The Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, is one of the forefathers of structuralism whose works have inspired and influenced many of current modern thinkers. Binary opposition is one of many of his thoughts. This notion came up from his theory explaining that in fact in humans' attempt at deriving conceptual meanings, their minds work by distinguishing the differences between things. Thus, Saussure basically suggests the idea that humans first logical operation is by discerning things through their relationships; one of Saussure's basic relationships is binary opposition. For this reason, this study is conducted to prove this basic yet comprehensive theory as the narrative structure of Williams' Summer and Smoke. Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke (1948) is chosen since it is richly endowed with binary symbols and characters. Moreover, the course of the narrative is also structured in dichotomies. The results of this study are: first, the binary symbols and characteristics found in the play reveal the dichotomies concerning the importance of soul/body, spirituality/sexuality, life/death, physical lust/divine love; second, the binary symbols and characters prove that the narrative structure of Summer and Smoke is constructed upon the binary oppositions as proven by the binary quests of soul and body and the binary role transformations between Alma and John as revealed by A.J. Greimas' three pairs of actantial model.

This article traces the development of what may be called Indonesian critical discourse particularly related to the position of "West" and "East" from the colonial period to the New Order era. The development of this discourse and its manifestation in Indonesian literary theory began with a postcolonial debate on the construction of Indonesian modernity, i.e., toward which center it is going to be oriented. The tension between Western-centric discourse, on the one hand, and traditional orientation, on the other, characterized the earliest intellectual debate in the 1930s. This argument took a different contour in the 1960s when the tension turned out to be between social realism and liberal humanism. The banning of leftist ideology and teaching after 1965 gave way to the unchallenged dominance of the traditional humanist outlook in the literary-critical scene. The paper argues that the present hegemony of traditional humanist approach in Indonesian consciousness is rooted in its distinctive development in these few decades.

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This article examines how Umar Kayam's fiction reveals the logic underlying the New Order political legacy through the reproduction of the myth of ethnic purity and anti-communist discourse. It argues that Kayam's fiction, especially "Musim Gugur Kembali di Connecticut" ("Fall in Connecticut, " 1967), "Sri Sumarah" (1970), "Bawuk" (1973), Para Priyayi (The Nobles, 1992) and his last novel, Jalan Menikung (The Winding Road, 1999), reflect how that essentialist discourse believing in the primacy of certain ethnic and class categories has been deployed effectively in the Indonesian political arena to create false consciousness among the masses. Kayam challenged this by offering a fictional figuration of fluid identity-identity whose quality is not determined by boundaries of race and class categories of the communist, Chinese and Jewish characters. The texts also signify the narrowing of Homi K. Bhabha's (2002) third space, leaving fewer courses of action for priyayi (Javanese nobles), resulting prominently in corruption. The third space in the Javanese priyayi context does not become a site of empowerment but of corruption and manipulation. It emerges in Kayam's essentialist priyayi characters who believe in the primacy of Javanese priyayi class not as a progressive reconstruction of the site of postcolonial politics, but as a failure to find a moral center for the emergent nation.