Fakhrunnisa/196332013/Pramoedya’s Ananta Toer’s Buru Quartet

A Response Paper

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, an Indonesian author, not only he writes short stories, but also series
of novel that depict on history of his country Indonesia. The history of Indonesia as a former
colony of Dutch including the struggle of inlanders (Indonesians) during colonisations, and
many histories related to his country. Buru Quartet is famous novel tetralogy that depicts on
those histories of his countries. Buru Quartet, a tetralogy novel consists of This Earth of
Mankind (1980), Child of Nation (1981), Footsteps (1985), House of Glass (1988). These novels
are written by Pramoedya Ananta Toer during his containment in Buru Island between 1965-
1979. The novels are written with limited supports of writing materials then two years later
Toes has got old typing machine from his friends so that he could continue to write his chapters
for his novels. After Pramoedya Ananta Toer was freed from his containment in Buru Island,
there are many excerpts written by him are confiscated by the prison warden. But later he
gathered many scattered excerpts and get them into novels. And the first novel that was
published is This Earth of Mankind on 25 August 1980 (Wikipedia). One of the Buru Quartet
novels’ translators, Child of Nation is translated by Max (a Marxist intellectual) whom he
foregrounds that Pramoedya’s novel is considered as his lifelong devotion to revolutionary
ideals (Tsao). This response paper will discuss on the main character of the novels namely
Minke, a Javanese man, with his life chronicles depicted in the novels that gets him into his life
turning point of national revival and revolution awakening spirits.

So, Buru Quartet is considered as not a simple Bildungsroman. Minke who is the main character
in these tetralogy novels are actually a depiction protagonist of a real revolutionary man of his
colonialism. As it is initially seen in the first novel This Earth of Man Kind (1980), Minke does not
only love Annelies but also he loves his own culture that leads him to him to his revolutionary
actions. Minke falls in love with Annelies, a mixed blood daughter of Hermann Mellema and
Nyai Ontosoroh. Minke himself is depicted as the main character that is in the side of
impoverished and oppressed people. He is a student of European of Science and Technology
that studies in Dutch school (HBS School) with its mission of civilizing school. And in the
tetralogy novels, they also highlights on Minke as a brilliant Indonesian youth who studies in
Netherlands school of East Indies. Although, he studies in Dutch schools, he cannot write in his
own language Java or Malay, until his mother reprimands him depicted in the novels Footsteps
(third novel).

"The Dutch have taught you to forget who you are. You are not happy wearing Javanese
clothes, and you do not like your mother because she is not Dutch.... You've become a black
Dutchman in Javanese clothes. If that's what you want, then so be it”.

Including Minke’s Frenchman, Jean Marais, in the second novel Child of Nation, initially awaken
on the spirit national revival and revolution as in the novel his sentence triggers on the spirit of
national revival that gives spirit to Minke to fight for his nation and as a young brightened
Indonesian youth as well. This paragraph below uttered by Jean Marais is actually a criticism
addressed to Minke by Jean Marais in order to get turning back to his own people (natives)
rather than to be, to act, to behave, and to treat, like “Pures”. “full blooded”, “Dutch rullers”
(Schults & Felter).

“My individuality could not be separated from the Dutch language. To separate these would
only make this person named Minke nothing better than roadside rubbish. ...However then he
whispered harshly: "You're an educated Native! While Native people are not educated, it is you
who must ensure they become educated. You must, must, must speak to them in a language
they understand”

Seeing on those stories of Minke turning points of his national revival in the novels, it is actually
depicts on how Pramoedya actually wants to convey his message to readers about National
revival. Through Minke character whom he is formally educated by Dutch school, but I does nit
makes him to inherits the evils of Dutch colonial but instead he becomes a native. With
Western, he learns on human revolution and human rights including western education that
opens him to meet with other liberal progressive character that gets him in his turning point
where actually Western education has an agenda.
References

Schultz, Daniel F., and Maryanne Felter.“Education, History, and National Revial in Pramoedya Toer's
‘Buru Quartet’.” Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2,
2002, pp. 143–175. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40860802. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020.

Tsao, Tiffany. “The Evolution of Java-Men and Revolutionaries: A Fresh Look at Pramoedya
Ananta Toer's ‘Buru Quartet.’” South East Asia Research, vol. 20, no. 1, 2012, pp. 103–131.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23752678. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020.

Retrieved from https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetralogi_Buru. Accessed on 1 December 2020