Bahasa Indonesia
Adi Surya Rahmanu
Abstract
A Dark Moon Raging is a novel written in 1982 by Aileen Armitage. This novel adopted an actual murder case conducted by a fifth teen years old girl named Constance Kent who kills her half brother, Franciss Kent. This study focuses on Armitage’s motive behind the creation of the novel. It uses genetic structuralism theory by Lucien Goldmann which views a literary work as a significant structure that is built by the author to convey author’s opinion, to influence the reader and to change the social condition. Therefore, it deals with intrinsic and extrinsic element of literary work. The data are facts and information derived from quotations related to the murder case from the novel and external sources related to the social condition of author. The analysis starts from the explanation about the condition of Constance’s family as Victorian middle class. At this point, the problems within Constance’s family are analyzed. Then, the observation continues to analyze the social condition of England in 1980s as the year of novel publication and Aileen Armitage’s social background. Genetic structuralism is applied in this stage to find the relation of author’s social condition as a part of middle class family with the depiction of middle class family represented in her novel. The result shows that A Dark Moon Raging contains a critique toward middle class family of Victorian era since the novel exposes the rigidity of Constance’s family which stimulate Constance to kill her half brother. This research also finds out that Armitage uses Constance as the symbol of freedom which finally shows the author’s ideological position as a critic of ideology held by middle class family in Victorian era.
Keywords: Constance’s murder case, Victorian era, Genetic Structuralism