The most precious art the Ramayana and the Mahabharata has been one of the part of entertain for the people of South East Asian countries during ancient period. It has been orally told and retold still in the world. One of the forms of oral tradition is shadow puppetry where people sits and watch during their leisure time. In Indonesia, it has a prominent role and the story is mostly taken from the two Indian epics. But Indonesians adopted the plays and includes many Indonesian mythical characters into these two epics in their Wayang Plays. This oral art performed throughout Indonesia in which people get moral values at the end of the play. This has entered into the written form and gained its value simultaneously. In the novel The Year of Living Dangerously is like wayang play where one can see each and every character in the novel is compared to the character of Mahabharata. Especially Indonesians not only focused on these two epics they also include their tradition form of storytelling art and its mythical characters. One of the most Indonesian mythical character Semar has also been portrayed by the author Christopher Koch in this novel. The principle characters in the novel encapsulate wayang figures. Hence this paper focuses on the comparative study of the Mahabharata wayang Character Arjuna, Semar, Srikandi (wife of Arjuna) in the novel The Year of Living Dangerously.
The oral tradition of storytelling is depicted in the form of wayang in the novel The Year of Living Dangerously. During ancient period there were no written forms of literature so people heard stories orally from their ancestors. Many traditional, historical stories and were passed generation to generations through oral medium. It includes poetry, dance, and music so on. The oral art of storytelling has a message convey to the people. This eventually develops and entered in to written form. It also helps to regain the art form. It happens when there is festivals, occasions and religious festivals. In South East Asian countries Shadow puppetry plays a vital role and considered to be one of the oral form of storytelling. This paper focused especially on Indonesian art of storytelling Wayang Kulit where Hindu myths and Indonesian myth converged. The author Christopher Koch incorporates these two story telling art in his novel The Year of Living Dangerously.
In this novel, the puppetry characters of the Mahabharata Arjuna, Srikandi and Indonesian mythical character Semar are resembles the Character from this novel. Semar is a guardian of Arjuna in the Mahabharata, and he is very loyal and adviser to Arjuna. Arjuna is one of Pandawas brother who always accompanied with Semar. The character ‘Semar’ is a clown in Javanese traditional tale. He is one of the most important figures who has big rounded belly, flat nose and ugly face in Shadow Puppet play in Indonesia. It is believed that, he has indigenous root and he has three sons and they four always accompanied with Arjuna wherever he goes. The character semar and his sons are clowns in Indonesian myth and also in wayang culet’s Mahabharata. He is compared to the character Billy Kwan who resembles semar in the novel The Year of Living Dangerously. The novel itself has compared to a shadow play where each and every character resembles the character of the wayang’s Mahabharata. To some extend the story of the hero in the novel is manipulated by Billy Kwan as semar in Mahabharata. One can see how semar is a good advisor of Arjuna through the performance as well as in the novel.
Christopher John Koch was born on 16 July, 1932 and died on 23 September, 2013. He was an Australian author and wrote many novels during his life time. During his childhood days, he wanted to be a comic strip artist. He studied English, Philosophy and Ancient History at the University of Tasmania. One of the main novels is The Year of Living Dangerously which was adapted into a film. The film won many awards. He was awarded the Honorary ‘Doctor of Letters’ from his alma mater, the University of Tasmania in 1990. He wrote The Boys in the Island, Across the Sea Wall, The Year of Living Dangerously, The Double Man, Highways to a War, Out of Ireland, The Memory Room, Lost voices. His works mostly dealt with spirituality, illusion, reality, and cultural identity. So he described as “an old fashioned writer.”
The novel The Year of Living Dangerously set in Jakarta a capital city of Indonesia during 1965, a year when western colonization came to an end. It is about Indonesian politics and society at the time of Sukarno Regime. The novel is divided into three parts PATET NEM: HAMILTON”S DWARF, PATET SANGA: WATER FROM THE MOON, and PATET MANJURA: AMOK. There are two protagonists in the novel, Guy Hamilton an English Australian and Billy Kwan, a Chinese Australian. The whole story of the novel deals with post-colonial Indonesia where each character in the novel is compared to the character of Mahabharata and the love between Hamilton and Jill.
The wayang plays a crucial part in narrative techniques of the novel. Koch uses wayang as a metaphor and Billy tries to make the wayang by imagining himself as ‘Semar’, Guy as ‘Arjuna’ and Jill as ‘Srikandi’.
The author uses the mythical character from Mahabharata. The crucial shadow puppet characters are used in this novel. In shadow puppetry, the characters are drawn from Mahabharata and Ramayana. The characters of in this novel are taken from Mahabharata through shadow puppetry. Hamilton is depicted as ‘Arjuna’, the warrior hero, Jill as princess ‘Srikandi’, one of ‘Arjuna’s’ wives and Billy Kwan is represented as the two characters ‘Krishna’, the divine friend of ‘Arjuna’ and ‘Semar’ who is one of the clowns of ‘Arjuna’. So the main character of this novel exemplifies wayang figures.
Thus the author Koch narrates as if the puppet master narrates and manipulates. This novel is evidently said to be shadow puppet novel draws upon the character from Hindu myths and Indonesian mythical character Semar. This acts as a central structure of the novel. The voice from the master is represented as Billy Kwan’s voice as well as the dalang’s. It helps to shaping the story by the author’s own voice. In wayang play the spectators can only see the shadows and watch. Koch’s writing is like a shadow of the novel The Year of Living Dangerously. Thus the character from the wayang is observed and portrayed in the novel The Year of Living Dangerously.
Works Cited
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