The Moving Body and The Rebellious Reason: Counter- Hegemony in the Prose Fiction of Laut Bercerita by Leila S. Chudori

Abstract

Teeuw (2004) mentions that literary works, at a certain point, can be considered as a social documentation for society. This can and may happen because in a literary work, there is no clear boundary at which point the fiction begins, and at which point the reality takes part. Laut Bercerita, as a historical novel, presents the background of an event which for the majority of Indonesian people is the beginning of the end of the New Order government under President Soeharto. In the context of maintaining the stability of its power, a government must have two main instruments, namely domination to subdue, and hegemony to bring order. On the instrument of hegemony, the government will act subtly through various cultural instruments, ranging from the monopoly of the mass media, rewriting history, learning in schools according to the will of the authorities, even entering all forms of institutions of other people's lives. Based on such historical facts and data, Laut Bercerita lives the lives of the fictional characters in it more or less with the same situation and conditions. In this study, the author will resent several facts-based findings related to forms of resistance as a form of counter-hegemony carried out by organic groups to fight hegemonic efforts by the government as the holder of power.