Abstract
This paper analyzes four selected short stories in Javanese literature entitled “Durmogati” by Budianto, “Maju Tatu Mundur Ajur” (“Damned if One Does, Damned if One Doesn’t”) by Budiono, “Bojo” (“Wife”) and “Apik Meneng” (“It’s Better to be Silent”) by Harjono which were all published in 2018. In Indonesia, Javanese literature—together with other regional literatures—is a part of or complimentary to Indonesian literature but it has not received much attention at the national level, let alone at the international level. However, Javanese literature has not been less vocal than Indonesian literature. In this article, I will examine the socio-political engagements of the four short stories in Indonesian society. Using Phillips’ ethnographic approach and Foucault’s theory of power distribution, I will analyze how the four short stories are related to democracy, people’s power, equality, and corruption in Indonesia after the fall of Suharto as the president of Indonesia in 1998. The analysis shows that the four short stories have significant socio-political engagements in the present Indonesia. The authors of the four short stories discussed in this paper show courage to blatantly criticize those who are in power. As such, the discussion of this essay offers fresh insights about contemporary Javanese literature and its role in the socio-political situation of the country. In the end, this essay will show that these four short stories are not only a reflection of Javanese society in particular and that of Indonesia in general but also as expressions of their authors as key informants about their society, i.e., how they see and think about the society in which they live. Keywords Javanese literature; socio-political engagement; democracy; power; equality
Highlights
Contemporary Javanese literature is often referred to as rural literature because most of these works portray the lives of rural people with all their everyday problems (Hutomo, 1997; Kristianawati, 2016)
It can be concluded that the four selected short stories contain sociopolitical issues in Indonesia, i.e., democracy, people’s power, equality, and corruption even though each short story has its own emphasis
Abundant works in the form of poetry, short story, and novel need to be researched to justify that contemporary Javanese literature undoubtedly describes Javanese society in particular and Indonesian society in general and whether it has socio-political engagements
Summary
Contemporary Javanese literature is often referred to as rural literature because most of these works portray the lives of rural people with all their everyday problems (Hutomo, 1997; Kristianawati, 2016). Scholars on this topic emphasize the fact that Javanese authors in general, live in and come from villages. I want to argue that the wind of reformation caused some Javanese authors to be transformed from being “sweet” to become “fierce.” By “sweet” I mean that they were previously uncritical of those who were in power Even if they wanted to criticize those in power, they did it very subtly. The four stories I discuss here, all published in 2018, reflect the significant change that the reformation brought
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