father. She is also independent enough to move to Batavia to look for Samsulbahri on her own. Her actions are seen as being heavily against adat—the strong Indonesian cultural norms—and this eventually leads to her being poisoned. Her beauty, to the point that she is called "the flower of Padang", is seen as a physical manifestation of her moral and kind nature. Samsulbahri Samsulbahri (sometimes spelled Sjamsulbahri; abbreviated Samsu) is the primary male protagonist. He is described as having skin the colour of langsat, with eyes as black as ink; however, from afar he can be confused with a Dutchman. These physical attributes have been described by Keith Foulcher, a lecturer of Indonesian language and literature at the University of Sydney, as indicating Samsu's mimicry and collaborationist nature. His good looks are also seen as a physical manifestation of his moral and kind nature. Datuk Meringgih Datuk Meringgih is the primary antagonist of the story. He is a trader who originated from a poor family, and became rich as a result of shady business dealings. Indonesian writer and literary critic M. Balfas described Meringgih's main motivations as greed and jealousy, being unable to "tolerate that there should be anyone wealthier than he". Balfas writes that Datuk Meringgih is a character that is "drawn in black and white, but strong enough to create serious conflicts around him." He later becomes the "champion of anti-colonist resistance", fuelled only by his own greed; Foulcher argues that it is unlikely that Datuk Meringgih's actions were an attempt by Rusli to insert anti-Dutch commentary. Style According to Bakri Siregar, the diction in Sitti Nurbaya does not reflect Marah Rusli's personal style, but a "Balai Pustaka style" of formal Malay, as required by the state-owned publisher. As a result, Rusli's orally-influenced story telling technique, often wandering from the plot to describe something "at the whim of the author", comes across as "lacking". Sitti Nurbaya includes pantuns (Malay poetic forms) and "clichéd descriptions", although not as many as contemporary Minangkabau works. The pantuns are used by Nurbaya and Samsul in expressing their feelings for each other, such as the pantun Its main messages are presented through debates between characters with a moral dichotomy, to show alternatives to the author's position and "thereby present a reasoned case for [its] validation". However, the "correct" (author's) point of view is indicated by the social and moral standing of the character