Social values in Jane Austen's Emma

ABSTRACT

Literary works give many useful values and messages and give contribution to build up sensitivity to the environment By literature, the author has to be sensitive to the social condition in his or her society. Literature must be able to show the way to cover the weaknesses that always happen in social life. One form of literary works is novel, which usually tells about the condition of one society, in which value becomes the concept or a basic to reach a purpose in human’s social life. By value, people will be able to determine whether a particular thing is good or bad. And the most important standards to determine what kind of actions to other people are proper and worthwhile are our social values. Social values are set of society attitude considered as a truth and it is become the standard for people to act in order to achieve democratic and haimonious life.

Emma contains social values that the main character and her society face. Related to this case, the problem of the study can be formulated: (1) What social values are found in Jane Austen’s Emma and (2) What are the implications of the social values to the theme of Jane Austen’s Emma. Then, the purposes of that study are to find out the social values found in Jane Austen’s Emma and to explain the implications of the social values to the theme of Jane Austen’s Emma.

This study is designed as qualitative research that needs the involvement of the researcher as the interpreter in order to be easy to explain the hidden things. It uses the structural approach in which the data are analyzed by focusing on the text alone without relating to other aspects.

The result of this study shows that there are social values in Jane Austen ,Emma. The social values cover (1) humanity, (2) social relationship, (3) family relationship, and (4) moral. Social relationship has own sub-value. The social relationship covers (1) love, (2) social faithfulness, (3) helping others, and (4) attending to invitation.

From the findings above, it is concluded that the social values in Jane Austen’s Emma are affected by social awareness and inspiration to have responsibility toward family and society.