CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
I.1
Background of the Study It has been
known that literature is not only a composition which is made to entertain the readers but also a reflection
of the real life of human being, it expresses
the social condition of human and describes about culture in the past and so on. It has three genres, and one of
them is drama. Drama is created to give many
concepts for representing certain social condition, human’s experience, and some realities of life, not only about
imagination that released from problem of life that is played on the stages. It is a
proof that literary work is not born from inanity, but it is the reflection of the
phenomenonhad happened or will happen in another time. That is why studying literary
work isrelated to other studies, such sociology,
psychology, structuralism, history, and so on.
Feminism is one of those studies
that also used as one of literary theories and criticisms. Feminism starts from the
assumptionof gender differences which causes
an inequality for women. Women do not have the same occasion as men in almost the aspect of life, and it happened in
literary work. Man’s role becomes the authority
and woman’s role always becomes the second sex and be subordinated.
Many people view that this
phenomenon is based on the story about the beginning of human creation. Humans are created in a
couple with different form. They are 2 male and female. As the history told, the
first human that is created in this world is a man namely Adam. It is the first
legitimation of Adam’s group which psychologically
and sociologically implants a thought that a man is the main. The second legitimation is showed by the creation
of Hawa as Adam’s couple from his right
ribs. The third legitimation is also aimed toHawa when she was not strong in her faith and invited Adam to eat khuldi,
the forbidden fruit in the heaven.
Because of Hawa’s weakness,
people then consider that a woman is always inferior and a man is a person who is always
expected by everyone (Ratna, 2007:182).
Those biological differences make peoplealways differentiate the role and position of woman and man. It also has
born theassumption that men are always
associated to reasonable, objectively, logicand so on, while women are linked to the body, matter, emotion, absence
logic,unreasonable and the like (Endraswara,
2008:143).
Since women’s birth, their life
and behavior are determined and set in certain
limitations. Hence, women cannot do anything they want because they have to obey particular rules of society.
Otherwise, men have freedom to do everything
without feeling afraid of breaking the rules, because it almost no rules for men in behaving and doing something. This
statement makes women are considered as
the second and inferior creature. Actually, women are created not to be the second creature but also to accompany
men infacing the world. Men without
women cannot pass this life because women with their softness can cast down men’s harshness and savagery. If men’s
harshness and savagery are let down, so
the world must be gone. Then, to equalize the harshness, women are 3 created
in tenderness and full of affection. It means that women’s existence is to muffle and clean up the cruelty, corrupt, and
greediness of authority that is done by
masculine. Therefore, feminine values ought to be highly appreciated in society because it exactly can hold back the
harshness and brings the peace for social
life.
Because of the phenomenon above,
literary critics are challenged to study the construction of gender in literary work,
until bear a feminist literary criticism.
Feminist literary criticism is
the literary approach that according to Suwardi Endaswara (2008: 146), based on the
understanding of the women positions and roles in the works of literature.
As the object, the researcher
chooses Othello,one of William Shakespeare’s
plays. William Shakespeare, English poet and playwright wrote the famous 154 Sonnetsand numerous highly
successful dramatic works in Renaissance
era, through his literary works, he hasalready caught the researcher’s interest to discuss one of his plays entitled
Othellowritten in 1604 and printed in 1622.
The researcher notes that William Shakespearehas an interesting view concerning his work, like discussing the peculiarity
of woman roles in a family.
This drama tells about women’s
life in Venice sixteenth century.
Othello is not an easy drama to
understand at first time reading because the story consists of many phenomena of human life
suchas human’s struggle to get the high
position in a government, fighting to get a love, and so on. However, obviously all the problems in the drama
relates to woman existence and roles.
This drama tells about Othello,
one of the characters in the drama who has a wife 4 namely
Desdemona. Desdemona is the woman character whose life becomes our focus in this research. Desdemona is the
daughter of the Venetian senator, Brabantio,
who is socially well-trained. She is also described as a lady who has a noble character and beauty. In Venice
sixteenth century, women’s tenderness and beauty become the reason why they are assumed
as weak and discriminated.
However, Desdemona uses those
things as a power to fight the culture which influences her role as a daughter and a wife.
In a war situation, Desdemona
acts the important role as a person that is very influential for Othello’s success or
shellacking. Hence, Desdemona’s role as a
wife is not only to be sex preserver, but she hasher own role as a person who has the real power to determine everything
with hernatural potential as a woman.
From those descriptions about
Desdemona, the researcher wants to analyze further about her roles as a wife who uses her
femininity as her power.
Shakespeare shows the power of
woman’s femininity in his work through Desdemona
that characterizes a wife who influences the husband’s power and weakness. The researcher finds that in getting
woman identity, a woman should not try
to be a masculine; instead, her own power is on her femininity. Marilyn French in Tong states that the traditional
woman’s character (femininity) is better than masculinity because if women fight to
have equal right as men it means that they
want to be a masculine person who thirsts for authority. Therefore, feminine value must be appreciated and owned by women
because love, affection, tenderness, the
ready sharing of each other, and save each other is their power in beating down the masculinity which is assumed
as dominating women’s right 5 (Tong, 1998: 81). The statement above becomes
the researcher’s reason in choosing this
drama.
This research uses feminist
literary criticism. Feminism has developed time by time until bears many types of
feminism. Each of type has different opinion
and definition about feminism. Those are liberal feminism, radical feminism, Marxist feminism, socialist
feminism, cultural feminism, and eco- feminism.
The theory of feminism that is used is cultural feminism, according to Brown Miller, focuses on the femininity that
becomes the very essential behavior of
human being. The femininity becomes the important thing to repulse any kinds of woman stereotype that is given by
patriarchy (Ollenburger & More, 2002: 31).
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