WOMEN'S COUNTERACTION AGAINST RESTRICTION

IN KATE CHOPPIN'S THE AWAKENING

PROPOSAL

Submitted as Partial Fulfillment to Pass the Course of Introduction of Literature

Lecturer:

Dwi Afrianti, M.Pd

By:

Bagus Syarifuddin

SEKOLAH TINGGI KEGURUAN DAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN

(STKIP QOMARUDDIN GRESIK)

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTEMENT

JANUARY 2017

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The present chapter deals with background of the study, problems of the study, and

objectives of the study, scope and limitation, significance of the study and research method.

1.1 Background of the Study

To be able to write an essay or to understand gender roles and stereotypes one has to be

able to make a difference between the two terms sex and gender. Sex refers to the biological

features and characteristics which define men and women, while gender refers to what society

considers masculine or feminine, for instance roles, behavior, activities and attributes. This

means that the notion of sex does not vary much between different parts of the world while the

notion of gender may vary a lot. For instance knitting and taking care of children may be seen as

something belonging to the feminine gender in one culture but not at all that gender-specific in

another. All the same, men have male genitals, deeper voices and are often more muscular than

women because of the biological differences between the sexes (Connell 2009:5). Simone de

Beauvoir stated in her book devoted to women, The Second Sex, that “one is not born, but rather

becomes, a woman” (301). She states that sex is something natural but that gender is something

constructed. One can interpret this statement to mean that being female and being a woman are

two different things.

According to Lucas (1993:243), each great work of literature creates “its own world”,

which is unique and seemingly distinct from everyday life. However, on the other hand, a

literature may simply reflect one’s life experience, which is influenced by the certain society in

certain time and also contains social value, religion, philosophy, etc. Literature is the result of

human’s culture, which refers to the beauty, gentleness, and also the reflection of life.

Female writers are concerned with women, their positions and situations in the society. In

these representations, the reader is presented with different types of women who have different

life styles. However, all these women have common problems and sorrows. Those women who

live in the patriarchal societies of different countries have a common situation as being under the

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control of the dominant male rule. These dominant male groups commonly aim to have this

control, which is gained by the power, in order to confine women and not to let them gain that

power and control men.

The confinement occurs in many aspects of life such as at work, school and so on.

Woman always hits a glass barrier whenever she likes to have a career in this male dominated

world and is exposed to confinement. She is kept in a certain space under the power of male

whose ideology is in favor of male control. The situation, occurring in many countries, happens

for a very long time and women are aware of it so they begin to counteract against this

confinement as stated in this novel, The Awakening (1899) by Kate Chopin. The writer reveals

how male power has been in charge in the world in different periods of history; keep women in

certain space under his control and how women resist this confinement.

This study aims to show how these two writers shed a light to the way men occupy and

control space by power relations in accordance with their ideologies, and the way that women

resist and break that barrier, confinement in the last century and this century which are important

periods for the rebellion and counteraction of women in history.

1. 2 Problems of the Study

This research is intended to answer the following problems:

1. What do the men do to restrict woman in the Kate Chopin,s The Awakening?

2. What do the Mrs. Edna Pontellier and other women do to counteract the confinement?

1.3 Objectives of the Study

In accordance with the problems of the study, this research is aimed at finding:

1. To find out the methods that men do to restrict women the Kate Chopin,s The Awakening

2. To find out the way of Mrs. Edna Pontellier and other women do to counteract the

confinement.

1.4 The Scope and Limitation of the Study

The scope of the study is concerned with issues related to women. Among them is Kate

Chopin who represents women in their works. In this perspective, Chopin’s The Awakening

(1899) focuses and emphasizes on the common problems of women such as patriarchy and its

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pressure on women. From this point, the limitation is the analysis of the works will reveal how

patriarchy puts pressure on women and reactions of women against it.

1.5 Significance of the Study

This study has theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, the result of this study

may be useful in developing information for the application of literary theory. And also this

study is able to augment the knowledge especially about women’s counteraction to restriction

that described on Chopin’s The Awakening.

Practically, this study is suggested to be source in literary criticism and become

additional reference to enhance and develop the knowledge, especially analyze the novel.

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

In the second chapter, the researcher will discuss several references which are related to

the research problem. In order to make the readers get understanding about this study. So this

study will reveal a literary criticism, feminism literary theory, and terms which are necessary to

emphasize.

2.1 A Literary Criticism.

Language the word literature has meaning of the beautiful writing; actually the word

literature is form Latin that has meaning grammatical and poem. In romantic Era the word

literature has meaning something creation and it is the emotion of the author or character in

literary work (Iswalono, 2002: 65).

Definition of literature is language arts. The point is the birth of a literary work is to be

enjoyed by readers. To be able to enjoy a literary work seriously and takes good knowledge of

the literature. Literary work is not a science. Literary work is an art, in which many human

elements that go in them, especially the feeling (Fanani: 2000: 33).

Literary criticism consists of those writings which interpret the meanings of nature and

life in words, touched with personality of the author. Literature is the total of preserved writings

belonging to a given language of people and the class or total of writings, of a given country or

period which is notable for literary form or expression, as distinguished (William: 1997).

According to Culler, literary work plays in different modes and has different content than

its literal. A literary work is the creation and organization of signs which produces a human

world charged with meaning. This also signifies that readers always find the meaning of a

literary work by comparing it to the real world in order to get the meaning (Culler, 1977: 189).

Basically, the literature is very useful in life, because literature can provide awareness to

the reader about the truths of life, although depicted in the form of fiction. Literary works can

give joy and inner satisfaction. This is the kind of entertainment intellectual and spiritual

entertainment. Literary works can also be used as experience to work, because anyone can pour

hearts and minds in a state of the art of writing (Dutton, 1997: 38).

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2.2 Feminist, Feminist Criticism

The words 'feminist' or 'feminism' are political labels indicating support for the aims of

the new women's movement which emerged in the late 1960s. 'Feminist criticism', then, is a

specific kind of political discourse: a critical and. theoretical, practice committed to the struggle

against patriarchy and sexism, not simply a concern for gender in literature, at least not if the

latter is presented as no more than another interesting critical approach on a par with a concern

for sea-imagery or metaphors of war in medieval poetry. It is a view that, provided they are

compatible with her politics, a feminist critic can use whichever methods or theory she likes.

There are, of course, different political views within the feminist camp. The point here is not to

try to unify or totalize these differences, but simply to insist that recognizable feminist criticism

and theory must in some way be relevant to the study of the social, institutional and personal

power relations between the sexes: what Kate Millett in her epochal study called sexual politics.

For Millett, the 'essence of politics is power', and the task of feminist critics and theorists is to

expose the way in which male dominance over females (which constitutes her simple and

versatile definition of 'patriarchy') constitutes 'perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture

and provides its most fundamental concept of power'.

The term “feminism” has become misconstrued and negatively associated in the 21 st

century. “Essential feminism suggests anger, humorlessness, militancy, unwavering principles,

and a prescribed set of rules for how to be a proper feminist woman, or at least a proper white,

heterosexual, feminist woman—hate pornography, unilaterally decry the objectification of

women, don’t cater to the male gaze, hate men, hate sex, focus on career, don’t shave” (Gay,

2012). The source of this strife can be found within feminism’s constantly shifting foundation; as

the world evolves, so do the problems that women face. What women once picketed and

protested for is now a modern day convenience. Feminism, “a movement whose primary purpose

is to achieve quality, in all realms, between men and women [is being ridiculed because] articles

make it seem like there is, in fact, a right way to be a woman and a wrong way to be a woman.

And the standard appears to be ever changing and unachievable” (Gay, 2012). This evolution

would not be an issue were it not for the fact that “our culture is deeply committed to clearly

demarcated sex differences, called masculine and feminine, that revolve on first, a complex gaze-

apparatus; and second, dominance-submission patterns” (Kaplan in Johnson, 2009). In lieu of

this evolution, feminism is now broken into three distinctive “waves.”

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First-wave feminism “refers to a period of feminist activity during the 19 th and early

twentieth century throughout the world, particularly in the United Kingdom, Canada, the

Netherlands and United States. It focused on de jure (officially mandated) inequalities, primarily

on gaining women’s suffrage (the right to vote) (“First-wave feminism,” 2013). Within the

United States, first-wave feminism can be seen as women attempting to gain the same rights as

men. Feminists “were more moderate and conservative than radical or revolutionary,” and yet

they advocated for shared ownership of children, allowing them to have a say in their children’s

wills, wages, and granting them the right to inherit property (“First-wave feminism,” 2013).

Feminism, being traced back to Christine de Pizan in the 15 th century, concluded its first “wave”

in 1920 with the addition of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution—

granting women the right to vote (McHugh, 2009).

Second-wave feminism contains many aspects of first-wave feminism; however, second-

wave feminism also includes the aspiration for distinctively female-only rights. Advocacy for

abortion, marital rape laws, against the objectification of the female body, and battered women’s

rights was seen predominately within this “wave.” Beginning in the 1960s, “in the United States

the movement was initially called the Women’s Liberation Movement and lasted through the

early 1980s” (Second-wave feminism,” 2013). “Molly Haskell in From Reverence to Rape: The

Treatment of Women in the Movies, ‘suggests that the typical female character of the sixties and

seventies films is ‘a mail-order cover girl: regular featured, [with an] inability to convey any

emotion beyond shock or embarrassment and an inarticulateness that was meant to prove her

“sincerity” (Johnson, 2009). Widely credited for starting second-wave feminism is Betty

Friedan’s 1963 bestselling book, The Feminine Mystique—in which she “explicitly objected to

the mainstream media image of women, stating that placing women at home limited their

possibilities, and wasted talent and potential. The perfect nuclear family image depicted and

strongly marketed at the time, she wrote, did not reflect happiness and was rather degrading to

women” (Epstein, 1988).

Third-wave feminism within the United States “is a term identified with several diverse

strains of feminist activity and study, whose exact boundaries in historiography of feminism are

a subject of debate, but are often marked as beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to the

present” (“Third-wave feminism,” 2013). Third-wave feminism (also often referred to as post-

feminism) encompasses a much broader variety of women including “many colors, ethnicities,

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nationalities, religions and cultural backgrounds,” juxtaposed to the upper-middle-class white

women of which the second-wave predominately served (Tong, 2009). Third-wave feminism

“ideology focuses on a more post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality” (Third-

wave feminism,” 2013). Sexuality, as interpreted by the third-wave, has been embraced as a

natural part of life; and even more than that, it is something that should be celebrated as a source

of empowerment and a positive aspect of life (“Third-wave feminism,” 2013).

Third-wave feminism has expanded women’s sexual freedom and “has thrust women into

a kind of ‘double jeopardy,’ in which they are exposed to what they perceive as the demands of

the feminist world—to achieve in the public realm—even as more traditional demands on

women—to shoulder the bulk of work in the family, to present themselves as desirable sex

objects—remain in place” (Press, 2011). It is with this new sexual freedom and pressure that the

term “feminist” has acquired negative connotations. Women avoid the label “feminist,” while

men classify those under the category as “undesirable;” “all feminists are angry instead of

passionate” (Gay, 2012). The third “wave” of feminism, more so than the prior two, emulates the

complexity of a women’s journey through life and recognizes the fluidity of womanhood and its

many forms —whether she be white or of color, religious or atheist, homosexual or heterosexual

—and accepts that the term “feminist” is equivalent to “being forced into a box that cannot quite

accommodate a woman properly” (Gay, 2012).

2.3 Term of Methods

2.3.1. Space

Firstly, it is necessary to emphasize such terms as space, power and ideology which will

provide the analysis of the relations of men and women leading to the confinement and

resistance of women. Space is defined as “the outcome of social relations and more than one of

the dimensions through which the social is constructed. It is an active, constitutive, irreducible,

necessasary component in the social’s composition” (Keith and Pile, 1993: 36). From this point it

is understood that space is where the social relations come out, especially relations of men and

women. In addition to that, space is the place where hegemony occurs as Keith and Pile

emphasize.

Space can now be recognized as an active constitute compenent of hegemonic power: an

element in the fragmentation, dislocation and weakening of class power, both the medium and

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message of domination and subordination. It tells you where you are and puts you there (Keith

and Pile, 1993: 37).

It is clear that dominant group locates the opponent, the other in the space which is

defined in favour of the dominant group as seen in both novels. In the name of doing things in

favour of the dominant group, divisions are constructed.

Hegemonic power does not simply manipulate naively given differences between

individuals and social groups, it actively produces and reproduces difference as a key strategy to

create and maintain modes of social and spatial divisions that are advantageous to its continued

empowerment (Keith and Pile, 1993: 185).

As Soja states, the dominant group provides divisions, differences in favour of itself.

These divisions provide the seperateness, otherness as he claims. “Such differences as are

ascribed to gender, sexual practice, race, class, region, nation, etc. are thus primarily brute

fashionings which are neither transhistorical nor natural (in the sense of being naively or

existentially given)” (Qtd in Keith and Pile, 1993: 185).

2.3.2. Ideology

The idea of resisting in a confined space is as crucial as ideology for the analysis of both

works in order to reveal the control of women by men. So, it is necessary to comprehend the

meaning and function of the term.

Ideology is the discourse that invests a nation or society with meaning. It is a system of

ideas that explains, makes sense of society. But making sense is predominantly the domanin of

the ruling classes who assume their right to rule as natural. It is the practice of reproducing social

relations of inequality (Hayward,2009: 215).

As Hayward states, ideology becomes a tool of men as it is for space to set inequalities in

favour of them against women. Similarly, Althusser points out how ideology becomes a way of

ruling. He states that behind the relations between simple ideas there thus stand relations of

force, which place certain ideas in power (those which can be schematically called the ruling

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ideology) and hold other ideas in submission (which can be called the oppressed ideology), until

the relation of force is changed (Althusser, 2003 : 171).

2.3.3. Power

From this point the power itself is important. Foucault defines power as “power is what

prohibits, what prevents people doing something” (Qtd in Kritzman, 1998: 102). This definition

of term totally explains what is done for the confinement of women. Men as the group who rules

and has the power brings bans or prohibitions according to what they want. In this perspective,

Foucault emphasizes that “to say that sex is not repressed, or rather that the relationship between

sex and power is not characterized by repression, is to risk falling into a sterile paradox”

(Foucault, 1978: 8).

In addition to that, Foucault states that “sexuality in so far as it is, in very society is a

good area to test what the mechanisms of power actually are” (Qtd in Kritzman, 1988: 102). He

points out the relation between sex and power and emphasizes that sex and sexuality are the

areas where the power of hegemony is tested. But, he states the outcome of resistance against the

power by saying that “I am just saying: as soon as there is power relation, there is possibility of

resistance” (Qtd in Kritzman, 1988: 123). As he states, women resistance come out whenever

power of the ruling class comes against them as it happens in the novels.

In addition to that, by depending on the evaluation of Foucault, Keith claims that all these

concepts as power, space and ideology in the society have connections as put forth in his work

Place and Politics of Identity (1993). “Foucault persistently explored the connections between

knowledge, power and spatiality and maintained that the transition from temporal to spatial

metaphors enabled a discursive shift from the realm of individual consciousness to wider

relations of power as constitutive of social meaning” (Keith and Pile, 1993: 73).

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CHAPTER III

METHOD

The researcher would like to describe the research design, data collection method, data

analysis method and sample of data and the analysis.

3.1. Research Design

Literary criticism is one of a literary study. Literature is the branch of literature that

focuses on the study of literature directly to identify, analyze, classify and provide an assessment

of the literature. Literature has a very important position in the study of literature. Literary

criticism is often associated with criticism and appreciation of literature as directly related to the

appreciation of literary works (Teeuw, 2008: 35).

The researcher uses literary criticism as her research design to organize this study

because literary criticism is careful observation. Literature usually gives a due consideration to

good or bad quality, value and truth of a literary work, especially in the novel The Awakening by

Kate Chopin.

To find a more complete explanation about The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the

researcher uses Feminist Literary Theory. Marx filed a fundamental conception of class society

and struggle. Marx did not define a class at length, but he showed that in the community, in the

19th century in Europe where he lived, consisting of the capitalist class (bourgeoisie), middle

class and the lower class as the proletariat. These classes are in a hierarchical social structure, the

bourgeois exploitation of the proletariat in the production process. Strain relations between the

proletariat and the bourgeoisie encourage the formation of large social movements, namely the

revolution. Tension occurs if the proletariat has been aware of the exploitation of the bourgeoisie

against them (Giddens, 1986: 45).

3.2. Data Source

Data source in this study is a feminist literature genre novel of Kate Chopin, The

Awakening. This novel contains of 303 pages, and also was published on April 22, 1899. The

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researcher also downloaded The Awakening which is published by Boson Book. This e-book is

composed of 162 pages. However, it covers selected short stories only.

3.3 Data Collection Method

In collecting the data, the researcher does several steps. First, the researcher got a novel

The Awakening. Second, the researcher download e-book English novel. Third, the researcher

reads the novel Kate Chopin’s The Awakening to get a feminism view from the story of the

novel. Fourth, the researcher identifies and arranges the data based on feminist’s waves: the first

wave, the second wave, and the third wave.

3.4 Data Analysis Method

There are some steps to analyze the data as follows; first, the researcher

emphasizes such terms as Space, Power, and Ideology which will provide the analysis of the

relations of men and women leading to the confinement and resistance of women. Space is

defined as “the outcome of social relations and more than one of the dimensions through which

the social is constructed. “power is what prohibits, what prevents people doing something” (Qtd

in Kritzman, 1998: 102). This definition of term totally explains what is done for the

confinement of women. Ideology is the discourse that invests a nation or society with meaning. It

is a system of ideas that explains, makes sense of society. Secondly, within the light of all this

theoretical information, how men confine women and women resist this confinement will be

studied. Finally, the researcher makes a conclusion about the social class Kate Chopin’s The

Awakening.

3.5 Sample of Data and the Analysis

The First Data

He reproached his wife with her intention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was

not a mother’s place to look after the children, whose on earth was it? He himself had his hands

full with his brokerage business. He could not be in two places at once; making a living for his

family on the street, and staying at home to see that no harm befell them (Chopin, 2012: 5).

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ANALYSIS

The Awakening by Kate, tells unorthodox views of married woman called Edna about

womanhood, motherhood and her feminine perspective about the location of women in a male

dominated society which is ruled by Creoles in southern part of the United States of America.

Her husband thinks that she is required to be at home looking after children and he needs to do

business outside. His idea reflects the space of women, how she will live and the male society

becomes the determiner of all these.

The Second Data

Mademoiselle, I am going to move away from my house on Espelanade Street ‘Just two

steps away’ laughed Edna in a little four – room house around the corner. It looks so cozy so

inviting, restful, whenever I pass by, and it’s for rent. I’m tired looking after that big house. It

never seemed like mine anyway- like home. It’s too much trouble. The house the money that

providers for it, are not mine, Isn’t that enough reason? (Chopin, 2012: 57).

ANALYSIS

This situation is also set to provide the differences between man and woman in order to

continue empowerment of male dominant society as mentioned before. But as a resistance, Edna

shows manly acts in contrast to what is expected from her as a woman in the society. “ ‘I will

take some brandy’, said Edna shivering as she removed her gloves and overshoes. She drank the

liquor from the glass as a man would have done” (Chopin, 2012: 56). She resists by her manly

acts to the definitions which will provide otherness and submission of women. Because, by such

patriarchal definitions of women who are considered to be at home and be womanly as manners,

and definitions of men who are considered to be outside for business, the mobility of men

expands while women’s shrink. So that woman world, space are confined. But as Radcliffe

states, women resist by moving and that’s what Edna does in the story. She can’t stand

confinement so decides to move a new house.

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The Third Data

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother- woman. The mother women seemed to prevail

that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting

wings when any harm, real or imaginary threatened their precious brood. They were women who

idealized their children worshipped their husband, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface

themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels (Chopin, 2012: 7).

ANALYSIS

When women resist, men continue to set confinement on women by ideology. In this

perspective as Althusser tells, society aims to embrace dominant ideology of man which aims to

keep women at home looking after the children. In this perspective, the novel reveals the ideal

woman perception of men in the period.

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Chopin, Kate. 2012. The Awakening. Oxford: Soho Books.

Chopin, Kate. 1995. The Awakening and the Selected Short Stories. Raleigh: Boson Books.

http://www.bosonbooks.com/boson/oldies/awakening.pdf

Culler, Jonathan. 1997. Literary Theory. Oxford University Press. Oxford New York.

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