🌹The Rose & Skull ☠️

Response 3C

Topics: ❧ Take a series of images or references in the first chapter and explain how they work. ❧ Draw (or put into a graph) the imagery in the first chapter, and write a brief explanation (minimum 50 words) beneath. ❧ In Chapter One, what images (or references or spatial details) help us to appreciate the contrast between what happens inside the Hotel and what happens outside it?

💰🏢🍻= money, hotel, and little beer mugs clinking

Ch. 1 Imagery & Explanation

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In the first chapter, Koch displays the unbalanced distribution of wealth by using a contrasting image of Hotel Indonesia and pasar at the end of a highway. The Hotel Indonesia is Sukarno's artificial world to show off to foreigners. Ironically, Sukarno, who leads anti-western notions on the nation, creates a comforting place for western people, which serves as the main factor for the nation's poverty. On the other hand, at the end of the fancy highway, Kwan lives near poverty, which is the bare face of the nation, but he is disturbed that nothing can help them out.

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The picture of the bar and the hotel represent the contrast of the inside of the hotel versus the outside world. The hotel is the "gold and glamour" and the rest is less than average. The bar area may be dark, slightly broken with the flickering lights, yet it is the one place where people can "put down their masks" and be themselves. [the candles, lighting aspects and mini buildings are mine. The hotel and bar are clipart images]

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The reason I drew this [is] because it shows the contrast in the story the characters face. When outside the hotel It really sucks: the inconsistent weather and the war zone that’s outside, but while in the hotel its beautiful with all the nice environment m.c. . It may be a little ruff around the edges but its still a fun place to be.

***

Proofread more carefully. Errors are in bold.

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to represent the contrast from the Hotel and the outside world, it is just enough to open the window. On the left side of the window, we can appreciate the political conflict in Indonisia, many protestors in favor of comunisim against the president Soakar. On the right side of the window we can see the social-economic factor in which poverty, hunger, and sickness takes the streets. A man wearing a suite with a champange on the table represent the inside of the hotel where the political party enjoy their power and position.

*** This response needs proofreading (errors are in bold), yet the drawing is good. Note: it’s PKI, not PNI.

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The Wayang Puppet shows represent how the Australian’s do not understand Indonesia. There is a puppet master (dalang), controlling the show through lamp light behind the scenes. This can be paralleled with the behaviour of Sukarno, as he is the puppet master in Indonesia creating a theatre for his people to divide them, though no one can see his plans behind the scenes.  The Trishaw drivers the Australian’s notice in the first chapter allude to the class of the common people in Indonesia. They are the Indonesian’s the Australian’s most encounter, and part of their gateway to attachment. The Hotel Indonesia and the grand highway leading from it are where the Australians spend a lot of their time, hidden from the war and the rest of Indonesia amongst peers. 

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Inside & Outside the Hotel
NOTE: Some of the following responses are more close to observation, while others (like the first three) focus more sharply on making a specific line of argument. As you read the responses, try to gauge which responses make a line of argument and which ones tend to make a loose string of observations. Which ones repeat a point, rather than develop it or link it with other points? Remember that good essays use observation as proof, thus turning mere observation into supporting proof or substantiating illustration. This can seem like a fine line to tread. Yet one way to subordinate observation to argument is to integrate shorter quotes and references into sentences which make specific points. Also, whenever you observe an aspect of the novel, ask yourself, Am I making a point about this observation? Does it fit into a line of argument?

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Light contributes to appreciating the contrast between interior and exterior of the Hotel Indonesia. The Hotel, which is described as a "wide, brightly lit" place with a light party created by cars' headlights, is compared with "a luxury ship in mid-ocean" (14-5). Following Hamilton's and Kwan's footsteps, the outside of the Hotel appears in dim light from "blue lamps"(17), then changes to "a territory of deeper and deeper darkness" in the outskirts (18). These images reflect the wide gap between the rich and the poor in Indonesia, and that the truth is ignored and hidden in darkness.

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The colours of the lighting both inside and outside the Hotel represent the privilege of those who can afford to stay there. Large red candles illuminate the gold walls and white faces who gather around the food-filled tables. In Indonesia, red represents life, something the hotel visitors don’t have to fight for. Fading blue lamps barely shine on the poor who reside outside, as well as the cracked highway that betjak drivers make their living on, and as Billy states, ‘die young’. The government money goes towards the hotel for prestige rather than the people struggling outside it.

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In the first chapter The Year of Living Dangerously, Koch uses colour to contrast the wealth of the outsiders against the impoverishment of the Indonesians. White skin and green eyes are alien in this land of brown skin and eyes. Curtis wears “lurid” red and yellow matching the regal red and gold of the bar. The hotel and highway are embellished in blue and the crumbling villas are adorned in Dutch orange. However, the Indonesians are not afforded any colour in location, transportation, and clothing. Instead, they wear shades of black and white, ride in black and live in shadow.

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The narrator explores the spatial details of the Hotel Indonesia comparing it to a luxury ship at mid-ocean to the rest of the nation’s war-torn capital. The Hotel has its own power supply, purified water, air conditioning, and food flown in internationally. By contrast, the city’s power was failing, it’s water was infected, the heat was unbearable. The reader feels the full effect when Hamilton leaves the lavish hotel to explore a village of huts only illuminated by braziers and Kwan poses the question “What should we do?” ironically, as there was no way to help them.

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Hot and Cold and Dim Lighting All Around. The author’s descriptions of the Wayang bar serves as an entry point for the readers into the complicated setting of Indonesia’s proclaimed “Year of Living Dangerously”. The light and darkness contrast as characters enter the bar is in parallel to the reader's introduction to each of the characters and to the new setting of the Wayang bar and Jakarta in general. The particular bar environment, air conditioned cool, dimly lit and safe although foreign also serves as a point of comparison to Hamilton’s first experience out in the real Jakarta: hot, also dimly lit and still foreign but also far less safe for him, a Nekolim.

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In the first chapter, we are given imagery of how luxurious the hotel is on the inside compared to the rest of Jakarta. Christopher Koch provides imagery of what can be found in the hotel, including air conditioning, restaurants, shops, and swimming pools. On the opposite side of things, there is imagery of Jakarta outside of the hotel. On the outside, there are people sleeping in betjaks because they can’t afford to stop working. There is also imagery of the roads with potholes and cracks as well as fast food stalls instead of the high-end restaurants that are in the hotel.

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The wealth, privilege, and luxury of the people residing at the hotel are highlighted and contrasted with the poor when Kwan states that air conditioning is a necessity and not a luxury. It is stated that Hotel Indonesia is the only hotel that has air conditioning. This consequently accentuates the point Sukarno was making about foreigners being neo- colonial imperialists. This is because they are granted resources that aren’t available to poor Indonesians. This is starkly contrasted when in the next scene, Hamilton and Kwan are in the slums and the atmosphere is described as humid.

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Images that contrast to the inside of the Hotel are “Red candles that flicker on the black Formica surface of the round bar, and a ring of electric lamps set high on the gold walls, across which were fixed Javanese shadow-puppets". This is an image that shows how rich looking it is. Whereas outside of the Hotel it’s the complete opposite. On page 36 when Hamilton steps outside the Hotel he notices how poor Indonesia is. “Blue lamps, receding on arrogant steel standards, appeared on the point of fading out”. The road was cracked and potholed, and you can see the poor approaching from the side streets. The inside of the Hotel holds happiness and wealth, where the outside holds the poor and sorrow.

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The car park between the hotel and the rest of Jakarta symbolises an imaginable wall. The Car park becomes a barrier which shuns the impoverished from entering the hotel. Those privileged enough to be inside the well catered too air-conditioned hotel never have to experience the hardships which fall upon the people of Indonesia. The walls of the car park act as a realm of security which allow the privilege to escape the chaos of the country. These walls allow them to disconnect from the harden realities which plague the Indonesian people.

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The first chapter of the novel presents the significant contrast between the hotel that epitomizes wealth and an outdoor city showing the real life of the society (poverty). Author uses such spatial aspects of the hotel as “electric lamps”, “gold walls”, “brightly arcade”, and “ornamental pool”. People don’t deny themselves anything inside the hotel, whereas people outside are just surviving. Author points out some spatial aspects: “deeper darkness”, “crumbling walls”, “waste place ... made of packing cases and bamboo matting”, “doorless”. People have no lights at night, doors in their “children’s playhouses”. Hunger, devastation, and poverty happen outside the hotel.

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Chapter 1 of The Year spans the different socioeconomic classes experienced within the city of Jakarta in a decrescendo description. The chapter begins in the Wayang Bar of The Hotel Indonesia, with red candles, air conditioning and being sealed off from natural light; a city of its own. Exiting the hotel, the no-man’s-land is defined by broken ground and ragged betjaks. Beyond that, the outdoor heat, blue lamps and a new but already cracked highway fill out the middle class. Continuing the decrescendo, the flares, doorless huts, crumbling walls and clothing-less people exhibit the extreme poverty of the lower class.

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By describing the scenery inside and outside the Hotel, Christopher Koch creates a contrast between safety and danger, and the poor and the rich in The Year of Living Dangerously. For Hamilton and Kwan, The Hotel is “the only place where the Indos won’t call [them] names”, as it is a higher-class establishment. Once the men leave the Hotel, “they arrive[ in a] no-man’s-land of broken, stony ground.” The author describes Jakarta as a risky place for the protagonists and highlights the difference in stability between the lower class and upper class.

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In Chapter 1, readers are introduced to the dark, gloomy setting of the round bar. With images of red candles, gin and tonic, and the dark atmosphere around the characters introduced, it gives an aura of something darker lingering around them, and is described to feel that way using imagery and the surroundings of the hotel. The hotel’s setting of the dark environment also personifies of all the character's journey through life in Indonesia and the government control from Cookie’s point of view.

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Christopher Koch does an excellent job of depicting the extreme differences between in and outside of the luxurious hotel in, The Year of Living Dangerously. Showing the extravagance of the hotel, before the poverty of the rest of Indonesia shows just how big the gap is between the two. Having food delivered from all around the world to having personal farms, pools, and nightclubs shows just how extreme the hotel life is. Then there is the poor, otherwise known as the rest of Indonesia; living in “Huts made of packing cases and bamboo matting”. The difference between the two is everything.

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A Series of Images or References in the First Chapter

The opening scene of The Year of Living Dangerously depicts a Wayang puppet show, common in Indonesian culture. The Wayang plays a signifigant role throughout the entirety of the film and novel, helping to paint a picture of the struggle between right and left political ideals. At one point, Billy Kwan, played by Linda Hunt, helps paint a picture of the clash between these two ends of the political spectrum, describing the Wayangs significance. “If you want to understand Jakarta, you have to understand the Wayang” says Kwan. “The right, in constant struggle with the left, the forces of light and darkness in constant balance”. This conflict Kwan so eloquently presents serves as a reminder for the rest of the novel and movie of the constant struggle between communism and capitalism. [This response is good, but too long]

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[The following response contains a commentary, 4 photos, and corresponding quotes from the text.]

These images represent references from the first chapter of The Year of Living Dangerously. They show the drastic difference between the foreigners and the elite of Indonesia, in photo 1 and photo 2, compared to the average civilian’s lifestyle, photo 3 and photo 4. Sukarno, the Japanese businessmen, and the Westerners all live comfortably in their high end residences disconnected from the rest of the country. Meanwhile, the everyday people of Indonesia live in an extreme state of poverty.

Photo 1:

Source: Reed, W. (2020). 40 Thieves [Photograph found in 50 Best Discovery, North Kuta]. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.theworlds50best.com/discovery/Establishments/Indonesia/North-Kuta/40-Thieves.html (Originally photographed 2020)

"But the Wayang was different; its red-and-gold cave was a refuge for the foreign press corps — all male and mostly unmarried — from what was outside (Koch, 2012).”

Photo 2:

Source : AlGhefli, M. (2016). Jakarta [Digital image]. Retrieved 2020, from https://sp.mofaic.gov.ae/EN/DiplomaticMissions/Embassies/Jakarta/Pages/home.aspx

"The fourteen-storey Hotel Indonesia (always with a capital H) rode like a luxury ship in mid-ocean, being at this time the only one of its kind in the whole country (Koch, 2012).”

Photo 3:

Source: Brouwer, L. (2015, June 3). Betjak [Digital image]. Retrieved November 20, 2020, from https://louisbrouwer.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/de-betjak-een-leuke-manier-van-vervoer-in-indonesie/

"Some had never moved, the riders sleeping the sleep of exhaustion in the passenger seats, black-brown legs and arms dangling like charred branches from under the hoods. But three of the betjaks continued to follow (Koch, 2012).”

Photo 4:

Source: Baker, J. (2014, July 15). Java-Jakarta-slum-housing [Digital image]. Retrieved November 20, 2020, from https://www.newmandala.org/voting-number-1/java-jakarta-slum-housing/

"Here the condition of the people was revealed. They lived on this waste place in huts made of packing cases and bamboo matting: one of those shanty settlements Jakarta called a kampong — using, with sad irony, the name for a rural village(Koch, 2012).”

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Below is the photo I used in the title graphic at the top of this page. Cookie refers to this national monument as a phallic symbol, and links it to prostitution and Ibu’s tragedy.

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