CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of the Study
Literature is the mirror of social condition. Through seeing it, people, in a
large or narrow sight, could see to the reality occuring in the society. Reading literary
works seems like standing in front of a mirror. People could see entirely of their
body without any bug of lying. It possibly happens since literature always tells a
truth since the story intended in that work comes from its author’s heart. When a
man’s heart talks about a problem existing around him, it can be believed that the
heart mostly talks about the reality.
Richard Taylor (1981:1) said that, literature is essentially an imaginative act
of the writer’s imagination in selecting, ordering, and interpreting life experience.
Literature also refers to composition that tells stories, dramatize situation, express
emotions and analyze advocates ideas. It enables us to recognize human dreams and
struggles in different places and times that we would never otherwise know. It
provides the comparative basic from which we can see worthiness in the aims of all
people, and help us to see the beauty in the world around us. It also exercises
emotions through interest, concern, tension, excitement, hope, fear, regret, laughter,
and sympathy.
Wellek and Warren in their book Theory of Literature say literature as “a
creative activity, an art” and literature is identical with the words: the expression of
human feeling, imaginative process and creativity (Wellek and Warren, 1972:2).
Literature can be divide into some genres. Such as poetry, drama, and prose, while
genre can also be divided into some froms. Short story is a literary form belongs to
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prose. Other forms in the genre of prose are novel, romance, and essay. Since this
analysis discusses short stories, it is necessary to have a clear understanding what
short story is. In Meriam’s Webster Ecyclopedia of Literature, short story is:
“....Brief fictional narrative to be distinguished from longer,
more expansive narrative forms such as the novel, epic, saga,
and romance. The short story is usually concerned with a single
effect conveyed in a single significant episode or scene and
involving a limited number of characters, sometime only one.
The form encourages economy of setting and concise narration;
character is disclosed. A short story may concentrate on the
reaction of mood rather than telling of the story. (Kuiper,
1995:1028).
Robert Diyanni (1990:23) said that, the short story as a form of short fiction
developed and became popular in the nineteenth century. During this period fiction
was channeled in the direction of realism or a detailed representation of everyday
life, typically the lives and experiences familiar to middle class individuals. Besides
its realistic impulse, the modern short story differs from the ancient forms of short
fiction in still another ways in the ratio between summary and scene.The short story
has grown to encompass a body of work so diverse as to defy easy characterization,
and focuses on a self-contained incident with the intent of evoking a "single effect"
or mood.
A fiction genre characterized by sadism, horror, madness of character ,
gloom, melancholy and darkness. Or often also with a strange storyline or something
extraordinary, and plot a gripping expose of solitude, such as the ruins of the castle
or other buildings. Glance, this description may be similar horror films such as Count
Draculla, Van Helsing, The Crow, Frankenstein and so on.
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Three short stories by Poe's 'Berenice', 'The Masque Of The Red Death' and
'The Black Cat' are considered in the literature. These short stories homage to horror
or commonly referred to as a short story Gothic. Short story written by Edgar Allan
Poe is characterized by a sense of sadistic, horror, mystery, supernatural, human
awareness of death brooding, thrilling, weirdness and craziness of the characters.
Edgar Allan Poe raised the horror story to a level far above mere
entertainment through their skilful intermingling of reason and madness, eerie
atmosphere and everyday reality. Poe had already shown a gift for writing about the
horrific in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838). His tales are short, intense,
and sensational and have the power to inspire horror and terror. He depict extremes
of fear, suffering and insanity and through the operations of evil, gives us glimpses
of hell. Poe’s long term influence was immeasurable and one can detect it persisting
through the 19th century.
Furthermore, this thesis will bump the character of the madness contained in
the three short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Of the three short stories, found the
behavior that led to the sadistic madness characters like; prying eyes causing
blindness, with a sadistic animal torture, dismember human bodies, hurt by brutally
forced to pull out one of the organs of the human body such as dental and -other
sadistic things.
Every short story should have characters as its element. A character is a
person who acts in the story. Human usually dominates characters in a novel and
every human has their own personality. The personality will lead the character to act
their mind, attitude, and behavioral.
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Madness of character is one of the Ghotic elements, which is almost always
appears in Ghotic fiction. It is a change of the character’s attitude, which is
influenced by evil thought, crime, superstition belief, and obsession and so on,
usually the characters that get mad are male characters while the women are in
distress.
To analyze the madness characters personality, the writer tries to apply
Wellek and Warren theory. According to Wellek and Warren, Both of this sciences
study about human behavior or character and human development. Literature
consists of the character who conducts a story while everything that relates to the
characters such as attitude or behavior and morality are part of psychology. The
writer usess his feeling and emotion in his works. It also happens on the readers, they
will use their feeling and emotion in reading the literary works because the works are
coming from the experience of the writer himself and the experience from other
people (Wellek and Warren, 1956:81-93).
The writer has some reasons why she is interested in Edgar Allan Poe’s short
stories. Firstly she is interested in writing, how Edgar Allan Poe builds the
atmosphere madness of the characters in his works. Madness of the characters here is
how to use his physical behavior of leaders to carry out his evil intentions, such as
the stabbing victim, gouged eyes, and forcibly pull the victim's body organs.
Moreover, the life of Edgar Allan Poe is interesting to see. He is a mysterious person.
His behaviors are reflected in his works, especially in his short stories.
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1.2
Problem of the Study
This case makes the writer be curious and cause the writer has a question:
1. What are the the madness that comes from the three figures in the three
Poe short story ?
1.3
Objective of the Study
The objective of this thesis tends to answer the question or the problem of
study and it would be very useless if a study is made by having no targets. Therefore,
the aims of this study is, to explain how such the madness repercussions for the
characters.
In accordance with the title of the thesis, the writer will analyse the madness
characters of Edgar Allan Poe’s three short stories entitled ‘Berenice’, ‘The Masque
Of The Red Death’ and ‘The Black Cat’, and the main purpose is to find out the
characteristics of madness characters reflected in Edgar Allan Poe’s three short
stories.
1.4
Scope of the Study
About the title of this thesis, the writer restricted their analysis to focus on the
characters, especially the behavior of the madness character figures contained in the
three short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. Madness characters will be analyzed
based on the characterization of the characters in the short story itself. Because it is
not possible for the author to discuss all the details.
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1.5
Significance of the Study
This thesis is made to gain more knowledge about the madness characters
reflected in three poe’s short stories that can be found in Poe’s three short stories.
The writer hope that this thesis will be useful for the readers who want to widen their
knowledge and enrich their interpretation about madness characters shown in Poe’s
three short stories.
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