Social Criticism in Okky Madasari’s Children Novel

Indonesian children’s fantasy stories are not used to critically address social issues. They are treated as a parable of the moral values and viewed as a legacy that needs to be preserved. A new phenomenon appeared with Okky Madasari’s first children’s novel, Mata di Tanah Melus (2018). As a novelist who is always persistent in voicing criticism, she uses modern fantasy by utilizing Indonesia’s traditional treasury (myth, legend, folklore) to address social inequality issues intended for child audients. Madasari uses magic and fantastical objects drawn from the traditional fantasy to question and criticize present reality. The magical and fantastical objects of Tanah Melus open a new experience for the characters coming from outside the magical land. They come to a realization of the powerful traditional culture that has been marginalized and forgotten by the dominating modern culture represented by the Jakarta people. With this experience, the urban characters are given a new perspective and start to question various duality issues, such as: traditional vs modern, spiritual vs materialistic, central vs rural, and eventually their new experience and perspective become a transformative power that they start to synergize the two contrasting worlds.