Background of the Study
marriage had no control of her property or her children. Her status was akin to that o
f a minor or slave.”
Thus after a lot of discrimination, women begin to start their movements to fight back the men’s domination over everything; they fight for their right, and try
to bring back their dignity and also their role in daily life. One of their movements is producing some literary works that show us about their experience and how they
solve all the problems that caused by men ’s domination. In this case, literature has
a big role as a media to inform and show the struggle of women to reach the gender equality issue and to emphasize their existence in this world. They show and prove
that female is reliable in this life and they can change the world with their own power without men domination. In this case, the researcher uses a novel by Alice
Nannup entitled When The Pelican Laughed to elaborate more about how women’s
being discriminated and suffers from men’s discrimination.
According to Marjorie Boulton in The Anatomy of the Novel, the novel is a branch of fiction that developed in late in history but a relish for stories seems to be
as recorded humanity Boulton, 1975: 1. Boulton also mentions the definition of novel from
Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, ‘Novel is an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals with human experience through
a connected sequence of events’ Boulton, 1975:11. Thus, novel is a form of prose that consist a story which reflects and deals with human’s life experience.
Alice Nannup, as an author, writes her own life experience in the form of novel with the help of Lauren Marsh and Stephen Kinnane entitled When The
Pelican Laughed. She is an aborigine. She portrayed her whole life since she was a child. She tells us how she was raised by the aborigine family with all the traditions
in the aboriginal society. The aborigine was considered as a patriarchal society where the men dominated. This novel takes place in Australia where the aborigines
lived under white people ’s domination. Alice is a part of aboriginal society that
lives under the white people domination. Besides, she also has to live under men domination and obey men
’s rules in her aborigine society. In her novel she focuses on her struggle against the domination by her surrounding especially from the men
which reflects the idea of feminism. The reason why the researcher chose this topic is because we have to revalue
women’s contribution to our life and consider once again the important of women’s role in our life, Peter Barry said in Beginning Theory about feminist, so we can have
more respect to women and not thinking that woman or female is a second sex. Women need equality in all of aspects, so we have to give them chances to take part
in this life and they also have the same right as the men in all aspects of life. The researcher uses the feminist approach in literary work and some theories
on feminism to analyze this novel, and focus on Alice Basset as the main female character and also her mother, and her struggle against her own society Aborigine
and white people domination in her society. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI