Review on Related Studies

43 the better quite dramatically with the demise of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative administration. 68

B. Review on Related Studies

Research about homosexuality in literary works has been widely discussed by many scholars, especially by western scholars in the western fiction. To mention some, the previous existing research related to lesbian literature is done by Christine A. Jenkins entitled “Young Adult Novels with GayLesbian Characters and Themes 1969-92: A Historical Reading of Content, Gender, and Narrative Distance” 69 . In this research she used sixty young adult novels as samples from 1969 up to 1992 with gaylesbian characters and themes. She examined the historical trends within this group of sixty novels, its gender representation and narrative distance. However, this research discussed only in American young adult novels and within 1969-92 period of time. In this research result, we only can see the representation of American gaylesbian and in old fiction. In this research, Jenkin successfully revealed about demographics of GayLesbian people based on their race, class, location, vocation, gender and appearance, gaylesbian teen characters, gaylesbian adult characters, their problems and pattern, and narrative distance and gender. She found from sixty novels that most of gaylesbian people are white and middle-class. Only three of the sixty books portray African-American color gaylesbian people. In addition, to 68 Seidman, FisherMeeks, ed., Handbook of the New Sexuality Studies, p. 162. 69 Jenkins Christine, Young Adult Novels with GayLesbian Characters and Themes 1969-92: A Historical Reading of Content, Gender, and Narrative Distance, 1993 44 that gaylesbian working-class of American women appear in two novels and about British men working class in two novels. Most of novels take place within a white, middle-class community, and in rural areas and small towns, urban and sub urban location. Slightly over half of the young men characters are twenty-two years old, slightly less than half men are eighteen years old and almost all of the young women are nineteen years old. The Indonesian research includes a study conducted by Ayu Abriyani Kusuma Pertiwi entitled “Lesbianisme Dalam Novel Studi Semiotika tentang Makna Lesbianisme Dalam Novel Gerhana Kembar karya Clara Ng”. This study reveals that lesbians are like common people in general who have hopes and dreams, feelings of being happy, disappointed and fear. They also feel the feeling of guilt because they consider themselves break the natural destiny of human being that God has predestined by being and living as lesbians. A research conducted by Rizky Theodorus Johan entitled “Discovering the “Others”: Unearthing Homosexual Identity Construction Selected in Indonesia Contemporary Novels and Short Stories” 70 becomes another related previous research in this study. This research examines the homosexual’s gay and lesbian identity representation in selected Indonesian novels and short stories the analysis of characters, settings, and conflicts. It also addresses the dominant homosexual image in each writings, the problems facing homosexuals in Indonesia, the writings transgression of the dominant heteronormative Indonesian society, and the features of the contemporary Indonesian homosexual writings. 70 Rizki Theodorus Johan, The Asian Conference on Literature Librarianship Official Conference Proceedings 2011, Osaka, Japan: LibrAsia, 2011 45 However, this study discusses different topic. This study is carried out to find new issues. This present study is to reveal the issues of lesbianism not only in Indonesian stories but also English language stories. Since it is a comparative study, it is done to find out the portrayal of lesbians in Indonesian and English stories: the way they perceive their feeling, sexual orientation, and relationship, the background for becoming a lesbian. The internal and external conflicts as well as discriminations which are experienced by lesbians portrayed in the short stories are presented as well, which are not discussed by the previous researchers. This research is meant do some exciting and never-before-done work in Indonesian and English language lesbian literature. Therefore, we can get some information of the issues of lesbianism not only in the Indonesian language short stories but also in the English language short stories. Moreover, the sample in this study uses the recent lesbian literary work. The material objects of this study are short stories published within 2000 th in order to gain the recent condition and situation of lesbian’s life and the issue of lesbianism in current period of time. Thus, these research results are used as references in this study.

C. Theoretical Framework