Social Status Issues in Arswendo Atmowiloto’s Canting and Umar Kayam's Jalan Menikung Novels

Abstrak

Arswendo Atmowiloto’s Canting and Umar Kayam’s Jalan Menikung are examples of literary works that have an intertextual relationship. Canting and Jalan Menikung novels narrate the story of people with different social statuses, that is between nobility and peasant. Therefore, this study aims to describe (1) the main components of the novel that include theme, characterization, settings, and plot, (2) social status, and (3) the intertextual relationship between Canting and Jalan Menikung novels.

The theory that becomes the reference for this study is the social status theory of Javanese culture and the structural theory. According to Franz Magis Suseno (1984), Javanese society classifies the social class into the peasants and the nobility. Rokmansyah (2014) views a literary work as insertion or a graft on other literary works so that there is an intertextual relationship between one text and other texts that are written later.[G1] [G2] [G3] 

This study is a qualitative study with a descriptive method. Data are in the form of words, sentences, and utterances related to social status in Arswendo Atmowiloto’s Canting (2013) and Umar Kayam’s Jalan Menikung (2000) novels. Data collection is performed through reading and note-taking techniques. The data analysis is carried out in the form of (1) data reduction, which is note-takings of collected data in the form of detailed descriptions, (2) data presentation, which is the grouping of collected data into parts based on the type of the problems, (3) conclusions.[G4] 

Based on the data analysis and the general conclusions, several findings are described as follows. First, the intrinsic components of (a) the theme in Canting and Jalan Menikung novels are similar, which is the social status in the Javanese culture, (b) the main characters in Canting novel is Pak Bei and Ni, while the main characters in Jalan Menikung is Eko, (c) Canting uses the time setting of pre-independence and post-independence era, the place setting of Ndalem Ngabean, and the atmosphere is suspenseful, while Jalan Menikung describes the time setting of pre-independence and post-independence era, the place setting of Wanagalih, and a tense-filled atmosphere, and (d) the plot in Canting and Jalan Menikung is a combined plot. Second, the social status of the characters consists of nobility and peasant; however, both novels take a different route on describing rags to riches experience. Third, the intertextual relationship found is that Jalan Menikung disapproves of the way of achieving a noble social status that is described in detail in [G5] [G6] Canting. Therefore, it is concluded that Canting is a hypogram and Jalan Menikung is its transformational work.

Keyword: Canting novel, Jalan Menikung novel, social status, intertextual study