CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of the Study Literature
comes from the Latin word ‘littera’
which means letter. It primarily
refers to the written or printed words. Literature represents culture and tradition. But literature is more important
than just a historical or cultural artifact.
Literature introduces
to new worlds of experience.
Taylor (1981:1) states, “literature, like the other arts, is
essentially an imaginative act of the writer’s imagination in selecting, ordering, and
interpreting life-experience”. Also in Theory
of Literature (Wellek and Warren, 1967:212), it is said, “literature must always be interesting; it must always have a
structure and an aesthetic purpose, a total
coherence and effect”. Thus, literature, in general, can be defined as the mirror of human life that portrays the human
feeling, thought, imagination, and perception
which can be viewed based on personal judgement.
Literature can be divided
into three genres, they are prose,
drama, and poetry. Prose derives from the Latin word ‘prosa’, which is
literally translated to ‘straightforward’.
Prose is the ordinary form of spoken and written language whose unit is the sentence. Prose includes
novels, short stories, romances, essays, and so on. Drama derives from the Greek word
‘dran’ which means ‘to do’ or ‘to act’.
Drama is performed on a stage. Poetry derives etymologically from the Greek word ‘poiesis’ which means ‘a making,
forming, creating (in words), or the art
of poetry, or a poem’.
In this thesis, poems which deal with feminism
are going to be used as the source of
data. Feminism is a kind of social
changing which derives from women’s
suffrage movements in the nineteenth century in Europe and America. It is closely related to the social changing of
gender issues. Mary Wollstonecraft, the first
feminist who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792), encourages woman writers to insert feminism in their
literary works. Finally, feminism has been
widely spreading.
Awuy(2002:1) in his essay
Feminisme di Persimpangan Jalan states: Feminisme
merupakan sebuah fenomena kultural...alasan kemunculannya ialah berdasarkan ketidakpuasan
terhadap realitas yang dianggap sebagai
konstruksi patriarkal.
(Feminism is a cultural
phenomenon of unsatisfactory to the reality of patriarchal construction).
From this quotation, the reason
of why feminism exists is because the patriarchal construction has subordinated and repressed
the essence of women during the last decades.
In a patriarchal society, men have the power, dominate social or cultural systems, and have authority over women and
children.
Furthermore, there are seven
selected poems of Maya Angelou that are going
to be analyzed from the view of feminism within this thesis. These seven poems will be later abbreviated in
alphabetical order, they are Phenomenal Woman (poem A), Still I Rise (poem B),
Equality (poem C), Woman Work (poem D),
Men (poem E), Remembrance (poem F), and
Caged Bird (poem G). Maya Angelou and
other woman writers in the late 1960s and early 1970s concerned their literary works on women’s issues. They
used the autobiography to reimagine ways of writing about women's lives and
identities in a male-dominated society.
Many feminist poets, especially those who
concerned their poems on women’s issues,
had started to spread their personal ideologies about feminism itself through their poems. And so did Maya Angelou
in her poems. She stressed the importance
of understanding the essence of women’s struggle in fighting against patriarchal society by criticizing the society
itself for its unfairness to women as well
as to children. Maya Angelou has also
intended her poems to provide inspiration
and strength to female readers, and give them pride in being themselves. Her most famous poem entitled
Phenomenal Woman shows how it reflects the idea of liberation and how
Angelou criticizes modern cultural ideas about female beauty. It also shows the woman's
power over men and emphasizes the author's
sexuality. All of her poems are also a kind of painful process of recalling
and remembering her past which was
broken and dismembered in fragments, and an effort to show the black
women seeking to survive against masculine
prejudice at social or psychological level.
Men are culturally different from
women. Physically, men are strong while women
are weak. Men’s nature is rude and women’s is gentle. Men’s idea is always authoritative and women’s is dependent. Men are always active and become determiner while women are only passive
and become receiver. These issues
finally cause women to start questioning this kind of gender inequality and struggling to fight against the superiority of
men. And this men’s superiority, which
is also supported by the culture, finally creates significant injustice as portrayed
in Maya Angelou’s selected poems. And this becomes the background of the analysis.
1.2 The Problems of the Study Maya Angelou’s
selected poems deal with feminism. In doing the process of analyzing this thesis in its relation to
feminism, it is important to make the specification
of problems that are going to be analyzed. The problems of the study of this thesis are: a. How
is the struggle of women to survive in a male-dominated society and fight against the superiority of men shown in
Maya Angelou’s selected poems? b. How are bad treatments over women in a
male-dominated society seen in Maya
Angelou’s selected poems? c. How is the superiority of men actually reflected in
Maya Angelou’s selected poems? 1.3 The
Objectives of the Study The objectives of the study of this thesis are: a. To
find out how the struggle of women to survive in a male-dominated society and fight against the superiority of
men is shown in Maya Angelou’s selected poems.
b. To find out how bad treatments over women in
a male-dominated society are seen in
Maya Angelou’s selected poems.
c. To
find out how the superiority of men is actually reflected in Maya Angelou’s selected poems.
1.4 The Scope of the Study In
order to avoid an over lapping explanation, this analysis of feminism should have a clear scope. Based on the social
changing of women’s issues at that time,
the analysis will be focused on the struggle of women, bad treatments over women in a male-dominated society, and the
superiority of men as can be seen in Maya
Angelou’s seven selected poems entitled Phenomenal Woman (poem A), Still I Rise (poem B), Equality (poem C),
Woman Work (poem D), Men (poem E), Remembrance
(poem F), and Caged Bird (poem G).
1.5 The Significances of the
Study This thesis is expected to be able to give significances. Pratically,
this thesis is hoped to enable the
readers to understand what poetry is after they read this thesis. It is also expected that this
thesis will be a reference for the readers to widen their knowledge about poetry.
Theoretically, this thesis is hoped to be able to add the vocabulary of literary study which
is related to poetry. It is also expected
that this thesis will enable the readers to understand something outside literature, especially in term of feminism
which deals with the struggle of women, bad
treatments over women in a male-dominated society, and the superiority of men as well.
1.6 The Review of Related Literature In order
to get further information, ideas, and other inputs dealing with the analysis of feminism, a book entitled A
Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory,
Fifth Editionby Raman Selden is used as the main source to review the relationship between feminism and literature.
This book is very useful and helpful because
it provides much information about feminism and its relationship with literature. It also clearly explains how
feminist theories, feminist criticism, kinds of feminism, and history of feminism are
closely related to literature. What has been
reviewed in this book, especially in chapter 6, is that feminism has sought to disturb the complacent certainties of a
patriarchal culture, to assert a belief in sexual equality, and to eradicate sexist
domination in transforming society. Within this book, it can also be seen that
feminism itself cannot be separated from
literature. Many woman writers have used
feminist criticism to free themselves from naturalized patriarchal notions of
the literary and the literary-critical. They have also used their writings as propoganda
for the women’s suffrage movements.
In addition to that, this book is
used as the main review to support the process
of analyzing this thesis because it not only talks about feminism, but also gives more information in understanding
literature, especially which deals with literary
theories.
Another source that is also used
as an additional review is a book entitled Intersecting Violences: A Review of Feminist
Theories and Debates onViolence against
Women and Poverty in Latin Americaby Patricia Muñoz Cabrera. What has been reviewed in this book, primarily in
chapter 4.1, is about how men use their
masculinities as their sources of superiority. It is said that men quickly
learn that they not only have to possess
power, but they must also use it. Finally, men often misuse their superiority by committing
bad treatments over women, especially in the form of violence. In this
chapter 4.1, it is also said that the physical,
psychological, and social harm done to the victim of violence is the consequence
of the unequal distribution of power between the female victim and the male perpetrator. So, it is obvious that
this becomes a strategy designed to maintain
patriarchal power as a means of preventing women from escaping the subjugated status imposed upon them.
The last additional review that
is used to support the process of analyzing this thesis is closely related to
the struggle of women to gain equality. Anonline article entitled Advancing Toward the Equality
of Women and Men by ISGP (Institute for
Studies in Global Prosperity) shows how great advances have been made over the years in promoting the equality
between women and menthrough the
contributions of feminist thought and numerous individuals and groups acting in differentsocial spaces around the world. In
the second point of this article, it can
also be seen that women keep struggling to overcome oppression through the acquisition of self-knowledge.
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