Group members’ names:

Rima Almaidah Nurcahya

Aliza Prasasty Mawaddah

Yesica Elviana

Class: Children’s Literature

Indonesia’s Folklore Review: Timun Mas on Children’s Literature Perspective

Our group chooses Timun Mas as their main focus for this assignment. Timun Mas
itself is a story from Central Java and its being told continuously throughout generations, and
this story is usually seen as a story for children.
Timun Mas is cosidered to be children’s literature because it has different story perspective
compared to adult’s stories. One of the main elements is the imaginary world. Timun Mas
was given four pouches filled of magical stuff: cucumber seed, needles, salt, and shrimp
paste. Each pouch has its own power to help Timun Mas defeat the Giant, such as the salt that
will become a sea, and the cucumber seeds that will later become a forest. These are evidence
of imaginary world that mostly exist in children’s book. However, the author also added a
touch of Indonesian’s belief in form of: ascetic (pertapa) which is very peculiar among
Indonesians and their culture. Not only that, it seems that the author tries to give the readers
(children) a new knowledge regarding fear, hope, and how to be fearless. Timun Mas was
young and she portrayed children, as they are also young. Timun Mas was embodied with
innocent and pure personality but she is smart in her age. She then was facing various
obstacles when the Giant chase her. The Giant could be a representative of fear that the
author tried to portray to the reader. Why the Giant form, because children usually afraid with
horrendous creatures rather than real life obstacles. The author uses an imaginary creature to
capture the children’s perspective in order to deliver another message: hope. The story
continues with Timun Mas running away and finally defeated the Giant by using the magic
pouch given by the ascetic. This resembles an effort to conquer the fear. The author tried to
tell that fear can be defeated as long as we are brave and never give up, that there is always
hope in the middle of drought. The children may not get these moral values right from the
book, but it will work in their imaginary minds.
The author perspective on children in his works is that they are imaginative, innocent,
yet unpredictably smart. What we mean by unpredictably smart is that they can be something
bizarre if given the right knowledge and moral value. It is also seems that the author tried to
led the reader’s perspective somewhere, to be fearless, to have hope and keep believing in
God, which is great. We don’t see how the author seems to belittle children, but instead he
tried to give the main character (Timun Mas) which is the representative of children, a power
to fight fear. In the end of the story, the authors also mentioned about God, and thank Him for
helping Timun Mas. Here’s the author tried to imply that nothing will be possible doing
without the help from God. Thus only to God we pray and we praise Him for helping us all
the way.