CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of the Study Drama
derives from Greek “draein” that means to do,to act, thereby referring to a performance or representation by actors.
According to Barnard (1998: 20) in his book
History of English Literature drama began from ritual practice in the fifth century BC, with some features were still
presentedin classical Greek form, and the first drama that was played for performing was
about mystery or miracle plays, religious,
allegorical, or Gods.
There are three basic forms of
plays, the first is tragedy as a representation of an action that is heroic and complete and
which represents men in action and does not use narrative and through pity and fear it
effects relief. By watching the tragedy events
on the stage, the audience can feel the spiritual cleansing. The second is comedy, on the other hand, has humorous themes
intended the audience. It usually starts
with suffer in the first of act and end withsuccessful conclusion or in the
form of wedding in standard traditional
comedies. The third is history plays, usually portrait of historical events or figure in the
realsociety in the era when the drama were
made, through the addition of contemporary references, transcend the historical
dimension and make general statements
about human weaknesses and virtue. In general,
the author chooses a historical pretext inorder to comment on contemporary sociopolitical misery.
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare is
a comedy play because it is started with
the sorrow of the main character and ended with successful conclusion and the virtue. Barnard (1998: 20) has
explained about Shakespeare in his book History
of English LIterature, there is no evidence of Shakespeare opinions thathe is a Catholic, a puritan, a soldier, a sailor, or
a politician. People may guess Shakespeare personality from his plays. Measure for
Measure is written by Shakespeare in the period 1604-1608 when this was the period of
great tragedies like Othello, Macbeth, King
Lear, Antony and Cleopatra and Cariolanus. The other plays first produced during this period were Measure for Measure,
All is Well That Ends Well and Timon of
Athens.
Measure for Measure,written in
Elizabethan era, tells the position of women that do not have any rights especially in
politic, social and economic happen in Vienna.
Not only that, women characters became the object of man sexuality and it is showed in the play. Measure for Measure,
written in 1604, tells the law, hypocrisies, and struggle of women. It begin when the Duke
leaveVienna and give the authority to
Angelo. He thinks that Angelo is the correct person to receive this mandate.
Then, trouble comes when Juliet is
pregnant because of the young man named Claudio.
Angelo as the judge commands his
guardian to punishClaudio into death. Then Claudio asks Isabel, a nun and his sister to
help him but Angelo is so strict, he does not want to rescue Claudio except Isabel wants
to make a love with him because Angelo
falls in love to her.
In this drama, women have characteristics,
which could not do anything to get their
own right. Isabella, the major character, is the girl who has her own
dilemmatic problem, whether she has to
surrender her virginityto Angelo in order to save her brother’s life or she lets her brother die by
the law. Then Isabel does not want to receive
Angelo, She keeps her struggle to refuse that offer. In her opinion, she rather
her brother die by the law than she has
to make another sin in her life, even it is for her brother’s life. It shows that women in
that eraalways become victims; they could not fight for their own right.
This play is full of sexual
abuses, religious conflict, and hypocrisy, moral and socio-political questions. Almost all male’s
characters that has high power did hypocrisy
in Vienna. Hypocrisy in the drama has been spread out in the male characters that have high rank in the society.
Theydid it to get their own goal. They pretend
to be kind person in one side, and in otherside they wicked. That is why the researcher would like to analyze about the
struggleof Isabel as the main character that
struggle against the hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is feigned high
principles the false claim to or pretence of having admirable principles, beliefs, or feeling.
Hypocrite is a person who pretends to
have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does
not actually possess especially a person
whose actions belie beliefs or a person
who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, especially one whose private life, opinions, or
statements belief (World English Dictionary,
1999: 927).
It is means that hypocrisy is a
kind of act lied. People pretend to have good religious, idealism, principle, but actually
they have something they hide. People usually
did hypocrisy to get their profit. Spiegel said (1999, 40) that hypocrisy is sometimes denounced as the worst of all vices
because it represents a lack of integrity and even undermines morality itself. In this
drama,Isabel as the main character, struggle
against the hypocrisy. Isabel struggles torescue her brother’s life and refuse compulsion of Angelo as the representation of
hypocrites, made her as the brave women
in the drama.
In 16 century, woman did not have
any power to struggle against the man, moreover
the authority. According to Djajanegara (2000: 4-6) “women in Elizabethan era clearly define that they do not have any
strength to do what they want to do, not only in the society but also in the church”;
the rule forbid them to go out of the house.
The rule forbid them to speak in
front of other manexcept their brother, husband, or father. Therefore, the researcher will analyze
thisdrama by using a feminist literary criticism.
The researcher wants to analyze by usingfeminism because the researcher wants to show the women condition in the
drama, andanalyze the Isabel struggles against
the condition she faces as women in the society.
According to Peck and Coyle
(1984: 153) “Feminist criticism might seem only to be concerned with demonstrating that
literature is sexist in the portrayal of women, or by showing how texts reveal the
injustices of a male society where women are regarded as inferior, but radical feminist
criticism seeks not merely to describe the way things are but to challenge the status
quo.” In this thesis, the researcher
will analyze the women position in the drama, as the inferior, because in this play women
became inferior and do not have an existence in economy, politics, education, and society.
It can be seen from the drama that Isabel is trying so hard to rescue her brother. She
tries to fight against the sexual abuses that she gets from the governor in Vienna, while
she hasto rescue her brother from the death
sentence.
Newton (1988: 268) wrote that feminist literary
criticism could be divided into two
distinct varieties. The first type is concerning with the women as a reader, women as the consumers of a man literary
product, and the way in which the hypothesis
of a woman reader changes our apprehension of a given text, awakening us to the significant of its sexual codes.
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