The c haracterization theories are really needed to discover Alice’s life that
she had experienced. Those theories are not only used to find out the characteristic of the character but also the treatments from other elements in her environment, her
life experience, her struggle to face the pressure, her suffers, and so on. These theories can be helpful to answer the first problem formulation and even the second
problem formulation. Since this study focuses on the female or women characters, the feminism
theory is really helpful to determine what Alice as the female character do which reflect and show the idea of feminism as our concern. We need to find out the value
of women itself and what movements are done by Alice when she faces her life and some pressures from her environment. And we can find out what men do to limit
women movement and their rights, and dominate over the women, we can call it as patriarchy
. In this story, of course we concern to Alice’s society, we can find out what her society especially the men give to her, everything that maybe limit Alice
movement. This theory is really helpful to bring the idea of feminism closer to us and answer both problem formulations.
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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The literary work that the researcher discusses in this study is a novel by Alice Nannup with Lauren Marsh and Stephen Kinnane, entitled When The Pelican
Laughed. This novel was first published in 1992 by Fremantle Arts Centre Press, and reprinted in 1992, 1993, 1996, and 2000. This novel has 225 pages and divided
into 4 parts. This novel is based on Autobiography of Alice Nannup. T
his novel tells us about Alice Nannup’s life from she was a young girl until she became a great-grandmother. The story of this novel is set in Australia. In the
beginning, Alice also tells a story about her relationship with her mother and her life as a little girl in the society where she lived. She lived with her parents and her
sister. She has an aborigine mother while her father is a white man. She knew the truth when she got older.
Her life was apprehensive since she was taken from her family and society to work as domestic servant and sent to a dorm with a terrible treatment. In the
beginning she was offered to get an education, but she ended in the settlement and trained as a servant. She began to get some pressure with that environment and
sometimes she fought back for her right, freedom and dignity. She moved from one place to another and worked for various masters. She got
both good and bad experience when she worked as a servant but she kept struggling to get a better life.
Then, in her adulthood, she came back to the settlement and met a guy, and then she married him. She began her journey with her husband. She and her husband
had to struggle to raise their children. She moved from one place to another place to work and get a better life.
In her old age, she finally could go back to her hometown and met the rest of her family who she left behind when she was taken to the settlement. She spent
her old age in Geraldton and she was happy that she was able to live peacefully. This novel is focus on Alice and also her Mother’s life and struggle as an
aboriginal woman in her society that dominated by man and white people. They had to survive by travel from one place to another in order to get better life. Sometimes
they had to experience the suffers from the law that existed in their society.
B. Approach of the Study
As this research focuses on the female character, the researcher uses Feminism as an Approach to analyze the literary work that has a women or female
character as the main concern. Indeed, feminism has often focused upon what is absent rather than what is
present, reflecting concern with the silencing and marginalization of women in a patriarchal culture, a culture organized in the favor of men Guerin,
2005: 222-223.
From the quotation above, using Feminism to analyze this novel can help the researcher know more about the characteristic of Alice as an aborigine woman, her
