"This thesis deals with the ideal facts in a work of George Sand, a French female-writer from 19th century. Sand believes that writing novel needs the touch of idealization. Idealization here is restricted to social aspect, especially the social values, which prevail in societies depicted in La Mare au Diable. To explore the object systematically, the structural method is chosen to observe the poetic aspect of the novel. As preliminary stage of discussion, this first step shows a sintagmatic axis of the story which concentrates merely on two characters, namely Germain and Marie. It also reveals that the intrigue of the story is basically simple, consisting only of a chronological set of simple events.
The characters represent several social groups. It comes out that among societies of three villages, that's to say, Belair, Onueaux, and Farouche, all observations end up in privileging Belairian characters more than those of the two others. Positive characters and features belong totally to Belair. Good old generation, good young generation, tolerant men and intelligent women are those of Belair. On the contrary, the people of the two other villages have the opposite qualities.
To put it briefly, Belair has the good characters. It is then justified with values prevailing and binding the individuals within the society. Originality in tradition, harmonious relationship, freedom from religious obligations, respectful status of women and the dominance of agricultural profession, are distinctive features which characterize Belair. On the contrary, Ormeaux and Farouche people show pragmatism, individualism, materialism, and exploitation. These facts are completed with the description of space and time which clearly confirms the fore-mentioned statement about Belair's excellent position.
The result of the analysis mentioned-above is then compared to real rustic life in 19th century social history of France documented by social historians. There are a lot of contrasts resulting from this comparison. History reveals that societies in French villages were individualistic in nature, despite the fact that they were religious people. Besides, there was no equality of respect and opportunity for women. Social life was characterized by resolute segregation stemming from strict social classes. Moreover, typical villagers regarded other people in a fully suspicious stance so that no possible interaction could be put into reality, particularly with the urban society.
From this comparison we can conclude that Belairian society is an idealized one which can be found in a noel. It typically represents all literary works in romantic tradition which expresses people's longing for the natural beauty. Such artistic trend reflects the basic concept in art, known as back to nature, whose origin can be traced back to the French philosopher, lean Jacques Rousseau. Sand can be classified as the writer who tries to create an ideal world to materialize her dreams and aspirations. In brief, La Mare au Diable accommodates Sand's obsession of perfect people who live in simple but happy life."
Depok: Fakultas Ilmu Pengetahuan dan Budaya Universitas Indonesia, 2000
