Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Human life cannot be separated from the existence of a work of art, and literature is a work of art that uses language as its media. Literature is one of the most creative and universal ways of expressing the emotions, spirituality, and intellectual concerning humankind. Literature is the coloring of one’s imagination in an attempt to make sense of one’s lives. Literature itself has been traditionally classified into three genres; prose, poetry, and drama. Each genre still has subgenres and one of the subgenres of prose is novel. In Mastering English Literature, Richard Gill states that a novel is a world specially made in words by the author 1985:77. Peck and Coyle stated that novels present a documentary picture of life. Alongside the fact that novels look at the people in society, the other major characteristic of the genre is that novels tell a story. Most novelist focus on the tension between individuals and the society in which they live, and the novelist tell and describe the social life and society, Peck and Coyle, 1984:102. The novel basically can portray the reality of everyday life, because they can be used as a document to study issues in society. The novelists themselves might have inherited a recording of reality that made an impression on them and chooses to expand it into a literary work of art, splashed around in a canvas what will eventually turn into a living masterpiece. In relation to the focus, the phenomenon of feminism has become a major subject in today’s society since it rose up in the nineteenth century. Feminist theory now aims to question gender inequalities and to cause change in areas where there are Universitas Sumatera Utara differences of power in gender and sexuality. The real question related to feminism might not be ‘what is feminism?’ but why have women not been treated as equals and what has been the source of men’s prejudice against women? Feminism has argued that women are basically useful as men on the basis that there are no differences between men and women. However in this context, Nugroho 2008:62 have stated that this is not biological or sexual difference but more of a cultural construction. Any form of stereotyping, objectification, breach of human rights, or gendersexuality- based oppression is a feminist issue. The issues of feminism can be based on many aspects but in this study linking to the literary source that is being analyzed, the issue is mainly based on women’s role in society and how particular oppression is put on them and affecting their life. The Bell Jar consists of this issue where women experience a situation where they feel like they don’t belong to a certain society because of the various social oppressions that is forced on them. The reality that we live in now still consists of these kinds of problem where there occurs a conflict between a women and herself about what she wants to do in life but instead the society around her chooses the life she should be living. These things might not occur very often nowadays because we have already entered the modern era where women are successful, but to some women’s experience there are struggle and pressure for her to live the life she truly desire. The society forces her to do what they want. Feminist literary criticism focuses on the struggle of women to free themselves from the domination of patriarchal culture. Looking more into the power of feminist critique it is clear that there is no separation between literature and the society therefore literary works should be studied along with its cultural context. Universitas Sumatera Utara The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath’s first novel that went on to become a shocking, realistic and popular novel. It is actually a semi-autobiographical novel based on her own life experience but she used different names and places. The book shows many reference to real people and events in Plath’s life distorted through the glass of a ‘bell jar’. It was first published in London in 1963 by William Heinemann Limited. Sylvia Plath used the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, this is because she did not think it was a ‘serious work’ and she also worried that the people close to her might be offended by the personalities she included in the book. In fact, Plath had put so many details of the peoples real lives into The Bell Jar that they could never look at each other again, and that it had caused the breakup of her marriage and possibly others. The story is written and takes place in New York and Boston in the 1950s where in America at the time still had a defined role for men and women. The society had been stuck to this idea that it affects the main character and her journey of becoming someone she desires. It was also the time in America where women were trying to step up their social status. The book tells the events of what the main character ‘Esther Greenwood’ experience in a time period of six months and is told directly from her point of view. She struggles to face society that gives her problems as well as struggle to live by the existing constructed social norms and traditions. Plath told the reasons for writing The Bell Jar to her mother, “What Ive done is to throw together events from my own life, fictionalizing to add colour- its a pot boiler really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown.... Ive tried to picture my world and the people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar. She also stated her novel as an autobiographical apprentice work which I had to write in order to free myself from the past. Plath’s The Bell Jar does not only tell about the social oppression towards Universitas Sumatera Utara women, but it is also a portrayal of social realities. Novel is a work of art which enables us to enter into the world that is created by the writer and can feel what the writer want to express about the writer’s own life. It shows how Plath herself has experienced as her character in the novel. Esther falls into mental breakdown just the same as Plaths own experiences that underwent mental depression. Although the ending is different, Plath chose to end her own life whereas Esther’s life will be determined by the readers how she will continue it. In this study, the writer wants to explain that novel is one of the most effective tools in presenting certain problems or ideas. Novels can also bring certain messages and hidden intentions from the author or certain social situations. The Bell Jar is one of the countless novels launched in the world of literature that has touched so many aspects of reality from its intrinsic sides and also its extrinsic. This study is hoped to send a message or a lesson for women living in society. Sylvia Plath has not only transferred her own life’s reflection “through the distorting lens of a bell jar” in the novel but she has made readers enter her world and mind, we can understand what she thought about the society.

1.2 Problem of the Study