Review of Related Studies

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A. Review of Related Studies

Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Al-Sanea was released in 2005 in Arabic as Al- Sanea s debut as a writer. Girls of Riyadh is a sensational novel that caused a controversy and was banned in Saudi Arabia. There are already some studies done by some other researchers on the novel Girls of Riyadh. The first study is done by Eska Dwi Palupi. In her undergraduate study entitled The Roles of Family and Women on Saudi Arabia Tradition of Marriage as Revealed in Rajaa Al-Sanea s Girls of Riyadh, Palupi analyzes the phenomenon that happen in the novel through the social-cultural point of view. She focuses on the phenomenon of marriage in the relation of the roles of family and women in Saudi Arabia society that is revealed in the novel. In Saudi Arabia society, marriage is controlled or arranged by the family. Meaning to say that men and women can only get married under the approval of the family. As Palupi states that The other roles of family on marriage can be seen on when the family becomes the decision maker on who marries who and whether a couple can get married or not. The guardian or wali father or other close male family member is the one who has responsibility in selecting a family member s marriage partner. It also can be seen that family s approval is the most important license to get married. When their family rejects their partner, there is nothing they can do but accept it 2010: 48. Saudi Arabia society is a patriarchal society, but in the case of marriage life, women have an important role in the family. The roles of women on the marriage tradition in Saudi Arabia are quite a lot. A woman as a mother has a big role in the family. Mother becomes the decisive voice related to the household expenditures, the upbringing and education for children, and sometimes in the marriage arrangements. Woman as a husband s companion is demanded to be a good wife. She should devote her life for her husband 2010: 48. Even though the Saudi Arabia society is a patriarchal society, which means the absolute power is in the hand of men, women in family have their own place to control some matters that they also have power over some things in their family. Another study about Girls of Riyadh is by Moneera Al-Ghadeer. In her article Girls of Riyadh: A New Technology Writing or Chick Lit Defiance Banat al-Riyad Girls of Riyadh, Al-Ghadeer analyzes the way the text is written in the form of emails as the other of literature . The chick writing style is used by the narrator in order to reveal the phenomenon of youth especially young women in Saudi Arabia. It becomes a media to see the hidden circumstance among youngsters there. Al-Ghadeer states that The narrative is a peephole into what a young woman sees in her society and captures what goes inside the hearts and minds of her girlfriends, the younger generation 2006: 299. http:www.jstor.orgstable4183570 The narration is written in the form of emails and the narrator shows the reactions of the email readers in the novel who are Saudi Arabian youngster that are mostly women. This is the way the author reveals the hidden circumstance or phenomenon among youngsters in Saudi Arabia society. The narrator uses the Internet as the medium to discover the truth among young generation that is hidden in Saudi Arabia society. Al-Gadheer states Consequently, the e-narrator evokes the echoing and referential effects of her narrative, striking fear of semblance in women readers who apparently assume that the e-narrator is exposing their stories, just like the proliferation of gossip in chat rooms or the blogosphere 2006: 298. This undergraduate thesis tries to develop another studies that have been done by another researchers as mentioned above. The first study by Eka Dwi Palupi focuses on the role of family and women in marriage life by using socio- cultural perspective while the study by Muneera Al-Gadheer focuses on the way the text is narrated and the effect of using internet as the medium to reveal a phenomenon. Unlike the previous studies, this undergraduate thesis focuses on the struggle of women against the gender discrimination by analyzing some of the major women characters as seen in Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Al-Sanea.

B. Review of Related Theories