THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN THE WEST AND THE EAST IN EUGENE O’NEILL’S MARCO MILLIONS

Abstract

Marco Millions, the play by Eugene O’Neill, the writer from America. This research is focused on the process of encounter between West and East in Marco Millions. The encounter that causes some effects to the life of the Eastern subjects through the drama, particularly on the economic, social, and cultural aspects. There are three problems to discuss in this research. First, the cultural assumptions in Marco Millions, the relations between the West and the East in Marco Millions, and the encounters between the West and the East in Eugene O’Neill’s Marco Millions. Furthermore, I use qualitative research method for this research with selected dialogues about religion, mindset, culture, and attitude between the West and the East collected from Marco Million’s drama as primary data. The secondary data are taken from several theses and journals, which are related to the informations and facts about the characterization of Marco Polo, Materialsm of American, and Lao Tze’s Taoism in Marco Millions and the stereotypes to the East by the West, the construction of hegemony on the colony and colonizer’s position in discursive strategy and praxis entity. For this research, the qualitative data are used to analyze and identify the data. Through Postcolonial theory proposed by Said’s Orientalism, the data analyze the encounter process between the West and the East. Therefore, the results of the research show that there are two cultural assumptions between the West and the East. Those are stereotypes and admirations. Based on those cultural assumptions, the Eastern’s characters that are tolerant, welcome, cultural, spiritual, and adaptive become the Western’s motive to exploit the Eastern people. The Western people consider that they are more superior than the Eastern people.