Reflection Life of Mine in the Novel “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” By Ann Brashares

Novel The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a best-selling novel in 2001. The novel talks about friendship, which liked especially for woman. Friendship is important for human life, without friendship is easy to dispute each other. With love we can feel a really life, harmonious, peace and the other which can be calm of our feeling.

Literature is some creativity, which can be written and the other. Literature consists of poetry, prose and essay. Here, I explain about novel, novel is long written story.

Literary theory has been regarded by some of its practitioners as a wholly novel approach to language, literature and interpretation, and by many of its opponents as either ‘poor man’s philosophy’ or as a renunciation of the proprieties of literary scholarship. There is some justification for the views of both sides. On the one hand, literary theory has undoubtedly revealed aspects of the philosophical understanding of language and literature which the Anglo-American traditions of analytical philosophy have tended until recently to ignore; on the other, though, it has itself often ignored many of the insights into art, truth and language that are the concern of the German hermeneutic tradition and of analytical philosophy (Bowie, 1997: 1).

A literary work is not an object that stands by itself and that offers the same view to each reader in each period. It is not a monument that monologically reveals its timeless essence. (Jauss, 1239)

According with Aminuddin (2010: 66), novel adalah kisahan atau cerita yang di emban oleh pelaku-pelaku tertentu dengan pemeranan, latar serta tahapan rangkaian cerita tertentu yang bertolak dari hasil imajinasi pengarangnya sehingga menjalin suatu cerita.

In line with definition above, Fiksi menceritakan berbagai masalah kehidupan masalah kehidupan dalam interaksinya dengan diri sendiri, serta interaksinya dengan Tuhan. Fiksi merupakan hasil dialog, kentemplasi, dan reaksi pengarang terhadap lingkungan dan kehidupan. Oleh karena itu, bagaimanapun fiksi merupakan sebuah cerita, dan karenanya terkandung juga di dalamnya tujuan memberikan hiburan kepada pembaca disamping ada tujuan estetik (Nurgiyantoro, 2002: 3).

Based on Eneste,  Novel menyampaikan cerita, ide, amanat atau maksudnya dengan pertolongan kata-kata. Seorang novelis membangun alur, penokohan, latar dan suasana dengan bantuan kata-kata.

Therefore, background of novel from human life, that seen in the novel that I thorough know, namely in the novel the sisterhood of the traveling pants by Ann Brashares.

Here, I will explain a story between novel with reflection life of mine. In this novel there are four women, are Carmen, Tibby, Lena and Bridget. They were make a friendship before their mother pregnant. Their mother also makes a true friendship

If we took with reader response with Wolfgang Iser’s theory, with actual reader, I felt the story of this novel almost same with reflection life of mine. The story about friendship same as a story of mine, however there was some the difference of whole story.

 The theory of actual reader with Iser’s theory, the reader is free for response her/his argument after reading a literary work. I remember went the lecturer of mine, Pak Dian explained about Iser’s theory. He tells “Jauss dan Iser hampir sama, Iser: mengkritik teks bukan menjelaskan teks sebagai objek  " reader" dapat dibagi kedalam 'implied reader and 'actual reader',  Iser process of reading  there  should be  a kind of transformation from the process of reading(interacting), kemudian setiap teks mengandung ruang-ruang kosong yang nantinya memberikan ruang-ruang  tertentu untuk diinterpretasikan lewat reader response”.

Iser’s version of reader response differ from that of Jauss, who deals with the actual reception of literary work and how that concrete history tempers our expectations and therefor influence our interpretations (An Antology of Contemporary Critical Theory: 1671).

The perspective of the aesthetic of reception mediates between passive reception and active understanding, experience formative norms, and new production. If the history of literature is viewed in this way within the horizon of a dialogue between work and audience that forms a continuity, the opposite between its aesthetic and its historical aspects is also mediated. Thus the thread from the past appearance to the present experience of literature which is historicism had cut, is tied back together. (Jauss, 1238)

 The new text evokes for the reader (listener) the horizon of expectations and rules familiar from earlier texts, which are then varied, corrected, altered, or even just reproduced. (Jauss, 1241)

The interpretative reception of a text always presupposes the context of experience of aesthetic perception: the question of the subjectivity of the interpretation and of taste of different readers or levels of readers can be asked meaningfully only when has first clarified which transsubjective horizon of understanding conditions the influence of the text. (Jauss, 1241) 

From the whole story, same as human commonly in their life, conflict the story almost same with human life. For example in the story of love, family and education.

Reading is not passive or static, but a process of discovery; a reader questionss, negates, and revises the expectations that the text establishes, filling in what Iser calls “blanks” and “gaps” in the text and continually modifying his or her interpretation. From the perspective of reader-oriented criticism the answers to these questions cannot simply be derived from the text. The meaning of the text is never self-formulated; the reader must act upon the textual material in order to produce meaning. Wolfgang Iser argues that literary texts always contain ‘blanks’ which only the reader can fill. The ‘blank’ between the two stanzas of Wordsworth’s poem arises because the relationship between the stanzas is unstated. The act of interpretation requires us to fill this blank. A problem for theory centres on the question of whether or not the text itself triggers the reader’s act of interpretation, or whether the reader’s own interpretative strategies impose solutions upon the problems thrown up by the text. Even before the growth of reader-response theory, semioticians had developed the field with some sophistication (Selden, etc, 2005: 65).

From the theory above, I will explain about the plot of the story with my actual reader. In the summer they were born their  mothers took a class in aerobics for pregnant women, at the place called Gilda. The first born is Lena, and the second is Carmen, the other after them with difference seventeen’s day. They lived happily and they make some relation of friendship. Lena got the pants in a thrift shop at the outer reaches of Georgetown, and bought it with Lena’s family. They went to some place (their mother meeting before) for making promises. Carmen makes promises because she the first find of the jeans. They went in a summer holiday with different  places. Lena : she went to Yunani (to her grandmother’s house) with Effie, her little sister. Tibby: Wahington DC, she works as sales at Wallsman (department store) to raise money for buying new equipment for her documentary. Bridget: Mexico, she went to soccer camp. Carmen: she went to her father’s house, in short Carolina.

 Conflicts of them in their holiday: Lena: her grandmotehr asked her for marrying Kostos, but Lena didn’t want it. Tibby: She met with the girl who unconscious in the Wallsman, and she accused thief her wallet. Bridget: She met with Eric (the trainer of football), but Eric is cool man, he doesn’t understand about Bridget’s feeling. Carmen: when she went to her father’s house in Short Carolina, she finds that he (her father) will marry the divorced Lydia Rodman. They tell their story each other, and they think, the pants were makes problem in their holiday, but their sisterhood is still being present.

From the story that I told before, the relationships with the reflection of life. The reflection seen very close, till the reader in that condition really enjoy of this novel. Till the reader asked for transforming into movie. Than, about the movie many viewers felt disappointed about the movie, because the transforming of the novel into movie certainly there was the differences.

Novel menyampaikan cerita, ide, amanat atau maksudnya dengan pertolongan kata-kata. Seorang novelis membangun alur, penokohan, latar dan suasana dengan bantuan kata-kata. Pada hakikatnya film juga merupakan pengisahan kejadian dalam waktu. Tetapi kejadian movie tidak berkonotasi pada “kelampauan” melainkan berkonotasi pada “kekinian” pada suatu pandang yang terjadi (Eneste: 1991: 16).

Here, we explain about movie, movie is something that we enjoyed for watching it and also a cinema picture. There was much movie in the world. Movie and novel are related each other, both of them are commonly used for relaxing and enjoying.

We are going to, compare between novel and movie, Damono (2005: 2) give an statement sastra bandingan adalah pendekatan dalam ilmu sastra yang tidak menghasilkan sendiri, sastra harus dibandingkan dengan sastra; dan kedua sastra bisa saja dibandingkan dalam bidang seni dan bahkan disiplin ilmu lain.

Eneste (1991) give a similarity between novel and movie, yaitu cerita, alur, penokohan, latar, suasana, gaya, tema atau amanat. Hal ini dalam novel merupakan unsur instrinsikya.

About character is same, have I told before the women in  this novel are four persons, the characters is different. Bridget Vreeland:  the athlete,  Lena Kaligaris: the beauty,  Tibby Tomko-Rollins:  the rebel,  Carmen Lowell:  the bad temper.

Wolfgang Iser, a leader in the field of reader-response theory, published his most important and influential book, The Act of Reading, in which he explained his theories of aesthetic reader response. Because the book was written before use of the internet and computers became mainstream, his theories are based solely on the traditional printed texts that were available at the time. Examining his theories in light of the digital age that has since occurred can yield insights into how literature has evolved and is still evolving. The use of computer technology, particularly the internet, has complicated the relationship between author, reader, and text, and has given rise to new categories of literary works. Because these genres of digital literature are in their infancy compared to printed literary texts, or perhaps because the scholarly community is hesitant to view these new literatures as legitimate art forms, little attention has been given to the reading and writing of digital literature. The analysis that has been done in this field has focused mainly on pre-packaged works of interactive digital fictions, or hypertexts. However, there are other genres of digital fiction, including collaborative hyperfictions on the internet in which the readers can become writers of the stories by adding on to them, which have received relatively little attention from literary critics (Ward, 2006: 1).

For conclusion, the theory of reader response’s wolfgang Iser, which consists into two part; actual and implied reading. Here, I take the example namely the sisterhood of the travelling pants, which reflection life of mine. Same about friendship, previously I have a friendship, but the friendship becomes nothing when we graduated from the school. I take the command from the story, that we must keep our friendship, and understand each other, than about milieu (suasana), this story is filled with sadness, despair, fear, and loneliness just as life is full of these emotions. However, for each girl there is also a sense of triumph and ultimately happiness after a summer of experiencing life’s passages, and really as original reflection human life. Friendship can be found at human life especially when she/he still school in their place or when Junior and High School that cognizable with the word of “gang”.

WORKS CITED

Aminuddin. 2010. Pengantar Apresiasi Karya Sastra. Bandung: Sinar Baru Algesindo. Print.

Brashares Ann. 2004. The sisterhood of the travelling pants: Celana Persaudaraan. Gramedia pustaka utama. Print.

Bowie, Andrew. 2002. From Romanticism to Critical Theory, The philosophy of German literary theory.  Taylor & Francis e-Library. Pdf.

Damono, Sapardi Djoko. Pegangan Penelitian Sastra Bandingan. Jakarta:         Departemen Pendidikan Nasional Pusat Bahasa, 2005. Print.

Eneste, Panusuk. 1991. Novel dan Film. Flores: Penerbit Nusa Indah.  Print

Selden, Raman. Etc.  A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Fifth edition.Pdf.

The sisterhood of the travelling pants (novel) by Ann Brashares. Pdf

Ward, Natalie. 2006. Iser's Aesthetic Response Theory Viewed in the Context of Collaborative Hyperfictions. University of Pennsylvania. Pdf.