Bahagia yang Dibayar: Analisis Wacana Kritis Perspektif Sara Mills terhadap Representasi Kesepian Perempuan dalam Novel Satine

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the representation of women's loneliness and the construction of transactional happiness in the novel Satine through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) from Sara Mills' perspective, integrated with Eva Illouz's concept of emotional capitalism. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative, with data collection techniques carried out through documentation study focusing on character dialogues selected purposively to identify subject-object positions, power relations, and ideological structures within the text. The results show that the female character is consistently positioned as a subject who possesses reflective awareness of her emotional condition; however, this awareness does not develop into a form of resistance. The text produces an affective patriarchal discourse that normalizes the need for affection as natural while obscuring structural causes by constructing loneliness as an individual psychological problem. Furthermore, neoliberal logic and emotional capitalism work symbolically through textual language, reducing interpersonal relationships and emotional intimacy into transactional market commodities, where entertainment spaces are represented merely as "pauses" or temporary escapes. Theoretically, this study contributes novelty by merging the socio-economic perspective of emotions with critical linguistics, and practically, it enriches the study of contemporary feminist literature, specifically regarding how literary texts act as ideological arenas that normalize the market over the affective lives of contemporary urban women.