Perempuan yang Mengawini Keris, Karya Wayan Sunarta

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A short story or a novel is written as the result of the reflection of people’s daily lives. This collection of short stories entitled Perempuan yang Mengawini Keris by Wayan Sunarta is one which tells us about how people live their life. Life is like a coin, it has two contradictory sides, but inseparable between one and another. It is about god things and bad things in life, right and wrong, including men and women with all the problems and differences. 

People must have two different sides, black and white, clever and stupid, etc, but it is relative. There is no person who truly “white” or “black”. The stories want to show us that the “black” and the “white” sometimes walk together. I also realized that people sometimes do bad things, but it is done for good purpose or they do something good, but it is done to cover their badness. For example, in the short story entitled Aku Membeli Nyawaku, the main character, a woman, is shown as a tough figure in doing her job. She works as a whore to live her life and to pay for her disease treatment after her husband left her. She doesn’t want to burden his lover. It seems that the woman is trapped in a situation in which she couldn’t manage her problems by using her good side. She has a good intention not to burden her lover to pay the cost of her treatment but she doesn’t have any choice except becoming a whore. A whore is not always meant as something negative or bad like many people said. She also lives and works like other people.

The second is about men and women. People have their own views about men and women. I find that the writer wants to show us that women can also be strong, not only men. Woman is presented as a virtuous and great figure. Women occupy many roles and positions in life. For example, in short story entitled Perempuan yang Mengawini Keris, the main character, a woman, can be a very strong person because of culture and society demanding.

This was written as a part of my assignment