Object of the Study

Here, it can be seen that the struggle of the indigenous people is that they still find themselves remain colonized and under the white occupation and it is all expressed through their writings. A postcolonial study according to the definition of post-colonial theory in Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory also deals with any study that concerns to examine the culture of former colonies of the European empires and its relation to the rest of the world. It also deals with the issues of racism and exploitation Makaryk, 1993: 155. Hans Bertens, in Literary Theory: The Basics stated the post-colonial theorists focuses on the victims of the Eurocentric thought, racism, politics, and exploitation Bertens, 2008: 159. In other words, the post-colonial study deals with the result of the European colonization or in one way or another in which the people are victimized by the European thoughts in many ways also became the victims of the racism as well as exploited. Bertens also stated that the post- colonial theorists agree that their focus in on the colonial, oppression, resistance to colonization, and other themes that what becomes the central of these interests are issues of race, indigeneity, ethnicity, language, gender, identity, class, and power Bertens, 2008: 162. In short, postcolonialism focuses on the effects of the colonization to its colonized. The effects as the results of the colonization have raised the issues of resistance, suppression, oppression, race, gender, class, etc. Postcolonialism as an approach, thus examines these issues revealed in the literary works. As in this study postcolonialism is chosen as the approach to reveal the struggle of Alice to resist the discrimination by the whites. This approach is the most appropriate in this study because the main focus of this study is to reveal Alice‘s resistance. Furthermore, the autobiography that is used by the writer contains events that contain the issues of racism, exploitation, and other discrimination acts based on race. By using this approach the writer expects to reveal the struggle of the character in resisting the discrimination that the character went through.

C. Method of the Study

The writer used library research as the method for this study. As the writer used the library research for this study, the writer had collected data from the literary books, books that contained literary approaches and theories and other books which contained all the information needed for this study. Some information were also obtained from the online sources. The primary source of this study is of course taken from the text of the autobiography When the Pelican Laughed by Alice Nannup itself. Whereas, the secondary sources that the writer used are the books about literary criticisms. Some books used by the writer as the secondary sources are Reading and Writing about Literature, Theory of Literature, Literary Theory, A Handbook to Literature, and other books which support the completion of the study. To answer the problem formulation of the study, there were some steps taken by the writer. The first step was the writer applied the close reading by