Representasi Kemiskinan Sebagai Realitas Sosial Dalam Novel Teruslah Bodoh Jangan Pintar Karya Tere Liye: Teori Swingewood

The Representation Of Poverty As A Social Reality In The Novel Keep Being Stupid Don't  Be Smart By Tere Liye: Swingewood's Theory

ABSTRACT

Name : Sindi Eka Yunita

NIM : 22020074190

Research Title : The Representation Of Poverty As A Social Reality In The Novel Keep Being Stupid Don’t Be Smart By Tere Liye: Swingewood’s Theory

Thesis Type : Qualitative

City Name : Surabaya

Faculty : Languages ​​and Arts

Year : 2026

This study aims to describe the social reality of poverty in Tere Liye's novel Teruslah Bodoh Jangan Pintar (Keep Being Stupid, Don't Be Smart) and to analyze how concepts in Swingewood's theory explain the correlation between poverty and social reality in the novel. This study uses a qualitative descriptive method with a sociology of literature approach. The research data consists of narrative excerpts and dialogues that represent poverty. Data collection techniques were conducted through literature review in the form of documentation by reading, recording, and classifying data according to the research focus. The results indicate that the social reality of poverty in the novel includes economic poverty, structural poverty, ecological poverty, cultural poverty, political poverty, poverty in access to health care, and legal poverty. These forms of poverty are depicted through power imbalances, practices of legal manipulation, limited access to basic needs, and the domination of certain groups over the vulnerable. Based on Swingewood's analysis, this novel functions as social documentation that reflects social conditions and critiques social systems. Thus, literary works can be understood as representations of social reality as well as a means of reflection and critique of unjust social structures.

Keywords: representation, poverty, sociology of literature, Swingewood