organizations merged in 1890 to become the National American woman’s Suffrage Association, which later became the League of Women Voters Madsen,
2000: 6 Number pro-suffrage groups sprang up in the pre-war years: Elizabeth
Cady Stanton’s daughter, Harriet Stanton Blatch, founded the Equality League in 1907 and Alice Paul, who had been active in the British suffrage struggle,
founded the more militant Congressional Union, which later became the Women’s Party. It was the Women’s Party that first proposed the Equal Right Amendment
to Congress in 1923 – ‘Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction’- and although this move
was unsuccessful, it did lay some of the intellectual groundwork for the second wave of American Feminism in the 1960s Madsen, 2000: 6.
The Second Wave of American Feminism emerged in the early 1960s and focused upon an indictment of male sexism and the domestic oppression of
women. Betty Friedan’s the Feminine Mystique called for women to renew the struggle of the first wave which had culminated in female suffrage in 1920, but
now feminist attention was focused on the exclusion of women from the public sphere and sex-based discrimination in the work place Madsen, 2000: 7.
The raising
of women’s
consciousness of gender oppression and raising as a political issue the personal experience of that oppression were central to the
efforts of early second wave feminism Madsen, 2000: 9. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
B. Theoretical Framework
The theory of character and characterization is very important to answer the first problem in the problem formulation about how is the character of
Francesca Johnson represented in this novel. Since the second problem in the problem formulation is deal with
feminism issues that lies behind the main character of this novel, it is needed the theory which concern with the same topic, that is feminism. The theory feminism
is the theory that is applicable in order to answer the second problem formulation that is to find how Francesca Johnson reflects the life of women in the middle of
the emerging feminist movement. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The Bridges of Madison County is a novel written by Robert James Waller. Robert James Waller was born in August 1, 1939 in Rockford, Iowa. He is
an American author who is also known for his work as a photographer and musician. He received his Ph.D. in business from the Kelley School of Business at
Indiana University Bloomington in 1968. Waller later taught at the University of Northern Iowa where he was also dean of the business school. He made a seven
figure donation to his alma mater, Indiana U. Several of his books have been on the New York Times bestseller list including 1992s The Bridges of Madison
County which is the largest selling novel in history. This novel is firstly published in1992 and has been made into motion pictures.
The publication of this novel acquires a good response from the novel lovers. The story derived from the affairs which usually happen in daily life
situation. The story is about the meeting between two lonesome people, Robert Kincaid, a widower from Washington working as a photographer for National
Geographic; and Francesca Johnson, an Italian wife of local Iowan. They make affair behind Richard Johnson, Francesca’s husband which leads them to have
emotional and sexual relationship. The major theme in this novel is about the internal conflict of Francesca as
woman who is facing the situation in which she has a chance to decide her way of
20 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
life by herself, which in fact it will be the starting point for her to get freedom and happiness. The conflict arouse when Francesca should make a decision whether
she will leave her family for Robert or decide to stay in her family with all the consequences she would face. As the final decision, Francesca prefers to stay with
her family rather than to run away with Robert. Francesca and Robert keep their love feeling until they both die. Their ashes are scattered around Roseman Bridge,
one of the covered bridge in Madison County, Iowa- as the symbol of their re- union.
Adapted from the ordinary life story in a small country with all the pleasantness, this novel successfully arouses a big attention from the readers.
Years after it’s firstly published, the movie of The Bridges of Madison County was made. Almost the same with the novel which was best sold, the movie which
has the story adapted from the novel was also won for some award categories. Generally, the story in this novel is about adultery for the sake of true love
between two lonesome people. They can not bring their relationship into marriage because the main character, Francesca does not want to leave her husband.
Francesca has a reason why she can not leave her husband and her to children, because if she does it, all people in Iowa will consider her as a woman with a bad
reputation. This novel shows the representations of female stereotypes in 1960’s.
B Approach of the Study
Since the analysis in this paper is focused on Francesca’s character and the value of feminism portrayed in it, the writer take Feminist Literary Criticism.
Wilfred Guerin in his book A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature stated that Feminist Literary Criticism is an approach which concern on women
and their position.
Unlike the other approaches, feminist literary criticism is often a political attack upon other modes of criticism. It its diversity feminism is concerned
with the marginalization of all women, that is with their being relegated to a secondary position Guerin, 1999: 196
The writer thinks that this approach is the most appropriate approach to the
problem formulation. Feminist criticism uses to highlight gender stereotyping in literary form. It examines the ways in which literature has been shaped according
to issue of gender. In other words, feminist criticism is used to bolded the stereotype of gender matter in literary form.
C Method of the Study
In finishing this paper, the type of study that is used by the writer is library research. It means that the writer collects all the sources that are available, like
books of literature, criticism and dictionary. Besides that the writer also used internet as the media to collect the supporting data.
There were several steps in analyzing this novel. The first step, the writer read the primary source the novel entitled The Bridges of Madison County in
order to understand the content of the story in order to be able to make a right interpretation about this novel.
In the second step, the writer collected references that may be helpful and could be related with the study. These references were books of literature,
criticism, dictionary and also from the internet. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
