Eco in Avatar Movie

AN ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES USING ECOCRITICISM IN JAMES CAMERON’S FILM AVATAR

ROHMAH ROMADHON NO. 107026001675

ENGLISH LETTERS DEPARTEMENT LETTERS AND HUMANITIES FACULTY STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH JAKARTA 2011

AN ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES USING ECOCRITICISM IN JAMES CAMERON’S FILM AVATAR

A Thesis Submitted to Letters and Humanities Faculty In Partial Fulfillment of the requirement for The Degree of Strata one

ROHMAH ROMADHON NO. 107026001675

ENGLISH LETTERS DEPARTEMENT LETTERS AND HUMANITIES FACULTY STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY “SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH” JAKARTA 2011

ABSTRACT

RohmahRomadhon, An Analysis of Environmental Issues Using Ecocriticism in James Cameron’s Film “Avatar”.AThesis: English Letters Department. Letters and Humanities Faculty, State Islamic University“SyarifHidayatullah” Jakarta, August 2011. The research is aimed at finding out the environmental issues which appear on Cameron’s film,Avatar, by analyzing the relationship among the characters. This research applies descriptive – qualitative method. To answer the research questions, the writer uses ecocriticism theory as the tool to analyze the collected data. This research uses verbal data and other nonnumeric data, such as dialogue and scene caption as the basic analysis and in finding solution of the research problems. The film entitled Avatar describes the various relationship of nature with its varied characters; human and non-human. Nature, in this film, conceives both as a hospitable and hostile force depend on how characters treat it. This reveals that each different character has also different opinion about naturethat lead into different attitude towardit. The arrogances of human being,that consider nature as an object to explore, bring them to be apart from the rest of nature.On the other hand, the nonhuman creatures and a number of human represent as a part of nature and live in harmony with it because they respect it.

i

APPROVEMENT

AN ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES USING ECOCRITICISM IN JAMES CAMERON’S FILM AVATAR A Thesis Submitted to Letters and Humanities Faculty In Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for The Degree of Strata One

RohmahRomadhon 107026001675

Approved by:

InayatulChusna, M.Hum Advisor

ENGLISH LETTERS DEPARTEMENT LETTERS AND HUMANITIES FACULTY STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY “SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH” JAKARTA 2011 ii

LEGALIZATION

Name : RohmahRomadhon NIM

: 107026001675

Title

: An Analysis of Environmental Issues Using Ecocriticism in James Cameron’s Film Avatar

The thesis entitled has been defended before the Letter and Humanities Faculty’s Examination Committee on October 18, 2011. It has already been accepted as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of strata one.

Jakarta, October 18, 2011

Examination Committee Signature

Date

1. Drs. AsepSaefuddin, M.Pd 19640710 199303 1 006

(Chair Person) ______________ ___________

2. ElveOktafiyani, M.Hum 19781003 200112 2 002

(Secretary)

______________ ___________

3. InayatulChusna, M.Hum 19780126 200312 2 002

(Advisor)

______________ ___________

4. Dr.H. Muhammad Farkhan, M.Pd 19650919 200003 1 002 5. Maria Ulfa, M.A, M.Hum

(Examiner I) (Examiner II)

iii

______________ ___________ ______________ ___________

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of the university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text.

Jakarta, August 2 2011

RohmahRomadhon

iv

ACKNOWLEDMENT

In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful May peace and blessing of Allah by upon all of us

All praised be to Allah, Lord of the universe and the creator of human and tribes, who has given His love, affection, and delicious health and time in doing and completing the thesis. Peace and bless be upon to the greatest prophet who we all adore; Muhammad SAW and to his family, companion, and his followers. In this occasion, the writer would like to express her sincerest gratitude to her beloved parents, Abd. RohimMukti and AisyahHusein, who have given all support, motivation, and praysto the writer in finishing her thesis and study. The writer also would like tosay thank to Mrs. InayatulChusna, M.Humas her advisor for her time, guidance, patient, kindness, and contributions in advising the writer to complete this thesis. The great gratitude is also dedicated to these following people: 1. Dr. Wahid Hasim, M.Ag, the Dean of Letters and Humanities faculty. 2. Drs. AsepSaefuddin, M.Pd, the Head of English Letters Department. 3. Mrs. ElveOktafiyani, M.Hum, the Secretary of English Letters department. 4. Dr. H. M. Farkhan, M.Pd and Mrs. Maria Ulfa, MA, M.Hum, as the thesis examiners.

v

5. All lectures of English Letters Department who have taught and educated her during her study at UIN SyarifHidayatullah Jakarta. 6. Her brother;Ahmad, sisters;Wafa, Khodijah, Fatimah and her little brother, Adil, who let her had a brief appointment with his English teacher, Miss Ade, that gave a new boast of spirit to her when it was about to extinguish. 7. All of her classmate in English Letters Students Class of 2007,B classand literature class, especially Tubbies (Lya, Bibah, Encha), Nisa, Aisyah, Yaser, Any, Tania, Maya,Feni,Rimbi, Eva, Husnuland others who have given her a hand in the process of completing this research. 8. All friends in UKM Bahasa FLAT. 9. To those that the writer cannot mention one by one either who directly or indirectly helping her completing this paper. Finally, the writer hopes this paper will be useful especially for the writer and those who are interested in it. May Allah bless us.Amin.

Jakarta, August 2011 The writer

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................

i

APPROVEMENT ...............................................................................................

ii

LEGALIZATION ...............................................................................................

iii

DECLARATION .................................................................................................

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................

vii

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................

1

A. Background of the Study ....................................................................

1

B. Focus of the Study ..............................................................................

6

C. Research Questions ............................................................................

7

D. Significances of the Study ..................................................................

7

E. Research Methodology.......................................................................

7

F. Time and Place ..................................................................................

9

CHAPTER II. ECOCRITICISM ......................................................................

10

A. The Definition of Ecocriticism ...........................................................

10

B. The History of Ecocritical Movement ................................................

11

C. Ecocriticism as Literary Criticism......................................................

15

CHAPTER III.RESEARCH FINDING ............................................................

20

A. Data Description .................................................................................

20

vii

B. Data Analysis .....................................................................................

28

1. The Difference Relationship between Human and Nonhuman Toward the Environment ............................................................................

28

1) The Relationship between Human and Environment ............

28

a. HumanOpinionabout Nature ...........................................

29

b. Human Exploitation of Environment .............................

35

2) The Relationship between Non-Human and Environment ....

39

a. Respecting Nature ...........................................................

40

b. Worshiping Nature .........................................................

42

c. Dependent on Nature ......................................................

46

d. The Deep Connection with Nature ……………………..

47

e. The Power of Nature .......................................................

51

2. The Statement of Avatar Film .......................................................

55

CHAPTER IV. CONCLUSIONAND SUGGESTION ....................................

60

A. Conclusions ......................................................................................

60

B. Suggestions .......................................................................................

62

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................................

63

APPENDIX ........................................................................................................

65

viii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study During the last decade, the environment becomes the front-page news as public tend to believe that apocalypse will be happened by unintended environmental disaster. This is not only an inane talk but fact. High rates of deforestation and forest degradation are common in many parts of the world, but it was the rapid loss of tropical rain forests that particularly captured the attention of the world’s media from the early 1980s onwards.More recently, it has been increasingly recognized that many other ecologically important forest types, such as temperate rain forests and tropical dry forests, are also being lost at an alarming rate. 1 It affects the world for some other issues such as global warming and climate changing. Since then it has burgeoned and public starts to concern about fate of the environment and takes increasing hold, initially in the West but now worldwide. Environmental damage is not only caused by human but by itself as well. There are two major forces which can cause environmental damage; nature and mankind. People believe that nature have some kind of magical power. So that each culture have their own tales or mythological believe of nature’s power. By the early 21th century, the universe has already been through varies natural 1

Andrian C. Newton , Forest Ecology and Conservation (UK: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. vii

1

2

disaster in all over the world; hurricane, storm, earthquake, tsunami, indication of mountain eruption, etc. It shows that nature have its own natural power beyond human capability. The environment was becoming an increasingly salient public concern and a major topic of research in science, economics, law, and public policy and certain humanities field as well, notably history and ethics. 2 American, led by Cheryl Goltfelty with her essays entitled The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology (University of Georgia Press, 1996), established an institution for environmentalist and natural perspective writers called the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) in 1992. ASLE has its own house journal, called ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment), which started in 1993.3 So in America, environment was already a burgeoning academic movement by the early 1990s. They focused on the critical field that had previously been known as the study of nature writing. The term of literary-environmental studies has some other terms that environmentalists can freely choose such as environmental criticism, green studies and ecopoetics but its best known as ecocriticism. Simply put, ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. 4 Ecocriticism is enabling us to analyze and criticizeabout the world in which we live, and about our (human) relationships with that world and with our fellow

2

Lawrence Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination, (USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), p.3. 3 Peter Barry, Beginning Theory an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, 2nded., (UK: 2002), p. 161. 4 Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism, (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 3.

3

inhabitants.5 Most of all, ecocriticism seeks to evaluate texts and ideas in terms of their coherence and usefulness as responses to environmental crisis.6 Environmental issues, in turn, have become an increasing provocation both for academic and for artist. It is inspiring many authors and movie makers to put the issue in their work. Film, as well as other literary genres: poetry, prose, short story, play or drama, is seizing the happening public issues at the definite time then formulates it with the intrinsic elements of film. Films and stories are reliably best media to deliver messages to other people and tell that there is a problem that needs to be paid attention like environment. Film is unique compared to other genres of literature. It exploits the subtle interplay of light and shadow, manipulates three-dimensional space, and focuses on moving images that have complex rhythm. Film communicates not only through imagery, metaphor, and symbol; visually through action and gesture; verbally through dialogue, but also directly through concrete images and sounds. Last, film expands or compresses time and space, traveling back and forth freely within their wide borders.7 There are some movie makers that extracted the environmental issues into their film, for example Wall-E and Narnia 2: Prince Caspian. Those films portray nature into the story as a main theme. They describe nature and how it gives impact to human and non-human in a certain time and place. In Wall-E, the viewers can see the damaged earth in a result of carelessness of human who make 5

Matthew Dickerson and David O’Hara, Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis (USA: The University Press of Kentucky, 2009), p. 1. 6 Greg Garrard (2004), Op.cit., p. 4. 7 Joseph M. Boggs and Dennis W. Petrie, The Art of Watching Film, 7thed (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008), p. 3.

4

Earth becoming a place full of rubbish. Then human with their intelligence walk away from the broken earth and live finite life in the space. Whereas in Narnia 2: Prince Caspian, the viewers can see contravention between those who want to take care of environment and those who want to exploit it for their own sake. The other environmental film is James Cameron’sAvatar which the writer chooses as the unit of analysis.Avatar has blasted its way to the number one all time-box office spot and nine Oscar nomination. 8 The film has additionally received various awards, nominations and honors, including in Academy Awards and 67th Golden Globe Award. Later, the film, that wowed the viewers with its special effect that spent massive budget for, is inspiring environmental activists. The film released in 2009 instead of 1999, the planned released year, because the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve Cameron vision of the film. The film is set in the middle of 22nd century, 2154 for precise. The narration is written by the producer, James Cameron, who produced the outstanding film, Titanicand the famousAlien sequel film. Avatar is a film about human’s9 group, RDA Corporation, who explores a planet in Alpha Centauri star system called Pandora to mining the precious mineral, unobtanium. But in order to do that they have to win over the natives heart first, which is the 9-feet tall blue thing called Na’vi. The scientists make avatar, the hybrid native body mix from human DNA and native DNA to get 8

Adam Rosenberg, Avatar: A Look at Its Box-Office Reign, accessed at August, 2011. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1629437/avatar-look-at-its-boxoffice-reign.jhtml. 9 Human, (adj) belonging to or relating to people, especially as opposed to animals or machines. Human also human ‘being, (n) a person (Longman, Advance American Dictionary: The Dictionary for Academic Success. (USA: Pearson Longman, 2008), p. 788)

5

closer with the native. Beside the air is poisoned for human.Na’vi in this film is counted as the non-human10 alien character in this research. Jake Sully is the main character of the film who also leads as a narrator. He is a deformity ex-marine who came to Pandora as avatar driver replacing his twin brother, a killed scientist. In the first journey to the wild life of Pandora, Jake in the avatar body gets lost at the forest. But he is rescued by female native, Naytiri, after getting sign from her god, Eywa. Then she takes him to her clan, Omaticaya clan, to learn their lifestyle after the chief permitted. Jake Sully reports his activities to both Dr. Augustine, the chief of scientist, and Colonel Quaritch, the marine’s chief for different purpose. To Augustine, he reports how Na’vi real life and the way they live with the environment. To Quaritch, he reports where the location of unobtanium is and tries to drive the native out of the place diplomatically to get the minim victims. Na’vi has a spiritual relation with the environment 11 . They tend to dependent on nature12, especially to the sacred tree; the trees of soul, where they believe their mother goddess, Eywa, live together with the ancestors and the soul of dead people. Right under this tree is where unobtanium that human looks for 10

Non-humanity – a space alien, a machine, a symbolic novum – as a means of exploring what it is like to have the label ‘different’ imposed on a person by some normalising system. Wolmark observes: The science fiction convention of the alien attempts to present otherness in unitary terms, so that ‘humanity’ is uncomplicatedly opposed to the ‘alien’; both Jones and Butler focus on the way in which the opposition seeks to suppress the others of both gender and race by subsuming them within a commonsense notion of what it is to be human. (Adam Roberts, Science Fiction (USA: Routledge, Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002), p. 100) 11 Environment, (n) The combination of external conditions that influence the life of individual organisms. The external environment comprises the non-living, abiotic components (physical and chemical) and the inter-relationship with other living, biotic components. (Gareth Jones, Alan Robertson, Jean Forbes and Graham Hollier, Collins: Dictionary of Environmental Science (Great Britain: Harper Collins Publishers, 1990), p. 145) 12 Nature, (n) Plants/ animals etc. (biology) everything in the physical world that is not controlled by humans, such as wild plants and animals, earth and rocks, and the weather. (Longman: Advance American Dictionary, 2008, p. 1060)

6

lying. In the end, Jack Sully has to choose to whom he will fight and whom he will protect. From this film, the viewers can compare the difference of relationship between human and the environment, and non-human alien with their environment. Avatar film also shows vary relation between human and environment, such as the power of nature upon human and other things, the friendship between non-human alien and their environment, the exploitation human did to the environment, and social moral messages about the environment that can be taken from the film. These bring to the analysis of the statement13 of film. From the explanation above, the writer is interested in analyzing the problem concerned on environmental issues and its relation with human in Cameron’s film, Avatar, using ecocriticism.

B. Focus of the Study The research is focused on the environmental issuesusing ecocriticismon Cameron’s film ‘Avatar’ through analyzing the different relationship between human and non-human alien characters with environment. Then it is analyzed the statement that film make regarding environmental messages.

13

The statement of the film is statement that film built to teach the viewers something by determining whether the acting and the characters have significance or meaning beyond the context of the film itself. This is driven by the judgment of the film as an expression of an idea that has intellectual, moral, social, or cultural importance and the ability to influence our lives for the better.

7

C. Research Question The questions of the research formulate by the writer are: 1. How is the relationship between human and their environment; and between non-human alien and their environment show in Avatar film in term of taking care to the environment of the Pandora’s Planet? 2. What kind of statement does the film make aboutenvironmental messagefrom those relationships?

D. Significance of the Study The writer hopes this research would enrich the variation of literary work analysis, especially about film on Letters and Humanities faculty. The writer has the expectation that the readers can analyze the literary works especially film, from various aspects, without forgetting and leaving the aesthetic and emotional values that contained. The writer also hopes that this research can give any significance and information to the writer and the readers, especially for those who enjoy and appreciate film from ecological perspective. The writer hopes this research will help the reader to understand more about environmental works, especially Cameron’s Avatar. E. Research Methodology Methodology of the research is including several aspects on research such as method of the study, objective of the study, technique of the study, instrument of the study, and unit analysis.

8

1. Objective of the Study The objective of the research is to know the relationship between human, nonhumanalien and their environment show in Avatar film and to know Avatar’s statement regarding environmental issues from that relationship. 2. Method of the Study Referring to the objective of the research, the writer uses discourse analysis method.The writers focuses on the issues of environment in Avatar film. The gathered data which are the problem found in Avatar film regarding environmental issues will be analyzed by using Ecocriticism. 3. Technique of Data Analysis In this research, the data would be taken as technique of analyzing environmental issues by using ecocriticism. Data and sources are gathered through some phases; (1) the writer watches Avatar film for several times; (2) the writer gathers data including quotations, pictures, and ideas related to the research questions; (3) the writer analyzes data in order to know the relationship of the human, non-human and their environment in Avatar film according to ecocriticism; (4) the writer formulates the result of the analysis with the aim of finding the purpose of the film to make such relations. It will be supported by related sources.

9

4. Instrument of the Study The researcher herself is the main instrument of the research.As the subject, the writer is watching the film, understanding, making notes about film quotations and scenes of the film regarding environmental issues, and analyzing the data related of the research questions. The writer is also collecting, reading and understanding some related data and sources. 5. Unit of Analysis The unit of analysis of the research is Avatarfilm directed by James Cameron and produced by 20th Century Fox, released in 2009. F. Time and Place This research took place in the Library of Department of English Literature faculty of Adab& Humanities, the Center Library of SyarifHidayatullah State Islamic University, and other libraries that provide the resources for the research. The writer begins this research from March, 2011.

CHAPTER II THOERETICAL FRAMEWORK ECOCRITICISM

A. The Definition of Ecocriticism Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship of the human and the nonhuman, throughout human cultural history and entailing critical analysis of the term „human‟ itself.1 The term of this green branch of literary studies is varied. In The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology (1972) Joseph W. Meeker introduced the term literary ecology to refer to “the study of biological themes and relationships which appear in literary works. It is simultaneously an attempt to discover what roles have been played by literature in the ecology of the human species.” Meanwhile, the term ecocriticism was possibly first coined in 1978 by William Rueckert in his essay “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism”. By ecocriticism Rueckert meant “the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature.” He concerned specifically with the science of ecology.2 Cheryll Glotfelty explains further on The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmark in Literary Ecology, that in tandem oikos and kritos mean “house judge”. A longwinded gloss on ecocritic might run as follow: “a person who judges the merits and faults of writings that depict the effects of culture upon nature, with a view

1

Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism. (New York: Routledge, 2004), p.5. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmark in Literary Ecology, (USA: The University of Georgia Press, 1996), p. xx 2

10

11

toward celebrating nature, berating its despoilers, and reversing their harm through political action.” The Greek oikos, household, and in modern usage refers both to “the study of biological interrelationships and the flow of energy through organisms and inorganic matter.”3 So the oikos is nature, a place Edward Hoagland calls “our widest home,” and the kritos is an arbiter of taste who wants the house kept in good order, no boots or dishes strewn about to ruin the original décor.4

B. History of Ecocritical Movement Ecocriticism as a concept first arose in the late 1970s, at meetings of the WLA (the Western Literature Association, a body whose field of interest is the literature of the American West).5 From the point of view of academics, ecocriticism is dominated by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE), a professional association that started in America but now has significant branches in the UK and Japan. It organises regular conferences and publishes a journal that includes literary analysis, creative writing and articles on environmental education and activism. Many early works of ecocriticism were characterised by an exclusive interest in Romantic poetry, wilderness narrative and nature writing, but in the last few years ASLE has turned towards a more general cultural ecocriticism, with studies of popular scientific writing, film, TV,

3

Lawrence Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination, (USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005) p. 13. 4 Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (1996), op.cit. p. 69. 5 Peter Barry, Beginning Theory an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, 2nd ed (UK: 2002), p.161.

12

art, architecture and other cultural artifacts such as theme parks, zoos and shopping malls.6 According to a prominent Ecocritic, Lawrance Buell, one can identify several trend-lines marking an evolution from a “first wave” of ecocriticism to a “second” or newer revisionist wave or waves increasingly evident today.7 1. First Wave Ecocriticism For first-wave ecocriticism, “environment” effectively meant “natural environment.” In practice if not in principle, the realms of the “natural” and the “human” looked more disjunct than they have come to seem for more recent environmental critics. Ecocriticism was initially understood to be synchronous with the aims of earthcare. Its goal was to contribute to “the struggle to preserve the „biotic community‟”8 The word environmental is usually understood to mean the surrounding conditions that affect people and other organisms. In a broader definition, environment is everything that affects an organism during its lifetime. In turn, all organisms including people affect many components in their environment. From a human perspective, environmental issues involve concerns about science, nature, health, employment, profits, politics, ethics, and economics.9 First-wave ecocriticism give special canonical emphasis to writers who foreground nature as a major part of their subject matter, such as the American

6

Greg Garrard (2004), p. 4. Lawrence Buell (2005), p. 17. 8 Ibid. p. 21. 9 Eldon D. Enger and Bradley F. Smith, Environmental Science: A Study of Interrelationship, 9th ed, (USA: McGraw-Hill, 2004), p. 5. 7

13

transcendentalists, the British Romantics, the poetry of John Clare, the work of Thomas Hardy and the Georgian poets of the early twentieth century.10 2. Second Waves or Newer Revisionist Waves Second waves or newer revisionist waves of ecocriticism has closer alliance with environmental science, especially the life sciences. The biologicalenvironmental-literary connection reached its first major critical expression in 1974 with the publication of Joseph W. Meeker.11 Glen A. Love in his 1999 essay Ecocriticism and Science: Toward Consilience? points out that a line of biological thinking has been a constant and indispensable accompaniment to the rise of ecocriticism and the study of literature and the environment. Biologically verified evidence of environmental destruction and it was the natural connecting point, as the emphasized, which can claim a permanent and important relationship to human life.12 Meanwhile, William Howarth seems rather to favor bringing humanities and science together in the context of studying specific landscapes and regions (Howarth 1996), to which end geology is at least as important as the life sciences (Howarth 1999). Ursula Heise, on the other hand, has recently turned to a branch of applied mathematics, risk theory, as a window onto literature‟s exploration of

10

Peter Barry (2002), p. 169. New Literary History, Vol. 30, No. 3, Ecocriticism (The Johns Hopkin University Press, Summer, 1999), p. 564. 12 Ibid. p. 565. 11

14

the kind of contemporary anxieties.13 Then, others have also taken up the argument that ecocriticism‟s progress becoming more science-literate. Likewise, the Carson‟s book Silent spring is a great model. Carson had to investigate a problem in ecology, with the help of wildlife biologists and environmental toxicologists, in order to show that DDT was present in the environment in amounts toxic to wildlife, but Silent Spring undertook cultural not scientific work when it strove to argue the moral case that it ought not to be. The great achievement of the book was to turn a (scientific) problem in ecology into a widely perceived ecological problem that was then contested politically, legally and in the media and popular culture. Thus ecocriticism cannot contribute much to debates about problems in ecology, but it can help to define, explore and even resolve ecological problems in this wider sense.14 Science‟s “facts” are “neither real nor fabricated”: the microbial revolution hinged on a certain kind of orchestrated laboratory performance, without which science history would have taken a different path, but the discovery/invention was not fictitious, either. Bruno Latour ingeniously proposes the neologism “factish” (a collage of “fact” and “fetish”) to describe this understanding of the “facts” of science: “types of action that do not fall into the comminatory choice between fact and belief ” (Latour 1999: 295, 306).15 The discourses of science and literature, then, must be read both with and against each other. According to the former way of thinking, the prototypical human figure is a solitary human and the experience in question activates a primordial link 13

Lawrence Buell (2005), p. 18. Greg Garrard (2004), p. 6. 15 Lawrence Buell (2005), op.cit. p. 21. 14

15

between human and nonhuman. According to the latter, the prototypical human figure is defined by social category and the “environment” is artificially constructed. In both instances the understanding of personhood is defined for better or for worse by environmental entanglement.16

C. Ecocriticism as Literary Criticism Regardless of what name it goes by, most ecocritical work shares a common motivation. The ecocritic wants to track environmental ideas and representations whenever they appear, to see more clearly a debate which seems to be taking place, often part-concealed, in a great many cultural spaces. Most of all, ecocriticism seeks to evaluate texts and ideas in terms of their coherence and usefulness as responses to environmental crisis.17 All ecological criticism shares the fundamental premise that human culture is connected to the physical world, affected it and affected by it.18 An ecological perspective strives to see how all things are interdependent, even those apparently most separate. Nothing may be discarded or buried without consequences.19 Ecocriticism takes as its subject the interconnections between nature and culture, specifically the cultural artifacts of language and literature. As a critical stance, it has one foot in literature and the other on land; as a theoretical

16

Ibid. p. 23. Richard Kerridge and Neil Sammells, Writing the Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature, (USA: Zed Books Ltd, 1998), p. 5. 18 Ibid. p. xix. 19 Ibid, p. 7. 17

16

discourse, it negotiates between the human and the nonhuman. Ecocriticism expands the notion of "the world" to include the entire ecosphere.20 The ecocritical movement‟s primary publications, the American ISLE (International Studies in Literature and Environment) and its younger British counterpart Green Letters, are remarkable among scholarly association journals for their mixture of scholarly, pedagogical, creative, and environmentalist contributions.21 ISLE is established in 1993 by Patrick Murphy to “provide a forum for critical studies of the literary and performing arts proceeding from or addressing environmental considerations. These would include ecological theory, environmentalism, conceptions of nature and their depictions, the human/nature dichotomy and related concerns.”22 Ecology, meanwhile, is concerned with an integrated, notionally holistic view of human–natural systems, even though at any point or space these systems – whether nominally organic or mechanical – are seen to be open and evolving. Meanwhile a broadly ecological concern with human/nature and people/place relations is a deep-rooted and perennial feature of the subject, implicit in some of its Classical origins and explicit in much of its Romantic legacy. Ecological concern has some terms and topics they usually focus on some questions about family and community based on, identification between characters and places or a mood and a place, life and death, and about human and environment representation and relation such as whether people are a part of or apart from

20

Ibid. p. xix. Lawrence Buell (2005), p. 6. 22 Cheryll Glofeltly and Harold Fromm (1992), p. xviii. 21

17

nature. All this can be expressed in terms of three major and recurrent topics in literary and cultural history.23 1) Version of pastoral. Stereotypically, pastoral is a genre in which shepherd in particular or country-dwellers in general are represented in an idyllically idealized stat of simplicity and innocence, far from the complex ills and excesses of court or city. Alternatively, country folk are presented as brutal and backward. Typically, in many a piece it is the movement between these states that drives the plot and informs the main issues.24 2) The city as second nature. Here alternatives tend to be framed in terms of delights and distresses of urban living as a whole, without recourse to rural comparisons. Above all it is the capital city, the Metropolis that is seen as an interlocking system of worlds within worlds, an intricate network of cultures and sub-cultures. The city is hailed from afar as a place of individual opportunity and social mobility „the bright city lights‟. But on further acquaintance and reflection the city often turns out to be a place of personal loneliness and social alienation, naked acquisitiveness and financial vulnerability.25 3) Science Fiction: Utopias and Dystopias. The genre of science fiction has been particularly influential in offering representations of imaginary places that are variously utopian and dystopian. „Utopia‟, from Greek ou-topos, is strictly „noplace‟ means an imaginary ideal place. Dystopia was a term coined later to

23

Rob Pope, The English Studies Book: An Introduction to Language, Literature and Culture, 2nd ed (NY: Routledge, 2002), pp. 160-161. 24 Ibid. p. 162. 25 Ibid. p. 162.

18

designate an imaginary horrible place. And in fact, depending on one‟s point of view, most utopias have potentially dystopian dimension to them.26

Cheryll Glotfeltly makes an analogous ecocriticism‟s phases similar as Elaine Showalter‟s model of the three developmental stages of feminist criticism. The first stage is the “images of nature”, how nature is represented in literature. But nature is not the only focus of ecocritical studies of representation. Other topics include the frontier, animals, cities, specific geographical regions, rivers, mountains, deserts, Indians, technology, garbage, and the body. Second stage is to recuperate the hitherto neglected genre of nature writing, a tradition of nature-oriented nonfiction that originates in England with Gilbert White‟s A Natural history of Selbourne (1789) and extends to America through Henry Thoreau, Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, Terry Tempest Williams, and many others. In an increasingly urban society, nature writing plays a vital role in teaching us to value the natural world. Another effort to promulgate environmentally enlightened works examines mainstream genres, indentifying fiction and poetry writers whose work manifests ecological awareness. The third stage, analogous work ecocriticism includes examining the symbolic construction of species. How has literary discourse defined the human? Such a critique questions the dualisms prevalent in Western thought, dualisms that separate meaning from matter, sever mind from body, divide men from women, and wrench humanity from nature. A related endeavor is being carried out under

26

Ibid. p. 163.

19

the hybrid label “ecofeminism,” a theoretical discourse whose theme is the link between the oppression of women and the domination of nature. Another theoretical is that known as deep ecology, which is considering the philosophy to explore the implications that its radical critique of anthropocentrism might have for literary study.27 Lawrence Buell in the last chapter on his book (2005) believed that “environmental criticism at the turn of the twenty-first century will also come to be looked back upon as a moment that did produce a cluster of challenging intellectual work, a constellation rather than a single titanic book or figure, that established environmentality as a permanent concern for literary and other humanists, and through that even more than through acts of pedagogical or activist outreach helped instill and reinforce public concern about the fate of the earth, about humankind‟s responsibility to act on that awareness, about the shame of environmental injustice, and about the importance of vision and imagination in changing minds, lives, and policy as well as composing words, poems, and books.”28

27 28

Ibid. p. xxiv. Lawrence Buell (2005), p.133.

CHAPTER III RESEARCH FINDINGS

A. Data Description In this description of the data, the writer discusses about the kind of relationship that human and non-human alien characters have with the environment on Avatar film. Human are the people who come away from earth to Pandora, there are Jake Sully, Colonel Quatritch, Dr. Augustine, Parker Selfridge, Norm Spellman, Max Petel and Trudy. Whereas Na‟vi as indigenous creature of Pandora is categorized as non-human alien in this research, there are the Omaticayan tribe such as Neytiri and Tsu‟tey. Then, the extraordinary wild animals, the deities, the plants and the landscape of Pandora are the environment or nature. Nature is silent in our culture (and in literate societies generally) in the sense that the status of being a speaking subject is jealously guarded as an exclusively human prerogative.1 So, human and non-human alien characters are the characters that can talk and think in this film while the rest of it that cannot talk is categorized as environment. Avatar has strong environmental issues and moral environmental values on it. It makes strong separation between persons and places. The environment of Pandora describes as a hostile environment, threatening nature and alienating society. But in the same time, the Pandora‟s environment also describes as a

1

Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmark in Literary Ecology, (USA: The University of Georgia Press, 1996), p. 15.

20

21

friendly and hospitable environment. Avatar raises the environment issues such as different opinion toward nature, deforestation, exploitation toward nature, respecting and worshiping nature, dependent on nature and the power of nature. To make easier to analyze, the writer tabulated the data related environmental issues in Avatar film. The tabulated data are described in table below: No Classification Quotation and Picture I. Human relationship with Environment 1. Human Colonel Quaritch : You‟re not in Kansas assessment of anymore. You are on Pandora ladies and nature. gentlemen. Respect that fact, every second and every day. If there is a hell you might wanna go there for are-and-are after a tour on Pandora. Up there beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies or squads in the mud want to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes.

Time

00:00:06

00:06: 43

00:06:07

Norm: Grace Augustine is a legend. She‟s the head of the Avatar program. She wrote the book. I mean literally wrote the book on Pandoran Botany. Max: Well that‟s, she like plants better than people.

00:10:20

22

Parker (to Augustine): This is why we‟re here, unobtanium. Because this little gray rock sells for 20 million a kilo. That‟s the only reason. It‟s what pays for the whole party. It‟s what pays for your science.

00:13:00

Parker: Their damn village happens to be resting on the richest Unobtanium deposit within 200 clicks in any direction. I mean. Look at all that chatter. Jake: You‟ll get them to move. What if they won‟t go? Colonel: I‟m betting that they will. Parker: Okay. Look. killing the indigenous looks bad but there is one thing that shareholders hate more than bad press and that‟s a bad quality statement. I don‟t make up the rules. So just find me a carat. Then get them to move. Otherwise, this is gonna have to be all stick. Okay? Colonel: you got three months. That‟s when the dozers get there.

00:48:05

Man: … It would be a fresh start on a new world. And the pay is good. Man: Very good.

00:03:00

Jake: Back on earth, these guys were army dogs, marines. Fighting for freedom. But out here, they 00:05:34 are hired guns. Taking the money, working for the company. Jake: …. They can fix the spinal if you got the money but not on dead benefit. Not in this economy. 2.

Human exploitation toward nature

00:05:16

00:03:48

00:04:10

23

00:57:08

01:24:58

01:26:18

01:38:57

01:38:38

01:41:38

24

01:40:04

Jake: Probably, I‟m just talking to the tree right now. But if you there, I need to get you hands up. If Grace is with you, look into her memories. See the world we come from. There‟s no green there. They killed their mother and they gonna do the same here. II 1.

02:03:26

Non-Human Alien Relationship with Environment Respecting Nature 00:36:15

Jack : Hey, wait! I just wanna say thanks for killing those things. Neytiri : Don‟t thank! You don‟t thank for this. This is sad. Very sad only. Jack : Ok. I‟m sorry. Whatever I did I‟m sorry. Neytiri : This is your fault. They don‟t need to die.

00:36:46

01:02:18 “I see you, brother and thank you. Your spirit goes with Eywa. Your body stays behind to become part of the people.” 2.

Worshiping nature

00:49:25 Norm: Who‟s Eywa? Only their deity. Their Goddess made up of all living things. Everything they know.

25

00:31:20

Neytiri: I was about going to kill him but there 00:43:13 was a sign from Eywa.

00:31:55

Tsu‟Tey: These demons are forbidden here. Neytiri : There is a sign. There is a matter for the Tsahik. Tsu‟Tey: Bring him. Tsahik : My daughter you will teach him our way to speak and walk as we do. Neytiri : Why me? This is not fair. Tsahik : It is decided. My daughter will teach you our way. Learn well, Jake Sully. Then we will see if your insanity can be cured. Jack (narrator): Na‟vi says Eywa will provide life. But with no hope, no home, there is only one place they could go. Dr. Augustine: I‟m with her, Jake. She is real. 3.

00:41:18

00:44:55

01:56:12

Dependent on nature 00:46:10

01:01:34

26

Jack: I try to understand this deep connection people have to the forest. She talks about a network of energy that flows to all living things. 01:01:34 She says all energy under borrowing and one day has to give back. 4.

The deep connection with nature

00:50:35 Neytiri: That is Tsahaylu, the bond. Feel it. Feel her heart beat, her breath. Feel her strong legs. You may tell her what to do inside. For now, say where to go.

00:42:35

00:57:09

01:54:24

Augustine: What we think we know is there is some kind of electro chemical communication between the roots of the trees like the synopsis between your own chromosomes. And each tree 01:28:37 has ten to the four (104) to the trees around it and ten to the twelve (1012) on Pandora. It‟s more connection than human brain.

27

5.

The power of nature 00:35:35

01:55:08 Tsahik: The great mother may choose to save all that she is in this body. Jake: Is that possible? Tsahik: She must pass through the eye of Eywa and return but Jake Sully, she is very weak. Jake: Hang on, Grace. They gonna fix you up. Grace: The tree of Souls, Yvetryar Ramounom, is their most sacred place. See the flux Vortex on the screen? 01:11:51 Trudy: Yeah, that messed up my instrument. Grace: There is something really interesting going on there biologically.

02:14:30

12:16:18

02:15:08

28

B. Data Analysis Ecocriticism is known as the study of biological themes and relationships which appear in literary works.2 Avatar raises the environment issues such as deforestation, exploitation toward nature, and the power of nature so that it can be analyzed using ecocriticism. However, ecocriticism is concerned not only with the attitude to nature expressed by the author of a text, but also with its patterns of interrelatedness, both between the human and the nonhuman, and between the different parts of the non-human world.3 1. The Difference Relationship Between Human and Nonhuman Alien Toward the Environment As mention before, this film shows different relationship toward the environment. The writer classifies the relationship of the environment into two different kinds of relationship: human relationship with the environment and nonhuman alien relationship with the environment. The contradictory relationships emerge from the different attitude and opinion about the environment from each character. Here is the complete analysis. 1) The relationship between human and the environment Human are the people who come from earth to Pandora. Unlike Na‟vi, human consist of many different types of characteristics that represent different cultures and knowledge. Because of the background differences, there are also different attitudes and viewpoints toward environment among human. From a human perspective, environmental issues involve concern about science, nature, 2 3

p. 5.

Ibid, p. xx. Terry Gifford, Pastoral (New York: Routledge, the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001)

29

health, employment, profits, politics, ethics, and economics. 4 Thus the different point of view or perspective or knowledge brings the different understanding and attitude that lead into disagreement among themselves. But above all, human share the same main opinion about nature which is that the environment is the profitable thing. Later, this opinion leads human to do some explorations to the environment that often bring bad consequences to the environment itself. a. Human Opinion about Nature Human think that the wild environment or nature is menace and hideous place. They see nature as the enemy that should be taken over. They prepare themselves to do invasion with the high technology brought from Earth so they could control them. From the beginning of the film when new people are coming to Pandora, Colonel is welcoming them with a warning about how cruel the Pandora is. Colonel Quaritch : You’re not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact, every second and every day. If there is a hell you might wanna go there for R-&-R after a tour on Pandora. Up there beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies or squads in the mud want to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes. (00:06:16) He says that Pandora, which is wildlife, is worse than a hell. He uses the sentence that means people would prefer to go to the hell than to Pandora. He even says that every living thing on Pandora; animals, plants, and the indigenous

4

Eldon D. Enger and Bradley F. Smith, Environmental Science: A Study of Interrelationship, 9th ed, (USA: McGraw-Hill, 2004), p. 5.

30

want to kill them. This explanation shows explicitly that Pandora, from human assessment, is menace and hideous.

Pict.1 Colonel Quaritch with his scratch on the face

The colonel‟s appearance with scratch wound on his face is strengthening what he says. He is not the kind that easy to get hurt and wounded, not even after attending several big wars such as three times on Nigeria. But in Pandora, he got the wound at the first day he came. It shows that even Colonel, the very strong person by the appearance, attitude, and thought, can easily get hurt because Pandora is so much danger. Colonel Quaritch, represents the military perspective, says that the wildlife is dangerous. The only thing he wants to do is to dominate the environment by force. Environment, for him, is like the old conception of nature for man. Nature is gendered female, while women, from the men viewpoint, are territory for adventure, wildness to be tamed, owned and controlled.5 He talks for several times about his wish to vanishing Pandora with the power, strength, and gun rather than to use diplomatic solution. He does not think that the environment, the strange one, and other creatures that live on it are deserved to be preserved but his own creature, human, and his own profit.

5

Richard Kerridge & Neil Sammells, Writing the Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature (USA: Zed Books Ltd, 1998) p.6

31

Pic.2 Jake sees big arrows on Tank‟s wheel The description of Pandora‟s environment as hostile and alienating environment even more is strengthen in many ways at beginning of the film. Jake Sully, when he first time came down to Pandora‟s land on human barrack, is passed by the company‟s tank that it has many big blue arrows on its wheel. It shows explicitly, whether to Jake or to the viewer, that there is warfare out there between human and alien or the indigenous of the planet. Moreover, from the scientific perspective, nature is something to be learned. Nature is something that should be preserved for it can be explored and gives so much knowledge. But they do not see nature as the equal fellow inhabitant but as the object to explore. It is presented by Dr. Augustine character. Norm: Grace Augustine is a legend. She’s the head of the Avatar program. She wrote the book. I mean literally wrote the book on Pandoran Botany. Max: Well that’s, she like plants better than people. (00:10:20) Max, her scientist colleague, is described Dr. Augustine as plant lover that she likes plants better than people. She respects nature on her own way, different from the Omaticayan Na‟vi. She admires Pandora‟s environment so that she keeps learning on it because it is amazed her. But above all, human share the same thought that nature is a profitable thing that means a lot for them if only they can exploit it.

32

Parker: I care what I care. Parker (to Augustine): This is why we’re here, unobtanium. Because this little gray rock sells for 20 million a kilo. That’s the only reason. It’s what pays for the whole party. It’s what pays for your science. Comprendo? Now those savages are threatening our whole operation. We are on the brink of war, and you’re supposed to be finding a diplomatic solution. So use what you’ve got, and get me some results. (00:13:00) Differ with Colonol Quaritch that represents the military perspective and Dr. Augustine that represents scientific perspective, Parker Selfridge represents the economic perspective, that nature provides money. People should take as much as they can from nature for their own benefit because nature is there for human. Parker says further that it, unobtonium, is what pays for the whole operation they do on Pandora. So, the only important thing is the unobtanium which produces a lot of money. Because money can make people‟s dreams come true, like the unbelievable avatar program that scientists do. This is what makes Dr. Augustine as plants lover can do nothing about but follow along with him. Finally, the right wing accuses environmentalists of putting nature before people or the opposite is true. Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, understood that we are not protecting nature for nature‟s sake. We are protecting nature because it enriches humanity. Nature enriches us economically. it enriches us culturally, recreationally, aesthetically, spiritually, and historically. It connects us to one another, to our history and our culture, and to common experiences that give us identity as a people.6 Parker: Their damn village happens to be resting on the richest Unobtanium deposit within 200 clicks in any direction. I mean. Look at all 6

Gaylord Nelson, Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise (USA: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), p. xvi.

33

that chatter. Jake: You’ll get them to move. What if they won’t go? Colonel: I’m betting that they will. Parker: Okay. Look. killing the indigenous looks bad but there is one thing that shareholders hate more than bad press and that’s a bad quality statement. I don’t make up the rules. So just find me a carat. Then get them to move. Otherwise, this is gonna have to be all stick. Okay? Colonel: you got three months. That’s when the dozers get there. (00:48:05) The only thing Parker cares about is money. He worries a lot if the shareholders who invest their money will get disappointment and take their shares. It will be a loss for him. He doesn‟t really care what way it takes to get what he wants whether it is a diplomatic way by persuasiveness or the hard way using violence. The viewers can feel the hatred and dismissed the native from Parker‟s dialogue and the word choices he uses. Environment for human, generally, is only the tools to gain money, benefits, and might as well be used for the betterment of the human community than die neglected. They feel that to not do so would cause economic hardship. It was money that mentions first in this film as the reason to do this job for Jake Sully, the main character, and take a flight away to Pandora. Beside he already had nothing left to do after dropping out from military because of his injury. Man: … It would be a fresh start on a new world. And the pay is good. Man: Very good. (00:03:00) The man from the company convinced him that it is a good and promising job by mentioning about the good, and even the very good payment. The repetition of the word „good‟ from payment is to emphasize the word. They mention it twice because money is the important reason for someone to do something. Thus Jake Sully will not refuse the job.

34

More than that, Jake, the main character, implies that human does not doubt to take other‟s life only for money. To make it more dramatically, Jake mentions money as “the paper on his wallet” as if it does not really precious at all when narrate his twin murdered‟ story. Jake: Back on earth, these guys were army dogs, marines. Fighting for freedom. But out here, they are hired guns. Taking the money, working for the company. (00:05:34) Moreover Jake implies that human (marines) on Pandora are changing their habits because their reference there is only gaining money for the company by following the Colonel‟s or company‟s order. Jake does the same as well. Money is the major reference for human being. It can change people and can make people to do something that is not supposed to be done. Jake: …. They can fix the spinal if you got the money but not on dead benefit. Not in this economy. (00:05:16) Furthermore, Jake gives more emphasize that economic is the main problem at that time. Economical problem seems as the most preeminent matter that the writer can assume it as the major cause of all the damage and the problem comes after in this film. This is reasonable because economy affected all term of life and subjects, including ecology. Economics informed by ecological awareness, and an ecology that is economically viable. The two activities are intimately and intricately interconnected. They are deeply coloured by the politics of their particular historical moment, too.7

7

Richard Kerridge & Neil Sammells (1998), op.cit., p. 158

35

b. Human Exploitation of Environment In most of the Western religious and philosophical tradition, the nonhuman world is thought to exist for the sake of human beings. The anthropocentrism sees that human beings have needs and the nonhuman world exists to satisfy these needs.8 This believe and understanding lead human to do an exploration and exploitation into other or nonhuman world. In Avatar, when viewers come to see Pandora for the first time, the film shows first the place on Pandora where human live. It presents the damage planet or forest that viewers can assume that it is what human did to the Pandora‟s environment.

Pict.3 Pandora‟s mining

Pict.4 Human station

The shot on picture 2 shows the plan is passing through the barren land caused by mining in the middle of the green land. This is an evidence that human affect harmfully to the environment. It changes the environment badly. In addition, in the picture 3 there is also a barren, dry, and dusty land where human decided to take it as their place to live. Human need land or place to build their barracks, offices, laboratories, and airbase to advocate their civilization. But this development affects and changes the environment mostly into bad condition.

8

Terry Gifford (2001), p. viii

36

Pict.5 The Pandora‟s forest view As comparison, the film then shows very different scenery in the Na‟vi place on the forest. It looks extremely unlike to the landscape where human lived. It is still prosperous, green, and fertile. From those pictures above the writer can see the difference of the environment or landscape view and mood between where human live and where non-human live. The scene which shows human place is dark, dusty and busy, while the indigenous place or forest is green, calm and harmonious. It shows that human brings damage to the land that changed the environment a lot in extreme ways from the way it should.

Pict.6 Neytiri and Jake in the Tree Pict.7 Cutting the Tree of Voices of Voices down

Pict.8 Jake is trying to block the Pict.9 Omaticaya‟s warriors sees tank from driver‟s view cutting process

37

The film also demonstrates deforestation. It happens when RDA corporation send out their huge tanks to cut down the holly tree, tree of voices, in the morning right before Jake and Neytiri‟s eyes. Tree of voices is the place where the Na‟vi believe their prayers will be heard and sometimes be answered. Eventhough avatar is trying to block the deed, the drivers of the tanks keeps their way to cut the tree down after getting the permission from Parker (pict.7), the chief of the companies at Pandora. Human tyranny to the environment that represents by their lumbering deed makes the indigenous feel bad, sad, and angry but they could not do anything but looking infuriately when the tanks vanishing their holly trees from far on their horse‟s back (pict.8). This event of lumber leads the viewers into the real conflict in the film.

Pict.10 The home tree is falling down.

Pict.11 Neytiri is screaming beside her father‟s body.

Pict.12 The staffs are looking sadly at Pict.13 Colonel drinks coffee. the monitors

38

The deed continues the day after that. The company brings more troops and tools to cut more important tree which is the huge home tree of Omaticaya, the tree where the tribe lived (pict.10). Many indigenous died in this accident including the clan leader, Eytukan who is also Neytiri‟s father (pict.11). This is the very touching scenes. The director presents this accident on the miserable mood supported by sad background song and Omaticaya‟s scream and sob. It also focuses on the human sympathy-but-cannot-do-anything‟s faces which are looking the cutting process from monitors (pict.12). It creates some compassionate response for them. But human do not really care about it, especially Parker and Colonel Quaritch, because on their mind they think that they already gave them enough time to go and already sent messengers to warn them. It explicitly shows in pict.13 that Colonel looks nature and the indigenous down by drinking coffee while doing cutting tree process. Before this accident happened, the company sent Jake Sully and Dr. Augustine to warn the Na‟vi people to get off their home because human, the sky people, were approaching on a mission to cut their home tree down. But Na‟vi decided to fight back with their arrows. They were tied up Jake and Dr. Augustine instead. Eventhough their messengers were failed and the Na‟vi was still there, human keep going on their mission without doubt. They are only focused on their mission, their job, and their ambition to take over the land. But this crime is not stopping there, days after this, they come again to destroy their biggest sacred tree where Na‟vi owe its existence and hope. But this time, Na‟vi, lead by Jake Sully as Toruk Macto, comes with the new plan of

39

resistance. They were gathered all the tribes over the Pandora to help them confronting human‟s coming attack. Jake: Probably, I’m just talking to the tree right now. But if you there, I need to get you hands up. If Grace is with you, look into her memories. See the world we come from. There’s no green there. They killed their mother and they gonna do the same here. (02:03:26) Moreover, Jake mentions that human already destructed their own home which is Earth and they will also do the same to Pandora‟s environment. It explains that destruction is what human tend to do to the environment. They are already vanished their own land and then they come to seek another land to vanish and explore, so they come to Pandora. Furthermore, Pandora offers them a promising profit. 2) The Relationship between Non-Human Alien and the Environment The Na‟vi have a unique relationship with their environment. They lived harmonically with all organisms in the forest; animals, plants, and the deities. To analyze the relationship between non-human alien (Na‟vi) and their environment, the writer gives more attention to how Na‟vi treats and behaves toward nature. They respect nature and worship it. They believe that nature have power and connection that connected all organisms in their world. Na‟vi ways of life and relationship with nature are resemble to the one of ancient history of religion called animism. Today it commonly refers to perceptions that natural entities, forces, and nonhuman life-forms have one or more of the following: a soul or vital lifeforce or spirit, personhood (an effective

40

life and personal intentions), and consciousness, often but not always including special spiritual intelligence or powers.9 a. Respecting nature Differ from human, the Na‟vi believe all life is sacred and should be honored. This attitude includes paying respect to the plants and animals that harvested or killed to provide their sustenance. When Na‟vi should kill an animal whether it is a self defense or a hunt for eating, they not mere kill them but feel sad and thank them for their sacrifice. The Na‟vi have a unique ritual after killing an animal by praying for the animal they killed or hunted the peace and praying for they own salvation. This ritual is only one from various rituals the indigenous culture have. Rituals affirming the interconnectedness of the human and nonhuman worlds exist in every primitive culture.10

Pict.14 Neytiri is praying beside the murdered dog Naytiri prays beside the dying wild black dog one by one after killing them in order to save Jake. After running off from the big monstrous wild dog called thanator, Jake was lost in the forest. When the night came, the wild animals surrounded him because he was noisy, according to Naytiri. So that he fought 9

Bron Taylor, Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (California: University of California Press, 2010), P.15 10 Ibid. p.21

41

them. Then Naytiri came for helping him by killing some of the small wild dogs in order to repel them after getting a sign from her God about Jake. But then, when Jake said thanks to her, she was angry instead. She was angry because she thought that those animals were not deserved died. Jack : Hey, wait! I just wanna say thanks for killing those things. Neytiri : Don’t thank! You don’t thank for this. This is sad. Very sad only. Jack : Ok. I’m sorry. Whatever I did I’m sorry. Neytiri : This is your fault. They don’t need to die. (00:36:46) For Na‟vi who live peacefully with nature, killing animals or any organisms are unnecessary and disturbs the balance of life that their deity, Eywa, is trying to protect. They understood that even animals have spirits that should be respected. Soon after three months living together with the Na‟vi, Jake is used to be with the Na‟vi lifestyle and also with this ritual. So, when he is hunting an animal, he prays for it, just like what is done by Neytiri before. By using Na‟vi native language, Jake prays “I see you, brother and thank you. Your spirit goes with Eywa. Your body stays behind to become part of the people.”

Pict.15 Jake is killing then praying an animal It means that he feels sorry for killing it but he has to do that for the sustenance of his clan, Omaticaya. In Artic Dreams Lopez writes, “. . . , the hunter

42

saw himself bound up in a sacred relationship with the larger animals he hunted. The relationship was full of responsibilities – to the animals, to himself, and to his family”.11 In this film, this ritual seems like Jake makes some permission to kill him and convince him that he will not die in vain. Moreover for Neytiri, this attitude shows that Jake was ready to the next step of the Na‟vi warrior. Because it means that Jake is understood enough about a sense of taking responsibility for the stewardship of the environment. A. Dionys de Leeue, a professional biologist specializing in sport fisheries management, gives the following definition of respect: “behavior with regard to an interest that shows consideration for the holder of the interest and avoids degradation of it, negative interference with it, or interruption of it”.12 Because the Na‟vi is well understood that all life is sacred, so they take responsible and take care for it. They also understand that the environment is what they rely on to provide them with the sustenance they need. The Na‟vi acknowledged their need of other creatures but did not take them greedily. b. Worshiping Nature The Na‟vi worship the mother goddess, Eywa, whom they believe keeps and creates the souls of all the Na‟vi and other living creatures on Pandora. Norm: Who’s Eywa? Only their deity. Their Goddess made up of all living things, everything they know. (00:49:25)

11

J. Claude Evans, With Respect for Nature: Living as Part of the Natural World (USA: State University of New York Press, 2005) p.11 12 Ibid. pp.5-6

43

The Na‟vi obey what Eywa says to them without ask or doubt. Eywa gives them sign about what should they do and they should not do through a pink-flying thing like jellyfish that Neytiri explained as “seeds of the sacred tree, very pure spirit.”

Pict.16 The sign of Eywa When Neytiri is about going to kill Jake with her poisonous arrow, suddenly a seed is passing trough before her. That makes her postponed the deed. For the Na‟vi, the seed presence means a sign from Eywa. It is explicitly explained by Neytiri when she brought Jake Sully to Omaticaya‟s village for the first time in front of the chief and all the people. Neytiri: I was about going to kill him but there was a sign from Eywa. (00:43:13) Furthermore after helping Jake, the seeds are making appearance again. Neytiri was chasing Jake away because Jake was following her and coercing her to take him home with her. Then the seeds come and cover Jake‟s body. Soon after the seeds went, Neytiri changes her attitude and mind then hurriedly takes Jake to her village.

44

Pict.17 The seeds are covering Jake‟s body This obedience attitude can also be seen from Tsu‟Tey character. Eventhough he is rough and hate the sky people a lot until he called them „demons‟, but when he acknowledges that it is Eywa who gives order, he do nothing but obey. Tsu’Tey Neytiri Tsu’Tey

: These demons are forbidden here. : There is a sign. There is a matter for the Tsahik. : Bring him. (00:41:18)

When Neytiri and Jake are on the way to the village, Tsu‟Tey and the people block their way and bind Jake. His gaze is so upset and disgust that he wants to kill Jake. But then when Neytiri says that there was a sign from Eywa, Tsu‟Tey argues no more and gives her permission to bring him and continue the walk together to the village. Beside Eytukan who is the clan leader, The Na‟vi also has the Eys Tsahik, Neytiri‟s mother. Tsahik is the one who interprets what the meaning of the sign Eywa is giving to them. She interprets the world of Eywa. She has also the important part in the tribe as the matriarch leader and the spiritual leader. Her words are supposed to be heard and cannot be objected, eventhough with her own daughter. Because her words are came directly from Eywa.

45

Tsahik : My daughter you will teach him our way to speak and walk as we do. Neytiri : Why me? This is not fair. Tsahik : It is decided. My daughter will teach you our way. Learn well, Jake Sully. Then we will see if your insanity can be cured. (00:44:55) It means that the Na‟vi is worshiping Eywa full of their heart with no doubt. Because they believe all energy is only borrowed. Eywa is the only thing the Na‟vi owe their existence and hope to. When there is nothing left for them, they go and wish nowhere but to Eywa. When they have no place to go, nothing to hope, they will run to Eywa. Jack (narrator): Na’vi says Eywa will provide life. But with no hope, no home, there is only one place they could go. The Na‟vi also believe that after death, the souls of all living thing on Pandora return to Eywa. They believe the souls of their departed ancestors rest with Eywa on the sacred tree. This tree is their direct link to Eywa and the ancestors. As the evidence, Na‟vi can hear their voices through the tree of voices by linking their bond. Moreover, this is proven explicitly by Dr. Augustine when she is going to die. Dr. Augustine: I’m with her, Jake. She is real. (01:56:12) At the dying condition, Augustine was taken by Jake into the tree of soul asking for help to heal her. She said arrogantly before that this kind of talk is fairy tale and impossible. She is a scientist and scientists only believe in something that provable in science. But at last, she admitted this spiritual thing when she finally meets Eywa herself.

46

c. Dependent on nature

Pict.18 Omaticaya are sleeping on Pict.19 Neytiri drinks from the home tree flower The Na‟vi lives and life with and by nature. They are using every utility the forest gives them wisely. They use the huge tree for the place to live in colony. They sleep on the net they made on the branches (pict.18). They eat from the animals they hunt on the forest but not greedy that they make a ritual when killing an animal. They drink from the leaves and flowers in the forest. They make the weapon from the wood surround. Moreover they have their own rules that prevail on every member of the tribe even to use wood from their home tree. They always have to listen and obey the rules of their mother goddess. Instead they never even think about breaking Eywa‟s rules. Their lives are supported by the environment nicely. Thus they understand enough how dependent they are to nature so that they respect and protect them so that their lives will continue supported. They realize they depend on planet as much as it depends on them for survival. Environment, people, and all organisms are dependent on one another to keep exist and viable. Jack: I try to understand this deep connection people have to the forest. She talks about a network of energy that flows to all living things. She says all energy under borrowing and one day has to give back. (01:01:34)

47

The Na‟vi believe that if they cherish and care for nature and environment then the environment will continue to provide them with the nourishment to survive. They believe that all energy as they live is only borrowing, so someday they have to give back. d. The deep connection with nature Na‟vi has a special bond that connects them with other species on their planet. There is a unique bond, which is the nerve ending growing from their heads, in the end of their braided hair. This bond is called tsahaylu.

Pict. 20 Tsahaylu It is formed for mutual benefit. Its function is to connect the na‟vi and the mind of the other creatures they want to ride. To make the bond work, Na‟vi should first match their tsahaylu with the tsahaylu of animals they want to connect or ride. By connecting the bond, Na‟vi are able to ride or fly on the back of the other creatures, such as horse and ikran, the flying animal like prehistoric birds Pterodactyl. It can give orders without words but only need to think of what they want to do on mind. It is like they are thinking together. Neytiri: That is Tsahaylu, the bond. Feel it. Feel her heart beat, her breath. Feel her strong legs. You may tell her what to do inside. For now, say where to go. (00:50:35)

48

Tsahaylu is the most important part of Na‟vi‟s body. So after Neytiri got command from Tsahik to teach Jake their way of life, Neytiri first acknowledge Jake to Tsahaylu and teach him how Na‟vi ride a horse. Because of the important of the Tsahaylu, Na‟vi threat other Na‟vi by cutting off their hair, where the Tsahaylu is.

Pict.21 Treated to cut the tsahaylu The first time Jake Sully came into the village of Omaticaya, a warrior of Na‟vi, upon Tsu‟tey command, guarded Jake all the way to the Village. He gripped Jake‟s braided hair and treated to cut it with a knife to make Jake calm and obey. He treated to cut Jake‟s Tsahaylu instead of cutting Jake‟s neck like human being usually do. This shows that the bond is important that the Na‟vi fright to lose them.

Pict.22 netiri matches tsahaylu to Pict.23 Omaticaya are praying on the tree of voices the tree of souls The bond can also be made with the Tree of Voices (pict.22) and the Tree of Soul (pict.23) so that the Na’vi are able to commune with Eywa, their deity and their ancestors. Sometimes Animism involves communication and/or even

49

communion with such intelligences or lifeforces, or beliefs that nature‟s intelligences and forces are divine and should be worshipped and/or beseeched for healing or other favors.13 Proving Neytiri‟s words about the voices, Jake was bonding his tsahalu to the tree of voices at the night after the ceremony to become one of Omaticaya. He then can hear the voices, that Na‟vi believe, are the voices of their ancestors. Furthermore, all Na‟vi can altogether match their bond on the Tree of Soul‟s fringes or roots. All Omaticaya, who is left after the cutting down of their home tree, are sitting together praying to their deity by connecting their tsahaylu with the roots of the tree of soul, Yvetryar Ramounom. By the bond, they can feel the other creatures. They also feel like they are becoming one with them. Thus they can understand nature more than human. From understanding, they also can respect them. Because they are also the same creation of their deities and they do need each other to keep the world balance. In this complex ecosystem, the Na’vi understand that all of the flora and fauna on the planet, including them, are connected to a central of all that encompassing spiritual existence. Tsahaylu shows that the Na‟vi relied on intimate connection with the other living creatures to comprehend their world. Its connections are not only happened between each people of Na‟vi but also between the Na‟vi and the animals, and between the Na‟vi and their ancestors. This intimate connection with the ancestors gives them the ability to make wiser decisions that allowed them to live

13

Bron Taylor (2010), p.15.

50

harmoniously with their surroundings. This is shown when the Na‟vi finally decided to let Jake Sully live with them and learn about them. This decision is influenced by the sign of Eywa, their deity and also whom their ancestors live with, with the help of Tsahik. The connection is also being made by each living things to another on Pandora‟s forest. This connection is proven by Dr. Augustine from her scientific analysis. She explains that the trees, that Na‟vi worshiping on and all the trees all over the Pandora, have an incredible connection to one another. They link together and communicate each other on their own way. She uses an analogical explanation by comparing the way of communication the trees have with the connection between the synopses between human being‟s chromosomes and brain. Augustine : I’m talking about something real, something measurable in the biology of the forest. Parker : Which is what exactly? Augustine : What we think we know is there is some kind of electro chemical communication between the roots of the trees like the synopsis between your own chromosomes. And each tree has ten to the four (104) to the trees around it and ten to the twelve (1012) on Pandora. It’s more connection than human brain. (01:28:37) Brain is the most amazing thing that differ human beings with their entire fellow inhabitant. But Dr. Augustine uses brain for comparison. Indeed, she says that the connection between the roots of the trees on Pandora is more powerful than human brain. It shows that the other living things can communicate with each other through special way that even human cannot compete with. It also shows how powerful the power of nature that human being look down on to.

51

e. The power of nature In many mythical cultures, nature usually describes having a powerful force. The writer also finds this believed power in the film. After helping Jake Sully expelling the dogs, Neytiri threw out the made torch into water to put it off. Jake was using the torch to help him saw his way on the forest in the dark night. The forest was on the absolute dark that Jake hardly to see the way. But as soon as his torch was off, Jake was shocked because all of sudden, all flora and fauna on Pandora‟s forest were glowing colorfully. They have their own ray to enlighten the forest at night.

Pict.24 Jake is using the made Pict.25 The forest is enlighten itself torch Jake that represents the arrogance of human being made the light himself. Yet this attitude leads him into trouble and being apart from nature. But then when his arrogance, which represents by the torch, was off, the environment is going to be hospitable with him and serving him light. It represents that nature has its power to choose whom to help. And the environment has also the power to enlighten other creatures and organisms if only they want to respect them.

52

Pict.26 On trying to heal Grace

Pict.27 Omaticaya‟s healing ritual.

Na‟vi believe that nature they worship on have a special power for healing the wounded person. Indeed this believes affected Jake, who has already lived with them three months in order to learn their way of life. When Dr. Grace got shot by colonel Quaritch on the stomach, Jake Sully takes Grace to Na‟vi on the tree of soul to ask for help. At first, Jake and Augustine are doubt the idea but they have no choice except to try it. Then after the ceremony or ritual, Augustine‟s confession convinces Jake that Eywa is true. The ceremony is required all member of Omaticaya‟s tribe. They all gathered in one place, the most holy place for them, the tree of souls. Then they made the neat rows and matched their bonds to the roots of the tree then holding on each other‟s hand. Together they pray to Eywa on Tsahik‟s lead. They repeated Tsahik words, sentence by sentence. They pray on their language: “Hear us please, all mother. Eywa help me. Take this spirit into you and breathe her back to us. Let her walk among us as one of the people.” Tsahik : The great mother may choose to save all that she is in this body. Jake : Is that possible? Tsahik : She must pass through the eye of Eywa and return but Jake Sully, she is very weak. Jake : Hang on, Grace. They gonna fix you up. (01:55:08)

53

This implies that in order to get help from nature, a person should first fight for own self. In this case, if Grace wants to get help from Eywa, she should first have to try passing through the eye of Eywa and then return. This condition has to be fulfilled unless Eywa cannot help. Grace : The tree of Souls, Yvetryar Ramounom, is their most sacred place. See the flux Vortex on the screen? Trudy : Yeah, that messed up my instrument. Grace : There is something really interesting going on there biologically. (01:11:51) Moreover, Pandora has its own power that human intelligence cannot defeat. Some areas on Pandora cannot be tracked by human‟s technology. These areas are mostly the place where Na‟vi believes as sacred, such as in the Hallelujah Mountain which is the floating mountain and in the tree of souls. Those areas are called the flux vortex. The flux vortex confounds the instrument of a plan so that the pilot can only depend on their own ability to see manually where to go. It also disturbs the radar and missile tracking so it could not be worked in the area of the flux vortex. The force of nature can also be shown when Jake Sully and his team are about going to give up and lost in the last war. Jake Sully is losing some of their important members on the war such as Tsu‟tey, who is in charge on the chief of Omaticaya replacing Eytukan, and Trudy, the only marine pilot supporting protection resistance of nature.

54

Pict.28 the wild animals are trying Pict.29 the wild ikran are coming in to help massive

Pict.30 the wild animals are coming Pict.31 Neytiri on Thanator‟s back to attact The na‟vi is about to lose from human troops until the wild creatures of nature are coming to help all of sudden, showing its power. All wild animals which even Na‟vi cannot tame of before, such as thanator and the wild ikran, are coming, gather together, and offer for help to fight against human. The nature‟ power is also implicitly shown by the end of the movie. Human go back to their barren planet, Earth, empty-handed after losing on the final battle against the primitive indigenous. Only few who choose to stay on Pandora that is they who take a side to the environment. This show that human with their intelligence and civilization are not strong enough compare with nature. They, who want to take over nature, are defeated by nature instead.

Pic. 32 Na‟vi guard human back home

55

In the end of the film, Avatar presents the obvious fail result of human invention on Pandora by driving them out from there. After defeated by nature and the indigenous in the final war, the survival human are forced by the Na‟vi to get out from Pandora and back to their own land on Earth. But few of them, like Jake, Norm and Max or they who take a side on nature in the war, keep staying on Pandora. These strengthen the statement that nature has its own power to select and choose who can stay and live peacefully together and who should go. 2.

Avatar’s statement regarding environmental issues from the represent relationships The best films are built around a statement that teaches the viewers

something. This kind of approach often called the humanistic approach. In this kind of evaluation, we must determine whether the acting and the characters have significance or meaning beyond the context of the film itself – moral, philosophical, or social significance that helps us gain a clearer understanding of some aspect of life, human nature, or the human condition. This is driven by the judgment of the film as an expression of an idea that has intellectual, moral, social, or cultural importance and the ability to influence our lives for the better.14 In an increasingly urban society, nature writing plays a vital role in teaching us to value the natural world.15 Meanwhile Avatar can be included as one of the nature writing text because it has strong environmental messages. So the

14

Joseph M. Bogss and Dennis W. Petrie, The Art of Watching Films 7th ed, (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2008), p. 114. 15 Cheryll Glofeltly and Harold Fromm (1992), p. xxiv.

56

viewers assume that Avatar‟s goal is to contribute to the struggle to preserve the biotic community by injecting the moral value in the film. Classic narrative cinema, no matter what genre, must have closure, that is, the narrative must come to a completion (whether a happy ending or not). Any ambiguity within the plot must be resolved. Whatever form the closure takes, almost without exception it will offer or enunciate a message that is central to dominant ideology: ... What is interesting, however, is which ideological message supersedes all others.16 As explained before, Avatar shows in the end of the film that nature and the people of Pandora Planet successfully routing the baddies, human from Earth, then send them back home that express an ideological message that nature is unpredictably powerful. But above all, we should have preserved nature for our own sake. We are not going to become the kinds of beings that we are supposed to become. When we destroy nature, we diminish ourselves and impoverish our children.17 In the most science fiction film with ecological awareness, otherness or nonhuman creatures tend to be made the seemingly clear moral message that put them into the bad one or evil which want to destroy human world, such as any alien movies or robot technology which want control and take over human world. This structure tends to send an almost subliminal suggestion that those who are like us are good, while those who are unlike us are evil. 18 But Avatar is tipping over the structure by representing some different characters. Nonhuman alien 16

Susan Hayward, Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, 2nd ed., (USA: Routledge, Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001), p. 65. 17 J. Claude Evans (2005), p.11. 18 M. Keith Booker, Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture (USA: Praeger Publishers, 2006), p. 117.

57

creatures and human beings are represented equal in this film to responsible for the stewardship of the planet. Indeed Avatar shows the collide characteristic of each characters that most of human beings are presented to be the villain that devastating the habitat and nonhuman alien creatures and nature are presented to be the victim. After analyzing the relationship between human and the environment, the writer divided human characters in this film into two classifications; the people who abandon nature only for their own benefit and the people who take care of nature. The people who neglected nature are Parker Selfridge and Colonel Quaritch along with their staff. Then the people who caring for nature, in the end, are those who betray RDA Corporation‟s rule in order to save Pandora‟s environment such as Jake Sully, the main character, the scientist: Dr. Augustine, Norm Spellman and Max Patel, and the marine pilot: Trudy. These differences happen because each character has a different proximity to the indigenous and the environment. So they make conflicting interpretation and different responsibilities. Parker and Colonel Quaritch only see environment as the tool to gain money because they never bother themselves to immerse into the environment. On the other hand, Jake Sully, the scientists and Trudy, who are classified as caring for environment, make direct interaction with the environment. Thus this interaction affects them and makes them more care about the environment compare with those who do not make the direct interaction. Throughout the film, Jake Sully immerses himself in the Na‟vi culture in order to learn from them about their way of life and gain their trust. Jake Sully is

58

the movie‟s lead character that happens to be the connector between human and Na‟vi. He gets up close and personal with the environment and the indigenous. He lives with them for about three months. He learns how they live. He seeks out how the relationship is between the Na‟vi and the environment. As the time goes by, he begins to truly understand about the Na‟vi people and the forest. Then he is coming to love them in the process. From that understanding, he gains respect and admiration for that which he did not previously know personally. So it is obvious when he ultimately end up switching sides to help the Na‟vi save their land from exploitation instead of his own species, human. Because respect has to do with the way we as a species fit into the broader world in which we are inextricably interwoven. Lopez in his 1991 essay, Renegotiating the Contracts, says, “If we could establish an atmosphere of respect in our relationships, simple awe for the complexities of animals‟ lives, I think we would feel revived as a species”. And this respect and awe are a crucial part of what it means to live a truly successful life – successful in human terms which are not dissociated from the world of which we are a part.19 Thus, the Avatar want to encourage the viewers to come along to get close and acknowledge the world we are living in to get better understanding of it. Avatar also shows the deep interconnectedness between Na‟vi and their riding animals and their sacred trees. This shows that the oneness that Na‟vi have with their environment leaded them to a peaceful life. This sense of togetherness

19

J. Claude Evans (2005), pp. 15-16.

59

gives the spiritual message to viewer that to be the one with land and other, one should first understand another. By creating an emotional reaction, the director of the movie, James Cameron, wants viewers to internalize a sense of respect and a sense of taking responsibility for the stewardship of the earth. From those relationships, the writer sees that they who respect nature are they who get close with nature. And to be in a good relationship with it, we need process. Thus, people should first get knowledge about it. Then the understanding will lead into respect. This respect, in turn, will make human to be better equipped to protect the planet. So this film suggests the viewers to visit or go out to experience nature in order to know better about nature. Because all of us are deeply entangled in a system that produces a mix of good and bad outcomes, and we are partly responsible for both.

CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion

After analyzing the film, the writer concludes that there are some differentiations between human and nonhuman alien through their relationship with the environment. This difference attitude and appreciation toward the environment have led them to enmity. The film presents the conspicuous hostility, from the beginning, among human as the invaders who came away from earth and nonhuman alien as the inhabitants who want to keep up their land. Human and nonhuman represent contradictory characteristic one another. Human feel superior toward nature and that makes them arrogant and feels like they own the environment. Human only look at nature as the profitable object if only they can work on it and turn the environment into something better. They think the environment, especially the wild one, is menace and hideous place so they should take it over in order to control it. This mindset makes human feel hideous to the environment and, in turn, makes themselves be apart from it. On the other hand, nonhuman alien, the Na’vi people which are the indigenous population of the Pandora’s planet, are immersing in totally different relationship of the environment, compare with human. They live harmonically with the environment surround along with all living thing in there; animals, plants, and 60

61

deities. They are respecting nature as they understand enough about the important of the environment and other fellow inhabitants. They are worshiping nature as they believe that nature has its power and force that can bring beneficence as well as destruction for them. They understand that their existence is equal to any living habitat in their surroundings that they are a part from it. From those different relationships, the writer sees that the characters who caring with the environment are they who respect nature and want to get close with it, such as Na’vi and some of human characters. The Na’vi are obviously take a side on the environment because they living together on and with it. Some of human characters are also gaining their respect and love to the environment in process. They are Jake Sully, Grace Augustine, Norm Spellman, Max, and Trudy. They had the direct experience with the environment for 3 or more months before finally find their love to the environment. In contrast, the villain human characters in the film are they who do not have any feeling of love with the environment; Colonel Quaritch and Selfridge. But then in the end, they defeated by nature. Quatrich died and Selfridge with his staff and survival troops are forced by Na’vi to get back to Earth, their home. In brief, ecocriticism theory seeks to evaluate texts as response to environmental issues. Avatar as one of the environmental text or nature writing text can be analyzed using ecocriticism. It shows that human as the most intelegent creature on Earth need to respect and take care nature or environment because environment is there to fulfill our needs and our fellow inhinbitants needs. It also gives us many benefits. So that, human need to protect it.

62

B. Suggestion

Based on the conclusion above, there are two suggestions given by the writer to other researchers in order to do a better research in the future. 1. There are some environmental issues and conflicts in the film of Avatar that come from the lack of understanding of the importance of the nature and environment. Thus, to avoid or minimize environmental conflict and degradation of earth, human henceforward are supposed to learn from this film and also this thesis that nature and environment are important for human being. 2. If readers want to analyze further about nature writing or ecological texts using ecocriticism or environmental studies, the writer suggests to readers to find any texts – films, novels, short stories, or poems – which assumed to have environmental issues on it. The analyses can also use film theories such as cinematography and narratology in order to get better understanding of the film. The analyses must first understand both the theories and the texts. The writer hopes this thesis gives contribution to the student of English Letters who wants to analyze about the same topic. Hopefully this research motivates other to analyze using ecocriticism in literary works or film.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 2nd ed. UK, 2002. Boggs, Joseph M. and Dennis W. Petrie. The Art of Watching Film, 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Booker, M. Keith. Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture. USA: Praeger Publishers, 2006. Buell, Lawrence. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Cameron, James. Avatar. USA: 20th Century Fox, 2009. Dickerson, Matthew and David O’Hara. Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C. S. Lewis. USA: The University Press of Kentucky, 2009. Enger, Eldon D. and Bradley F. Smith. Environmental Science: A Study of Interrelationship. 9th ed. USA: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Evans, J. Claude. With Respect for Nature: Living as Part of the Natural World. USA: State University of New York Press, 2005. Farkhan, Muhammad. Penulisan Karya Ilmiah. Jakarta: Penerbit Cella, 2006. Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. New York: Routledge, 2004. Gifford, Terry. Pastoral. New York: Routledge, the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001. Glotfelty, Cheryll and Harold Fromm. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmark in Literary Ecology. USA: The University of Georgia Press, 1996. Hayward, Susan. Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts. 2nd ed. USA: Routledge, Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.

63

64

Jones, Gareth, Alan Robertson, Jean Forbes and Graham Hollier. Collins: Dictionary of Environmental Science. Great Britain: Harper Collins Publishers, 1990. Kerridge, Richard and Neil Sammells. Writing the Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature. USA: Zed Books Ltd, 1998. Longman, Advance American Dictionary: The Dictionary for Academic Success. USA: Pearson Longman, 2008 Nelson, Gaylord. Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise. USA: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002. Newton, Andrian C. Forest Ecology and Conservation. UK: Oxford University Press, 2007. New Literary History, Vol. 30, No. 3, Ecocriticism. The Johns Hopkin University Press, Summer, 1999. Pope, Rob. The English Studies Book: An Introduction to Language, Literature and Culture. 2nd ed. NY: Routledge, 2002. Roberts, Adam. Science Fiction. USA: Routledge Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Taylor, Bron. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. California: University of California Press, 2010.

Internet Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1629437/avatar-look-at-its-boxofficereign.jhtml.

APPENDIX

Cover Avatar film

65