CHAPTER I
In this chapter presents
background of the study, problem of the study, objective of the study, significance of the
study, scope and limitation, and definition
of the key terms.
A. Background of the Study Men and women are considered different
physically and socially.
Physically, they differ in terms
of physical appearance; women have fatter and less muscle than men, men are stronger than
women (Wardhaugh, 1986: 303).
Socially, they differ in terms of
the social role in the society; women do not need to get a high education since they just
finally maintain the household (Hayati, 2006:
10), women do not pose high position in the work as men do. These differences create great differences between
men and women. But, those differences
are considered harmful for women but advantageous for men only.
Those differences seem to abolish
the existence of women. As Otto Weininger said in Sex and Character(Amiruddin, 2006: 17)
that becoming a woman means becoming a
human who is lack of concept and who is impossible to decide. This statement may appear as the result of
socio-cultural construction about the social definition of men and women; about how should
be a good man and a good woman.
Unfortunately, this construction, as explained above, gives no advantages to women. In other side, it continues to the
practice of discrimination to women.
This is what is being concerned
by feminist thoughtas gender. Gender is understood
as term used to encompass the social expectation associated with femininity and masculinity. Finding that
cultures also differ from another in their 16 rules
and expectations for femininity (and for masculinity) is a good clue that gender is “socially constructed’ (M. Lips,
2003: 06).
The social construction of gender
produces the inequality in gender perception
especially in defining women itself. It caused the inequity for women manifested in many aspects such as education,
political right, work position etc (Dharma
(ed), 2008: 13). As explained above, this unequal perception brought feminism to come in many different versions,
but all of them share certain premises
such as the notion that inequalities between women and men should be challenged.
The gender differences are one of
important approaches in feminist thought,
which is considered as main framework of first wave feminism (1960s), because it generates all sort of gender
inequity such as subordination, marginalization,
and stereotypes. The gender differences are useful framework to explain that oppressed condition experienced
by women is not natural thing (Aquarini,
2006: 51). For example, the statement that men is physically powerful, rational, and masculine and women is
irrational, feminine, weak and motherly creature
is kind of gender stereotyping that causednegative impact such as men are more powerful than women is considered to
be natural. As presented below: Because men
had more power
than women, their tendency
to judge the other group (women) as being more alike
and less influenced
by external forces
than their own
group (men) had
a big impact.
Women, whose opinions
have received less
attention, have been particularly affected
by the tendency
to view genderrelated
expectation as natural,
rather than as
socially constructed….Concepts
such as feminine frailty, maternal instinct,
female irrationality, all considered to be built in to
female biology, abound
and have traditionally
been used to explain restrictions
of women’s role.
(M. Lips, 2003: 11-12) The gender stereotyping is negative labeling
for women. Although it is conditionally
considered to be mythos than reality,it apparently emerged in many aspect of social life. These negative
characterizations or labeling are constructed in pseudo-scientific form because it is early
seen as unscientific thing (Faqih, 1996:
14). It means that society unconsciously consider its character as natural not constructed thing. This gender stereotyping
doesn'tonly cause difficulties for women
to creatively and actively works in their life but it also makes them difficult to disengage from negative labeling
itself. The stereotypes that women are
weak, feminine and many more are believed easily for them to be exploited by men who are stereotyped as more dominant from
them and place them in the second place
in social life.
In essence, we know less about
women than we shouldbecause the study of
gender has been shaped by discourse practice. Discourse, which is considered as a term used in linguistics to refer to a
continuous stretch of language large than a sentence (Crystal in Mills, 1997: 7), is not
easyto understand its complex thought
and ideas in communication, we need to interpret the intended messages we receive and it occasionally tend to be
influenced by ideological power. Based on
Foucault and Wodak (Dijk, 1997: 258), discourse practice is form of social practice which presents an ideological impact.
It could produce and reproduce unequal
power relations between social classes, menand women, minority and majority groups which the differences is
represented in displayed social position.
Therefore, through discourse
practice, racism, sexism and imbalance in social life is considered as common sense, as natural.
The example of unequal power relation that is
naturalized by discourse is the
discourse of gender stereotyping that is published or showed in certain Medias. In this case, media do not only become
the main attention of communication but
also politics, social, and culture.
Media also becomes special
attention of the feminist struggle. They see media as the instrument of ideology, how the
dominant group (men) was put in proper
place, the elite group was beneficial, whilethe minority group (women) was discriminated (Eriyanto, 2005:3). It
reveal howall medias (television, newspaper,
movies, advertise, literary work etc) isconstructing certain unequal representation on images of gender women
(gender stereotyping). Feminist thinkers
pay attention to the role of other cultural products of discourse in performing construction of images or
representationof women in reality visually and verbally, that implicit gender
stereotyping. Therefore, this research used discourse analysis in critical approach to
help it to show how women were treated and
stereotyped unfairly in media.
Hikam (1996: 78-86) divided
discourse analysis intothree paradigm of inquiry that is developing and competing in
human sciences, such as positivist discourse
analysis, interpretive discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis. To examine the discourse practice related to
power relation, by focusing on the role of
discourse in the (re)production and challenge ofdominance, Teun A. van Dijk (1993: 249-250) offers a critical approach in
discourse analysis—well-known as Critical
Discourse Analysis (abridged CDA)—to critically analyze the discourse practice where unequal power relations are
(re)produced and naturalized. More specifically,
CDA analyzes the discursive formationwhich is generated from other properties of text, talk, verbal
interaction or communicative events that plays a role in these modes of reproduction,
where the role of discourse which is shaped
and (re)produced in social power by elites, institutions or groups, that results in social inequality, including
political, cultural, class, ethnic, racial and gender inequality.
-space� ) y s �^ an>fought
between the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam
(North Vietnam) and the
United States-supported Republic
of Vietnam (South
Vietnam). The war ended
with American withdrawal,
the defeat of
the South Vietnamese
forces, and unification of
Vietnam under the
communist government of
the North (http/www.wikipediaVietnamWar.com).In this
study, the researcher
is interested in
analyzing Robert Bly’s
four poems because of
several reasons. The
first, Robert Bly’s
poems have good dictions
that can make
the readers more
interested in reading
and analyzing his poems
such as the
using of the
word “crystal, particles”
in “Driving through Minnesota during
the Hanoi Bombing”.
The second, those
poems have many [1]
idiomatic words
that have a deep meaning
and make the
poems more beautiful such as
“’ black dog’,
‘dark fir’,” in
“Melancholia” and “’black
starfighters’, ‘great pain’” in
“Driving Through Minnesota
during the Hanoi
Bombing“. The third, the meaning of those poems can make a great
changing in this world for the people
who know its meaning. And the last reason is that Robert Bly’s poems are talking about the
sufferng at Veetnam at that time.There are
some objectives wants
to be reached
by the researcher
in conducting this research.
In this study,
the writer wants
to expose the
suffering of the victims of
Vietnam War and something related to the Vietnam War such as the actors of
this war and
the general truth
about this war
based on Robert
Bly’s four poems. The
writer wants to
know deeply about
Vietnam War based
on those poems.
This is
the fact that
every war has
an impact, both
bad and good
impact.
But in
this study, the
writer only wants
to analyze bad
impacts caused Vietnam War especially the suffering of the
victims of this war in their real condition based on Robert
Bly’s four poems.
Robert Bly’s four
poems that will
be analyzed are the
poems which have
title “Counting Small-Boned
Bodies”, “Driving through Minnesota during
the Hanoi Bombing”,
“Waking from Sleep”,
and “Melancholia”.
The researcher uses genetic
structuralism approach in order to make easier in analyzing those poems and
make easier in answering several problems
that will be conducted. The
reason of using
this literary theory
is because genetic structuralism sees
the literary work
from two points
of views: Intrinsic
and [1] Extrinsic. In
this research, the
study begins from
intrinsic element studies
as the base data.
Then, the research
will connect the
content of external
to the real societies. Genetic
structuralism looks the
literary as a period reflection
that gives expression to
the social aspect,
culture, politic, economic,
and so on.
The important events from
that period will
be connected directly
to the intrinsic elements of the literary work. In this
study, the writer,
uses two kind
of previous study,
those are; “The Study of the Intrinsic Aspect of Robert
Bly’s selected poems” that written by
Indah Nurmala. She focused
on the intrinsic
aspect of the
poem. The second
is the study written
by Agus Suprianto
“The psychology of
Robert Bly when
the occurring of Vietnam
War“ about Robert
Bly’s Counting Small
– Boned Bodies that focused on the psychology
condition of the poet when he wrote the poem.
Indah Nurmala
concluded that Vietnam
War should not
be occurred because it
has several bad
impacts. Those are
the suffering, the
much of victims, the
sadness, etc. While
Agus Suprianto concluded
that Robert Bly
was very sad looking
the Vietnam War.
Robert Bly confuses why
the war should
be happened although the bad
impact is more than a good.
After knowing
the explanation the
previous study above,
this study is different
from them. Here,
the writer focuses
on the suffering
of the victims
of Vietnam War in the
real society of Vietnam
during the war. This study
tells about the real condition
of the victims
of Vietnam War
during the war
that reflected on Robert Bly’s four poems.
[1] 1.2 Statements
of the problems The fact that
the study uses
genetic structuralism approach
that sees the literary
work from two
points of views:
intrinsic and extrinsic,
the researcher wants to conduct
the question as a problem as follows: 1.
how are the
sufferings of the
victims of Vietnam
War portrayed in Robert Bly’s poems? 2. what
are the effects of Vietnam War in Robert Bly’s poems? 3. how do the poems relate to the real society? 1.3
Objectives of the Study In relation to
previous statements of
the problems, the
objectives of this study are formulated as follows: 1. to
describe the suffering
of the victims
of Vietnam War
that portrayed in Robert Bly’s four poems.
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