Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Repression is very close to life. Sometimes people are not aware of the situation that they are repressed. The treatments that people get are different from one another. Home is one of Toni Morrison’s works,it shows the African- American experiences of slavery, poverty, repression and freedom. This novel was published in 2012. Toni Morrison is an African-American Novelist who was born on February 18 th 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, United States. She wrote about her observation of the blacks’ experience especially within black society. The novel includes native American, African, and mixed-race characters. All of them are looking for a place in this new world. The main character Frank Money as a black Korean war veteran who has returned from an integrated army tried to protect his sister, Ycidra and found a safe place to life. On the other hand, he felt that the place where they lived was uncomfortable for him because of many reasons. One of the reasons was about the repression and class of people who lived there. Tony Morrison showed the blacks’ experience of repression in the black community itself influencing the life of colored people through her work entitled Home. Repression ended as the end of Civil War but the class repression does exist. The act of repression can be found in some of literature books as mentioned in Louis Tyson book I have known many fine white students who were so ill-informed concerning the realities of race in America that they believed racism ended with the civil war. Unfortunately, though, the evils of slavery are still with us today in a heritage of racial bias that is so thoroughly built into American law, politics, and social behavior that many white Americans are unable to see it Tyson, 2011:207. The statement above can become the proof that the bad treatments do exist. It shows the repression of the upper class toward the lower class. It is interesting to understand why it happens and how the repression can be revealed. He gives also the evidence that happened in America which describes the repression Discriminatory laws spotlight drug activity in poor black neighborhoods and have resulted in increased police surveillance in these areas, while drug activity in middle and upper class white neighborhoods is largely ignored. In fact, although the majority of drug users of all kinds in the United States are white, the majority of inmates serving prison sentences for drug-related offences are black Tyson, 2011:207. According to Louis Tyson repression also happened in the action of law by his statement above. Law of drug seemed only concerned in poor black neighborhoods. The repression about law which is shown in the work of literature can be seen and analyzed using African American theory as he stated in his book about African American theory. The work of literature by Toni Morrison which is told about African American story entitled Home showed how social status has the big impact for the black characters in the story. In this study the writer wants to analyze why social class has a big impact for people to repress or discriminate other people who are considered of having lower classes. Studying about class can help people to know that being repressed person who has negative stereotypes can cause repression toward other people whom they think are the inferior and make people as human break the human rights. Toni Morrison’s Home used by the writer because this work is suitable because Morrison’s puts the issue ofthe repression. The writer wants to reveal what exactly that the author did not explain clearly. The writer wants to reveal the reactions of the main characters toward class repression by analyzing the characterization of the main characters. By studying this work hopefully it can be used tohelp people see the effects of negative stereotypes. Those kinds of point of view can cause people to repress other people which were happening at that time in African American society. It becomes the learning point that people as human being should treat other people in the same way without any repression.

B. Problem Formulation