Orientasi Novel Atheis

Volume past Achdiat Karta Mihardja

Atheis

Embrace of the 32nd printing
Writer	Achdiat Karta Mihardja
State	Indonesia
Linguistic communication	Indonesian
Genre	Novel
Publisher	Balai Pustaka
Publication date	1949
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	224 (32nd press)
ISBN	978-979-407-185-4 (32nd printing)
OCLC	436358542

Atheis

(English:

Atheist
) is a 1949 Indonesian novel written by Achdiat Karta Mihardja and published by Balai Pustaka. The novel, using three narrative voices, details the rise and fall of Hasan, a young Muslim who is raised to be religious merely winds upwardly doubting his faith after dealings with his Marxist–Leninist childhood friend and an anarcho-nihilist writer.

Mihardja, a announcer-cum-literary editor who associated with the eccentric poet Chairil Anwar and the Socialist Party of Indonesia, wrote
Atheis
from May 1948 to February 1949. The Indonesian used in the novel was influenced by Sundanese and harkens back to earlier works by Minang writers, as opposed to Mihardja’s contemporaries who attempted to distance themselves from the earlier manner. Dealing mainly with faith, the novel also touches on the interactions between modernity and traditionalism. Although the writer insisted that the work was meant to be realistic, symbolic representations from subjective meanings to the novel existence an allegory accept been advanced.

Later on the novel was published, it caused considerable discussion. Religious thinkers, Marxist-Leninists, and anarchists decried the novel for not explaining their ideologies in more than item, but literary figures and many in the general public praised it; this positive reception may accept been influenced by the nascent government’south need to promote literature for nation-building.
Atheis
was translated into Malay before 1970 and into English in 1972; it was also adapted into a motion-picture show with the same title in 1974. The novel, which received an award from the Indonesian authorities in 1969, is one of the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works.

Plot

[edit]

The plot of
Atheis
is non-linear. A. Teeuw, a Dutch scholar of Indonesian literature, models it equally beneath, with A representing the time frame covered in Hasan’due south manuscript (from his youth until splitting with Kartini), B representing the time frame in which the narrator meets with Hasan and receives his manuscript, and C representing the events around Hasan’s expiry.^[1]

[C {B (A) B} C]

The following plot summary is presented chronologically.

Hasan, born to a religious Naqshbandi family unit in Panyeredan, is a student who lives with his family and adopted sister, Fatimah. After finishing his schooling, Hasan attempts to advise marriage to his classmate, Rukmini. However, Rukmini, who is from a higher social class than him, is set to ally a rich man from Batavia (modern day Jakarta). Instead, his parents ask him to marry Fatimah. Hasan refuses, then devotes himself to studying Islam with his begetter. In the early 1940s he moves to Bandung to work as a civil servant.

In Bandung, Hasan works for the Japanese occupation government and lives an ascetic lifestyle, often fasting for days on end and dunking himself into a river to refresh his body between evening and morn prayers. While there, he meets his childhood friend Rusli, who introduces Hasan to his friend Kartini. Seeing that Rusli and Kartini are atheistic Marxist-Leninists, Hasan considers information technology his duty to return them to Islam. However, he finds himself unable to address Rusli’s arguments confronting religion and begins doubting his faith. Soon Hasan becomes increasingly divorced from his religious upbringing, at one time skipping the mandatory
maghrib
prayer to lookout man a picture show with Kartini. Through Rusli, Hasan is introduced to people from different ideologies, including the anarcho-nihilist playboy Anwar; he likewise begins courting Kartini.

I twenty-four hour period, he returns to Panyeredan to visit his family with Anwar. While there, Anwar sees some dark watchmen quivering in fear almost a cemetery. When told that they had seen a ghost, Anwar enters the cemetery with Hasan to disprove its being. However, Hasan thinks he sees a ghost and runs abroad frightened. When ridiculed for this by Anwar, Hasan’due south faith is broken. This leads him to have a large fight with his family about their Islamic faith, which results in Hasan’s family disowning him. Upon his return to Bandung, Hasan marries Kartini.

Three years later on, Hasan’s relationship with Kartini is souring; both are suspicious that the other is unfaithful. Eventually, Hasan sees Kartini and Anwar leaving a hotel nigh the train station and incorrectly assumes that she had been cheating on him. He immediately divorces her and moves out, but soon contracts tuberculosis. Later several weeks, Hasan returns to Panyeredan subsequently hearing that his father is ill to work out their issues. However, his begetter rejects him as a temptation from the devil. Dejected, Hasan returns to Bandung.

As his health continues to degrade, Hasan approaches a local journalist with a manuscript that details his life; the journalist agrees to publish it should something happen to Hasan. Not long subsequently, Hasan goes out into the nighttime after curfew and is shot in the breast by Japanese patrols, dying later torture at the station with the Islamic creed “Allahu Akbar” on his lips. Afterward, Rusli and a tearful Kartini merits his torso.

Characters

[edit]

Hasan

Hasan is the protagonist of the novel. Raised a devout Muslim, he becomes dislocated over his beliefs due to influences from his childhood friend and other acquaintances in Bandung. He is further confused by his feelings towards Kartini, who physically resembles his outset beloved Rukmini. Eventually, subsequently being disowned by his family unit and seemingly abandoned by his friends, Hasan is shot and subsequently tortured to death past Japanese police force.^[ii]

According to the literary critics Maman Southward. Mahayana, Oyon Sofyan, and Achmad Dian, Hasan’s psychological struggles reflect Sigmund Freud’s theories on psychoanalysis.^[three]
Teeuw notes that Hasan comes across as being disappointed that his traditional religious upbringing is not enough to overcome the temptations of the modern world.^[4]
Poet and critic of Indonesian literature Muhammad Balfas writes that Hasan’s conflict arises from being torn intellectually betwixt the teachings of his ultra-religious father and the Marxist Rusli, while at the same time being emotionally victimised by the ever self-confident Anwar. Balfas notes that three versions of Hasan are fabricated credible to the reader: Hasan’s view of himself, the narrator’due south view of Hasan, and the narrator’s reconstruction of Hasan.^[5]

Rusli

Rusli is Hasan’s childhood friend who approaches him in Bandung. A Marxist-Leninist, he is highly educated and eloquent, which he often uses to win debates on the benefits of unlike ideologies. Through Rusli, Hasan is introduced to several other characters with Western educations and ideologies, including Hasan’s future wife Kartini. During Hasan’s fourth dimension in Bandung, Rusli provides emotional support to him and Kartini. Rusli accompanies Kartini to the police station to place Hasan’s body.^[2]

Co-ordinate to literary scholar Boen S. Oemarjati, Rusli was inspired by i of Mihardja’south friends in Bandung.^[6]
Hendrik Maier, professor of southeast Asian literature at the University of California, Riverside, characterizes Rusli as the nearly balanced of the main protagonists.^[7]

Kartini

Kartini is a immature Marxist-Leninist who Rusli introduces to Hasan. Equally Kartini resembles Hasan’due south start love, Hasan falls deeply in love with her. Nonetheless, afterwards they marry Hasan becomes increasingly jealous and questions her human relationship with Anwar, who often flirts with Kartini. When Anwar picks her upward at the train station after she visits her aunt, he attempts to force himself on her. After fighting him off, Kartini leaves the hotel, followed past Anwar. After Hasan divorces her based on his perception of the events, Kartini lives alone. She cries over Hasan’s body when asked to identify him for the constabulary.^[2]

Anwar

Anwar is a young anarcho-nihilist who considers himself his own god. He is known for being a crude womanizer who has no qualms with using others to become what he wants. Through his actions, Anwar is responsible for both events which devastate Hasan’s life: Anwar’due south ridicule leads Hasan to strife with his family unit, and Anwar’s womanizing and incessant flirting, including unwanted sexual advances confronting Kartini, lead to Hasan’s divorce.^[2]
Maier describes him every bit a “destructive, egotistic and vain man who in daily life does not live upward to the ideals with which he tries to impress [Hasan]”.^[eight]

Anwar is idea to have been based on the poet Chairil Anwar,^[eight]
an individualistic anarchist known for being abrasive, having kleptomania, and womanizing.^[9]
The poet’s friend Nasjah Djamin notes that the characterization captured the real-life Anwar’s nonchalance, impoliteness, and arrogance.^[ten]

Narrator

The narrator, who only appears in parts of the novel which he narrates, is referred to throughout the novel only equally “saya” (a respectful term for “I” or “me”). Trivial is known virtually his personal life other than that he is a journalist.^[i]
According to Indonesian writer and literary critic Subagio Sastrowardoyo, the narrator appears to be representative of Mihardja and is used to teach moral lessons to the reader through his suggestions to Hasan.^[11]

Writing and influences

[edit]

Mihardja, who was born and raised in Garut, Westward Java, was trained as a journalist^[12]
before moving to Batavia in 1941 to work for the state publisher of the Dutch Due east Indies, Balai Pustaka. While in Batavia, in 1945 he began associating with Chairil Anwar’s literary group Republika. After the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence and the get-go of the Indonesian National Revolution, he fled to West Java and participated in events led by the Socialist Political party of Indonesia led by Sutan Sjahrir.^[13]
He was not an atheist, although his association with the party led some to describe that conclusion.^[14]
Mihardja drew upon this background while writing
Atheis.^[xiii]

Atheis
was Mihardja’s first novel; what few literary works he had written beforehand were mostly curt stories and dramas, both those intended for the radio and the stage. He never formally studied writing, instead learning how to write fiction from his experiences reading existing works, including those of André Gide, Leo Tolstoy, Vsevolod Ivanov, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. His writing way was heavily influenced by that of Gide, especially equally found in
The Immoralist
(1902). Malay, the linguistic communication which forms the basis of modern Indonesian, was not Mihardja’s native language; his earlier works had all been in Sundanese, and Mihardja had only begun regularly using Indonesian after the Japanese occupation (1942–1945), when he became a translator.^[6]

The inspiration for
Atheis
came, co-ordinate to Oemarjati, sometime during the early 1940s.^[15]
In Mihardja’southward observations, Marxism–Leninism and anarcho-nihilism were amongst the most common ideologies in Republic of indonesia; this led him to draw Rusli and Anwar as holding those ideologies.^[16]
Meanwhile, emerging writers such as Idrus, Asrul Sani, and Chairil Anwar were increasingly disquisitional of the older generation of Indonesian authors, whom they decried every bit bigoted and provincial.^[12]
Mihardja, who was older than many contemporary writers and wrote in a similar style to the older authors, disliked this comparison; according to Maier, this may have led him to correspond Chairil Anwar as a much-flawed grapheme.^[12]
Mihardja formalised his concept throughout the early 1940s and completed the writing during a menses of unemployment from May 1948 until February 1949.^[17]

Styles

[edit]

Atheis
uses three narrative voices, the get-go Indonesian novel to do so.^[1]
[xi]
The novel starts with a tertiary-person description of Rusli and Kartini’south visit to the Japanese police headquarters after hearing of Hasan’due south expiry. Afterwards, the narrator, referred to only as “saya”, describes in the first person how he met Hasan and how the master grapheme came to tell him his life’s story. This is followed by what is described by the original narrator as a manuscript past Hasan, which tells Hasan’s life story from his own point of view using the less respectful term “aku”. Later a brief recollection of the narrator’s concluding meeting with Hasan in the starting time person, using “saya”, the last portion of the book describes Hasan’southward death in the third person omniscient.^{[1]
[eighteen]}
According to Teeuw, this serves to avert caricaturing the characters by giving an objective presentation of them before transitioning to their indicate of view.^[4]
Withal, Mihardja wrote that it was simply to facilitate the completion of the plot.^[19]

Teeuw writes that the literary style is didactic, which he considers the novel’south main shortcoming. However, he notes that Mihardja was part of a literary move led by Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana that viewed literature equally existence instructive; he also writes that such a way was common in Indonesian literature at the time.^[20]

The wording in the novel shows a heavy Sundanese influence, including many loan-words. Teeuw describes the diction equally forced in places, with sentence construction deviating from those used by the Minang writers who dominated that menstruum’s Indonesian literature. According to Teeuw, this is because Mihardja had been raised speaking both Sundanese and Dutch; as such, his Indonesian was not likewise developed every bit Minang writers or those younger than him.^[20]
Maier notes that the novel features “odd merely appropriate metaphors and similes” and stylistically resembles earlier works such equally Abdul Muis’
Salah Asuhan
(Incorrect Upbringing; 1928), Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana’s
Layar Terkembang
(With Sails Unfurled; 1936), and Armijn Pane’s
Belenggu
(Shackles; 1940).^[8]
Balfas likewise notes stylistic similarities with older works, such as the expiry of the protagonist at the climax,^[five]
and Sastrowardoyo opines that
Belenggu
had a more modern styling despite being published ix years before.^[21]

Themes and symbolism

[edit]

Mihardja later wrote that he intended the novel to deal with the question of the existence of God.^[22]
Mahayana
et al.
agree, noting that the theme of faith – a theme unknown in modern Indonesian literature at the time – is constitute throughout the novel.^[3]
Maier notes that the psychological concepts of guilt, fear, and remorse bulldoze the novel.^[23]
Teeuw describes the work equally taking upward the archetype theme of modernity versus tradition in a new, more worldly manner.^[13]
Balfas writes that this approach to the theme was soon followed by other writers.^[5]

Despite Mihardja’s insistence that
Atheis
is meant to be realistic, several symbolic interpretations have been put forward. According to Mihardja, one of the nigh common interpretations readers conveyed to him was that Hasan’s decease symbolised atheism defeating religion, with Hasan’s death as the death of theism.^[24]
According to Maier,
Atheis
serves as an apologue for the development of the Indonesian nation. Hasan, representing traditionalism, is killed by the Japanese, who changed the status quo when they invaded in 1942. Meanwhile, the anarchistic Anwar finds himself without a place in the modern world. Simply the responsible modern grapheme, Rusli, is able to bring the Indonesian nation, as represented past Kartini, to terms with the new world.^[25]

Print history

[edit]

Atheis
was published in 1949 by Balai Pustaka, which had become the country publisher of independent Indonesia.^[26]
A second printing followed 3 years later on, with a embrace by Basuki Resobowo. A third printing, which had several revisions to improve the flow of the story, was published in 1958.^[27]
Equally of 2009^[update],
Atheis
has been reprinted xxx-iii times.^{[
commendation needed
]}
By 1970,
Atheis
had been printed in Malaysian 3 times.^[3]
In 1972, the novel was translated by R. J. Macguire into English equally part of the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works project.^[28]

Reception

[edit]

According to Teeuw, afterward the publication of
Atheis
Mihardja immediately became famous.^[thirteen]
Maier notes that the fame and warm reception to which
Atheis
was released was influenced non only past the novel’s strengths, but also by Mihardja’s personality and stature. These qualities were in-line with the nascent government’s demand to use literature, as the most developed of the new national culture, for nation-building;^[29]
in 1969,
Atheis
received a literary award from the government of Indonesia.^[3]

Co-ordinate to Mihardja, religious thinkers blasted the novel for depicting Hasan, whom they interpreted as representative of religion and religious people, every bit unable to overcome temptation; they also disliked the novel’due south lack of in-depth discussion of religion, necessary for a improve agreement of theism.^[30]
Marxists and anarchists also felt that their ideologies were non well explained. They considered Rusli and Anwar non truly representative of the thoughts of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche.^[31]
In response, Mihardja wrote that the characters were meant to be realistic, and that few people have as much knowledge most an ideology equally demanded by the critics.^[32]

However, other readers – many from the literary customs – praised the novel, including writers Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah.^[26]
Sastrowardoyo described information technology as a “well made novel”, arguing that Hasan’south decease brought complete closure to the story.^[33]
Teeuw describes
Atheis
every bit the first truly interesting novel to arise after the state of war for independence.^[13]

Author Ahmad Tohari describes
Atheis
as a “timeless monument of Indonesian literature”,^[a]
emphasising its ability to stand for the social factors dominant in Indonesian society at the time of writing.^[34]
Mahayana credits the volume’due south success to “virtually every element which remains salient”^[b]
attributable to its setting and story-telling techniques.^[35]

Legacy

[edit]

Past the 1970s
Atheis
had become role of the Indonesian junior and senior loftier school curriculum.^[36]
In 1974 Sjumandjaja adapted the novel into a moving picture with the aforementioned championship.^[three]
The pic, shot on a Rp. lxxx meg (US$193,771^[c]) budget,^[37]
mimicked the novel’s non-linear plot.^[38]
Intended as a challenge to Indonesia’s religious communities,^[37]
upon its release faced with controversy. Ultimately, the Indonesian censorship bureau passed the motion-picture show after several cuts.^[37]
Though it was a commercial failure, Sjumandjaja’s
Atheis
was well received by critics.^[39]

Mihardja went on to write two more than novels:
Debu Cinta Bertebaran
(The Dust of Love Spreads; 1973), published in Singapore, and
Manifesto Khalifatullah
(Manifest of Khalifatullah; 2005), published in Dki jakarta.^[40]
[14]
At the launch of
Manifesto Khalifatullah, a religious-themed novel, Mihardja stated that it was “the reply to
Atheis“, after he came to believe that “God made homo to be His representative on earth, not that of Satan”.^[xiv]

Explanatory notes

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References

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Works cited

[edit]