ABSTRACT
“We and You” is one of the poems in Kahlil Gibran‟s literary works compilation book, Secret of the Heart. This poem portrays the social discrimination among two different social classes, bourgeoisie and ploretariat, as the “haves” and the “have nots” that presented in the character „We‟ and „You‟. This study analyzes the contribution of figurative language and allusions used in “We and You” in revealing the idea of class struggle of the ploretariat toward the capitalist society.
There are two objectives of the study. The first objective is to identify and interpret the meaning of figurative language and allusions used in Kahlil Gibran‟s poem “We and You”. The second objective is to analyze the contribution of the figurative language and allusions in revealing the class struggle by relating the figurative language and allusions with the theories.
Library research method is applied in developing the analysis. The researcher uses Kahlil Gibran‟s “We and You” in Secret of the Heart as the primary source. The secondary sources are taken from books, thesis, journals, encyclopedias, and several websites. Those sources and references provide the theories and some explanation about Kahlil Gibran‟s Works and Social Background. There are several theories used in this study, those are theory of figurative language, such as simile, metaphor, personification, and symbol, theory of allusion, theory of capitalism, social stratification, social classes, and class struggle. The researcher also uses the Marxism approach to reveal the idea of class struggle in this poem.
The result of the analysis shows that figurative language−simile, metaphor, personification, symbol− and allusion in Kahlil Gibran‟s “We and You” portray the characteristic of „We‟ and „You‟, the comparison and contradiction of their social condition and also the description about society they live in. Those figurative language and allusion imply the depiction about social-economic inequality in capitalist society that causes the social stratification where the people, that represent in the characters „We‟ and „You‟, are divided into classes; bourgeoisie and proletariat. The contrasting social economic condition makes the disparity between them; therefore there is a huge gap between „the rich‟ and „the poor‟. The contrasting quality of those social classes shows the different interests between them. These contradictions between „We‟ and „You‟ as the bourgeoisies and proletariats lead to the idea of class struggle.
