Gagasan Optimisme dalam Cerita Rakyat Minangkabau “Curito Urang Bansaik”: Kajian Fiksi Robert Stanton

Abstract

This study aims to identify the idea conveyed in the Minangkabau folktale “Curito Urang Bansaik”. This library research involved reading, note-taking, classifying, and analyzing textual data from “Curito Urang Bansaik” in Djamaris’s Cerita Rakyat Minangkabau (2001), using Stanton’s theory of fiction (2022). The findings reveal that the central idea conveyed by the folktale is optimism. This idea emerges from the analysis of the story facts and their organization. The plot is structured around a central conflict between the force of effort and the force of adversity, which ends with the triumph of effort. The characters comprise five individuals representing three different interests: making an effort, refraining from making an effort, and supporting those who make an effort. The setting includes the robbers’ house, the old man’s house, and the poor family’s house, as well as a period of famine, midnight, and daytime. These story facts are organized like a pyramid, with setting at the base, characters above it, plot at the next level, and optimism at the apex. These findings broaden the understanding of Minangkabau folktales by demonstrating how optimism is constructed through the organization of story facts and provide a basis for further studies on the relationship between ideas conveyed in folktales and the worldview of their supporting communities.