CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
People live in a society. They interact
each other and actually cannot live alone without their neighbors.
Society is very complex because there are many people with different
background. James Mc Knee in Introduction in Sociology
(1969:124) defines people in social group are conscious of
belonging together in common membership, and a group possesion some
mechanism to determine who belongs and who doesnot. Talking about modern
society means talking about the history of class struggles. Karl Marx
looked upon society as composed of the haves and havenots, oppressor and
oppressed. Karl Marx in Communist Manifesto assumes:
The history of all hitherto existing
society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slaves, patrician
and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word,
oppressor and oppressed, stood in a constant position to one
another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a
fight that each time ended, either in an revolutionary reconstruction of
society at large, or in the common ruin of the struggling
class.(1963:58)
Society as a whole is oversimplified by
dividing it into two classes, bourgeois and proletariat. T.B Bottomore
in Classes in Modern Society says:
By bourgeois is means the people in the
class of modern capitalist, owners of the means of production, and
employers of wage labors. It formerly was a term of middle class
in Romantic Age. Businessman from textile magnates, shopkeepers,
doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other educated and professional people,
all the groups that were called “white-collar workers” are part of
bourgeois. They change raw material and capital into industrial
production, and shapes divisions of labors. They can optimally make use
of the rapid movements of all instruments of production, the
immense facilitated means of production. Even they control the means of
state such as courts, the administration, military force, and the
agencies of intellectual persuasion. (1966:77)
Prosperity is something wished by all
countries in all over the world. It is such a great expectation to
them. It is also the one which makes the countries dynamic. Lenski Lauer
in Industry’s democratic (1984:411) describes industrialization is
economic development through transformation of resourches, and the
quality of applied energy.
It characterizes modern country as both
industrialization and modernization give tremendous influences upon
economic progress of the country. According to V.W Rostow in Britannica
(v.24:283):
The application of modern technology to
the whole economic sector is expected to create new economic
sectors replacing the old ones, for example, mining, and shipping
industry which have replacing agricultural domination, and become
pillars of economic development.
Meanwhile, industrialization which is
conducted by all countries is aimed to create prosperity for human
beings. Based on Britannica (v.24:283) industrialization is said to
occur in a given country when real incomes per head begin to rise
steadily and without apparent limit.
Industry is related to many aspects in
the society. They are aspects of economy, education, social
stratification, and the community. S.R Parker in The Sociology of
Industry (1966:65) asserts industry, in the broad sense of
technology economic enterprises and persons associated with
these, has pervasive effects on the communities it selves and from
which it draw its resources.
United States was increasingly
industrialized in nineteenth century. Industrial Revolution which
occurred in the beginning of 19thcentury was the starting point of
United States to be the modern country. Based on Americanna
(v.24:280):
There was a process of changes from an
agrarian, handicraft economy to the one dominated by industry and
machine manufacture. Such condition was indicated by industrial
development including the appearance of new inventions and technological
innovations applied in factories on large scale, the movement from
lands into cities, massing of workers in new industrial town and
factories, and the new distinctions between family life and work life.
In other words, there were mechanization
of manufacturing and other processes carried out by factories.
Furthermore, Industrial Revolution influenced education and military.
The Cultural Library (v.7:203) gives definition:
In education, more practical subject
were taught. Industry and business wanted science, Mathematics, and
accounting. Foreign traders wanted foreign languages, etc. In
military, it affected upon military preparedness such as training and
equipping of fast armies, navies, and air forces programs, as
those were impossible before Revolution Industry.
The Result was dramatic increase of per
capita income that positioned United States as one of powerful
countries at that time. Mc Knee in Introduction to Sociology asserts:
Government regulation of various forms
of economic activity is now well- established, but its significance
lies in two spheres. One of these is the development of a vast welfare
program that mitigates the impersonal effects on the market on those
subject to low income and unemployment, and offers s basic line of
social security for all. The other is the regulation of money, credit,
and investment by various measures in order to limit the once more
radical swings of the business cycle.(1969:433)
The conditions were compounded as a
whole of new image of social system and way of life of United States. Mc
Knee in Introduction to Sociology defines :
Americans have not readily recognized
the importance of social class in industrial society, or at least in
America and they have often been unwilling to admit that America even
has a class structure. The fluid, open and free character of American
Society is presumably validated by the lack of clearly developed
social classes.(1969:69)
On the other hand, Industrialization
apparently caused a social problems, especially for proletariat, that
stated by K. Dahrendorf in Class and Class Conflict in
Industrial Society :
Proletariat is the subordinate class in
industrial and engaged in industrial production. They are including
wage workers, agricultural laborers, who usually live in poverty and
depression.(1959:60)
Because of its subordinate position in
society, laborers in 19th century of United States suffered from very
poor condition. Mc Knee in Introduction in Sociology assumes:
The poor and the lower class constitute
those people who are located at the lowest level of the class structure
, who have the lowest incomes, the poorest paying jobs, and who
experience the most economic insecurity. Whatever may be their
attributes as people , the sociologist is compilled to recognize that
they are a distinctive social stratum, a different segment of modern
social structure.(1969:342)
Industrialization creates culture shock,
it occurs because the people have not been ready yet to face
the new phenomena about the industrialization process.
Urbanization and crimes were creating new tensions in society. Based on
Britannica (v.24:283):
Work was done by machine rather than
handicraft. As consequences, it created unemployment as there was
replacement of human and animal power by inanimate sources of energy.
Social conflict is one of social
phenomenon that happens in the society. It is often assumed as a
negative thing in a society because it can break relationship in a
society. They will find any difficulties to make relationship in a
society. They will find any difficulties to work together.This
phenomenon is very interesting to be analyzed. In this case, I found
social conflicts reflected in a literary work, that is in short story
entitled “South of the Slot” by Jack London.
In this final project, I will choose
“South of the Slot” as one kind of literary text to be analyzed. The
social conflicts around 1906 in United States is implied in the story.
Furthermore, literature is part of my major. As a student of
English Department who takes study to get bachelor degree, I attempt to
conduct a research focusing on social conflicts found in Jack London’s
short story “South of the Slot” by using sociological approach.
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