The Contrapuntal Reading of Colonial Logic and the Play of Caricature in “Houseboy + Maid” by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Abstract

Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s works are highly distinguished for their strong realist characteristic and profound analysis of interactions among pre- and post- colonial human beings and their place in society. One of the works that portray such characteristics is “Houseboy + Maid”, the first story in Toer’s collection Tales from Djakarta: Caricatures of Circumstances and Their Human Beings. In this research, post-colonialism and contrapuntal reading proposed by Edward Said are used as methods to interpret a literary work whose narration is about two characters who live in post-colonial Indonesia, or rather post-revolutionary Indonesia. Their unfixed identities which are interrelated through the changing event of the plot indicates that their very destiny cannot be separated from the “politicality, sociality, and historicality” of much bigger entities.

Decolonising marketing: five fundamental decisions for customer engagement

“…Said (1993) applies a concept from classical music to decolonisation, using the analogy of how two unique melodies can be put together – not to form a harmonious synthesis between the two, necessarily, but to leverage the unique attributes of each to compensate for any shortcomings in the other (Beshara, 2021; Widiawati, 2020). What is important in this is to ensure that equal status is offered to both melodies – one should not be seen as “privileged as primary or foundational and the other an optional extra” (Widiawati, 2020, p. 52). Just so, in customer engagement, no particular set of customer insights should be seen as primary and others as optional extras.…”

“…The contributions that this article offers with regards to understanding what decolonising customer engagement means for marketers links to Said's (1993) notion of contrapuntal implementation. Said (1993) applies a concept from classical music to decolonisation, using the analogy of how two unique melodies can be put togethernot to form a harmonious synthesis between the two, necessarily, but to leverage the unique attributes of each to compensate for any shortcomings in the other (Beshara, 2021;Widiawati, 2020). What is important in this is to ensure that equal status is offered to both melodiesone should not be seen as "privileged as primary or foundational and the other an optional extra" (Widiawati, 2020, p. 52).…”