PSYCHOLOGY GRADUATE STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES TOWARD VIOLENCE AS A COMMUNITY TRADITION REPRESENTED BY SHIRLEY JACKSON’S “THE LOTTERY”: A READERS RESPONSE ANALYSIS

Abstrak / Ringkasan

Literary works contain a lot of meanings and purposes. Those meanings and purposes are addressed to readers. Readers become an important aspect of literature since literature will never speak if it is not read by readers. “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson was chosen to investigate readers’ interpretation toward texts. Then, the objectives of the research are i) to identify psychology graduate students’ responses and determinants analyses of violence which happens in the text, ii) to analyze readers’ solutions offered toward violence as a community tradition which exists in the story and reader are set as the outer part of the society, iii) to reveal readers’ roles and criticism to the violence which exists in the story and readers are placed as the part of the society, iv) to investigate readers’ steps to come into judgment to the core issue which exists in the story.
The research employs qualitative research method. The subject of the research is readers’ responses toward violence happening in the society that is reflected in “The Lottery”. The research is focused on the problem of public violence in ‘The Lottery’ and well-educated people’s response about it. Data were collected by conducting interview to the respondents, grouping and sorting the interview result. The results of this study are: i) Respondents of this research comment that the story of the text is good and special. They also argue that violence happening in the story brings harm to the community members, and it is caused by some determinants, as follows: natural instinct, cultural influence and environment provocation. ii) As the outer members of the community, respondents propose some ways to reduce violence similar to the violence portrayed in the text, as follows: stimulating community awareness and education campaign. iii) Respondents also situate themselves as the members of the community who commits public violence similar to that in the text. Respondents give some steps of reducing violence, as follows: accommodating themselves as agent of change and proposing catharsis as violent reducing. iv) Readers require some steps to come into judgment toward violence happening in the story by searching the meaning of the text, making interaction to the text and the interviewer, correlating their response and the reality, and assimilating themselves into different situations.

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