Representasi Perilaku Priayi Dalam Novel Gadis Pantai: Kisah Seorang Gundik Bendoro Santri

Javanese society recognizes a traditional authority that shows esteem and possesses high social status in the eyes of the society. This traditional authority is called “priayi”. The life style of this priayi compare to the other group of society’s life style is specific. The natures of their life style among others are politeness, good conduct, and the use of fine language for communication. This group of society can be identified from their physical existence such as their houses, outfits, titles, rituals, and symbols attached to them. The priayi society group is the group of noblemen including the city council, employees working for colonial government, kings and their ancestors in Java. Nevertheless, priayi in the novel Gadis Pantai is unlike the typical priayi member. In this novel, the priayi is the group of people with harsh conduct, bad manner, disrespect, and cruelty to their concubines. At the end, this traditional authority went out of control and turned into disarray due to their inhumane treatment toward their concubines. To some extent, they even exploited religion as a tool to misjudge the group santri ‘strict adherent of Islam’.