Review on Theory of Socio-Cultural Historical Approach

7

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents some theories which are relevant to the analysis of the novel. This chapter consists of three sections to be discussed: review on theory of critical approach, review of the social roles of Chinese women, and theoretical framework. Review on theory of critical approach explains the socio-cultural historical approach that is applied in this study. Review on the social roles of Chinese women consists of five main chapters that influence the stages on the Chinese women social roles. Theoretical framework explains how the theories are applied in the analysis of this study.

A. Review on Theory of Socio-Cultural Historical Approach

As the imitation of life, literary works are rich with values. This makes people give their response based on their own understanding about the works Guerin vii. In giving their responses to literary works, people apply an approach or approaches depending on what they focus on. Roughberger offers five approaches that can be implemented in the study of literature. They are “formalist, biographical, socio-cultural historical, mythopoeia, and psychological approach” 3. Since this study applied socio-cultural historical approach, the following explanation will only be about this approach. According to Rohrberger and Woods, the critics whose major interest is the socio-cultural historical approach. It agrees that society will influence the author in making literary works. They suggest two important things, “First, literature is not created in a vacuum, and second, that literature embodies ideas significant to culture that produced it” 9. It shows that whether they realize it or not, the environment really affects the author and then literature which is created by the author also gives something to the society. Society produces the culture, society also makes history, and literature comes from a society. It means that society, culture, and history have to be counted in scrutinizing a literary work. In other words, it can be said that society, culture, history, and a literary work are connected each other. Socio-cultural historical approach has some functions. As stated in Theory of Literature by Wellek and Warren,” it is the literature that had a function as a faithful recording of the features when the literary work was made”. In addition, he argued that “literature preserved the most picturesque and expressive representation of manners; literature was primarily a treasury of costumes and customs, and also a source book for the history of civilization” 102-103. In socio-cultural historical approach, literary works have the same function as a history book that is for the source of information about what happened in the past, but literary works are special because the author is able to portray the condition artistically. Besides, according to Wilbur Scott “art is not created in a vacuum” 646 meaning that the author is influenced by many things such as his environment, experiences, ideology, and memories when the writer produces a literary work. Therefore, socio-cultural historical approach is very helpful to be applied in this study since there must be relation between author’s life history and hisher work.

B. Review on the Social Roles of Chinese Women