RAHMAT SETIAWAN

092154030

DECONSTRUCTION OF FIRE AND ICE IN ROBERT FROST’S “FIRE AND ICE”

“Fire and Ice” is a poem of Robert Frost that commonly people say it about the end of world. It can be summed up from the first line that written by “Some say the world will end …” Continued by the contents that show how it will end. If this poem is observed in details, it will show how Roberts Frost deconstructs about the end of world. Deconstruction itself is refusing of logo-centrism that centers the hierarchy in a binary opposition of a sense or meaning. A sense or a meaning cannot be limited by a sign, because the sign just descends the real meaning. Therefore, deconstruction is a way of reading text with the result that text cannot sign a meaning in a hierarchy or single truth (Ratna, 2004:222, Al-Fayyadl, 2005: 68, Norris, 2006:14).

Briefly, to the title of “Fire and Ice”, it looks like a binary opposition like black and white, men and women, hell and heaven, demon and angel, and bad and good. Robert Frost deconstructs this binary opposition of fire and the opposition. If looking at the binary opposition, it can be known that “Fire” should opposite with “water” not the “Ice” because “Ice” itself is the water that reaches the minimum of temperature. Shortly, “Ice” is the alteration of water while for the “Fire” only has a form of “Fire” itself. Fire that has very high temperature will keep being “Fire”, because it has no the other of form. Based on it, paradigm of binary opposition of “Fire and water” has moved to “Fire and Ice”.

Continuously, in binary opposition, there is always one thing that is hierarchy. This hierarchy is considered as the center or ordinate while another is subordinate. However, this hierarchy is not totally the center. Based on the concept of decentering of Derrida, center is not singular but it is plural. In other word, decentering is structure with no center and hierarchy (Ratna, 2004: 225). In “Fire and Ice”, the hierarchy or the center is in “Fire”. “Fire” is powerful, symbol of brave, identical with red. Red is a symbol of brave. “Fire” is like men that are more powerful than women are. Women are as “Ice” that is powerless. However, in this poetry, this hierarchy is moved to the other. The other here is the “Ice”. The “Ice” itself is not very powerful than “Fire”. Both of them can destruct the world. “Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice” (Line 1-2). This means that both of them can destruct the world. “To say that for destruction ice, Is also great And would suffice” (Line 7-8) here shows “Ice” is also great. The word of “also” means the similarity and it does not mean it is more powerful to destruct. It finally shows that the center or the hierarchy of destruction the world is not only the “Fire”. It moves to the “Ice” while the “Ice” itself is not the only thing that destructs the world because it has same power with the “Fire”.

Next, the word of “FIRE” here implies in perishing or ending the world and it is compared with the “ICE” that has same power. It must be more than the “Fire” commonly, because “Fire” is commonly compared with water not “Ice”. To sign “the thing” that can destruct the world, water can become “ICE” while “Fire” will keep being “FIRE” to destruct. In this case, “ICE” is more powerful than water while “FIRE” is more powerful than “Fire”. Looking at the word of “FIRE” (powerful fire in this poem that destructs the world) and “Fire” (commonly), it shows how weak the sign of “FIRE” here.

The sign of “Fire” itself never changes although the power, the temperature increases to destruct. It will be keep being signed with “FIRE”. It means that there is no other sign to explain the “FIRE” whereas the “FIRE” here has the other that is unsaid and is not revealed through any signs. The other here is the power to destruct the world. In other word, sign has limit or is very limited to show the real sense. Sense is always free and unleashed with sign because sign cannot hold all of the real sense up. Therefore, meaning indirectly exists in a sign. Because the meaning is attributed in text, so the rest is trace. Trace is considered as absence of presence (Ratna, 2004:226). When the word of “FIRE” is erased, then the meaning of it will always exist in memory, the memory of the fire’s power.

This is known as term of differEnce/differAnce. It is from the word of to differ and to defer (delay). Derrida (Ratna, 2004:226) relates space and time to the signifier and the signified. It means that the signifier is the representative of the signified or the thing. This signifier represents the presence that is delayed. In this case, “Fire” that has power to destruct the world is signified with “FIRE”. The sign of “FIRE” here does not perfectly represent the “Fire” that destructs the world. There is something that is unsaid clearly in the sign such as fire with full of power, power with full of pain, pain that can perish, and many realities. These unsaid things are the presence that is delayed. Then, the meaning of “Fire” that destructs the world has different thing. This different thing is the presence that is always delayed.

The presumption of those does not emerge with off hand; it also purposes to show about destruction that is caused by it. In hierarchy opposition, “Fire” always places itself as the hierarchy of breaker, desolation, dangerous. Through inter-text way, it can be proven the hierarchies of it. Inter-text itself is linking a text with the other texts (Ratna, 2004: 172). Devil is always identical with fire in all of mythology, Shidarta is asked to walk through fire path to test his proper power as Buddha before entering the world (fire is the symbol of desire of human that will destruct the world). The “Ice” is closer to impression of cool and fresh that contains of pleasure than destroying. In Islam and Christian, there is belief of Hell and Heaven, where Hell is the place to punish the bad people with fire while Heaven is pictured full of pleasure.

In this poem, those assumption does not exist anymore; “Fire” is not totally as the hierarchy of destruction, it seems as if doing shift to the “Ice”. “To say that for destruction ice, Is also great” (Line 7 and 8), it shows the other of “Ice”. “Ice” is not always as the other of “Fire” because it can be also determined and implied to destruction. “Fire” is not always the source of destruction, the assumption of “Fire” that is the source of destruction moves to the “Ice” as the source of destruction.

All of these are finally concluded, deconstruction is a thought that is used to reject against logo-centrism. Derrida, with concepts of decentering, trace, and difference/differance has shown the weaknesses of structuralism where there must always be a center and a meaning can be signified in a sign. This thought also can be used to analyze the literary works, one of them is poetry. Poetries of Robert Frost always show a deep understanding and deconstruction. One of them is “Fire and Ice”. In “Fire and Ice”, Frost tries to give assumptions that the most dangerous thing of desolation world is not only from a single hierarchy. In this poetry, Frost gives two things that will end the world, “Fire and Ice”. Although, “Fire” is identically considered as the hierarchy of destruction than “Ice” but in this poetry, Frost delivers that it is not only from “Fire”. It is also from “Ice” that can destruct the world. The position of them is same to end the world.

References

Al-Fayyadl, Muhammad. 2005. Derrida. Jogjakarta: LKis

Norris, Christopher. 2006. Membongkar Teori Dekontruksi Jacques Derrida. Jogjakarta: Ar-Ruzz Media

Ratna, Nyoman Kutha. 2004. Teori, Metode, dan Teknik Penelitian Sastra. Jogjakarta: Pustaka Pelajar

Note    : The letter of capital “FIRE and ICE” in the fourth, fifth, and sixth paragraph mean the “Fire and Ice” of the poetry.

Head in Syntax

Head in Syntax

Head (kjerne (i en frase)): the most important word in a phrase; the word that carries the main meaning of the phrase and that cannot be taken away. The head of a noun phrase is a noun (or a pronoun); the head of a verb phrase is a verb; the head of an adjective phrase is an adjective; the head of an adverb phrase is an adverb. As regards prepositional phrases neither part of the phrase (preposition + noun phrase) is considered a head, since both parts have to be there in order for there to be a prepositional phrase. Thus no part of it can be said to be the more important one.

A noun phrase consists of a noun and all its modifiers - i.e. determinants, adjectives, and any clauses or prepositional phrases that modify the noun. (We will get to clauses in a bit.) Traditionally, the noun is called the head of the noun phrase,  because it determines the syntactic function of the phrase - that is, the phrase acts as if it were a noun.  Examples: "Bob", "the cat in the hat", "a whole other problem", "the man who came to dinner", etc.

The term “head of a construction” has been understood in various ways. The common ground is that the head of a construction is that constituent whose specifications are retained in the construction as a whole (cf. Williams 1981:247); exactly which specifications must be retained for headship to occur is the mooted question.Webster’s 8th, after limiting its definition to “an immediate constituent of a construction that has the same grammatical function as the whole” gives as examples man in “an old man” or “a very old man”. The head at least typically designates the same entity as does the whole construction: “a very old man” is in fact a man. Note as well that team and not football is uncontroversially the head of football team even though both components are nominal and thus would fit Webster’s definition.

Most English compounds are right-headed--e.g. bird is the head of black-bird, since it, and not black, is nominal, and since a black-bird is a bird: similarly ball is the head of soccer-ball, ripe of over-ripe, green of sea-green or blue-green (contrast green-blue), etc.

Head in syntax is traditionally understood as a constituent, which in some sense ‘characterizes’ or ‘dominates’ the whole syntactic construct. Jespersen’s “primary ranking” of words, defined in terms of semantic notion of definition, qualification, or modification; establishing primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. words well reflect this idea, however this does not seem to be the most effective approach.

The initial question is, that what notions must the theory of grammar supply. Three such notions are needed, if we contrast syntax with other components of grammar: semantics, the lexicon, and (inflectional) morphology. The first of these picks out the constituent acting as the semantic argument (as opposed to the semantic functor), the second picks out the subcategorisand (the constituent that is lexically subcategorized), and the third picks out the morphosyntactic locus (the constituent on which inflectional marks will be located). In addition government and concord must also be accounted for, by some constituent being ‘dominant’ - the constituent determining government or the constituent determining concord. These five notions can construct a theory of grammar, consequently granting the independent primitive notion of HEAD unnecessary.

Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis: Terms

Many literature students are expected to be familiar with the basic terms listed below (and discussed in more depth in your text). Keep this study guide with your text. At the beginning of each reading assignment, write the elements of literature pertaining to the particular type of literature at the beginning of the short story or poem. After reading, define them in your text for class discussion, quizzes, and test preparation. To understand literature, it is necessary that you ask yourself certain questions, such as "what is the theme of this story?" or "why does the author use this particular type of imagery?" You are not necessarily reading for pleasure--although it is sincerely hoped you will derive pleasure from your assignments--but for the development of critical analysis skills, so observe the author's style and intent carefully.

Short Stories/Novel

Theme - The idea or point of a story formulated as a generalization. In American literature, several themes are evident which reflect and define our society. The dominant ones might be innocence/experience, life/death, appearance/reality, free will/fate, madness/sanity, love/hate, society/individual, known/unknown. Themes may have a single, instead of a dual nature as well. The theme of a story may be a mid-life crisis, or imagination, or the duality of humankind (contradictions).

Character - Imaginary people created by the writer. Perhaps the most important element of literature.

• Protagonist - Major character at the center of the story.
• Antagonist - A character or force that opposes the protagonist.
• Minor character - 0ften provides support and illuminates the protagonist.
• Static character - A character who remains the same.
• Dynamic character - A character who changes in some important way.
• Characterization - The means by which writers reveal character.
• Explicit Judgment - Narrator gives facts and interpretive comment.
• Implied Judgment - Narrator gives description; reader make the judgment.

Look for: Connections, links, and clues between and about characters. Ask yourself what the function and significance of each character is. Make this determination based upon the character's history, what the reader is told (and not told), and what other characters say about themselves and others.

Plot - The arrangement of ideas and/or incidents that make up a story.

• Causality - One event occurs because of another event.
• Foreshadowing - A suggestion of what is going to happen.
• Suspense - A sense of worry established by the author.
• Conflict - Struggle between opposing forces.
• Exposition - Background information regarding the setting, characters, plot.
• Complication or Rising Action - Intensification of conflict.
• Crisis - Turning point; moment of great tension that fixes the action.
• Resolution/Denouement - The way the story turns out.

Structure - The design or form of the completed action. Often provides clues to character and action. Can even philosophically mirror the author's intentions, especially if it is unusual.

Look for: Repeated elements in action, gesture, dialogue, description, as well as shifts in direction, focus, time, place, etc.

Setting - The place or location of the action, the setting provides the historical and cultural context for characters. It often can symbolize the emotional state of characters.

Point of View - Again, the point of view can sometimes indirectly establish the author's intentions. Point of view pertains to who tells the story and how it is told.

• Narrator - The person telling the story.
• First-person - Narrator participates in action but sometimes has limited knowledge/vision.
• Objective - Narrator is unnamed/unidentified (a detached observer). Does not assume character's perspective and is not a character in the story. The narrator reports on events and lets the reader supply the meaning.
• Omniscient - All-knowing narrator (multiple perspectives). The narrator takes us into the character and can evaluate a character for the reader (editorial omniscience). When a narrator allows the reader to make his or her own judgments from the action of the characters themselves, it is called neutral omniscience.
• Limited omniscient - All-knowing narrator about one or two characters, but not all.

Language and Style - Style is the verbal identity of a writer, oftentimes based on the author's use of diction (word choice) and syntax (the order of words in a sentence). A writer's use of language reveals his or her tone, or the attitude toward the subject matter.

Irony - A contrast or discrepancy between one thing and another.

• Verbal irony - We understand the opposite of what the speaker says.
• Irony of Circumstance or Situational Irony - When one event is expected to occur but the opposite happens. A discrepancy between what seems to be and what is.
• Dramatic Irony - Discrepancy between what characters know and what readers know.
• Ironic Vision - An overall tone of irony that pervades a work, suggesting how the writer views the characters.

Poetry

Allegory - A form of narrative in which people, places, and events seem to have hidden meanings. Often a retelling of an older story.

Connotation - The implied meaning of a word.

Denotation - The dictionary definition of a word.

Diction - Word choice and usage (for example, formal vs. informal), as determined by considerations of audience and purpose.

Figurative Language - The use of words to suggest meanings beyond the literal. There are a number of figures of speech. Some of the more common ones are:

• Metaphor - Making a comparison between unlike things without the use of a verbal clue (such as "like" or "as").
• Simile - Making a comparison between unlike things, using "like" or "as".
• Hyperbole - Exaggeration
• Personification - Endowing inanimate objects with human characteristics

Imagery - A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea which appeals to one or more of our senses. Look for a pattern of imagery.

• Tactile imagery - sense of touch.
• Aural imagery - sense of hearing.
• Olfactory imagery - sense of smell.
• Visual imagery - sense of sight.
• Gustatory imagery - sense of taste.

Rhythm and Meter - Rhythm is the pulse or beat in a line of poetry, the regular recurrence of an accent or stress. Meter is the measure or patterned count of a poetry line (a count of the stresses we feel in a poem's rhythm). The unit of poetic meter in English is called a "foot," a unit of measure consisting of stressed and unstressed syllables. Ask yourself how the rhythm and meter affects the tone and meaning.

Sound - Do the words rhyme? Is there alliteration (repetition of consonants) or assonance (repetition of vowels)? How does this affect the tone?

Structure - The pattern of organization of a poem. For example, a sonnet is a 14-line poem usually written in iambic pentameter. Because the sonnet is strictly constrained, it is considered a closed or fixed form. An open or free form is a poem in which the author uses a looser form, or perhaps one of his or her own invention. It is not necessarily formless.

Symbolism - When objects or actions mean more than themselves.

Syntax - Sentence structure and word order.

Voice: Speaker and Tone - The voice that conveys the poem's tone; its implied attitude toward its subject.

Terms of Each Plot and Character in The Short Story “Quality” by John Galsworthy (1867-1933)

RAHMAT SETIAWAN

092154030 / ENGLISH LITERATURE B

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE

Terms of Each Plot and Character

In The Short Story “Quality”

By John Galsworthy

(1867-1933)

After reading the short story of Equality, we can imagine what the author writes and means. It can be exposed through the plots and characters told. The plot and characters that is showed are in a term strongly, it is so characteristic and influential with interested events. The plot that is made by John Galsworthy explores all of the important things, it belongs to characters, place of each events, time of happening, and cause-effect that is supported by acts of the each character. Plot is literary term for the events a story comprise, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, a sequence, through cause and effect, or by coincidence (2dix.com). It is the moment that is built of previously moment or the next moment. It means that the plot connects the cause moment and the effect moment. That is being with characters to do each event, each time, and each place. Whereas, character is the actor of the story, it can be person, animal, or thing (docstoc.com). Those are been in a term in a work, so does Quality.

Plot or the structural of action has been made by Galsworthy through the characters, events, and term of cause-effect. The first introducing is raised up by the narrator as the first person, refers to first line, “I knew HIM from the days of my extreme youth, because he made my father’s boot” character I refers to the narrator and HIM refers to the person that is immediately told, Mr. Gressler. He is boot maker from German. Mr. Gressler works at a tenement with his brother. At the time, the narrator is fourteen and he tells the Mr. Gressler as the person with red beard and stong, it refers to “He was a little as if made from leather, with his yellow crinkly face, and crinkly reddish hair and beard, and neat folds slanting down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth,” As far as this, the reader can follow the step of this introducing, who Mr. Gessler and the narrator are, how they age are. But the complication comes slowly when the narrator or the consumer cannot come to him very often. It can be looked at, “For it was not possible to go him very often-his boots lasted terribly, having something beyond the temporary-some, as it were, essence of boot stitched into him.” He will take the boots back if he can do nothing with the creaked boots it is not made by him instead. It is according to, “Mr. Gessler that last pair of town walking-boots creaked, you know.” But Mr. Gessler just says “Zend dem back!” He promise to repair it and to guarantee it if he can do nothing. Walking to the conflict when the narrator is coming again after ordered many pairs to Mr. Gessler but the situation has changed. The narrator has left him for nearly two years. It refers to, “They lasted more terribly than ever. And I was not able conscientiously to go to him for nearly two years.” We can imagine that Mr. Gessler can make good boots, in other hand it makes him lost the order in a long time. Mr. Gessler is also lost his brother, his other shop, and his hair has suddenly gone. “And he touched the top of his head, where the hair suddenly gone as thin as it had been on that of his poor brother. Galsworthy tries to show the age of Mr. Gessler at the time with flash back, “It was over a year before I was again in London...I had left a man of sixty I came back to one of seventy-five, pinched and tremulous...” The plot is set shuffle, the information of Mr. Gessler age is shown at the time when the narrator is coming back to London. How older Mr. Gessler at the time. The quality of his boots is also better than before, the time to make is faster, and the bill is same as usual, it is according to “How splendid your boots are!...I can make dem quickly; id is a slack dime...I had given those boots up when one evening they came, they best ever made me...I found his bill the amount was the same usual...He had never before sent it in till quarter day.” From those texts, the reader must be able to dramatize how good Mr. Gessler is. But it was the climax until the resolution is rising up when the narrator passing the little street a week later and knowing that Mr. Gassler has passed away by starving. Those shops have been taken over by new owner.

The story set the plot and the character in terms. It can be figured out by the steps that Galsworthy has written. From physical character of Mr. Gessler who has red beard, then it is changing into grey. After lift by the narrator in many years, he has been bold. So later he has been pinched worn out until a week later he passes away. So does in the events of informing the characters age. The narrator raises through introducing of fourteen and Mr. Gessler is about forty. It is until the narrator says that he has left Mr. Gessler when Mr. Gessler was sixty and knowing he has been seventy-five. The quality of Mr. Gessler’s boots is also shown from good to be more terribly than ever. Then it is better than ever until it is the best ever. Those all are made in faster time from long, longer and so quick made.

The Tone of Short Story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid 1978

RAHMAT SETIAWAN

092154030

THE TONE OF SHORT STORY “GIRL”

BY JAMAICA KINCAID

1978

            In the story “Girl”, there is a tone which is as the view or the point from the reader. The tone in the story is about beautiful, which is to girl especially. Beautiful here means that to be a beautiful girl, a girl should have a special thing except the beauty of physical. It can be built from the attitude, behavior, clothing, and many more. It refers to the first part of the story ‘Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweat oil; soak your little clothes right after you take them off’. Those phrases are showing the works of a girl that needs patience while she does. It is a natural rule for a girl to do and nobody makes. Jamaica Kincaid tried to show that a girl can be a beautiful girl if she can make an impression. How a girl does something can show how the girl is, such as speaking, sewing, speaking, smiling, and so on. Not only those, the clothing is also makes an impression to her. Because, it can make a bad sense to the girl if doesn’t wear bad cloth. It refers to ‘On Sunday tries to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming’. A girl will look beauty if she can place things in right places and times. But it is not only about placing; the things should be done carefully. So that is why, the girl will not get mistakes. The mistakes show the untidy, the improper, the indecent, the immoral, the messy, the sloppy, the merciless, and the careless. Those all, can crush the beauty of a girl. So important and needed the beautiful impression for a girl because a beautiful girl is a symbol of perfectness. Perfectness of the girl just rise after not doing any mistake and doing “the rule” of lady.