CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of the study Jhumpa Lahiri’s
Interpreter of Maladiesis a collection of nine stories. It is Jhumpa Lahiri’s grand debut. Her work has been
selected for the O’Henry award, the annual
best American short stories. She has also got the Pulitzer Prize for fiction,
in 2000
(www.Houghtonmifflinbooks.com/reader_guides/interpreter_maladies.
Accesed on February 16, 2007).
Lahiri was successful in painting the worlds of both the Indian immigrant and the nativein
miniature. The stories of Interpreter of Maladiesis unique, it is related to the life
and the sensitive dilemma faced by the Indian
immigrants who stay in America. They feel shocked when they have to adapt the new culture that is basically different
from theirs. Lahiri tries to expose the different
and peculiar site of Indian immigrant life in America. They have been influenced by American culture that tends to
be more free and democratic than some countries
in Asia even India.
Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian-American writer.
She was born in London and grew up in
Rhode Island. She taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rode Island School of Design and has been a
fellow at The Fine Arts Works Center in
Provincetown, Massachusetts. She had many awards such as Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a Transatlantic Review Award from the
Henfield Foundation and a Fiction the
Louisville Review in 1997. (Www.Houghtonmifflinbooks.com/ 1 reader_guides/interpreter_maladies.
Accesed on February 16, 2007). Some of Lahiri’s fictions concern the lives of
Indian-Americans, particularly Bengalis. The recent Lahiri’s novel is Namasakealso about the life
of Indian Immigrant family in America.
As a woman writer, Jhumpa Lahiri has enriched
literary studies by her success in
creating something differentin her literary work. How she reflects her life as
an Indian immigrant in America,one of
capitalists and modern countries that is quite different from her own homeland. It can be
seen from the woman’s character she used,
Lahiri has illustrated how Indian women tried to cope with new and sometimes shocking different gender stereotypes and
roles in their new homeland.
The uniqueness of this literary work is that
most of the main characters Lahiri used
are women. Lahiri shows us about Indian women’s role, the Indian women’s culture, and the influence of diaspora to its
characters. This research is done to analyze
women’s role in Indian American as Lahiri reflected through her literary work. In her stories, Lahiri reflected both
traditional Indian women’s role and modern Indian women’s role within marriage.
The women characters used by Jhumpa Lahiri are
can be representative about the women’s
status and women’s position insociety and family. How society and religion constructs the roles for them, which
tends to defeated them and the women’s struggle
in reaching the equal rights as men.
For years a go, woman has defined intomany
forms and it will be a kind of stereotypes
for women it self. Woman according to Simone De Beaviour is uterus, ovum, and female. She also said that woman is
“the other” in society (De Beaviour, 2003;
3). This term is caused by the assumption, which said that woman is inferior to
men, naturally, and biologically woman
is created as weak creature. And those factors are used by men to marginalize women (Selden,
1993, 137).
Women’s role is often said as gender nature
from God, but it is actually the concept
of men’s superiority that tends to social construction rather than theological perspective. The problem is the society
consideration that assumes that social perspective
is created from theological perspective and it is still defended although the social condition has changed. It made some
gender problems in society especially to
the women’s position such as women’s subordinate, unequal right between men and women, and women marginalized (Fakih,
2003; 12).
Traditionally, women’s place is at home,
having childbirth, taking care of the children,
and doing the house works that are related to the domestic area. Besides, women also cannot have high education.
According to the social construction, women
do not need high education, because women’s nature is being a wife and a mother. And women’s role is justrelated to the
domestic area.
From the economic aspects, women or wife
usually depends on their husband’s wage.
It is reasonable because mostly, women do not have their own income. Women’s work in domestic area isnot as
productive as in public area, because
the productivity is measured from the income of work, whereas the work in private area is really harder and more
difficult than public area. This condition is aggravated by the obligation for women to stay
at home and their disability to go out from
this boundary. On material, it makes women is not autonomous, disability to access source of income as men, and women also
cannot determine their own destiny (Nope,
2005; 61).
But, in this modern era, when
socialstratification has changed, the increasing of family’s necessity and the necessity of
female in exploring her ideas and ability, women’s role has greatly changed. Now women
also work outside the house. Women work
full time or part time in offices, factories, and other sectorarea but they do
not leave their position as a mother or
a wife. The initial necessity for a mother to give birth and nursing their children lead women to
the continuing caring and nursing role which
they adopt in all cultures. And because of their role as mothers, women are primarily absorbed in domesticactivities
(Giddens, 1993; 173).
These shifts in the labor force led tochanges
in the attitudes of women at work,
allowing for the "quiet" revolution which resulted women become more
aware in their career and education
orientation. This revolution of women in the labor force makes changes in three essential criteria
namely the first is expanded horizons. Here, women are anticipating their future work,
allowing them to plan for themselves and receiving the education they need to
accomplish that goal. The second is altered identities, women's identities are no longer
based upon just family and child-bearing.
Their focus becomes more on
career and financial success, and the last is defined themselves, and changes in decision making.
Women make decisions regarding their lives,
education, and career goals. Marriage can be postponed and more women focus on their career and education, rather than
just go to a college to meet a spouse.
The
future role of women can be looked at more optimistically. Nowadays, there seems to be recognition ofthe vital role
of women in society and more status is given
to women. Overall, excellent progress has been made in education. It has played a powerful role for women self-esteem.
It demonstrates women's intellectual abilities
to gain expertise in the field of their choice. However, this progress has
still to be reflected in the job market.
Since a more educated society are good for industry and society as a whole, it is even more urgent
for women to gainan acceptable status in
their profession.
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