COMMUNICATING ABOUT LOVE THROUGH WOMEN’S EMOTIONS IN SELECTED CHINESE AND MALAY NOVELS

Generally, the female authors have always proposed love as a theme hence present women as the protagonist in their novels. This study discovers love as form of communication that speaks about women’s emotion found common. The study will focus on the method of comparing selected novels written by Eileen Chang from China and Zaharah Nawawi from Malaysia respectively. For the purpose of this study, the theory of Triangular of Love by Robert J. Sternberg (1984) will be applied. For the analysis, the comparison has been made by looking at three components in taxonomy of love namely as intimacy, passion and decision/commitment. The novels that will be used in the analysis are Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang, while Jalur Sinar di Celah Daun by Zaharah Nawawi. For the components of romantic love and empty love can be found in Love in a Fallen City; while other component of consummate love can be found in Jalur Sinar di Celah Daun. This study has shown that the novels written are highly influenced by the Chinese and Malay cultural tradition. Not only has that, the needs to conform towards Islamic values, the history of country and nation, social conflict, and the background of the authors contributed to the production of the novels mentioned. This research has also analysed several writing techniques, which were used by the writers, to portray the taxonomy love in the novels, including stream of consciousness, symbolism, epistolary and local colour techniques. In general, the background of the authors had highly influenced the writing techniques, which was used by Eileen Chang and Zaharah Nawawi to reflect love as form of communication which further demonstrates women’s emotion in their novels.