CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of Study The word ‘literature’
is derived from the Latin ‘littera’ which means letter.
It refers to the written or printed
works. This word was used to mention every kind of writing generally. The word
"literature" has different meanings depending on who is using it and in what context. It
could be applied broadly to mean any symbolic
record, encompassing everything from images and sculptures to letters.
In a more narrow sense the term
could mean only text composed of letters, or other examples of symbolic written language.
However, now, the term ‘literature’ is
focused more and restricted to merely imaginative works, which comes up from the imaginative mind of the person who had
talent to create stories. Literature is creative
and an art implies a process of creating artistic writing that colors human life history through medium language (Wellek,
1951:15). Literature is a term used to
describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, "literature"
is used to describe anything from
creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to
works of the creative imagination, including
works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction.
Literature is more important than
just a historical or cultural artifact.
Literature introduces us to new
worlds of experience. Learning about books and literature, can increase knowledge about
literary works, such as tragedies of poems, stories, and plays. Literature has
three general genres. Those are poetry, prose,
and drama. Each of them has its own characteristics. Poetry etymologically derived from the Greek word poiein means ‘to
make’ or ‘to construct’. Poietis means
the maker, and the word poet and poetess, the writer. Poietis means the making and it became poetry, the art of poet.
The word ‘prose’ is derived from the Latin
prosa, which literally translate to ‘straight forward’. Drama is the object
that I am going to analyze. Drama is a
form of literature intended for performance by actors.
Play is a literary work written
for performance on the stage or a drama. A play is a form of literature written by a
playwright, ally consisting of scripted dialogue
between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably
George Bernard Shaw, who have had little
preference whether their plays were performed or read. The term
"play" can refer to both the
written works of playwrights and to their complete theatrical performance.
In this thesis I want to discuss
about gender inequality that contained in Tennessee Wiliams’s The Glass Menagerie. During 1944-1945, his "memory play" The Glass Menagerie was produced in
Chicago and was widely accepted as a
success. It moved to New York where it had a successful Broadway run. The play tells the story of a young man Tom, his
disabled sister, Laura, and their controlling
mother Amanda, who tries to make a match between Laura and a gentleman caller. Many people believe that
Tennessee used his own familial relationships
as inspiration for the play. Elia Kazan
(who directed many of Williams'
greatest successes) said of Williams: "Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his
life.”The Glass Menagerie won the New
York Drama Critics' Circle Award for best play of the season.
The play is centered around the theme of
family starting with the father of Laura
and Tom abandoning the family when they were just children and finally Tom’s selfish abandonment of his family who is
entirely dependent on him.
In The Glass Menagerie, family
means obligations. This play raises questions of duty and responsibility to your other family
members, and for the most part in gender
specific roles. We see that it is the job of the male to bring home money, and the daughter to look pretty and get
married.
Gender is a social construction
with important consequeces in everybody life.
Social role theory proposes that the social structure is the underlying force
for the gender differences. Social role
theory proposes that the sex-differentiated behavior is driven by the division of labor
between two sexes within a society.
Division of labor creates gender
roles, which in turn, lead to gendered social behavior.
Gender inequality is the social
construct that results in women not having the same rights, opportunities, or privileges
as men . The gender-based violence against
women theory emphasizes the importance of educating women and men as to the dangers and limitations of gender
role conditioning and the supporting belief
systems specific to those roles. The violence against women perspective connects all forms of male violence against
women such as child sexual abuse, rape,
sexual harassment, workplace violence, beatings, and homicide across the age spectrum of women’s lives. It also
acknowledges a connection between male violence
against women and other forms of domination based on race, sexual orientation, class, and other social
constructs. This perspective implies an intimate interrelationship between women’s freedom from
violence and their freedom from political,economic,
and social exploitation. Thio (1985:242), said that there are basic differences in what societies expect of
men and women. Even when men and women
hold the same jobs with the same status, they may face different expectations.
According to the explaination
above, I am interested in analyzing about Gender Inequality as Reflected in Tennessee
Williams’s The Glass Menagerie because in this play the issue of gender is
dominant and the play portrayal differences
of male and female in terms of gender inequality. Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie is great play
and it was best play of the season and
in this play there are many gender differences that occurred. Although they resist the roles prescribed to them, Laura and
Tom both eventually assimilate to the
gender inequality cast by their mother (Amanda).
1.2 The Problems of Study Perkins in The American
Tradition in Literature Tenth Edition (2002:1260-1301),
show that the relation with gender inequality in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. Based on the
statement above, I finally formulate the
problems of study as follows: 1. How are women treated differently than men? 2. How do women not have the same opportunities
than men? 1.3 The Objective of Study Related to statements
of problem, the objectives of the study of the thesis are: 1. To find out how women are treated
differently from men.
2. To show how women don’t have
the same opportunities than men in Tennessee Wiliams’s The Glass Menagerie.
1.4 The Scope of Study In this thesis, the scope
of study is limited and focused on the gender inequality as reflected in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, that problem
is limited to how women are treated differently in comparison with men and how women themselves can not have equal
opportunities than men. And in this play, women who experience these
differences is Laura, who always treated differentlyby his mother Amanda than
his brother Tom. And this thesis, will be analyze to be focused on gender inequality
that contained in the play The Glass Menegerie.
1.5 The Significance of Study This thesis explains about the gender
differences that found in The Glass Menagerie.
This study can expand the reader’s knowledge and this thesis can be one of the sources of information for
students. It also can be usefull for the readers so that they can get some important
information about gender roles in knowledge of sociology because I use extrinsic theory by
analyze my thesis. By reading from contents
of this drama I can conclude that there are social problems therein who experienced by the characters, that is the
existence of gender inequality that occurred
in it. So the readers can understand about gender inequality as reflected in Tennessee Williams’The Glass Menagerie
especially to find the problem how the
gender inequality experienced by the characters in the play. I hope the finding
of this study can make the readers want
to continue and find desire to reading other
literary works.
1.6 The Review of Related Literature In this thesis I use some books from the
library that useful to help me find the
information about the play and the teory that related to sociology, they are: 1.
The American Tradition in Literature Tenth Edition by Barbara Perkins(2002).
This book is the source of my
information so i can know about the play ofThe Glass Menagerie itself, and also in this book
I can find the biography by the author
along with his works.
2. Sociology An Introduction by
Alex Thio (1985). I use this book as one of references to find the explanation of the
theory of gender and to find out problems related to the gender itself. Here i know that sociology is the
study of human social life, groups and
societies. It is a dazzling and compelling enterprise, having as its subject matter our own behaviour as
social beings. The scope of sociology is extremely wide, ranging from the analysis of
passing encounters between individuals
in the street up to the investigation of world-wide social processes.
3. Sociology in Our Times by
Diana Kendall (1996). I also use this book as a reference on the social problems that can
support the statement of my problem.
This book help me to make my analyze becomes
clearer and easier, and I found many
important data here. That family, gender and sexuality form a broad area of inquiry studied in many subfields of
sociology. The sociology of the family examines
the family, as an institution and unit
of socialisation, with special concern for
the comparatively modern historical emergence of the nuclear family and its
distinct gender roles 4. Theory of Literature by Rene Wellek and Warren Austin
(1967). In this book said that, There
are two approaches in analyzing literary works. They are intrinsic and extrinsic approach And I also find some
suitable and usefull references from the internet about gender itself to complete my data. Here
i found that, Gender role is a term used
in the social sciences and humanities to denote a set of behavioral norms that accompany a given gendered status (also called
a gendered identity) in a given social
group or system. Gender is one component of the gender or sex system, which refers to "the set of arrangements
by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and
in which these transformed needs are
satisfied" (Reiter 1975: 159). Every known society has a gender or sex
system, although the components and
workings of this system vary widely from society to society.
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