Name: Syifa Ravina Gamelia

NIM : 2211421129

Finding the Key of Social Relationship in the Play of Home Alone by John Hughes Through
Semiotics Approach

1. Introduction

As a social-being, an individual must be involved in social relationship. It is absolute that

someone must have mother and father. Since a new baby born, there will be always other
individuals who will accompany its existence. Then coming to another wider perspective, a family
must meet neighbors around their house. Even in occupational field, an employee must have
another partner to assist each other’s job desk. Moreover, a company must have another company
to gain partnership between each other in maintaining the massive production of daily needs. Thus,
as the basic essence of humanity, human cannot lose from the attachment of social relationship
among others.

Social relationship is the fundamental elements of social-being. A person would risk one’s life
if one decides to sever a social bond, especially the family bond as the broken home victims are
experiencing. Family bond is seen as the strong foundation of human’s capability to run their life.
Family is also usually seen as the strong motivation in achieving someone’s dream. Without any
special bond, a person will lose its passion in living one’s life, where the life itself will be hopeless
and meaningless to have. Thus, sustainability of social relationship must be well-respected in order
to fulfil the value of humanity.

Reflecting to the urgency above, an individual need to understand how to maintain a social
relationship in this life. As the attempt to fulfil the necessity and obtain the objective previously,
this study then will use the drama of Home Alone by John Hughes (1990) as the object material of
the study. The mental evidence will be analyzed in the semiotics approach, specifically with
actantial model proposed by A.J. Greimas. The design of analysis will be based on the elements
desire axis to find the relation between subject and object, axis of power to find the relation of
power between the helper and opponent, and axis of transmission to find the relationship of sender
and receiver from the organized action done by the subject.
2. Discussion
2.1.Short Summary

The play was setting at Chicago, 1990, which entitled Home Alone written by John Hughes.
There are some characters that filled the playwright but here, only the pivotal characters will be
further explained in this summary of the plot. It is initially begun at the reading events of the
play, discussing the exposure of the characters and their initial desire The first one is Kevin
McCallister as the protagonist. Next, there are Kate McCallister and Peter McCallister as Kevin’s
mom and dad. Kate had planned the family’s flight to Paris. She also wanted her children to obey
her, especially Kevin. While Peter, As the head of McCallister’s, also had his responsibility, which
was handling the family’s passport. Then the other children of McCallister family, basically just
wanted to enjoy their holiday trip. They wanted to burglar’s the McCallister house since it’s the
biggest and most luxurious in the residence.

All of Kevin’s desire was limited and stopped by the influence of other family
members. Initially, Kevin was forbidden by Uncle Frank to watch the movie that seemed not
friendly for him. Next, Kevin also seemed annoying to his brothers and sisters. He was always
seen as troublemaker, especially when causing mess during the family’s dinner and made their
passports wet with milk. Kate then punished Kevin to sleep in the attic bedroom. Didn’t accept
being unfairly treated, Kevin then suddenly shouted to his mother for not seeing his family again
forever. They thought than their plan would go smoothly while the family had gone for the trip. But
when they were going to sneak in, Kevin fooled them by making as if the house was still active.

Then the things were getting complicated, begun by Kevin being alone. Kevin eventually gained
his solitude after being forgotten by the McCallister. Meanwhile, Kevin was firstly happy with
this. On few occasions, Kevin accidentally met Marley few times. Things then became more
dangerous when Harry and Marv knew that Kevin was the only one in the house. They had figured
out that they had been fooled by the boy. They then decided to burglar the house along with Kevin
at 9 pm on Christmas eve.

Then the playwright hit its climax when Kevin met Marley again, but this time at church while
the Christmas eve. This time Kevin wasn’t afraid because turned out, Marley was a kind person
unlike the rumors said. After that, Kevin gave suggestion to help solving Marley’s problem
regarding his son. He encouraged Marley to call his son, so Marley could talk to him again. Next,
Kevin set up serial of traps in his house to face Harry and Marv. The burglars were finally trapped
and taken down with Marley’s help as well. After being taken down by Kevin and Marley, Harry
and Marv were finally busted by the official police. On the next day, Kate finally managed to back
home and met her lovely boy. Even surprisingly, Peter along with other children also came back
to see Kevin. Whereas, Marley eventually reunited with his son along with his family.

2.2.Analysis

In order to get the message and idea of the author, the action that seems critical to understand
must be explored. The action that will be crumbled down is the moment when Marley finally
managed to achieve his deepest wish, which using actantial model by A.J. Greimas as the tool of
the analysis. Based on the analysis result, it can be seen that Marley is the subject who had the
deep desire of reuniting again with his son as the object. Yet, the thing that blocked him to achieve
it was his own fear. He assumed that his son still kept revenge on him due to past conflict between
them. This then is considered as the opponent.

Kevin then helped Marley to defeat his own “enemy” by encouraging him. Kevin reassured
Marley that he would never know unless he chose to listen his heart and made a phone call to his
son. The Protagonist, Kevin McCallister then is seen as the helper. Then at the end of the play, it
has been shown that Marley managed to reunite with his son again even with the family as well.
This then can be concluded that Marley, as the sender of the phone call transmission, has already
succeed to reach his son and he also received the benefit from his effort. Based on the analysis
result, the chosen action has set the whole theme of the playwright as the honesty and transparency
as the story theme.

3. Conclusion

The playwright overall is packaged in the taste of comedy. There are several comedies set up
being presented as the spices of the play. Although provided in the sense of humor delivery, Home
Alone drama actually contains of crucial message and ideology from the author itself. John Hughes
(1990) tried to convey from his work that love is worthy to fight for. Without love, someone will
not survive in a society for longer time. Since love is also related to honesty and transparency as
Marley has shown, a social relationship will always be maintained instead of using power control.