Deconstruction Perspectives toward the Characters in Langston Hughes’ Father and Son Short Story
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30872/jbssb.v7i2.11039Keywords:
post-structural, deconstruction, binary opposition, father and sonAbstract
This research was concerned with the deconstruction perspective of Colonel Norwood, Bert Lewis, and Coralee Lewis’ characters' meaning in Langston Hughes’ Father and Son short story. The research aimed to describe the characters represented in the story and deconstruct to reveal a new meaning. The researcher used a qualitative research design, and the method used in this research was descriptive. The data in this research were narrations related to the three characters obtained by reading the short story and note-taking the data. The results of this study showed that Colonel Norwood held the binary opposition of superior vs. inferior, bad person vs. good person, powerful vs. powerless, and surrounded vs. lonely, while Bert Lewis and Coralee Lewis held the same binary opposition of inferior vs. superior, good person vs. bad person, but the differences Bert Lewis had the meaning of unloved vs. loved and selfish vs. selfless, while Coralee Lewis held the meaning of ugly vs. beauty. The evidence could be seen by undermining the marginal meaning in the text. Therefore, the text of Father and Son short story displayed the meaning in the text was undecidable because many possibilities by all characters could be replaced by a new meaning.References
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed., Earl McPeek, 1999.
Baumeister, Roy F., et al. “Bad Is Stronger than Good.” Review of General Psychology, vol. 5, no. 4, 2001, pp. 323–370., https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.4.323.
Bennet, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. 3rd ed., Routledge, 2004.
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: an Introduction to Theory and Practice. 5th ed., Longman, 2011.
Cuddon, J. A., and Habib M A R. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 5th ed., John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
Dinurriyah, I. S. “The Meaning of Beauty through A Woman Image in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight”. NOBEL: Journal of Literature and Language Teaching, vol. 7, no. 2, Sept. 2016, pp. 82-97.
Dobie, Ann B. Theory into Practice: an Introduction to Literary Criticism. 3rd ed., Cengage Learning, 2012.
Dubois, David, et al. “Social Class, Power, and Selfishness: When and Why Upper and Lower Class Individuals Behave Unethically.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 108, no. 3, 2015, pp. 436–449.,
Goble, Erika. “Facing the Ugly Face.” Phenomenology & Practice, vol. 5, no. 2, 2011, pp. 6–19.
Haugaard, Mark. “Power and Meaning.” Journal of Political Power, vol. 10, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1–5.
Hubbard, Dolan. “Symbolizing America in Langston Hughes's ‘Father and Son.” The Langston Hughes Review, vol. 11, no. 1, 1992, pp. 14–20.
Hughes, Langston, and Arnold Rampersad. The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Vol. 15, University of Missouri Press, 2002.
Kenan, Shlomith Rimmon. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. 2nd ed. Great Britain: Routledge. 2002.
Laine, Nina. Trust in Superior-Subordinate Relationship: An empirical study in the context of learning. University of Tampere, Finland, 2008
“Lonely Definition & Meaning.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, 2022. Web. Accessed 1 December 2022.
“Loved – Definition, Meaning & Synonyms.” Vocabulary.com. 2022. Web. Accessed 1 December 2022
Powell, Jim. Deconstruction for Beginners. For Beginners, 1997.
Riach, Graham K. A Macat Analysis of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's Can the Subaltern Speak? Macat International, 2017.
Salmieri, Gregory. “Egoism and Altruism.” A Companion to Ayn Rand, 2016, pp. 130–156., https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118324950.ch6.
Seeman, M. “Alienation: Psychosociological Tradition.” ScienceDirect Topics, 2002. Web. Accessed 1 December 2022.
Smith, Kyle D., et al. “What Defines the Good Person? Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Experts' Models with Lay Prototypes.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, vol. 38, no. 3, 2007, pp. 333–360.,
“Surrounded”, Macmillan Dictionary. Macmillan Education Limited, 2009. Web. Accessed 1 December 2022.
“Unloved Definition & Meaning.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com. 2022. Web. Accessed 1 Desember 2022.
Wellek, Rene, and Austin Warren. Theory of Literature. London : Cape, 1949.
Downloads
Additional Files
Published
Issue
Section
License
![]()
Every work in Ilmu Budaya: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Budaya is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors can enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).