A Marxism study: the reactions towards the existing political situation as faced by pelagea nilovna, the main character of maxim gorky`s mother.

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xiii ABSTRACT

Hidayat, Muhamad Nur. 2009. A Marxism Study: The Reactions towards the Existing Political Situation as Faced by Pelagea Nilovna, the Main Character of Maxim Gorky’s Mother. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.

This study analyzes a novel written by Maxim Gorky in 1906 entitled Mother. The analysis deals with the reactions of the main character, Pelagea Nilovna, towards the existing political situation in the factory settlement in which she lives. It is highly interesting to analyze the topic because it portrays a massive shift of Pelagea Nilovna, from being a simple and ignorant woman to being a revolutionary militant activist.

In order to achieve the aim, this study focuses on two discussions. Firstly, it deals with the portrayal of Pelagea Nilovna. Secondly, it deals with her reactions towards the existing political condition in the novel. The second discussion is divided into two sections, namely, Pelagea Nilovna’s reactions towards the revolutionary movement of her son, Pavel, and the significance of her reactions.

The theories of character, characterization and personality are applied to answer the first question posed in the first discussion. While the theories of Marxism and Gorky’s socio-political backgrounds are used to answer the second question posed in the second discussion. Meanwhile, the study uses Marxist literary criticism approach.

The findings reveal that during her life with her husband and her early interaction with Pavel’s movement, Pelagea Nilovna is portrayed as being religious, sensitive, fearful, wise and loving. However, after becoming completely involved in the movement, she turns into being brave and less religious. Her reactions towards Pavel’s movement manifest in her change of attitude, beliefs and personality. Her acquaintance with Pavel and his comrades has contributed to her new understanding about the political condition. She has become a new person.

Meanwhile, the significance of her reactions reveals three findings. Firstly, Pelagea represents the emerging social consciousness of simple and traditional people as well as the women’s struggle. Secondly, Pelagea’s social consciousness is acquired primarily due to her being a mother who senses something positive in Pavel’s movement. Thirdly, Pelagea’s depiction as a simple mother acquiring social consciousness also reveals Gorky’s own model of revolutionary society which includes spiritual and emotional fervors and in which women become an important part.

It is suggested that future researchers conduct analyses on other characters’ roles in building Maxim Gorky’s model of revolutionary society and his conception of “God Building.” Lastly, it is also recommended that the novel be used as a teaching-learning resource in Short Essay Writing I of English Language Education Study Program.

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xiv ABSTRAK

Hidayat, Muhamad Nur. 2009. A Marxism Study: The Reactions towards the Existing Political Situation as Faced by Pelagea Nilovna, the Main Character of Maxim Gorky’s Mother. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris. Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Studi ini menganalisis sebuah novel yang ditulis oleh Maxim Gorky pada tahun 1906 berjudul Mother. Analisis dari novel ini membahas mengenai reaksi dari tokoh utama, Pelagea Nilovna, terhadap situasi politik di pemukiman pabrik dimana ia tinggal. Topik ini sangat menarik untuk dianalisis karena hal ini menggambarkan sebuah perubahan yang besar atas Pelagea Nilovna, dari seorang perempuan sederhana dan bodoh menjadi seorang aktifis militan revolusioner.

Untuk mencapai tujuannya, studi ini mencakup dua pembahasan. Pertama mengenai penokohan Pelagea Nilovna. Kedua menenai reaksinya terhadap situasi politik yang ada. Pembahasan kedua terdiri dari dua bagian yaitu reaksi Pelagea Nilovna terhadap pergerakan revolusioner dari anaknya, Pavel, serta arti penting reaksi tersebut.

Teori mengenai tokoh, penokohan serta kepribadian digunakan untuk menjawab pertanyaan pertama pada pembahasan pertama. Sedangkan teori-teori mengenai Marxisme serta latar belakang sosial-politiknya Gorky digunakan untuk menjawab pertanyaan kedua pada pembahasan kedua. Sementara itu, studi ini menggunakan pendekatan kritik sastra Marxisme.

Hasil dari analisa menunjukkan bahwa selama hidup dengan suaminya dan selama interaksi awal dengan pergerakan Pavel, Pelagea Nilovna digambarkan sebagai seorang yang relijius, peka, penakut, bijak dan penyayang. Namun, setelah sepenuhnya bergabung dengan pergerakan itu, dia berubah menjadi seorang yang pemberani dan kurang relijius. Reaksinya terhadap pergerakan Pavel termanifestasikan dalam perubahan sikap, kepercayaan serta kepribadiannya. Hubungannya dengan Pavel dan kawan-kawannya berkontribusi terhadap pemahaman barunya mengenai situasi politik tersebut. Dia telah menjadi manusia yang baru.

Sementara itu, terdapat tiga arti penting dari reaksi tersebut. Pertama, Pelagea mewakili kemunculan kesadaran sosial dari warga tradisional dan sederhana serta mewakili perjuangan wanita pada khususnya. Kedua, kesadaran sosial dari Pelagea diperoleh terutama karena posisi dia sebagai seorang ibu yang dapat merasakan sesuatu yang positif pada pergerakan Pavel. Ketiga, penggambaran Pelagea sebagai seorang sederhana yang memperoleh kesadaran sosial, juga mengungkapkan sebuah model masyarakat revolusionernya Gorky yang memasukkan kualitas-kualitas emosional dan spiritual, dimana kaum perempuan menjadi bagian penting di dalamnya.

Disarankan kepada para peneliti yang akan datang untuk mengadakan analisis terhadap peran dari tokoh-tokoh lain dalam membangun model masyarakat

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revolusionernya Maxim Gorky serta konsepsinya tentang “God Building.” Pada akhirnya, novel ini juga direkomendasikan untuk digunakan sebagai bahan belajar-mengajar pada kelas Short Essay Writing I di Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris.

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A MARXISM STUDY: THE REACTIONS TOWARDS THE EXISTING POLITICAL SITUATION AS FACED BY PELAGEA NILOVNA,

THE MAIN CHARACTER OF MAXIM GORKY’S MOTHER A Thesis

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

Muhamad Nur Hidayat Student Number: 041214082

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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A MARXISM STUDY: THE REACTIONS TOWARDS THE EXISTING POLITICAL SITUATION AS FACED BY PELAGEA NILOVNA,

THE MAIN CHARACTER OF MAXIM GORKY’S MOTHER A Thesis

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

Muhamad Nur Hidayat Student Number: 041214082

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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MOTTO

The young man [who] consents to become a tool, not an independent workman, a mere means to the fulfillment of others, not the artificer of his own nature feels to be

good. In the moment when he makes his act of consent, something dies within him. He can never again become a whole man, never again have the undamaged self-respect, the upright pride, which might have kept him happy in his soul in spite of all

outward troubles and difficulties. --Bertrand Russell--

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vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes to Most Gracious and Most Merciful Allah SWT for the faith in me and the assistance in the period of bitterness and happiness in life.

I also owe my deepest gratitude to my major sponsor, Drs. Antonius Herujiyanto, M.A., Ph.D., for his guidance, assistance and useful feedbacks during the completion of this thesis. I also express my sincere appreciation to Mr. Agustinus Hardi Prasetyo, S.Pd., M.A., and all PBI lecturers and staff whose dedicated work have made me be able to speak, read, listen to and write English. Now, the world of unlimited knowledge and information is opened for me.

I am deeply indebted to my mother, Murti Sunarni, my father, Subaru and my two beautiful sisters, Rindang and Nisa, whose endless supports and prayer have kept me going. My special gratefulness also goes to my grandparents, uncles and aunts who have been keenly supportive to me.

Further, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all PBI friends, specifically The Grassroots friends: Silvi, Albert, Pius, Tika, Novi, Indri, Rita, Yuni and Riska; for their supports and fresh jokes that keep me sane. I also thank all of my ex-Orong-Orong friends who have shared their remarkable ideas and knowledge.

My special gratitude also goes to all of my IELSP 2 best friends who have shared joy and craziness in the greatest and unforgettable moment of my life so far

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viii

and been very supportive to me. I owe my gratitude specifically to Imam, Nida, Pipik, Nita and Mala, who have become my family. I also express my sincere gratitude to all lecturers, friends and staff in The University of California Santa Cruz, English Language and International Program who have painted the most beautiful memories of my life. I thank Chris, Gail and Bill who have been very supportive to my study and who have proofread my Abstract, Chapter 4 and 5. I also thank all of UCSC Inn friends specifically Cindy and Marlene who have been so kind and helpful by sending me precious essays that I could not download them for free from the internet. I love you all and I certainly am coming to Santa Cruz again.

There are many other people whom I cannot mention here one by one but, surely, I cannot complete this thesis without their helps and supports. God bless them all.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TITLE PAGE ……… ……….… i

PAGES OF APPROVAL ………….………. ii

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY……….. iv

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ………..………… v

MOTTO ……….... vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………... vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ………... ix

ABSTRACT ……….... xiii

ABSTRAK ………..…….. xiv

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ………..….. 1

1.1. Background of the Study ………..……. 1

1.2. Objective of the Study ………... 4

1.3. Problem Formulation ……….. 4

1.4. Benefit of the Study ………... 5

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CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE………... 8

2.1. Review of Literature Theories………... 8

2.1.1. Theory of Character………... 8

2.1.2. Theory of Characterization………...…. 10

2.1.3. Theory of Personality……….... 13

2.2. Theory of Marxism……….. 14

2.2.1. The Overview of the General Theory of Marxism… 14 2.2.2. Marxist Theory of Social Class………..…... 18

2.2.3. Marxist Theory of Class Consciousness …..…...… 20

2.2.4. Theory of Marxist Literary Criticism ………... 23

2.3. The Contexts of the Novel………... 25

2.3.1. The Social Setting of the Writing of the Novel……. 25

2.3.2. The Social Setting in the Novel………...….. 29

2.4. Theoretical Framework………..….. 30

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ………..…... 32

3.1. Object of the Study ………..…… 32

3.2. Approach of the Study ……….……... 34

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CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS ……….……... 37

4.1. Pelagea Nilovna’s Personality ……….…... 37

4.2. Pelagea Nilovna’s Reactions towards the Political Condition ……….…… 50

4.2.1. Pelagea’s Changes as the Manifestation of her Reactions towards Pavel’s Movement... 50

4.2.2. Pelagea’s Reactions as the Depiction of the Working Class’ Social Consciousness Necessary to Build Gorky’s Model of Revolutionary Society……….……... 62

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS, SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . ………. 74

5.1. Conclusions ……….…... 74

5.2. Suggestions for Future Researcher………... 77

5.3. Recommendations for English Instructors to Teach Short Essay Writing I………...……….….. 78

BIBLIOGRAPHY ……….….. 80

APPENDICES ……….. 83

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APPENDIX 2: The Biography of Marxim Gorky ……… 86 APPENDIX 3: Lesson Plan for Teaching Short Essay Writing I ..……….... 88 APPENDIX 4: Sample Material for Teaching Short Essay Writing I ..………… 90

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xiii ABSTRACT

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xiv ABSTRAK

Hidayat, Muhamad Nur. 2009. A Marxism Study: The Reactions towards the Existing Political Situation as Faced by Pelagea Nilovna, the Main Character of Maxim Gorky’s Mother. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris. Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Disarankan kepada para peneliti yang akan datang untuk mengadakan analisis terhadap peran dari tokoh-tokoh lain dalam membangun model masyarakat

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1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter consists of five parts, namely, Background of the Study, Objectives of the Study, Problem Formulation, Benefits of the Study and Definition of Terms. The first part, Background of the Study, explores the urgency of this study and my personal reasons in selecting the topic of the study. Secondly, the Objectives of the Study, presents the aims of conducting this study. Thirdly, the Problem Formulation presents some problems to limit the scope of study. Fourthly, the Benefits of the Study elaborates the advantages that the reader may gain from reading this study. And the last, the Definition of Terms presents some definitions of key terms used in the study.

1.1. Background of the Study

Literature may function as a depiction of the socio-cultural and even ideological situation of certain period of time (Little 1). As one kind of the literary writings, novels are widely read given that they contain certain interesting knowledge about historical background of certain societies. Not only are novels important to provide valuable knowledge, they are also endowed with qualities that delight our aesthetic sense. Through the characters of novels, we are led to experience the feelings, the conflicts, and the life in a certain social situation. How the author explores the characters reveals his/her way of describing particular condition.

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The interrelationship among characters in a novel can reveal the complexity of human phenomena. Unlike any other living creatures, human beings have the capacity to discern and comprehend various phenomena in society and have the ability to react towards them. On the one hand, human beings are endowed with universal emotional capacity that make them united, have the sense of solidarity, caring and loving to each other. On the other hand, they have the intellectual capacity to cope with the complexity of nature and human phenomena itself. They have the capacities to differentiate between good and evil, truth and wrongness, fact and illusion. Those emotional and intellectual capacities combined make human beings progress through reacting towards the phenomena. And through exercising those capacities, men and women can acquire new knowledge, new understanding, new revelation and even new life.

This thesis analyzes a novel Mother, written by a celebrated Russian author, Maxim Gorky. Mother, which was written in 1906, is said to be one of Gorky’s phenomenal works during his lifetime, which later became the pioneer of the Soviet genre of Socialist Realism. A socialist literature, Terry Eagleton says, must present the realities of the working people without giving any clear-cut solution. He also adds that it must also reveal the struggle of working people to free from oppressions (Eagleton vii). Both qualities that Eagleton says appear in Mother.

The novel tells about the life of a mother named Pelagea Nilovna, widow of a drunkard worker, with her son, Pavel Vlassov, a leader of a workers’ movement. Gorky reveals in the novel the life of the mother which undergoes a progress—from

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being an ignorant and ordinary woman into being a militant activist. The mother has undergone social consciousness. The shift occurs during her acquaintance with and involvement in Pavel’s movement. The movement, whose pledge is to pursue the truth and liberate the working people from the oppressive authority of feudalism, challenges the authority by spreading leaflets into the factories and organizes protests and rallies. Therefore, the topic of the study concerns on the analysis of the reactions of the ordinary woman, Pelagea Nilovna, towards the political situation as seen in her involvement in Pavel’s revolutionary movement.

I am particularly interested in the topic of the study because I am impressed about how Maxim Gorky explores the characters, specifically Pelagea Nilovna, in facing an oppressive authority of feudalism. Furthermore, it is overwhelming to learn the major shift that happens to Pelagea Nilovna in the novel. It is highly appealing to learn that one can acquire such a shift from being a simple person into being a revolutionary activist. Besides, I am keen to verify that such an extraordinary transformation is not gained from a pure spiritual or emotional search, rather, it is with help of Pelagea’s being able to comprehend and analyze the actual conditions that affect her life. I desire to prove that Pelagea’s transformation is a rational choice derived from her analyses of the surrounding phenomena. Moreover, I want to learn why Maxim Gorky reveals a character of mother in a revolutionary movement.

The study is a Marxist study, which attempts to reveal that the novel is not an independent literary work, rather it is a product of socio-political situations at the time of the writing. Moreover, it is highly interesting for me to incorporate Marxist

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ideas to analyze the topic of the study given that it considers various aspects including the author’s political tendency and the prevailing ideology at the time he wrote the novel.

1.2. Objective of the Study

The objective of this study is to show one’s reactions toward the existing socio-cultural and political situation in his or her life as seen Pelagea Nilovna, the main character of Maxim Gorky’s Mother. The discussion deals with the trait and change acquired from comprehending a certain phenomenon.

1.3. Problem Formulation

To achieve the objective and specify the study, some research questions related to the topic have been prepared. The questions are formulated as follows:

1. How is Pelagea Nilovna, the main character of the novel, portrayed in the novel?

2. How does Pelagea Nilovna react toward the existing political situation as seen in the novel?

1.4. Benefits of the Study

Some parties are expected to benefit from the study. Firstly, the study would benefit the readers of Maxim Gorky’s Mother since it can contribute to the

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understanding of the characterization of Pelagea Nilovna and the emerging social consciousness of working people as revealed from Pelagea Nilovna.

Secondly, the study would help future researchers who want to conduct a literary study on the novel. From this study, the future researchers can gain understanding about the influence of Marxism in the novel. Finally the study is expected to provide us understandings about the social consciousness of the working people and the injustices that they meet in their life. By comprehending the significance of the working people in shaping the structure of society, we realize that the working people have a huge hidden power.

1.5. Definition of Terms

There are several important terminologies to help readers follow the study. The definitions are taken from both printed and online materials

1.5.1. Character and characterization

Character, according to Abrams in A Glossary of Literary Terms, means: …the person presented in dynamic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with moral and disposition qualities that are expressed in what they say…[in] the dialogue…[and] by what they do…. (20)

In this study the character that is being analyzed is the mother, Pelagea Nilovna, who undergoes a change in her life from a simple and ordinary woman to a fully-involved socialist militant.

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Characterization according to Baldick in his Criticism and Literary Theory (34), characterization is the representation of a person in a dramatic or narrative work with the use of direct method of attribution to the character so that the reader can infer or deduce the qualities from the character’s appearance, action or speech.

1.5.2. Personality

According to Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology, the question of personality concerns with one’s differences in his or her social behavior and his or her disposal to react in certain ways. It also “seeks to characterize in a rigorous way the basis of that difference by identifying characteristic patterns of behavior that are distinctive and consistent across time” (Turner ed. 437). In questioning the personality, many theorists recognize the importance of other social characteristics such as “age, gender, and race and ethnicity, or other personal determinants of behavior, such as attitude” (Turner ed. 438). Therefore in this study, in revealing the characterization of Pelagea Nilovna, it deals with her personality as an individual in reacting to the socio cultural and political condition in the settlement she is living.

1.5.3. Class consciousness

According to Online Dictionary of Social Sciences, class consciousness means:

The awareness of individuals in a particular social class that they share common interests and a common social situation. Class consciousness

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is associated with the development of a ‘class-for-itself’ where individuals within the class unite to pursue their shared interests. In addition, according to Lukacs, every social class has a determined class consciousness, but in Marxist perspective, class consciousness is not “an origin” but it is “an achievement” that “must be won” by the working people (Lukacs, “Class Consciousness”). The term class consciousness used in this study is the same as the term social consciousness that refers to the awareness of the working people of their condition (economic and social conditions caused by the feudalism structure of society). This awareness sparks the desire to change their life.

1.5.4. Reactions

According to an electronic dictionary, Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, reactions mean “a person’s ability to respond physically and mentally to external stimuli.” In this study, reactions also refer to Pelagea Nilovna’s responses to Pavel’s movement and ideas. The reactions include her attitude, belief, and point of views that are revealed from her interaction with Pavel, his movement and his comrades and that are also revealed from her own reflection of her life and

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8 CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter is devoted to present some theories that are used in this study. It is divided into five parts. The first part is the review of literature theory. The second part covers the theories of Marxism. Meanwhile, the third part of this chapter explores the contexts or the social settings both in the novel and the actual social settings at the time Maxim Gorky wrote the novel. And the last part is the theoretical framework.

2.1. Review of Literature Theories

This first part deals with some literature theories which comprise the theories related to character and characterization, and theories related to personality. Those theories are used to help analyze the first problem of this study.

2.1.1. Theory of Character

Theory of character is used in this study to investigate one of the characters in Mother. In this study, the term character resembles to the definition given by Abrams: Characters are the persons presented in dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities that are expressed in what they say—the dialogue—and by what they do—the action. (23)

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In short, characters can be defined as the people by whom the author conveys the story. Through dialogues, actions and the author’s narration, we can understand the story of a particular novel. The bases or reasons underlying the character’s “temperament, desires and moral nature for their speech and actions” are called motivation (Abrams 23).

According to Forster (48-54), Aspects of the Novel, there are two types of character, namely, flat and round character.

1. Flat character

Flat character is created in “a single idea or quality” that, in comprehending the character, we do not need any further detailed explanation, and therefore, it is easily recognized by the reader.

2. Round character

Unlike flat character, round character cannot be directly justified in terms of the quality. It has more complex temperament and motivation. It is peculiar and difficult to describe. The uniqueness of round character is the ability to surprise the reader

Abrams adds that a character may be “stable”, or has no gradual change in the outlook and disposition. In addition, there is a character that undergoes “a radical change” through gradual process of motivation and development (Abrams 23).

In addition to flat and round character, Guth and Rico (70) propose further classification of character. They are flat, round, static and growing character. The idea of flat and round character is similar to that of Forster’s. The static character is

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the character that does not reveal any growth or development. The static character does not undergo changes in the story, whereas, the growing character undergoes changes and development in the story. The change or the development may take form of turning point in life, or the character’s spiritual journey.

In this study, the mother, Pelagea Nilovna, resembles the round and growing character.

2.1.2. Theory of Characterization

If characters are the persons in the story, characterization means the way the author explains or characterizes the characters. By means of characterization, we can be sure that the story is alive. The way the author characterizes his or her characters plays a significant role to help the reader understand the characters. Pelagea Nilovna, the mother, is characterized through various ways by the author in the novel.

According to Abrams (24-25), there are two broad categories of characterizing the characters, namely, telling and showing. In telling, the author has the authority to describe the characters. The author also informs “the motives and dispositional qualities of the characters” by directly explaining to the reader through sentences, so that, the reader straightforwardly understand the character. However, in showing, the author characterizes the characters in an indirect ways. The reader is to deduce the motives and the dispositions of the characters by what they speak and act. This method of characterizing is often termed “the dramatic method.”

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In addition to the broad distinctions of characterization explained by Abrams, the classic work of Murphy helps us reveal the ways the author characterize the characters in greater depth. According to Murphy (161-173), there are nine ways of how an author characterizes the characters. They are:

a. Personal description

The author gives the descriptions of personal physical appearances of certain characters to the reader by, for example, telling what the character is wearing, the color of the hair, eye, and so on. There is a good example in Maxim Gorky’s Mother in the way of describing Pelagea:

She was tall and somewhat stooped. … Her wide oval face, puffy and wrinkled, was lighted by dark eyes filled with fear and grief,… Above her right eyebrow was a deep scar… Streaks of white shone in her thick dark hair. She was all softness and sadness and submissiveness… . (16-7)

b. Characters as seen by others

Here, the author characterizes a certain character by means of other characters’ opinions.

c. Speech

What the character says throughout the novel may hint his or her character.

d. Past life

The past life of a certain character told by his/her own speeches and conversations or by the author’s direct telling or by other characters’

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speeches may also be the method of characterizing a particular character. For example when Pavel, Pelagea’s son, told his mother:

Just think of the life we live! Here you are forty years old, and what have you ever known? Father beat you—now I know that he took his troubles out on you, all bitterness of his life. Something kept pressing down on him, but he didn’t know what… What joy have you ever known? ... What good things have you to remember? (21-2)

e. Conversation of others

From the conversation from other characters, the author can also give hints about the characterization of a particular character.

f. Reactions

In order to reveal the characterization of a certain character, it can also be seen from the reactions of the character in dealing with certain conditions or events facing the character.

g. Direct comment

The author can also give direct comments by telling the reader directly through sentences that show the characterization of certain character. For example:

Thus lived Mikhail Vlassov, a sullen, hirsute mechanic with tiny eyes that glared suspiciously and with spiteful scorn from under his bushy eyebrows. He was the best mechanic at the factory and the strongest man in the settlement, but he was surly with his superiors, and for that reason made little money. (12)

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In a way of characterizing a person, the author can give “direct knowledge” to the reader so as to know what other people or characters are thinking.

i. Mannerism

In this way, the author describes the character’s manners or habits or traits or behavior in helping the reader understand the character.

These are some specific ways to find the characterization of a particular character in a novel presented in Murphy.

2.1.3. Theory of Personality

According to Hall and Lindzey assert that to fully understand one’s behaviors, the study of the wholeness of the person is highly needed (Hall and Lindzey 6). Furthermore, they maintain that human personality can be assessed from his or her reaction towards various circumstances. In other words, different circumstances that a person meets shape his or her personality.

Characters in the novel may undergo changes in his or her personality so that it makes the novel become more attractive. As Hurlock (124) states, changes in one’s personality is caused by various circumstances. The first cause is by physical changes for example derived from malnutrition or accident and so on. Personality change can also be geared from changes in the environment in which one has social interactions. Another motive resulted in personality change is the changes in one’s significant

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persons. It happens usually in the relation of parents and their children. The parents have to adapt to the development of their children.

One’s personality change can also be determined from changes in social pressure which is usually resulted from social rejection. Another cause of personality change according to Hurlock is the change of role is society. Strong motivation and changes is self concept may also cause personality change. The desire for acceptance and for better life may provoke people to change their attitudes and finally personality. The last is the use of psychotherapy to change one’s personality and to find out his or her self-concept.

2.2. Theory of Marxism

This is the second part of chapter two. It includes the general theory of Marxism, Marxist perspective on social class, Marxist perspective on class consciousness, and the theory of Marxist literary criticism approach, an approach being used in this study.

2.2.1. The Overview of the General Theory of Marxism

Marxism is a social, political and economic philosophy, social science, and also a critical theory. The center idea of Marxism is that the human behavior is governed by their relation to production. Marxism as a critical theory is based on the idea of social philosophy that addresses all kinds of economic exploitations, inequalities of distribution, social class and political change (Honderich ed. 559).

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Yet, the focus of attention of Marxism has undergone dialectics since it was first put forward by Engels in the nineteenth century. There are some shifts of focus in the part of the theory following the development of capitalism. Versions and theoretical emphasis of Marxism also develop. It is in the first half of the twentieth century where the relative shift of attention happened. Marxism which aroused outside the USSR centered its attention toward “the way in which industrial capitalism had substituted machine-like relations for genuine human relations.” This, as is expected, shifted the theoretical emphasis away from scientific economic theory (such as Das Capital), towards socio-cultural topics like alienation of workers (the process of workers becoming foreign to the world and life they are living in because they are not valued from the products they work). The latter topic is more focusing on the relation of humans (workers) and the means of production (Harland 137; Marxist Internet Archive). This focus of socio-cultural topics of Marxism is I think in accordance with the story of the novel Mother by Maxim Gorky, which pictures the way workers were reduced to merely mechanical instruments. As shown in the first part of the novel, the results are the depression, hatred, despair, anger, and feeling of utter hopelessness—although eventually, they learn something from socialism ideas that was brought by Pavel, Pelagea’s son.

This central tenet of alienation in Marxism views human beings in capitalist society as alienated or becoming foreign from themselves because the work they perform takes an “alien and inhuman form”. It is against the truly human activity, which is “free social self-expression.” This is true specifically for the life of working

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class which is “increasingly stunted, reduced to meaningless physical activity which, far from developing and exercising their humanity, reduces them to abstract organs of a lifeless mechanism” (Honderich ed. 558).

This is so because the working class “do[es] not experience the products of their labor as their expression, or indeed as theirs in any sense.” They sell their activity to the capitalist for a wage, not for fulfilling their social self-expressions, but for merely sustaining their lives. Marxism as a science of political economy moreover portrays human beings, especially laborers, whose social life and relationships are at the mercy not of their collective choice but of an alien, inhuman mechanism, the marker-place, which allege to be a sphere of individual freedom, but it is in fact a sphere of collective slavery to inhuman and destructive forces. (Honderich ed. 558)

To be free from alienation, Marx asserts that all we need is a “new form of earthly existence,” which is the key to fulfilled human beings, meaning, never lacking material conditions. To gain human freedom, human beings must be self conscious of their “essential human power”, namely the power of production, which in capitalist system, it is constrained. Therefore, only conscious self actualization, human beings can achieve their ultimate freedom. The idea of this consciousness is then of importance.

The vision of Marxism is to form a classless society. The historical materialism provides the working class a way of full understanding to consciously achieve a classless society. In Marx’s materialist conception of history, a conscious revolutionary practice should not advance by formulating “utopian goals” and then

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find the means to achieve them, rather, it is a matter of devoting the conscious revolutionary movements into participating in “an already developing class movement” that happens in the current time, and to define themselves the goals and to realize the goal by using their weapons “inherent in the class’s historical situation” (Honderich ed. 559). So, instead of orthodox and static, revolutionary movements must see the reality surrounding them and find the way to achieve the goals. And in the struggle to achieve that ends, they must not be independent from their historical situation.

With regards to religion and God, which is the central controversy of Marxist doctrine, Marx argues in his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law, that “[t]o abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness” (Marxist Internet Archive). Since Marxism is a materialistic belief, the idea of God and religion play a parasitic role to building the society of workers.

Marx believed that in classless community, or the eventual communist society, the private ownership of means of production and commodity production is abolished. He believed that in a communist society, all form of human alienation is non existent. Yet, he never stated that this eventual society is a static society and unchanging, instead, it is the truest beginning of the human history that is governed by conscious human development.

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Class in Marxist perspective means a group of people who share common relations to labor and means of production. Marx says in his Wage Labour and Capital that:

These social relations between the producers, and the conditions under which they exchange their activities and share in the total act of production, will naturally vary according to the character of the means of production. (Marxist Internet Archive)

The idea of class in Marxist perspective is radically different from that of bourgeoisie social theory or capitalism. In capitalism class is “abstract universal” that is defined by the common attributes of its members and is also defined by “categories and conceptions that have an existence prior to and independent of the people who make up the class.” For example, people who earn less than $ 20,000 a year constitute a lower class. However, the idea of class in Marxist view is that it “includes the development of collective consciousness in a class – arising from the material basis of having in common relations to the labour process and the means of production” (Marxist Internet Archive).

Classes only appear at a particular stage of the development of the productive forces and the social division of labor. In the stage in which there is social surplus of production, classes are emerged, since one class can benefit by the exploitation of others. And as this stage is happening, the class antagonism or class struggle is inevitable. Therefore, according to Marx, the conflict begins where one class starts to benefit by the expropriation of other classes. This conflict is geared by the social

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surplus of production. This becomes the central issue of Marxist’s radical antagonism about bourgeoisie and proletariat. As Engels points out, Marx’s most important doctrine is the Inherent Class War between two irreconcilable groups, namely, the Bourgeoisie (the capitalist employers) and the Proletariat (the workers) (Sahakian and Sahakian 79). This inevitable antagonism is stated by Marx in his Communist Manifesto:

The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (trade unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots. (Marxist Internet Archive)

In resolving this antagonism, and since the two groups have diametrically-opposed interests, one of the group, the bourgeoisie, must be eliminated. The reason is that he Bourgeoisie are responsible for a number of social evils: they have exploited the employee by giving less than they deserve, they have treated the workers as a commodity in market, whose price is dependent upon the market fluctuation rather than upon the worth they have produced; and finally they have commercialize most occupations, including marriage (Sahakian and Sahakian 79).

Marx argues that communism is the answer. And a communist society will only be achieved after the period of dictator proletariat. Through the stage of single class society, the dictator proletariat, the classless society would be achieved, the communist society. In conclusion, Marxist’s aim is to bring about a classless society,

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which is based on “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange” (Barry 156).

2.2.3. Marxist Theory on Class Consciousness

In order to achieve the classless society, the dictator proletariat society must be instilled. And the proletariat, the workers, must be aware of this. In short they have to be class conscious. According to the Oxford Guide to Philosophy, the term consciousness involves experience and awareness (Honderich ed. 160). According to Online Dictionary of Social Sciences, class consciousness means “The awareness of individuals in a particular social class that they share common interests and a common social situation. Class consciousness is associated with the development of a ‘class-for-itself’ where individuals within the class unite to pursue their shared interests” (Online Dictionary of Social Sciences).

Marx argues that the awareness of the workers arises not from their own spiritual search, instead, it is determined by their social condition. It is dependent on the material condition, namely the economic condition, and ideological situation that prevail in the society (Tucker 4). As Ernest Mandel points out, that in Marxian proposition:

The dominant ideology of every society is the ideology of the dominant class in the sense that the latter has control over the means of ideological production which society has at its disposal (the church, school, mass media, etc.) and uses the means in its own class interests. As long as class rule is on the upswing, stable and hence hardly questioned, the ideology of the dominant class will also dominate the

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consciousness of the oppressed class. (Mandel, “Bourgeois Ideology and Proletarian Class Consciousness”).

Thus, as a rule, Mandel points out, that the oppressed will formulate class struggle in society.

The problem in capitalist society, is that there is a control tat takes form in ideological manipulation and “mass assimilation of the ruling class’ ideological production” that form some kind of “stability” in the society which, in fact, hinders the emergence of class consciousness of the working people itself. This control is exerted through the internalization of commodity relation which is highly related to reification of labor, as Marx states, and the transformation of the labor power into commodity. In addition, the control also takes form in the exploitation of workers and the lack of leisure time. And to overturn this control, all what is needed is a revolution by which the oppressed class (the workers) can free themselves from the ideology of the ruling class (Mandel, “Bourgeois Ideology and Proletarian Class Consciousness”).

Georg Lukacs, in his History and the Class Consiousness, further adds that when talking about class consciousness, it implies “a class-conditioned unconsciousness of ones own socio-historical and economic condition” that seemingly governs the whole life in the society. In other words, there exists a “false consciousness,” which means “the social awareness that is mystified by ideology and ignorant of its own class basis” (Honderich ed. 289). In capitalist system of society, the workers are then isolated from their own cause. Lukacs holds that:

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if a class thinks the thoughts imputable to it and which bear upon its interests right through to their logical conclusion and yet fails to strike at the heart of that totality, then such a class is doomed to play only a subordinate role.

(Lukacs, “Class Consciousness”).

Such false consciousness, manifests in the workers’ passivity, aimlessness and, although they may have won some few battles, they “are doomed to ultimate defeat,” to borrow Lukacs words. This means that the control over the mass population, in this respect, the working class, that leads to the workers’ false consciousness is a real challenge to the consciousness of the working class itself. Therefore, arousing the workers’ class consciousness means challenging the prevailing socio-historical, ideological and economic condition that have been historically established in society by the ruling power.

In order to overcome such false consciousness, Georg Lukacs points out that once the workers are conscious, they must organize the whole society in accordance with their own interests, not the interests of the privileged-few.

2.2.4. Theory of Marxist Literary Criticism

The approach of this study is Marxist literary criticism approach. The basic principle of the approach is that we employ Marx’s criticisms in analyzing the text. Engels in his letter to Margaret Harkness, as cited by Barry (156), said that “The

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more the opinions of the author remains hidden, the better the work of art.” Marxist literary criticism maintains that:

a writer’s social class and its prevailing ‘ideology’ (outlooks, values, tacit assumptions, half-realized allegiances, etc.) have a major bearing on what is written by a member of that class. (Barry 158)

Therefore, a Marxist maintains that all works of arts are not independent from their economic and social contexts in which the author lives. Instead, it is “constantly formed” by the social contexts, consciously or unconsciously. The aim of Marist literary criticism is thus to find out the tendency of political and economic contexts toward the work of art. Marxist literary criticism is based on the philosophical assumption that “consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence...Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life” (Marx 568-9).

Barry further adds that the social contexts not only form and influence the content of the work of art, but also “the formal aspects of their writing.” In summary, what Marxist critics do are:

1. They make clear distinction between the “overt” (manifest or surface or what is seen) and “covert” (latent or hidden) content of certain literary work. And then they relate the covert content with the central idea of Marxism, such as class struggle.

2. Marxists literary critics also relate the work of art with the author’s social and political circumstances, or the author’s social class.

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3. This approach is also used to describe “the nature of a whole literary genre in terms of the social period which ‘produces’ it.”

4. Marxist literary critics also relate the social assumptions with the work of art. 5. The last, is to politicize the literary form. It means that they are to find out that

the literary wirings are determined by political circumstances. (Barry 167-8) It is then highly interesting to apply Marxist literary criticism in analyzing certain textual information given that we can analyze wholly and thoroughly by considering aspects dependent to the novel and the author itself, such as, the author’s political and social backgrounds and the socio-political situation of the time when the author wrote the text. It is interesting for me, specifically, to apply Marxist literary approach since the analysis will not be independent of the historical situation of the time the novel was written. Therefore the benefits are threefold for me .The first I can enjoy analyzing the novel. Second, I can at the same time study the history of the time and place of the writing of the novel, and the third, I can exercise and learn Marxist ideas in order to comprehend and analyze various issues, not merely from textual information, but from whatever means of information.

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2.3. The Contexts of the Novel

In helping the analysis of the problems in this study, it is highly important to comprehend the context of the novel, both the historical context of the novel (the setting of the writing) and the setting or the context in the novel. It is of importance since in analyzing a text using Marxist literary approach, we see the text as not an independent object, rather, it is dependent on the historical situation that can affects the content of the novel.

2.3.1. The Social Setting of the Writing of the Novel

Maxim Gorky is one of the most popular writers in Russia and also a foremost figure in socialist movement. He has written plays, novels and short stories. Gorky was born as Alexei Maximovich Peshkov from a petit bourgeois family in the town of Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, on March 16, 1868. At the age of five, his father died and his grandfather raised him. His families were common laborers whole lives were hard. As a result, they treated the young Gorky sternly. He was forced by his grandfather to earn his own living early in his life, precisely at the age of eight. And at the age of ten, he became an orphan. He took whatever jobs to please his grandfather, including being an errand boy for an iconographer, dishwasher on a steamer ship, assistant to a shoemaker and so on. He was living in a miserable condition. Regular beatings from the employers and half starved were the stories of his childhood. As an orphan, he received all kinds of rejection and cruelty. He did not even receive formal education, unlike other famous authors. To escape from a

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miserable life during his childhood, he became an enthusiastic reader (De Laine, “Maxim Gorky”).

Maxim Gorky is one of the imminent writers and Russia and a symbol of revolutionary movement. His novel, Mother, is said to be his single lengthy and phenomenal work. It was first appear in 1906 while he was visiting the United States. By the time of 1907, he was living in Capri, Italy, to escape from the dangerous situation in Russia. He was assisting revolutionary causes that criticize the government of Russia at that time. And as a result, his works, including Mother, were highly censored by the authority. The novel Mother itself was highly influential outside Russia. Despite the censorship, Gorky’s works were widespread among intellectual circles. And as Werbach points out, Gorky was the influential figure following the Bourgeois revolution in 1905, which installed a feudalistic regime (Werbach, “Literary Models for Alternative Social Development in Russia”).

Mother, which first appeared in English version in 1906, was as analysts say written in a clearly propagandistic aim. Gorky himself justified the assumption. He said that Mother was for “agitational purpose.” As a consequence, it underwent some revisions and appeared in merely small editions in Russia. According to Werbach, Mother implies a “model of social development.” At the time it was first appeared, Mother was highly abandoned by intelligentsia, but later during the Bolshevik revolution 1917, it became the pioneer of model of Soviet Socialist Realism genre of literature, and was highly praised by Lenin and Stalin. In addition, De Laine asserts that the novel was regarded as the prominent work, not only in the literary style, but

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also in the unique insight of dealing with the lives of Russian workers. As a consequence, Mother became the central model of proletarian literature (De Laine, “Maxim Gorky”). In addition, Werbach maintains:

In the years following the Bolshevik revolution, literature was subjected to state control and forced to follow certain conventions. Socialist Realism, which incorporated elements of traditional Russian culture as well as Bolshevik doctrine, became the only acceptable style for literature. Mother utilized and systematized many of these elements, and from a pre-revolutionary perspective served as a model for both literary and social development. (“Literary Models for Alternative Social Development in Russia”)

Mother was based on real events, namely, a demonstration of factory workers near Nizhni Novgorod in 1902, yet, it was fictionalized. His narrative concerns on “the characters and their evolving social consciousness” rather than detailed description of the events. Characters in the novel, according to Werbach, are highly depersonalized which “reinforced this universalistic message”:

By using sparse descriptive details, with formulaic characteristics to represent traits important to the revolutionary worldview, Gorky shifted the focus from extraordinary individuals to broader social forces. (“Literary Models for Alternative Social Development in Russia”)

Although his works were received with much compliment by Lenin, yet later, his relationship with the Russian revolutionary figure was broken. It was because at the time he wrote Mother, Gorky maintains the belief of the idea of bogostroitelstvo, or "God-building," a philosophy condemned by Lenin since it was in part based on Nietzsche's philosophy. God-building means that God is built by the people rather than found after receiving revelation. And He recognized that Bolshevism was “a

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direct path to constructing God,” which was highly opposed to Lenin’s stance (Werbach, “Literary Models for Alternative Social Development in Russia”). It is also opposed to Marx’s idea that religion and God is highly parasitical since it causes “illusionary happiness” (Marx, “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law” qtd. in Marxist Internet Archive: encyclopedia page, from www.marxists.org).

In addition to this opposition, Gorky also severely criticized the Bolshevik revolution and the way Lenin suppressed literature to be merely a tool for propaganda. It is no question that Maxim Gorky’s works received much censorship from the Lenin’s government since the literature had to be subjected to state control. This led to the bitter disagreement between Gorky and Lenin. He left Russia in 1921, and then lived in Italy again and did not return to Soviet until his sixtieth birthday in 1928. He accommodated himself with Joseph Stalin ever since until he was assassinated on June 14, 1936 (De Laine, “Maxim Gorky”; Marxist Internet Archive).

2.3.2. The Social Setting in the Novel

The story of the novel is primarily taken place in a poor factory settlement in Russia, in the period after the 1905 revolution and 1917 Bolshevik revolution. This period of the early twentieth century Russia is the period of the emergence of Russian revolutionary ideas. The settlement is inhabited mostly by factory workers whose lives are driven by factory whistle every morning which makes the air in the settlement greasy. This settlement is quite far from town. The area is chilling in November, and in most of the story, snow and coldness are dominant.

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The life of the workers is utterly passive, monotonous, static and in a state of fatigue and depressed, but powerless, since they “have been devoured by the factory, whose machines sucked up as much of the workers’ strength as they needed” (10). The only release of this condition is alcohols, fighting to each other and domestic disturbance. Beatings to their wives and children are regularity. The workers spent their evenings to get drunk, and their Sundays and holidays to sleep until afternoon. There are a number of taverns in which people get drunk and play accordion.

People in the settlement are afraid of new ideas and differences. They are weary of people who are not like themselves. The hardship and bitterness of life and the hopelessness that accompanies them makes people die at the age of their fifties. And they regard this life as a normal life. They hold that any change would only increase their hardship.

Thus lives Pavel Vlassov, the son of Pelagea Nilovna, the mother and the main character of the novel, whose different and unusual attitude and behavior would eventually change the thought in the whole settlement, including his own mother. Pavel and Pelagea live in a poor condition in a house of three rooms that is used as the gathering place of Pavel and his comrades and indeed the center of the struggle and the socialist movement. Pavel is behaving differently, specifically after his father’s death. He always comes home sober from the factory. Instead of getting drunk, he reads a lot of “forbidden” books and has discussions with his comrades until late night in his house.

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He organizes a strike and a huge May Day celebration that leads his to be jailed and at the end of the story, exiled in Siberia. This work of stirring up people impresses his mother, Pelagea. And after some inner conflicts, she finally becomes fully involved in the struggle and undergoes a massive shift in her life.

2.4. Theoretical Framework

This part explains the contribution of each of the theories above in solving the problems as stated in Chapter 1. The theory of character and characterization (plus theory of personality) are highly significant in helping solve the first problem, namely, how is Pelagea Nilovna’s portrayed by Maxim Gorky in his Mother.

The understanding of the theory of Marxism is highly needed since, not only, that the novel itself is categorized the pioneer of Soviet’s socialist realism genre, but also the novel contains the idea of Marxism, namely, the idea of class struggle and class consciousness. The idea of class consciousness is the main topic of this study since it is related to the progress and changes happening to the main character. The story and the context of the writing are not independent of the development of Marxism in Russia and Russian revolutionary ideas in the early twentieth century, therefore, the theories on Marxist perspective on social class and class consciousness is of great importance. By understanding the necessary theories related to Marxist’s ideas and the theory of Marxist literary criticism, I can analyze thoroughly the second problem of this study, namely, Pelagea’s reactions towards Pavel’s cause.

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Lastly, the setting of the writing of the novel and the setting in the novel are of importance in helping analyze the second problem given that according to Marxist literary criticism, the socio-economic and political situation and condition of the author reflect the work of the author itself.

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32 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This chapter elaborates the object of the study, the approach being used in the study and the method of conducting the study.

3.1. Object of the Study

The object of this study is a classic Soviet realist novel called Mother, or MATъ [Mat] in Russian language, written by a famous Russian author, Maxim Gorky. The novel was first published in 1906 in Russia and had since been translated to more than 26 languages in 106 editions by 1946 alone, and has since been filmed into some versions. In this study, I use the English translation of the novel entitled Mother, translated from Russian by Margaret Wettlin and published by Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow. This is an undated version of the novel, yet, after some search in the internet, I found that this English version was published in 1949. It is said that the novel is the single longest and phenomenal work of Maxim Gorky which became the pioneer of Soviet genre of socialist realism. The novel pictures vividly the reality of socio-political condition of the period after 1905 bourgeois revolution which installed feudalism structure of society in Russia.

The novel principally tells the story of a mother named Pelagea Nilovna, widow of an ill mannered factory worker, Mikhail Vlassov. She lives with her son,

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Pavel Vlassov, in a poor factory settlement. The social condition in the settlement is miserable, as shown in the hopelessness of the workers of being oppressed by the authority. They do monotonous hard work in a poor working condition. Their only reliefs are alcohols, fighting and domestic disturbance. Often, they go to taverns so that they can seep a little happiness by getting drunk. Everybody seems to get used to such a life so that they think that something different would only increase their hardship and bitterness of their lives. Thus lives Pavel Vlassov, a young factory worker who brings the new idea of socialism into the settlement. Pavel and his comrades’ purpose is to raise awareness of the working people that their misery of life is caused by the feudalism structure of society. He spreads forbidden leaflets and books throughout the settlement in order that, eventually, the working people unite to fight for their rights.

The novel is divided into two parts. The first part pictures the efforts of the mother, Pelagea, in grasping revolutionary ideas brought by her son, Pavel. She notices that Pavel is an unusual young man whose behavior is radically different from other fellow workers in the settlement. This bothers the mother’s mind, especially when knowing that Pavel and his friends are disbelievers. Whereas, Pelagea is a devout Christian. On the other hand, Pelagea also is also sympathetic to what Pavel’s idea of liberating the working people, despite her being confused of the new words that Pavel and his friends often use during the discussion. The peak is when Pavel and his friends are arrested and jailed when leading a May Day rally.

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In the second part of the novel, Pelagea has accepted the new idea, although at the first time she was skeptical and hesitant. By this time, Pelagea has become part of the struggle and the underground movement to stir up people. The climax is where she openly spreads the leaflets while being caught by the government spy and finally beaten to death.

Pelagea and Pavel are the main characters of the novel, but there are some other important characters. There is Andrei Nakhodka, or the khokhol, or the Ukrainian in Russian language. He is the second closest person to Pelagea after Pavel. There are also Nikolai Ivanovich, Nikolai Vesovshchikov, Sasha, Sophia and Rybin. All of them are Pavel and Pelagea’s comrades in the movement.

3.2. Approach of the Study

This study uses Marxist literary criticism approach since in Marxist literary criticism approach, the context of the writing of the novel is significant to analyzing the novel. In the analysis, the understanding of the social and political context of the period of the writing of the novel is important to comprehend the story. Therefore, the Marxist approach is best used in this study. Moreover, the publication of Maxim Gorky’s novel, Mother, was in the period of emerging Russian revolutionary ideas in the early twentieth century, in which the ideas of Marxism were explored.

In addition, the Marxist literary criticism approach concerns on the conscious and the unconscious of the social reality in which the work is produced. It tries to find the “covert” content of the novel to reveal the tendency of socio-political condition of

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the writing of the novel. In addition to showing realities, according to Marxist approach, the novel also reflects the real society (Barry, 2002: 167-8). Through employing Marxist literary criticism, I can also gain invaluable knowledge about Marxist ideas as a critical theory.

3.3. Method of the Study

In conducting the study, library research was applied as the method of the study, which means that the data was gathered from books and related materials. The primary data of this study is the novel Mother by Maxim Gorky, published by Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow in 1949. In accomplishing the study, other references were highly needed as the secondary resource.

The secondary resources include some related references about the theory of Marxism which was primarily taken from the Marxist Internet Archive 2006/2007 (MIA) DVD version, taken from www.marxists.org. This is the encyclopedia of Marxism that comprises the works of more than 300 Marxist writers. Some references from the internet were also used primarily with regards to gaining understanding about the historical background of the author and the writing of the novel.

The first step of conducting the study was reading and rereading the novel to gain deeper insights of the story and to find some interesting problem to analyze. After finding some problems to analyze, the second step was to gather references about the novel, about the author and also the socio-political conditions of the period

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of the writing of the novel. The third, I collected theories for dealing with the problems. The fourth step was to analyze the problems and the last was to write conclusion and suggestions for further study and language teaching

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37 CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS

This chapter consists of two main parts. The first part is the analysis on Pelagea Nilovna’s personality. The second main part analyzes the reactions of Pelagea Nilovna towards political condition in the novel. Pelagea’s reactions are divided into two sections. The first one is Pelagea’s changes as a manifestation of her reactions, which reveals the overt content of the novel. While the second one is the significance of her reactions, which explores the covert content of the novel.

4.1. Pelagea Nilovna’s Personality

The first problem formulation deals with the portrayal of Pelagea Nilovna in Mother. To proceed to the discussion of the topic of the study—showing Pelagea’s reactions towards Pavel’s movement—it is worthwhile to understand how Pelagea is portrayed in the story. The analysis of her trait, specifically her personality, plays an important role in assisting the reader to the next discussion.

Harvey in his Character and the Novel (23) maintains that great novels generally explore characters. To track the personality of a certain character, it is crucial to recognize how he or she is described in the novel by the author. According to Hall and Lindzey (6), human personality can be assessed from his or her reactions towards various circumstances. In other words, different circumstances that a person meets shape his or her personality. In addition, by applying the Murphy’s nine ways

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of characterization (Murphy 161-173), we can also analyze the personality of the character.

Pelagea Nilovna serves as the main character and the center of attention and development in the novel Mother by Maxim Gorky. Her complexity of personality somehow contributes to the vibrant depiction of the story. She is categorized as complex or round character given that she undergoes a dynamic change and development. She is a growing character that experiences a turning point in life which is derived from extensive and rich mental, spiritual and intellectual journeys.

Pelagea Nilovna, a wife (and later, widow) of a drunkard and boorish factory worker, is described as a mother in her forties whose appearance and facial expression illustrate her wretched life. She lives in a poor condition in a factory settlement with her husband, Mikhail Vlassov and her son, Pavel Vlassov. As Murphy (161-73) points out that one’s characterization can be seen from the opinion of other characters, Pavel, Pelagea’s son gives an insight about Pelagea’s physical appearance. She is pictured rather tall but cannot stand erect and cannot move or walk straight. “Her body [is] broken by hard work and beatings from her husband” (16). There is a deep scar above her right eyebrow, a scar she received from her husband’s beating. The scar in her face makes her look always alert and anxious on everything, so as to show deep suspicion. Grimness, sadness, and burden can always be seen from her face so that she looks older that she actually is.

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This portrait of the mother is a familiar and usual in the settlement. It is said in the novel when she was proposed by Mikhail Vlassov, her parents urged Pelagea to accept it. Their stance is that it is lucky for Pelagea that there was a man who liked her and wanted her to be his wife. For her parents, at least one mouth is no longer fed by them so that they found a little release of their hardship. The marriage cripples her and hurts her heart.

4.1.1. Religious

The first obvious kind of personality that Pelagea has is her being religious. She is undoubtedly a devout Christian. As s simple mother, she finds relief of her hardship of life by sinking in her knees before the holy image of Christ. She would serve her life for her boorish husband, although she frequently receives beatings from him. Tears regularly flow down her cheeks while she is doing her prayers, lamenting her miserable yet hopeless condition—a condition that she accepts as a fate.

Gorky extensively pictures her being attached to religion primarily starting from the first part of the novel up to the beginning of the second part. During her efforts to grasp the ideas that Pavel brings, Pelagea often consults God through prayers. Meanwhile, she is disappointed to learn Pavel’s arguing about God. Pavel and all of his comrades in the movement are nonbelievers.

Speeches or dialogs with other characters, as put forward by Murphy (161-173), give signals about the personality. It is shown when she constantly defends her stance about God while arguing with Pavel and friends:

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by the regime. But on June 14, 1936 he died. And in 1938, a group of right wing activists called Yagoda, said that they were responsible for Gorky’s death since he was pro Stalin’s crimes.

Source: http://www.russianlife.com/article.cfm?Number=341 and Marxist Internet Archive

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Appendix 4 LESSON UNIT PLAN

Subject : Short Essay Writing I

Semester : 3

Time allocation : 2 x 45 minutes class meeting Learning Materials : Writing Narrative

Teaching Methods : Discussion, Lectures, Pair Works, Individual Work Source : the summary of Maxim Gorky’s Mother

Topic Achievement Indicators

Activity Time (min.)

Media Source

Narrative

Writing Students are able to:

-Identify the main idea of the reading passage -identify the generic structure of the reading passage -analyze the features of a narrative text -produce a narrative text (short story)

1. Pre activity:

-students greet the teacher and do icebreaking

-Students review what they have learned in the previous meeting

2. Whilst activity:

-Students mention some examples of narrative orally

-Students read the

narrative text and discuss the difficult vocabularies -Students discuss the generic structure of narrative text

-Students write the story as the continuation of the text

3. Post activity:

- students are to review today’s material

-students are given homework to write a

5 5 5 30 10 30 5 -Handout, OHP - Summary of Mother - teacher - Summary of Mother

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narrative composition

Evaluation : Pair work, question and answer, recalling, pair work, individual work

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Appendix 6: Sample Material for Teaching Short Essay Writing I

Topic: Narrative

Purpose:

To amuse or to entertain

To deal with actual or imaginative experiences in different ways

Text Organization

:

1. Orientation (who/what, when, where)

Introducing the characters of the story, the time and place (setting) the story happened.

2. Complication (what problem did the character have?)

Series of events in which the main character attempts to solve the problem (conflict).

3. Resolution (how was the problem solved/ended?) Ending of the story containing a solution.

Points to remember:

1. narrative focuses on specific or individualized participants 2. Using past tenses

Types

:

Fables, Fairy tales, historical stories, folktales, mysteries, science fictions, romances, horror stories, adventures stories, myths, slice of life, personal experiences.

The text:

The Life of Pelagea Nilovna

Pelagea Nilovna is a mother and widow of a drunkard and ill-mannered husband, who lived with her son, Pavel Vlassov, in a poor factory settlement in Russia. The condition in the settlement is grim and wearisome. Poverty, monotonous hard work and poor working condition in the factory made the workers in the settlement be dragged into alcohols and domestic disturbance, in which women and children became the victims. People spent their evenings in taverns, getting drunk and fighting to each other, which caused fatal injuries and sometimes death. They were hopeless of their condition and afraid of differences and changes.

The mother was at first as ignorant as common people in the settlement— accepting her miserable condition as a mere fate. Her only relief was Jesus Christ. After the death of her husband, and followed by her close acquaintance with her son,

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she began to realize that this very condition was rooted in the structure of society that oppressed the working people. This awareness came from observing the change that her son, Pavel, underwent. Pavel, unlike other youths and workers in the settlement, did not spend the evenings to get drunk as a relief of monotonous hard work in the factory, instead he was busied by reading socialist books. The mother, at first, was really terrified of what Pavel was doing, specifically when he started to invite his friends from town to have discussions until late night, talking about “socialism” and all other words that were hardly understood by the mother.

As the time goes by, the mother began to understand the truth about what caused the hardship of the working people. She began to accept and got close with Pavel’s friends. And as the discussions intensify, the mother was attracted to the topics being discussed. She was amazed by the courage of Pavel and his friends in challenging the authority by distributing leaflets to the factory—a very dangerous step. She was amazed by the simplicity of their relationship and their happiness in the struggle as if they had found and known the real truth and justice in life, although they declare that they were unbeliever. Their becoming unbeliever troubled the mother so much. But, above all, Pelagea began to change.

She tried to understand the injustices that were caused by the feudalism structure of society that was taking place. She little by little began to love Pavel’s friends as if they were her own children. She provided tea, made socks for them and became a good listener in the discussion. She finally found justice in their struggle. And she started to be accepted as a part of the group. She was incredibly happy to be called “comrade.”

As arrests started to happen, the situation was getting harder, especially after Pavel and friends finally came out to public by organizing a small demonstration outside the factory. While Pavel’s ideas had spread throughout the settlement and soon the leaflets became the workers’ digest, Pavel and his comrades’ action started to attract popular support. Reacting to this, the authority increased on spying and arresting. And when Pavel and some of his comrades were arrested, the mother started to be completely involved in the struggle. She continued smuggling the leaflets to the factory and to villages. In this hard condition, the comrades found the unfathomable love in the mother that aroused their spirit. And she was happy to become fully involved and needed in the struggle. She was not an ignorant and fatalistic woman anymore (in fact, she began to lose her religiosity by leaving her daily prayer). She also started to learn reading.

In the end, the feeling of extreme proud, gratefulness and joy mixed with deep sorrow seep into Pelagea’s mind. This happened after Pavel and his comrades are to be exiled to Siberia. She realized that the struggle is far from being finished, and as the working people gradually aroused, bravely challenging the authority, she felt happy and proud of Pavel and other comrades’ works. Finally, when disguising in order to pass the leaflets to village and continue the struggle, the spy caught her. She bravely challenged the police, and shouted agitational words and at last she was

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beaten to death. She had become a fully revolutionary socialist militant in the struggle for justice for the working people.

Adapted from the summary of Maxim Gorky’s Mother.

A. COMPREHENSIVE QUESTIONS 1. What is the type of the narrative text?

2. Identify the generic structure of the text (orientation, conflict, resolution). B. ASSIGNMENT

Write a one-page narrative story as a continuation of the story above. Make sure you follow the text orientation.

A Marxism study: the reactions towards the existing political situation as faced by pelagea nilovna, the main character of maxim gorky`s mother.

MOTTO

2.1. Review of Literature Theories

2.3. The Contexts of the Novel

2.4. Theoretical Framework

Appendix 4

LESSON UNIT PLAN

Purpose:

Text Organization

:

Points to remember:

Types

:

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Dukungan

Links

A Marxism study: the reactions towards the existing political situation as faced by pelagea nilovna, the main character of maxim gorky`s mother.

MOTTO

2.1. Review of Literature Theories

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Purpose:

Text Organization

:

Points to remember:

Types

:

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