Pengguna:Crisco 1492/Belenggu

Belenggu

Pengarang	Armijn Pane
Negara	Indonesia
Bahasa	Indonesia
Genre	Novel
Penerbit	Poedjangga Baroe Dian Rakyat
Tanggal terbit	1940
Jenis media	Cetak (kulit keras & lunak)
Halaman	150 (cetakan ke-21)
ISBN	ISBN 979-523-048-8 (cetakan ke-21)

Belenggu merupakan salah satu novel Indonesia oleh Armijn Pane. Diilhami oleh teori psikoanalisis milik Sigmund Freud, novel ini menceritakan cinta segitiga antara seorang dokter, istrinya, dan temannya; cinta segitiga ini akhirnya membuat semua mereka kehilangan orang yang paling dicintai. Pertama kali diterbitkan oleh majalah sastra Poedjangga Baroe dalam tiga bagian dari April hingga Juni 1940, Belenggu merupakan satu-satunya novel yang diterbitkan majalah tersebut dan novel psikologis Indonesia pertama.

Dasar-dasar cerita Belenggu sudah wujud dalam dua cerpen yang ditulis Armijn sebelumnya, yaitu "Barang Tiada Berharga" (1935) dan "Lupa" (1936). Novel yang dihasilkan, yang ditulis untuk mencerminkan aliran pikiran manusia dan dengan menggunakan tanda elipsis dan monolog untuk mewujudkan konflik batin, sangat berbeda daripada karya-karya sebelum nya. Dibanding karya sastra Indonesia sebelumnya, yang terbatas pada tema tradisional seperti "yang baik melawan yang jahat", Belenggu mengutamakan konflik psikis tokoh. Novel ini juga menunjukkan kalau sifat modern dan tradisional itu sebenarnya berlawanan.

Setelah diselesaikan, Belenggu ditawarkan kepada Balai Pustaka, penerbit resmi negara Hindia Belanda, pada tahun 1938. Namun, buku ini ditolak karena dianggap tidak bermoral. Novel ini kemudian diambil oleh Poedjangga Baroe. Pada awalnya, penerimaan Belenggu oleh masyarakat cukup tercampur. Pihak yang mendukungnya beranggapan bahwa novel ini benar-benar mencerminkan konflik yang dihadapi para intelektual Indonesia, sementara yang menolak beranggapan bahwa novel ini porno karena memasuki tokoh pelacur dan perselingkuhan. Tanggapan sekarang lebih positif, dengan penulis Muhammad Balfas menyebutnya "novel Indonesia terbaik dari sebelum perang kemerdekaan". Belenggu sudah diterjemahan dalam berbagai bahasa.

Alur

Sukartono (Tono), seorang dokter berpendidikan Belanda, dan istrinya Sumartini (Tini), yang tinggal di Batavia (sekarang Jakarta), sedang menjauh. Tono terlalu sibuk merawat pasien sehingga dia tidak punya waktu untuk bersama Tini. Akibatnya, Tini pun menjadi lebih aktif dengan kegiatan sosial, sehingga dia tidak mengurus rumah tangga. Hal ini membuat Tono semakin menjauh, sebab dia ingin Tini menjadi istri tradisional yang bersedia menyiapkan makan dan menunggu dia di rumah.

Suatu hari, Tono dipanggil oleh seseorang bernama Nyonya Eni, yang minta dirawat. Ketika Tono mendatanginya, dia menyadari bahwa Ny. Eni sebenarnya adalah Rohayah (Yah), temannya waktu masih kecil. Yah, yang sudah mencintai Tono sejak mereka masih di sekolah rakyat, mulai menggoda Tono sehingga dokter itu jatuh cinta. Mereka mulai bertemu secara diam-diam dan sering pergi ke bandar Tanjung Priok. Ketika Tini pergi ke Surakarta untuk menghadiri kongres wanita, Tono mengambil langkah untuk hidup bersama Yah selama satu minggu.

While at Yah's, Tono and Yah discuss their past. Tono reveals that after he graduated from the elementary school in Bandung, where he studied with Yah, he attended medical school in Surabaya and married Tini for her beauty. Meanwhile, Yah was married to an older man and moved to Palembang. After deciding that life as a wife was not for her, she moved to Batavia and became a prostitute, later serving as a Dutchman's mistress for three years. Tono falls further in love with Yah, as he feels that she is more likely to be a proper wife for him; however, Yah does not consider herself ready for marriage.

Tono, a fan of traditional kroncong music, is asked to judge a kroncong singing contest at Gambir Market. While there, he meets with Hartono, a political activist with the political party Partindo, who inquires about his wife. On a later date, Hartono visits Tono's home and meets Tini. Tini is revealed to have been romantically involved with Hartono when the two of them were in university, with Tini surrendering her virginity to him; this action, unacceptable in traditional culture, led her to be disgusted with herself and unable to love. Hartono had made the situation worse by breaking off their relationship by leaving a letter for her. When Hartono asks her to take him back, Tini refuses.

After discovering that Tono had been having an affair, Tini is furious and goes to meet Yah. However, after a long talk she decides that Yah is better for Tono and tells her to marry him; she then moves back to Surabaya, leaving Tono in Jakarta. However, Yah feels that she would only ruin Tono's respected status as a doctor because of her history as a prostitute. She decides to move to New Caledonia, leaving a note for Tono as well as a record showing that she is also Tono's favourite singer, Siti Hajati. On the way to New Caledonia, Yah pines for Tono and hears his voice calling from afar, giving a speech on the radio. Tono is left alone and dedicates himself to his work, trying to fill the void left in his heart.

Tokoh

Sukartono

Sukartono (abbreviated as Tono) is a doctor who is husband to Tini and lover to Yah. Trained as a doctor, he treats poor patients for free and is thus well-liked by the general populace. He is also a big fan of traditional kroncong music, preferring singing over studying while in medical school and keeping a radio in his treatment room. This affection for traditional music reflects his wants to have a traditionally-minded wife to take care of his needs. Suffering from his loveless marriage with the modern-minded Tini, he falls for Yah, whom he perceives as being more willing to play the traditional wife. However, after Tini leaves him and when he proposes to Yah, he is left alone.

Sumartini

Sumartini (abbreviated as Tini) is Tono's ultra-modern wife. While in university, she was very popular and enjoyed partying. During this time she lost her virginity to Hartono, which is viewed as unacceptable in traditional Indonesian culture; when he left her, she became increasingly aloof and distant from the wants of men. After being married by Tono, she felt increasingly lonely and took to doing social work to give her life meaning. After learning of Tono's infidelity and seeing that Yah could take better care of him, Tini leaves her husband and moves to Surabaya.

Yoseph Yapi Taum, a lecturer at Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta, views Tini's aloof nature as a major force driving Tono to Yah; her lifestyle, of which Tono is not a part, alienates him and drives him to find a more traditional woman. Tham Seong Chee, a political scientist from Singapore, views her as a weak-willed character, unwilling to act without outside intervention and even then being unwilling to work out her issues with Tono. He also sees her as being fettered by her own values, which are incompatible with those held by the general Indonesian populace. Indonesian poet and literary critic Goenawan Mohamad views her as being driven in part by the stress placed on her by her husband's expectations.

Rohayah

Rohayah (also known by the pseudonyms Nyonya Eni and Siti Hayati; abbreviated Yah) is Tono's childhood friend and lover, as well as a popular kroncong singer. After Tono, who is three years her elder, graduated from elementary school, Yah was forcibly married to man twenty years her senior and brought from Bandung to Palembang. After escaping him, she returned to Bandung and found that her parents had died, she moved to Batavia and became a prostitute; she also became a popular kroncong singer under the pseudonym Siti Hayati. When she discovers that Tono has become a doctor in Batavia, she pretends to be a patient and seduces him by letting her houserobe slip and revealing skin. Although the two fall deeply in love, Yah decides to leave Tono as she feels that society would view him poorly if he married a former prostitute. She moves to New Caledonia.

Tham sees Yah as being a good match for Tono in personality, as she shows a willingness to serve as the traditional wife. However, she finds herself unable to be in a relationship with him as her past as a prostitute would ruin his good name. He sees the underlying message as being that "morals and ethical standards are frequently beyond the ken of intellect, reason, or rationality". Mohamad describes her as being fatalistic and notes that she downplays her past by saying that any of a thousand girls in Tanjung Priok could tell the same story; he also found her touching without being melodramatic. Mohamad notes that Yah was the first prostitute featured in an Indonesian work who was portrayed sympathetically.

Influences

Bakri Siregar, an Indonesian socialist literary critic associated with Lekra, notes that Pane was influenced in part by Sigmund Freud's theories on psychoanalysis; he writes that it is most evident in the treatment of Sumartini. Two of Pane's earlier short stories, "Barang Tiada Berharga" ("Worthless Thing"; 1935) and "Lupa" ("Forget"; 1936), contained plot points used in Belenggu. "Barang Tiada Berharga" also dealt with a doctor and his wife, Pardi and Haereni, who were characterized in a similar manner as Sukartono and Sumartini, while "Lupa" introduced the main character Sukartono. As the reigning Dutch colonial government forbade the involvement of politics in literature, Pane minimized the explicit effects of colonialism in the novel.

Gaya

Belenggu uses ellipses and monologues heavily to represent the main characters' internal turmoil, to the point that Dutch scholar of Indonesian literature A. Teeuw calls it a "three-pronged interior monologue". Unlike works published by Balai Pustaka, the state-owned publisher of the Dutch East Indies, Belenggu does not provide full exposition; instead, it only explicitly states key points and leaves the rest for the reader to interpret, leading to more active reader participation.

Unlike authors of earlier works published by Balai Bahasa, Pane does not use proverbs; he instead uses similes. Another way in which he writes differently than earlier writers is by limiting his use of the Dutch language; earlier writers such as Abdul Muis and Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana used the language of the dominant colonial power to illustrate the intellectualism of the main characters, while in Belenggu Pane relies on the Indonesianized loan words, with a glossary of difficult or uncommon words provided with early editions of the novel. Siregar wrote that Pane's language reflected the actual use of Indonesian well.

Analisis

Simbolisme

According to Taum, the title Belenggu reflects the inner conflicts faced by all of the main characters, causing them to be limited in their actions. Taum points to the climax of the novel--in which Rohayah has the chance to marry Sukartono but refuses because if she were to marry him he would lose face by virtue of her formerly being a prostitute--as a prime example of these limitations. Siregar notes that this is supported by dialogue between Hartono and Sukartono, in which they note that humans are inherently held back by their reminiscences of the past.

Uncommonly for Indonesian literature during this time period, Belenggu's chapters were labeled with only a number – other works, such as Abdul Muis' 1928 novel Salah Asuhan, gave both a number and subtitle to the chapters. According to Taum, this change in style represents humanity's stream of consciousness, as opposed to the earlier style which kept chapters separate.

Tema

Teeuw notes that, unlike most Indonesian novels at the time, Belenggu did not feature a theme of a good and pure protagonist struggling against an evil antagonist or deal with conflict and differences between different generations. It also did away with the common themes of forced marriage and the youth's nonacceptance of adat (traditional culture). Instead, it showed a love triangle – common in Western literature but unheard of in Indonesian literature at the time – without an indication of whether any characters were good, evil, right, or wrong. He writes that the novel portrayed the interior struggle of a "new kind of human", one who is the result of a mixture of Eastern and Western cultures.

Taum indicates that Belenggu presents modernity and traditionalism as a binary system, contrasting the new with the old. For example, Sukartono, a doctor (considered a symbol of modernity), is obsessed with the past, including his schoolmate Rahayah, and prefers traditional kroncong music over other, more modern genres. Through the contrast of Sukartono and his ultra-modern and emancipatory wife Sumartini, Pane emphasizes that modernity does not necessarily bring happiness. Taum writes that this may have been influenced by or even written as a response to Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana's 1936 novel Layar Terkembang, which dealt with a similar theme but was for modernization.

Clive Christie, a lecturer on Southeast Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, notes that Belenggu also contains a strong sense of alienation. He writes that the characters seem to part of a "society suspended in a vacuum", without an explicit connection to colonialism but also unable to come to terms with traditional mores. Christie describes Sukartono's relationship with Rohayah as symbolic of intellectuals trying to engage with the masses through a shared popular culture, but ultimately failing.

Peluncuran

Belenggu was submitted to Balai Pustaka for publication in 1938, but was not accepted due to its perceived dissonance with public morality; this was based on the fact that adultery was portrayed as normal in the novel and played a key part in the plot. Eventually it was picked up by the literary magazine Poedjangga Baroe, which Pane had helped found in 1933, and was published in a serial format in three editions between April and June 1940. Belenggu was the only novel published by the magazine. It was the first Indonesian psychological novel.

In 1965, Belenggu was translated into Malay. By 1988, it had been translated to Mandarin, and in 1989, it was translated to English by John McGlynn under the title Shackles and published by the Lontar Foundation.

Penerimaan

Upon its release, there were two main reactions. Proponents of the novel stated that it was daring, as it dealt with themes based on societal realities. For example, journalist S. K. Trimurti wrote that the novel well reflected issues faced by highly educated Indonesians in dealing with traditional culture. Meanwhile, opponents of the novel dismissed it as "pornographic", putting emphasis on traditionally taboo acts like prostitution and adultery. Alisjahbana wrote that it was fatalistic and defeatist as he felt it did not portray the freedom of spirit necessary for people to choose their own destiny, and he decried the plot as lacking causality. According to Teeuw, the initial mixed reception was due in part to Indonesian readers, having been accustomed to reading idealized literature, being shocked by the realistic portrayals in Belenggu.

Later reviews have generally been more positive. Literary documentarian HB Jassin wrote in 1967 that, although the characters came across as caricatures, Belenggu was capable of making readers stop and think about modern conditions. In 1969 the novel received an award for outstanding literature from the Indonesian government; that same year, Indonesian writer and literary critic Ajip Rosidi wrote that the novel was more interesting than earlier works because its ending was open to interpretation. Indonesian poet and literary critic Muhammad Balfas wrote in 1976 that Belenggu was "in every respect the best novel of pre-war Indonesian literature". In his 1980 book on Indonesian literature, Teeuw wrote that despite several flaws in the psychological portrayal of the main characters, Belenggu was the only novel from before the Indonesian National Revolution in which a reader from the West would feel truly involved. Tham wrote in 1981 that the novel was the best reflection of the growing consciousness of the Indonesian people that Western values such as individualism and intellectualism contradicted with traditional values.

Rujukan

Catatan kaki

Daftar pustaka

• Balfas, Muhammad (1976). "Modern Indonesian Literature in Brief". Dalam L. F., Brakel. Handbuch der Orientalistik (dalam bahasa Inggris). 1. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-04331-2. 
• Christie, Clive (2001). Ideology and Revolution in Southeast Asia, 1900–1980 : Political Ideas of the Anti-Colonial Era (dalam bahasa Inggris). Richmond: Curzon. ISBN 978-0-7007-1308-0. 
• KS, Yudiono (2010). Pengantar Sejarah Sastra Indonesia. Jakarta: Grasindo. ISBN 978-979-759-849-5. 
• Mahayana, Maman S.; Sofyan, Oyon; Dian, Achmad (2007). Ringkasan dan Ulasan Novel Indonesia Modern. Jakarta: Grasindo. ISBN 978-979-0-25006-2. 
• Mohamad, Goenawan (20 April 1985). "Yah". Tempo. Diarsipkan dari versi asli tanggal 3 February 2012. Diakses tanggal 3 February 2012. 
• Rampan, Korrie Layun (2000). Leksikon Susastra Indonesia. Jakarta: Balai Pustaka. ISBN 978-979-666-358-3. 
• Siregar, Bakri (1964). Sedjarah Sastera Indonesia. 1. Jakarta: Akademi Sastera dan Bahasa "Multatuli". OCLC 63841626. 
• Taum, Yoseph Yapi (2008). "Pemaknaan Belenggu dengan Teori dan Metode Semiotik". Sintesis. 6 (2): 131–153. 
• Teeuw, A. (1980). Sastra Baru Indonesia. 1. Ende: Nusa Indah. OCLC 222168801. 
• Tham, Seong Chee (1981). Essays on Literature & Society in Southeast Asia (dalam bahasa Inggris). S.l: Coronet Books. ISBN 978-9971-69-035-9.