CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of Analysis There are so many
thought that women are dominated by men in family and society and treated as the ‘second’ society because
women are weak and powerless. Women are supposed
to be good mothers and women are only to speak when they are spoken to. I am interest to talk about women because women
should get their independence just like men have. I want to show about women’s
independence from this thesis because women are not meek like the men thought.
Based on my opinion above, I
found a good literary work which talked about women independence. This literary work shows us
about women’s determination. The literary work entitled Little Women written by Louisa May
Alcott (1832-1888), published in 1868. The book was written and set in the Alcott family
home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts.
Little women is one of the best-loved children’s stories of all time, based on the author’s own youthful experiences. It
chronicles the lives of March family; father, Marmee (Mrs. March), Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy and
it details the struggles of the March women,
especially Jo, to find sustenance for their family and identities of their own
in the culture of a masculine society.
When Mr. March lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend, the two oldest girls
begged to be allowed to do something toward their own support. Meg, hired out as a governess,
while Jo hired out to Aunt March as a companion. But Jo’s desire to be a successful
writer and to support her family had long been cultivated in her strong and independent mind.
Jo toiled at the confinement of being companion
and then a governess, but her imagination could not be confined to the quarters
of her mind. Write she must, and write
she would, until she was good enough to earn her bread.
Jo’s conviction that she should
provide support for her family has been bound up with her Universitas Sumatera Utara desire to become a
fluent and financially independent writer. It also describes about the story of their domestic adventure, their attempts to
increase the family, their friendship with the neighboring Laurence family and their later
love affairs remain as fresh as ever.
I choose Little Women to be
analyzed from the point of view of feminism because in Little Women, the characters have to struggle
for the life by their own support without men.
Alcott deliberately creates
strong female characters in order to support the self determination of women. When Mr. March left for the war,
Marmee should continue to take care for the girls by her own and can run their home without
a man supporting it. And also the daughters should be strong females and make decision by
their own choice and work to support their family.
In this thesis, I will discuss a
novel since novel is the main object to be discussed.
Novels are stories of book length
written in prose. They are about imaginary people and events. Novels are about individual human
beings, living in a particular time and place, caught up together in a series of events.
Novel is included into the prose fiction besides myth, parables, romance and short stories. Based on
Robert statement in Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing (1995:2), prose
fiction, poetry, drama and nonfiction prose are classified as the literature genres.
Literature is one of the great
creative and universal means of communicating the emotional, spiritual, or intellectual concern
of mankind. The basic material of literature is experience. Through literature, an author
tries to express his or her ideas about what he/she ever experienced in his/her life time or what
was happening around them from natural phenomena
to the lives of the people in their community. The word literature, basically, comes from the Latin ‘littera’ which refers to
the written or printed works. Literature helps people grow, both personally and
intellectually as it provides an objective base for knowledge Universitas Sumatera Utara and understanding.
It makes people understand human dreams, desires and struggles that happen in different places and times.
1.2 The Statement of Problem From this analysis I
want to show that women have to be independent to discover every aspect of their being and to develop
each component in their own way by using Little Women.
The book, Little Women,
chronicles the lives of the March Family; Father, Marmee, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, and it details the
struggles of the March women, especially Jo, to find sustenance for their family and
identities of their own in the culture of a masculine society. (www.wikipedia.com) Based on the statement above, I point out that
the problems of analysis are: 1. How do
the women struggle in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women? 2. How do the characters fight for life in
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women? 1.3 The Objectives of Analysis The objectives of
the analysis tend to answer the problems of the analysis. Based on the problems above, the objectives of this
analysis mainly: 1. To show the women struggle in Louisa May
Alcott’s Little Women.
2. To show the characters fight for life in
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
1.4 The Scope of Analysis In doing the analysis
of literary work, actually there should be a scope of analysis, so the object that will be analyzed become clear
and the purpose of the analysis are easy to Universitas Sumatera Utara understand by the
readers. In this thesis I would like to analyze the women struggle through the characters of Little Women.
1.5 The Significance of Analysis The analysis of
this thesis is expected to give significance to the readers who want to understand and appreciate literature in
general and the works of Louisa May Alcott in particular. I also hope this thesis will be
useful for the readers or people who need this thesis as a reference. As for human being, this
thesis hopefully can help us to give more respect to others especially women indeed.
1.6 The Theoretical Approach In order to search
the relationship between the novel and social values, there are two approaches which can be used. First, intrinsic
approach which an approach that emphasized on the elements of the novel itself. As Rene
Wellek and Austin Warren says in their book Theory of Literature (1967:73, 81, 110) that
the natural and sensible starting point to work in literary scholarship is the interpretation and
analysis of the work of literature themselves. It means that it is important to analyze the
literary works from the elements of the literary works themselves in order to get the
information. Second, extrinsic approach which analyzes the literary work from external factors of the
literary work such as; biography, autobiography, history, psychology and other factors that
support the making of the novel.
In analyzing this thesis, I use both of the approaches. Deals with the
intrinsic approach, I have to attempt to
read the text carefully, try to classify them into their own element and make a conclusion. I also use
extrinsic approach because there is a relation between the novel and the author. Jo’s
character in the novel has almost the same character of Alcott in the past.
1.7 The Theoretical Review Universitas Sumatera
Utara M.H. Abrams in his book The Mirror and the Lamp in 1953 (Quoted from www.uwec.edu/ranowlan/intr_crit_rdg_lit_081400.htm)
divides critical theory of literature into
four kinds. They are mimetic theory, pragmatic theory, expressive theory, and
objective theory.
Mimetic theory (the theory of
imitation) defines literature in relation to life, seeing it as a way of reproducing or recreating the
experiences of man’s life in words. Abrams (1976:8-9) stated that mimetic theory is the
most primitive aesthetic approach. The idea was developed through Plato’s vision that the literary
work itself cannot represent the real life, but is only the imitation of what happened in our
surroundings. Aristotle, on the other hand, declined Plato’s argument by stated that
literary work as an art aims to purify the emotion (the Latin word ‘catharsis’).
Pragmatic theory relates literary
work to its readers. It is called pragmatic because literature may give the practical result to
its readers, and is sometimes also called affective since literature may give emotional effect to
its readers. Pragmatic theory is used to reveal the functions of literary work in the middle of
society, the spread, and the development.
Pragmatic theory deals with the
competence of the readers.
Expressive theory focuses on the
relation between the literary work and its writer.
This kind of theory believes that
literary work is produced through the expression and the emotion of its writer which are influenced by
the background and the experience of the writer.
Objective theory focuses on the
literary work itself, its language, forms, and devices.
This kind of theory declines the
relation among literary work, historical aspects, sociological aspects, cultural aspects, and biographical
aspects.
Universitas Sumatera Utara In
analyzing this thesis, I use expressive theory which will prove that the women character in Little Women actually reflect the
women struggle at the nineteenth century and which will show that the novel is a result of
the writer’s imagination and creativity to copy her life into the novel as one of the
independent writer.
Feminism is a phenomenon in the
society. When we hear the word “feminism”, the very first thing that comes up in our mind is
“woman”. Feminism is, indeed, identical with women, especially in their struggle upon the
equality with men. Ratna (2004:184) says, “Dalam pengertian yang paling luas, feminis
adalah gerakan kaum wanita untuk menolak segala sesuatu yang dimarginalisasikan,
disubordinasikan, dan direndahkan oleh kebudayaan
dominan, baik dalam bidang politik dan ekonomi maupun kehidupan social pada umumnya (In its broadest sense, feminist is a
women’s movement which rejects the marginal, subordinated and underestimated things by the
dominating culture either in politics, economics
or social life in general). Feminist rejects the injustice as the result of
patriarchal society. Feminist also
rejects the history and philosophy as they are assumed as male-oriented disciplines. Through feminism, women claim to
cultural consciousness that they will not be assumed as the marginal and that the dynamic
balance will be achieved (Ratna 2004:186-188).
Feminism is an idea and movement
that appose the traditional view on woman. It is about women who want to struggle to raise
their status and their right in family and society.
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