BUMANGLAD, MARICAR R.

OUTPUT #4
AFRO-ASIAN LITERATURE TF// 2:00-3:00PM

TITLE: A LITTLE INCIDENT

AUTHOR: LU HSUN
GENRE: PROSE (SHORT STORY)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: CHINA

The epiphany in the selection was indeed, a worth-knowing one. After reading the story, I
actually get that overwhelming feeling of gratitude to its author, for he was able to make this kind of
masterpiece. Short and simple, but very striking.

The story tells about or rather shares how a simple incident changed someone’s view of life,
specifically, the way he looks at people who do not have the same way of living compared to him. The
protagonist and antagonist in the story is the one narrating it. We can say that, maybe, he is someone
who’s in a high position in their community or rather someone who’s rich enough, for he can afford to
have someone brought him to the place where he wants to go. For me, one of the striking part of the
story can be seen on the latter part; “Without thinking, I pulled a handful of copper from my coat pocket
and handed them to the policeman.” With that we can infer that the man has this natural kindness, that
even though at first he was a bit cold hearted and got mad when the rickshaw man left him to help the
woman entangled in the rickshaw, he did, still manage to give the rickshaw man the coppers, though
he’s not sure of the reason why he did that.

“…this incident keeps coming back to me, often more clearly than in actual life, teaching me
shame, urging me to reform and giving me fresh courage and hope.” This line, for me, carries the
epiphany of the story. That sudden and striking realization, that the principal character in the story had
experience. People, are often have this thinking of “Well, I’m just human…”, if we think of it in a
profound manner, this statement is kind of disgusting, because it says that “yes, you are just human and
you are capable of doing awful things, you can make mistakes…” but the thing is that a lot of people
forgot that we are created exceptionally, that we have these unique characteristics, we are the one to
choose what to do, to do things for the better or for worst. And going back to the selection, we can
interpret on what the narrator had stated, that he is thinking rationally. That that little incident he
experienced instilled something in his mind, in him, and there’s the call for reform, to change for the
better. We, humans, have these innate characteristics that makes us different from other creatures.
There are also virtues that we should practice in order for us to be a better person and these virtues are
also being taught to us by the church and also by our family, it is up to us to exercise it in whatever way
we want, because we have this so called freedom, our right to do good. If we are to relate this  on what
is happening in real life, the crimes are rampant, there’s the proliferation of population, the call to serve
the people became a competition between these people in the government, and maybe, just maybe,
these indicates the decrease in the morality of the people. As far as I can see we are committing the
same error through time. And we can conclude that if this continues it can resort to a bigger mistake or
rather a bigger problem. As I have stated above, we are the one to choose what to do, to do things for
the better or for worst. If we go back to the story, the rickshaw man manages to help the woman
although he has another duty, but thinking of his action, maybe, he thinks that the woman needs him
more than the narrator/rich man did. And with that we can see that even small or simple people in a
community can do good things that can also have an impact to other people. Just like the impact that he
caused to the narrator/rich man that led to the epiphany of the story. And in our society, if each people
will try to change for the betterment of all or to have reformation within selves, again, maybe, we can
gradually ease the problems that the society is currently going through and also the stratification within
our society. The thing is it should start within us.

We can also relate this to the three faculties of man as acknowledges by Plato; reason, spirit and
appetite. With these three faculties there’s the corresponding virtue; wisdom for reason, courage for
spirit and temperance for appetite. And in our society, it also follows the same category. Leaders should
have the sense of wisdom; soldiers should have the spirit of courage and temperance for
workers/laborers. And if all these members in a society will do their duties it will make a perfect
harmony. So, the point is, there should be an internal orderliness or discipline within selves so that it will
reflect on the outside.

TITLE: AKU or “I”

AUTHOR: CHAIRIL ANWAR
GENRE: POETRY (FREE VERSE)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: INDONESIA

The main theme of this poem is identity. Here the narrator calls himself binatang jalang, or wild
beast. One way of reading a poem is by taking the words’ meanings literally. The attribute of jalang has a
sexual connotation (which is lost in the translation). Calling a woman jalang is the same as calling her a
whore. The “I” in the poem is “wild” because of his hedonistic life. The author itself indeed had a
profane lifestyle. He died young at the age of twenty-six of syphilis, tuberculosis, typhus and cirrhosis of
the liver.

However, we can also read the “I” as the initiator of Indonesian modern poetry. The author is a
pioneer of literature in his era. His style was totally new, a breakthrough. They said that he is the one
who brought about a radical break in Indonesian literature. This is why he is often regarded to represent
the image of “wild beast” in this poem. He is damned from “the herd”. He is hurt and suffering.
However, he does not care about what others think of him. All that matters to him is himself, with his
wound and pain.

Besides identity, the poem also talks about God and life. One of the most memorable lines of
the author is “I want to live another thousand years”. Individualism and existentialism are also the traces
of Western philosophy in the poem. The individual and the public are always in tension. According to
him, ‘I’ is an entity whose essence is exactly to be and nothing but to be. Humans must make a choice
every time in order to maintain their liberty. The author wish to live extremely long in a negation of God,
seen under the light of Friedrich Nietzsche’s nihilism. The thesis of the death of God is due to the
collapse of human morality. Morality is orchestrated by the ‘will to power’. Yet the narrator is not an
ordinary person. He is exiled, banished by his people. The people or ‘crowd’, in line with Kierkegaard and
Nietzsche, is ‘untruth’. But then after his death, Anwar was accused of plagiarism. In only one case this
was proven. He would have turned to this because he needed money quickly in order to pay for a
vaccination. The date of Chairil Anwar’s death has been declared to be the National Literature day in
Indonesia.