Definition of Terms INTRODUCTION

from something to something else. In her work, she states that the „transformation‟ being discussed is the change from „the realistically depicted bedroom to non real landscape‟ 2009: 118. In other words, fragmentation takes charge in transfiguring new identity of something. The researcher agrees with Kolecka‟s work. It means that fragmentation can be a media in „transforming‟ a new identity. This study is a development of the other studies that have been mentioned earlier. It explains how the fragmentation as seen through the non linear plot, mixed characters coming from different period of time, and the fragmented setting are described in the play being discussed. This study also examines how the fragmentation style used in Top Girls makes a twist in each end of the scenes to trigger the audience thinking about women‟s position and the fragmentation itself as a medium in revaluing women‟s position. B. Review of Related Theories In this section, the researcher presents several theories that are applied in analyzing the work for this study. They are theory of feminism, postmodernism, and postmodern feminism. 1. Theory of Postmodernism Postmodernism is a movement originated within the arts and architecture. It is now a term which encompasses various approaches, including discourse analysis, genealogy, deconstructionism, textuality. What binds postmodernists is their rejection of modernity; they question, for instance, the Western knowledge systems, the social construction of dominant interpretations, rationality, and are concerned with forms of resistance and silenced voices Marchand and Parpart, 1995: 245. Certainly many subsequent authors have done their best to sledge-hammer these four literary cornerstones into oblivion. Either plot is pounded into small slabs of events and circumstances, characters disintegrated into a bundle of twitching desires, settings are little more than transitory backdrops, or themes become so attenuated that it is often comically inaccurate to say that certain novels are „about‟ such-and-such Sim, 2001:126. It seems that plot, character, setting and theme are several main problems for postmodernist writers. What it means by problem is that they need to find a way to deliver their message to the reader by not following the mainstream. Since the postmodernist writers distrust the wholeness and completion associated with traditional stories, they prefer to deal with other ways of structuring the narrative. As mentioned by Sim earlier, the plot, character, setting and theme might be divided into several parts in order to restructure the narrative. Postmodernist writers distrust the unity only as a narrating style and method. They believe that unity can not really help them to voice their main idea. Thus, they prefer what so called as fragmentation which can be both a method and a writing style. Generally, fragmentation itself means the breaking of something. The text is broken into pieces so that the reader needs to rearrange it in order to get the message. Fragmentation is merely a piece that has survived the destruction of a whole Hart, 2004: 69. Therefore it is considered as an import ant „part‟ of the literary work. Fragmentation points a hidden center in each part. Therefore, it signifies the breaking rather than building up of information, to form a structure that would convey a hidden message, the reflection on concepts of reality and on its own status in reality. As such, postmodern drama addresses the fragmentation and constructiveness of every version of the real Schmidt, 2005: 19. “That narratives are discredited and fragmented is no reason to assume that they need always be so. This merely poses us a problem that we must direct our efforts towards resolving” Sim, 2001: 33. Fragmentation exists of course for a certain reason. The aim of breaking down the narratives into pieces is to help the reader to reach an agreement of what should be done with those pieces. As mentioned earlier, since it is not for building up an information, fragmentation exists to guide the reader to dig every single detail of a story so that they could solve the „riddle‟ in the story and get the write r‟s idea. Through the pieces of text, the reader has already triggered to think why it is so which generates the first problem to solve. The next problem could be seen when the reader is able to identify the main point in each piece of the broken narratives. There is no one central meaning to any text, but a plurality of possible meanings. From such a perspective conventional criticism is a pointless act, since it is based on the notion that each text has an essential meaning which it is the critics duty to present to the reader. Active interpretation represents an explosion of this assumption, since by its manipulation of the texts language it continually discovers new meanings Sim, 2001: 179. Since a postmodern work always provides multiple meanings, interpreting is the proper way to solve the problem. Active interpretation is Derrida‟s term of not so much a reading of a text. Active interpretation here is in the standard sense of a critical interpretation, or „explication de texte‟ Derrida calls it Sim, 2001:179. It is designed to reveal the texts underlying meaning. In sum, to interpret is to negotiate the value of several possible meanings in order to get the most suitable one Sim, 2001: 179-180. 2. Theory of Feminism Feminism has many divisions. In this section, there are only three divisions of feminism to be discussed. They are, radical feminism, bourgeois feminism, and