dreams of parental ambition; Tunku Allang, wizened and greatly perplexed; Dain Waris, intelligent and brave, with his faith in Jim, with his firm glance and his ironic friendliness; the girl, absorbed in her frightened, suspicious adoration; Tamb' Itam, surly and faithful; .. (LJ, Chapter 35:193 ) and “Patusan establishment, ... four corner-posts of hardwood leaned sadly at different angles: the principal storeroom... oblong hut, built of mud and clay; it had at one end a wide door of stout planking, which so far had not come off the hinges, and in one of the side walls there was a square aperture, a sort of window, with three wooden bars”. (LJ, Chapter 31:174)

The Europeans’ mission to the Patusan and Sambir through Conrad’s Malay Fictions affirms the white man’s burden27. It is the ‘burden’ that they have to carry everywhere the Europeans set their feet on as a symbol if responsiblity and noblity. Almayer hopes that Sambir to be taken over by the British, because to him, it shall be the Europeans “who knew how to develop a rich country.” (AF, Chapter V:28). The philoshofical messege behind ‘The White Man Burden’28 _{is showed in:}

24

A narrator and a character in Lord Jim.

25

A public Inquiry was held to investigate the Patna Affair in which the ship white officials including Jim had abandoned at sea. This ship was in her passage to Mecca to send in about 800 Bugis Muslim pilgrims and commanded by a German. They reported that the ship had sank in the ocean but it was discovered later and towed safely, so an inquiry was initiated.

26

A German adventurer and a businessman who helped Jim to get a job in Patusan.

27

The supposed duty of the White race to bring education and Western culture to the non-White inhabitants of their colonies. Collins English Dictionary. 2003. HarperCollins Publishers.

28

A rhetorical argument to justify the needs of the white men to colonise and rule the Others and their nation for the benefit of those seen as ‘uncivilised’ and ‘immoral’ in their standard even though, the colonisers do not need to possess the quality that they want to commission unto the ‘savages’ or ‘the Others’. It consists of Eurocentric racism and of Western aspirations to dominate the eastern world.

“This bunch of miserable hovels was the fishing village that boasted of the white lord's especial protection, and the two men crossing over were the old headman and his son-in-law. ...confidently. The Rajah's people would not leave them alone; there had been some trouble about a lot of turtles' eggs.” (Lord Jim: Chapter 35)

Conrad portrayed the natives as troublemakers out of a small issue and these ‘savages’ like to complain to their superiors. He showed that these natives needed guidance and continuous monitoring in order to do things within the law. The descriptions on the Malay characters in Lord Jim are juxtaposed. Conrad did not want to give much credit to the positive image to his Malay characters. Phrases like ‘motherly witch’ and ‘ironic friendliness’ show his recluctance to admit the good traits possessed by the Others.

In Christopher29 _{explores the point of view of the colonizer through the works of a}

few Victorian writers such as Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling. The portion reveals the injustices of the colonizers that are the roots of the traumatic experiences of the colonized (Jerry Ellen:238). Lane recalls the questions of Joseph Conrad as to why the colonizers set off to colonize in the first place. Most importantly, he recalls Conrad’s question as to what the colonizers desired from their colonies, and “why their unsuccessful search for internal safety and redemption often turns this wanting into a rigid demand” (p.404)30_.

The answers to these questions are somewhat explored in the article. The unenviable experiences of the colonized natives are thus depicted. Lingard and Almayer are both cunning characters and we can obviously see that in the novel.

Conclusion

As Bignami said that ‘Conrad never really stated his attitude to the British Empire,’31 the way he drew up the images of natives and colonialists was different in both novels and we can sense the duality in the novelist’ psychological mind. In Almayer’s Folly, the European dies as an opium-addict and a failed trader (AF, Chapter IV:24). He was unable to keep up with the dynamic characters like the Arabs who succeeded in their business; Dain Marolla, a charismatic leader of a royal blood; Nina, his half-bred and Westernised daughter who left him for a Malay; and betrayed by his ‘savage’ wife (AF: Chapter XII: 53). AF, in a larger scale, a certain extend sympathises the natives and gives the winning to the Others.

In Lord Jim, the natives are portrayed to be more idyllic and blindly obedient. The helmsmen of Patna, when they were asked during the Inquiry trial just doing their work as usual even though the ship was likely going to sink ‘they thought of nothing’. The same response was seen during the Patna affair itself whereby the pilgrims did not rebel or yell at the ship officials as they jumped off the ship and abandoned them (LJ, Chapter 14:

29

Lane, C. ‘Almayer’s Defeat: The Trauma of Colonialism in Conrad’s Early Work’, Novel: A Forum on Fiction 32, Vol. 3 (Summer 1999), pp. 401-28.

30

Joseph Conrad. http://www.nines.org/print_exhibit/385 retrieved on 11 October 2012, 6.50 pm.

1. Cinta Tuhan dan Segenap CiptaanNya

Dalam Serat Wulang Putri terdapat ajaran yeng menyebutkan agar seseorang memiliki rasa cinta kepada ciptaan Tuhan dan segenap ciptaanNya. Hal itu sesuai dengan kutipan berikut ini.

Wasita mring putraningsun/ gandrungasira ningali/ lalakon kang molah saka/ kaki kinira Hyang Widi/ muga putrining naréndra/ pra waya nalongsèng Widi/ (Serat Wulang Putri b. 9-10)

Supaya wasipta hayu/ yuwanèng manuku manis/ ywa ngênês dulu kahanan/

lalakon dunya puniki/ mung kudu sumanggêng karya/ karsa karsaning Hyang

Widi/

Terjemahan:

Nasehat terhadap anak-anakku/ Senanglah engkau mengetahui/ Kejadian yang berasal dari/ Engkau kira dari Tuhan/ Semoga anak Raja/ Pasrah terhadap takdir Tuhan/

Agar dapat selamat/ Selamat menemui kenikmatan/ Jangan sedih melihat kehidupan/ Kejadian di dunia ini/ Hanya harus mengikuti/ Mau seperti yang diinginkan Tuhan/

Petikan tersebut menyiratkan bahwa semua kejadian berasal dari Tuhan. Oleh karena itu manusia harus pasrah terhadap takdir Tuhan. Piwulang dalam teks tersebut menyerukan agar manusia cinta Tuhan. Dengan meletakkan cinta kepada Tuhan maka hidup terasa menjadi nikmat dan manusia juga akan mencintai ciptaan Tuhan.

2. Kemandirian dan Tanggung Jaw ab

Serat Wulang Putri tulisan Nyai Tumenggung Adisara ini dimungkinkan merupakan

serat yang idenya merupakan ide dari Paku Buwana IX. Dalam teks dituliskan ajaran agar manusia hidup dapat mandiri seperti yang dilakukan oleh Paku Buwana IX ketika permaisuri wafat dengan meninggalkan putra dan putrinya. Pesan tersebut terdapat pada kutipan teks berikut ini:

Tumimbula rêningsun garwa padêmi/ tégatêmên sira/ aninggal rakaniraji/ tujuné manira bisa

Amana murnyandhak kalam gandrung nganggit/ kata wasit kama/ tumrap mring

putrèngsun putri/ dhuh nggèr para putriningwang (Serat Wulang Putri, b. 24-25)

Terjemahan:

Muncullah dalam anganku tentang istriku/ tega sekali engkau/ meninggalkan suamimu sendirian/ untunglah aku bisa

Lalu mengambil alat untuk menulis/ untuk menggantikan rindu yang mendalam/ tulisan untuk anak anakku perempuan/ dhuh anakku-anakku perempuan

Dalam teks tersebut tersirat pesan agar tidak menjadi lemah atau patah semangat ketika ditinggal orang yang dicintai, gunakan waktu untuk mengisi kegiatan yang positif.

3. Waspada, Teliti dan Hati hati

Waspada, teliti dan hati hati merupakan karakter yang dituntut dari seorang putri. Dengan ketelitian maka segala sesuatu bisa dipertimbangkan dengan masak-masak. Segala sesuatu yang dilakukan dengan terburu-buru akan menyebabkan hasil tidak maksimal dan banyak kekurangannya. Dalam pikiran orang yang selalu terburu buru adalah untuk menyingkat waktu. Sesungguhnya hal itu justru boros waktu, disebabkan bila hasilnya tidak baik maka pekerjaan akan diulangi lagi. Adapun karakter teliti yang dimaksud dalam teks Wulang Putri adalah sebagai berikut:

Nini putri putraningsun/ marmanira sira sami/ krêjêting duga watara, rasakna dipunsatiti, tata kang têrang, pangroncènirèng pamikir/ kèkêrên aywa kêsusu (Wulang Putri, 5-6)

Terjemahan:

Wahai putri anakku/ semua sebab darimu/ semua hal terkait dengan perkiraan/ pikirlah dengan teliti/ ditata dan diteliti dengan jelas/ dalam berbagai susunan pemikiran/ periksalah jangan terburu buru

Karakter waspada, teliti dan hati-hati merupakan karakter yang bervarian dengan kejujuran. Orang yang mempunyai karakter waspada, teliti dan hati hati maka orang tersebut cenderung sangat mempetimbangkan baik buruk, sehingga muncul watak jujur. Untuk itu karakter tersebut bisa dimasukkan dalam varian karakter kejujuran seperti yang disampaikan oleh Suyanto (2009).

4. Sabar

Karakter sabar merupakan karakter yang banyak disinggung dalam teks-teks

piwulang Jawa. Karakter sabar menjadi kunci terciptanya keharmonian hubungan antar

manusia. Dengan sabar maka semua akan berjalan alamiah tidak bersifat instan atau

nggege mangsa atau membuat semua serba cepat dengan. Memotong proses.

Kesabaran, dalam masyarakat Jawa merupakan hal yang paling utama yang harus dimiliki oleh manusia. Oleh karena itu dalam masyarakat Jawa dikenal ungkapan tradisional sabar

subur artinya orang yang mempunyai karakter sabar maka hidupya akan tenang dan

nyaman. Dalam teks Wulang Putri karakter sabar tersebut terdapat pada kutipan di bawah ini:

Dihadining putri prabu/ utamèng tyas kang pinusthi/ têgêsé utama sabar/ mring ponca bayaning ngati/ tinampan sukur lan lila/ lêgawèng tyas nursing budi (Wulang Putri, 15)

Terjemahan:

Dijadikannya seorang putri raja/ keutamaan dalam hati yang sudah ditakdirkan/ yang utama adalah kesabaran/ terhadap berbagai godaan hati/ diterima dengan rasa sukur dan ikhlas/ keikhlasan dalam hati sampai dengan pikiran.

Berdasarkan cuplikan tersebut tampak bahwa sabar merupakan kunci utama dalam menghadapi persoalan hidup. Dalam menghadapi persoalan hidup perlu keikhlasan dan rasa syukur atas kenikmatan yang telah diterimanya.

5. Berusaha dengan Keikhlasan Lahir Batin

Karakter orang agar mempunyai kekuatan untuk berusaha dengan keikhlasan lahir batin menjadi hal yang penting. Dalam Wulang Putri disampaikan bahwa ketika manusia dicoba oleh Allah SWT maka tidak boleh tenggelam< apapun harus berusaha. Semua yang terjadi diteima dengan tulus dan ikhlas. Berikut ini cuplikan teks Wulang Putri yang mengandung karakter tersebut:

Sumurupa ing laku kawan prêkawis/ dhihin yèn kataman/ budi têmên lan narima. Kang kapindho dhuh anggèr lakuning ati/ yèn kêtaman rundhah, lêgawa lila dèn

kèsthi, kaping tri lakuning jiwa(Wulang Putri, 26-27)

Terjemahan:

Mengetahuilah terhadap perjalanan empat perkara/ yang pertama jika terkena/ dalam coba harus berusaha/ budi yang rajin dan ikhlas

Yang kedua anakku/ perjalanan hati/ jika menyandang kesedihan/ diusahakan ikhlas lahir batin/ ketiga perjalanan jiwa.

Karakter seperti yang dikemukkan di atas bisa dimasukkan pada varian karakter percaya diri dan pekerja keras (Suyanto, 2009).

6. Mampu melakukan Tapa Brata

Serat Wulang Putri adalah sebuah karya yang berisi ajaran untuk anak

perempuan. Terdapat laku yang harus dilakukan oleh seorang perempuan yang mempunyai kedudukan agar menjadi seorang yang dihormati oleh sesama dan berhasil dalam memangku jabatannya. Penulis menginterpretasikan seorang putri raja adalah seorang yang mempunyai kedudukan tinggi. Putri tersebut menjadi putri yang utama bila mampu melakukan laku yang disebut sebagai tapa brata. Jadi pembentukan karakter seorang wanita yang menjadi wanita panutan tidak dengan sendirinya tanpa usaha dan prihatin.

Selanjutnya di bawah ini kutipan teks yang mengandung makna tersebut di atas: Pinangkat putrining prabu/ kang widagda utama/ déné sadayèku nini/ kocap ngarsa linakon mawa sarana

Tapa brata puja mantra/ déné kang dipunwastan/ iya ninitapa brata/ limang prakara sayêkti/ jugaa ngingirangi/ ing bukti sarananipun/ narima nadyan nyêgah/ dhahar mênawa sirèku/ tan narima apa ing saananira

I ku sayêktiné gagar ping kalih nyunyuda guling

………kang kaping tiga/ angawisana sanggami/ srana lila ing ngati ……..Kang kaping pat sira nini/ ampêta pangandika…..

Ping lima sira ngilangna/ duka cipta srana sangking/ cahyaning locananira (Serat

Wulang Putri, b. 56-61)

Terjemahan

Diangkat sebagai putri seorang raja/ yang pandai dan utama/ sedangkan semua itu nini/ harus dengan sarana

Tapa brata memuja dengan mantra (berdoa)/ adapun yang dinamakan/ tapa brata/ yaitu lima perkara/ bisalah mengurangi/ dalam makan/ narima walaupun mencegah/ makan kalau engkau/ tak mau nrima apa adanya

Itu sebenarnya gagal/ kedua kurangi tidur

…….ketiga jangan terlalu kerap melakukan sanggama/ semuanya harus ikhlas di dalam hati

….. Yang keempat engkau nini/ menahanlah berbicara

……Yang kelima engkau/ hilangkanlah perasaan marah yang kelihatan dari cahaya matamu…..

Kutipan tersebut menjelaskan bahwa karakter seorang putri raja atau wanita yang mempunyai kedudukan di masyarakat harus memenuhi kriteria-kriteria tertentu, dimana hal itu perlu dilakukan dengan olah tapa brata. Adapun laku pertama yang harus dikerjakan adalah mengurangi makan dan bila memang harus makan maka tidak boleh makan dengan mengada ada. Mengurangi makan dalam hal ini adalah berpuasa. Ketika harus berbuka puasa atau tidak sedang menjalankan puasa maka makan harus dengan cara tidak mengada ada atau seadanya saja. Sikap untuk tidak mengada-adakan makanan tersebut disebut dengan sikap narima. Selanjutnya karakter mau melakukan prihatin dan bersikap narima ini menjadi karakter wanita yang disarankan dari Serat Wulang Putri.

Laku kedua mau berprihati dengan melakukan berjaga diwaktu malam, sehingga masa tidur menjadi tidak banyak. Prihatin di sini bisa dimaknai dengan melakukan sholat malam, wirid, dan beribadah lain pada malam hari agar tidak tidur sepanjang malam. Ketiga cegahlah senggama yang dilakukan secara terus menerus. Selanjutnya karakter yang keempat adalah agar para putri mampu menahan pembicaraan yang terlalu panjang

dan bersifat tidak penting. Sebagian para perempuan biasanya merasa sangat senang melakukn pembicaraan atau mengobrol dengan sesama perempuan tentang hal yang tidak perlu. Hal ini dimungkinkan menimbulkan hal-hal negatif berupa saling menjatuhkan. Atau tanpa sadar telah menyakiti hati orang lain karena telah mengadu domba dengan pihak lain.

Karakter tersebut bisa dimasukkan dalam kelompok karakter baik budi dan rendah hati (Suyanto, 2009).

Demikian karakter yang diharapkan ada pada para putri. Karakter-karakter tersebut menjadi contoh piwulang yang seharusnya dilakukan oleh para putri agar menjadi seorang insan yang bisa sukses dalam hidup bermasyarakat dan seorang putri yang berbudi luhur sehingga disebut sebagai wanita utama.

Ajaran piwulang untuk para putri tersebut dapat menjadi sumber rujukan bagi pendidik karakter dewasa ini karena ajaran untuk menjadi wanita utama masih sangat relevan untuk kehidupan sekarang ini.

Kesimpulan

Berdasarkan pokok-pokok persoalan yang dibahas dalam tulisan ini maka dapat disimpulkan bahwa pendidikan karakter perlu mengadopsi dan merujuk pada budaya dan sastra Jawa terutama sastra wulang. Rujukan pendidikan karakter tidak perlu dirumuskan dengan abstrak, seperti selama ini banyak dikemukan para ahli dan bersifat teoritis. Sementara itu sastra Jawa khususmya sastra wulang mempunyai banyak sekali pedoman karakter. Pedoman karakter tersebut bersifat universal.i

Daftar Pustaka

Chamamah Soeratno, Siti. 2003. Metodologi Penelitian Sastra. Yogyakarta: Hanindita SK.20.Rol 11 no. 2. Serat Wulang Putri

Suyanto. 2009. Urgensi Pendidikan Karakter.

http:/ / www.mandikdasmen.depdiknas.go.id/ web/pages/ urgensi.html Zuhdi, Darmiyati. 2011. Pendidikan Karakter dalam Perspektif Teori dan Praktek.

i