The Representation of Suffering in Linda Christanty's Short Story "Makan Malam" and Its Relevance as Literary Teaching Material in High School

Abstract

This research aims to (1) describe the representation of suffering in Linda Christanty's short story "Makan Malam”; and (2) describe its relevance as literary teaching material in high school. The research employed a descriptive qualitative method. The research data consists of words and sentences containing the representation of suffering. The data source for this study is Linda Christanty's short story "Makan Malam." This short story will be analyzed using Stephen Greenblatt's New Historicism approach. The data analysis technique for this research utilizes Jonathan Culler's (1985) close reading. The stages of data analysis in this study follow Miles et al.'s (2014) interactive data analysis method. The results of this study indicate (1) the presence of suffering represented by the characters Aku, Ibu, and Ayah in the short story; this suffering takes the form of the characters' emotional sorrow stemming from their inability to ever gather as a complete family, which is depicted from the beginning to the end of the story; and (2) this short story is relevant for use as literary teaching material in high school.