Identity crisis of mixed race people as the result of inferior mindset as seen in Lo-Arna in Hyllus Maris and Sonia Borg`s Women of the Sun - USD Repository
IDENTITY CRISIS OF MIXED RACE PEOPLE
AS THE RESULT OF INFERIOR MINDSET AS SEEN
IN LO-ARNA IN HYLLUS MARIS AND SONIA BORG’S WOMEN OF
THE SUN
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requitments for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
AGUS RIDHO EPENDI Student Number: 034214073
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2012
A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis
IDENTITY CRISIS OF MIXED-RACE PEOPLE
AS THE RESULT OF INFERIOR MINDSET AS SEEN
IN LO-ARNA IN HYLLUS MARIS AND SONIA BORG’S
WOMEN OF THE SUN
By Agus Ridho Ependi
Student Number : 034214073 Approved by
Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka M. Hum. February 15, 2012 Advisor Tatang Iskarna, S.S., M.Hum. February 15, 2012 Co-Advisor
A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis Identity Crisis of Mixed-Race People as the Result of Inferior Mindset as Seen in Lo-Arna in Hyllus Maris and Sonia Borg’s Women of the Sun
By Agus Ridho Ependi
Student Number: 034214073 Defended before the Board of Examiners
On February 20, 2012 And Declared Acceptable
BOARD OF EXAMINERS Name Signature
Chariman : Dr, F.X. Siswadi. M.A _____________ Secretary : Tatang Iskarna. S.S., M.Hum _____________ Member : Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka M.Hum _____________ Member : Tatang Iskarna. S.S., M.Hum _____________ Member : Elisa Dwi Wardani, S.S., M.Hum _____________
Yogyakarta, February 29, 2012 Faculty of Letters Sanata Dharma University Dean
Dr. F.X. Siswadi .M.A
EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL AT ITS TIME
This undergraduate thesis is dedicated To my parents,
Love you Dad and Mom
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all I would like to thank to God for everything You’ve blessed me in my life. All the good things and hard things are Your bless so that I can get through everything so well.
I believe that in my work in finishing this thesis I gain so many hands to help me through. I would like to thank to my thesis advisor, Drs. Hirmawan
Wijanarka M. Hum., who has given me the chance to finish this thesis. I would
like to thank to my co-advisor Tatang Iskarna, S.S., M.Hum., who gives me a very nice suggestion in completing my thesis.
I would like to say thanks to my friends: The Gamezone brotherhood (Dalijo, Topeng, Becak, Jembut Hunter, Bawok, Gareng, Ucok, Cimot, Andre,Haba, Pak Mije, MasKas), and also the other member of The Gamezone brotherhood who is now not in Jogja (Aya, Poci, Adit). Special thanks go to Dalijo who helps me so much in my life, another brother from different parents.
Lastly, to my parents, Dad, Mom, my brother and sister, thank you so much for the support. You are everything in my life.
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawan ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Agus Ridho Ependi Nomor Mahasiswa : 034214073
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
IDENTITY CRISIS OF MIXED-RACE PEOPLE AS THE RESULT OF INFERIOR MINDSET AS SEEN
IN LO-ARNA IN HYLLUS MARIS AND SONIA BORG’S
WOMEN OF THE SUN
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberi royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis. Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal: 29 FEBRUARI 2012 Yang menyatakan,
Agus Ridho Ependi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE .................................................................................................... iAPPROVAL PAGE .......................................................................................... ii
ACCEPTANCE PAGE ..................................................................................... iii
MOTTO PAGE ................................................................................................. iv
DEDICATION PAGE ....................................................................................... v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................. vi
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN ................................................... vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................. viii
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................... ix
ABSTRAK ........................................................................................................... x
CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION .................................................................. 1
A. Background of the Study ......................................................................... 1 B. Problem Formulation ............................................................................... 3 C. Objectives of Study ................................................................................. 3 D. Definition of Terms ................................................................................. 4CHAPTER II : THEORETICAL REVIEW .................................................. 5
A. Review of Related Studies ...................................................................... 5 B. Review of Related Theories .................................................................... 7 C. Theoretical Framework ........................................................................... 15CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY ............................................................... 16
A. Object of the Study .................................................................................. 16 B. Approach of the Study ............................................................................. 17 C. Method of the Study ................................................................................ 18CHAPTER IV : ANALYSIS ............................................................................ 19
A. How does the character of Lo-Arna and her father shown in thestory? ....................................................................................................... 21
B. How are inferiority and superiority reflected through the character of Lo-Arna and her father? .......................................................................... 34
C. How does identity crisis appear in the character of Lo-Arna? ................ 44
CHAPTER V : CONCLUSION ....................................................................... 51
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................. 56APPENDIX ....................................................................................................... 58
ABSTRACT
AGUS RIDHO EPENDI (2011). Identity Crisis of Mixed-race people as the
Result of Inferior mindset as seen in Lo-Arna in Hyllus Maris and Sonia
Borg’s Women of the Sun. Yogyakarta. Department of English Letters, Faculty
of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
This thesis is focussing on a novel entitled Women of the Sun, written by Hyllus Maris and Sonia Borg. This novel talks about native people of Australia before and during the colonialization. This novel talks about five main women characters: Towradgi, Alinta, Maydina, Nerida, and Lo-Arna who experience the effect of colonialism, and their fight against it. The writer is focussing on the character of Lo-Arna who has an identity crisis after she finds out her true identity being borne as mixed-race.
The aims of this study are : first, to describe the character of Lo-Arna and her father, Doug Cutler; secondly, to explain how the character of Lo-Arna as the representation of Aborigine people and her father Doug Cutler as the representation of White people; thirdly, to explain how identity crisis may appear in the character of Lo-Arna.
The method which is used in this study is library research, since all the data that are required are acquired from references available in the library. The writer is also using postcolonialism approach to arrange the analysis. This approach helps the writer to find the reason why the identity crisis appears.
The result of the study shows that the character of Lo-Arna has an identity crisis since the Aborigine people are colonized by White people so that she cannot take the fact that she inherit the blood of the Aborigine people, a colonized people.
ABSTRAK
AGUS RIDHO EPENDI (2011). Identity Crisis of Mixed-race People as the
Result of Inferior Mindset as seen in Lo-Arna in Hyllus Maris and Sonia
Borg’s Women of the Sun. Yogyakarata: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra,
Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Penelitian ini difokuskan pada sebuah novel yg berjudul Women of the Sun, yg ditulis oleh Hyllus Maris dan Sonia Borg. Novel ini mengangkat masalah tentang masyarakat asli Australia sebelum dan selama kolonialisme. Novel ini menceritakan tentang lima karakter utama wanita: Towradgi, Alinta, Maydina, Nerida, dan Lo-Arna yang mengalami efek dr kolonialisme, dan perjuangan mereka untuk melawan penjajah. Penulis memfokuskan pada karakter Lo-Arna yang mengalami krisis identistas setelah mengetahui identitas dirinya sebagai seorang terlahir dengan keturunan ganda.
Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah: pertama, untuk menjelaskan penokohan Lo-Arna dah ayahnya Doug Cutler: kedua, untuk menjelaskan bagaimana karakter Lo-Arna sebagai representasi kaum Aborigine dan ayahnya, Doug Cutler sebagai representasi kaum kulit putih: dan ketiga untuk menjelaskan bagaimana krisis identitas dapat muncul dalam diri Lo-Arna.
Metode yg digunakan untuk penelitian ini adalah metode penelitian pustaka, karena semua data yg di butuhkan di peroleh dari referensi-referensi yg tersedia di perpustakaan. Penulis juga menerapkan pendekatan pascakolonialisme dalam menyusun analisis. Pendekatan ini memungkinkan penulis untuk menemukan alasan mengapa terjadi krisis identitas pada karakter Lo-Arna.
Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa karakter Lo-Arna mengalami krisis identitas di karenakan bangsa Aborigine adalah bangsa yg di koloni oleh orang kulit putih sehingga ia merasa tak sanggup menerima kenyataan bahwa ia adalah keturunan bangsa Aborigine, bangsa terjajah.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study There are many inequalities in this world. We can see inequality in
gender, economic status, or level of civilization. Inequality in the level of civilizations to be something that is common in the era of White expansion.
Since the White people have better education and technology, they consider their civilization higher than other civilization such as Aborigine. Since Aborigine civilization is lower than the White’s, therefore it should be civilized.
As Edward Said says in his Orientalism: “ The oriental is the masterpiece, the adjacent of Europe and the place of Europe’s greatest, richest, and oldest colonies (Said, 1978:87)”. In this case, the Europe’s colonies are always oppressed by the Europeran who introduces their value and the domination of Europe. In other words European colonialism in the sense of their interest for cultural oppresion and economic controll. The Orient are the object for the Europe to represent their views. Said says :
Orientals can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the orient-dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it : in short, Orientalism is a Western style for dominating, restucturing, and having authority over the orient (Said,1978:88).
In this discourse Said uses the terms of the west and the east to represent the opressor and the oppressed. But what we find in Women of the the Whites and the Aborigines. The terms could be different, but they describe the same level of the oppressor and the oppressed.
Based on the way of the White people treating the Aborigine, the writer intends tomake a research on the novel “Women of the sun” by Hyllus Maris and Sonia Borg. “Women of the Sun” is a novel that tells about the condition of Australia in the era of White colonialization. This novel tells about five Aborigine women who fight for their clan and their own way against the White people who try to take their land and their ringht. Their struggle is very isnteresting to be discussed since they have their own way, their own strength, despite of their lower status in education and technology against the White people. The White people has already got better technology than the Aborigine. The Aborigines use arrows, spears and other weapons which are completely no match against the White people who already uses rifles, cannons and other gunpowders wapons. The Aborigines are absolutely defeated in the battle and has no choice but accepting the fact that they must surrender and live as the colonized people.
After being so long living as the colonized people, slowly the Aborigine people’s way of thinking changed as well. They slowly take the fact that their civilization is lower than the Whie and they start to accept it. They think that the White civilization is the best and they should imitate the civilization if they want to have a better civilization.
As the result, everything should be White oriented. Being like the White is everything. The White people are considered to have evertything. As seen in the story of Lo-Arna, a mixed race girl whose dream is blown away just because she find out that she is not purely White.
The topic of this study is how the White’s domination affects the mindset of the Aborigine people. There are five stories in the novel but writer will focus on the last story, the Lo-Arna story which reflects the effects of the White domination to the way of thinking or the mindset of the Aborigine people as the dominated people.
B. Problem Formulations
In oreder to reveal the effects of the White people’s domination to the mindset of the Aborigine people, the writer intends to answer the following questions:
1. How are the character of Lo-Arna and her father described in the story?
2. How are inferiority and superiority reflected through the character of Lo- Arna and her father?
3. How does identity crisis appear in the character of Lo-Arna? C.
Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study of the study are :
- Firstly how the character of Lo-Arna and her father are shown in the story.
- The second objective is the character of Lo-Arna represent inferiority and the character of her father represent superiority in the story.
- The third objective is how the identity crisis appears in the character of Lo-Arna.
D. Definition of Terms
In order to avoid misunderstanding on certain terms, the writer would like to define some terms mentioned in the title of the undergraduate thesis and in the proble formilation.
1. Mindset. Mindset is a set of attitudes or views formed by earlier events (1995:740).
2. Inferiority. The state of being low or lower in rank, social position, importance, quality, etc (1995:609).
3. Domination. Domination is to have controll or power over or a very strong influence on somebody or something (1995:345).
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW This chapter will introduce some criticisms, theories and information to
support the analysis. This chapter consists of three parts, the first part is the Review on Related Studies. This part will introduce the criticism on Hyllus Maris and Sonia Borgs’s especially about Women of the Sun. The second part is the Theroretical Review which provides the theories that will be used in analyzing the work. The last part is the Theoretical Framework which tells the readers how the theories are used.
A. Review of Related Studies
The first review is from an undergraduate thesis by Fransiska Oka Budianti entitled “Representation of Historical Relationship between the Aborigines and the White Indvaders in Maris and Borg’s Women of the Sun”. this thesis explains the relationship betweeen the Aborigines and the Whites were not easy one. Budianti states in her thesis: the relationship between them weas not good one, because the Aborigine people always got bad treatmenst from the White since the beginning og the story untill the end.
As the result of the bad treatments from the White to the Aborigines a gap appears between them. The White are the superior and the Aborigine are the inferior one. The Aborigine people consider the White to have everything they always wanted to be such as being educated people, honorable people and wealthy. The White people are considered to have more chances in everything such as in education. On the other the Aborigine has no chance at all they are considered to be slave since the very beginning.
The second study is more on the writer of the novel Hyllus Maris and Sonia Borg. Hyllus Maris was born in Shepparton, Victoria. Into Yorta Yorta Tribe, the original inhabitant of the Murray river area and traditional owner of that region. As a child, she participated in the walk out from a Government Mission, the event that inspires the third story of the book, Nerida, the watertlily. A sociologist and prominent activist in Aboriginal Community Development. She was the founder of the Worawa Collage, Frankston, the first Aboriginal school in Victoria, and has initiated several other Aboriginal organizations. Hyllus Maris has written many poems and short stories and is researching a book on Aboriginal history in Victoria. Sonia Borg was born in Vienna, Austria, and studied dramatic art in Germany after the Second World War. In 1951 she moved to India and later she joined Shakespearean International a theater company that toured throughtout Asia. Arriving in Australia in 1961 she joined Crowford Productions as a drama couch, then became casting director and eventually a script editor and associate producer.
Now a freelance script writer, she has a number of single plays for the Australian Broadcasting Commission to her credit, and has also work on the series Rush, Power without Glory, and I can Jump Puddles. More recently she has adapeted for screen Colin Thiele’s books Stormboy and Bluefin, and Frank Dalby Davidson’s Dusty.
The thesis ties to give another perspective about the effects of colonialization. This thesis will discuss the effects of colonializations on the way of thinking or midset of Aborigine people and or mixed race people. Identity crisis appears in the mind of mixed race people as the result of the White domination that happen in the era of White expansion. White people doctrinized Aborigine people that they are inferior and the White people are superior.
As the result, mixed race people are not accepted both as superior and the inferior. Mixed race people feels they do not belong to both White and Aborigine. They are not noble as White people as the superior and they are not inferior either since they are not purely Aborigine.
B. Review of Related Theories 1. Theory of Character and Characterization
In his book; A Glossary of Literary Terms, M.H. Abram defines character as the definition below: “as the person presented in a dramatic or narrative work who is interpreted by the readers as being endowed with a moral and disposition quality that are expressed in the way they say (through dialogue), and what they do (through actions)” (1981 : 20). From the definiton above, the writer may conclude that the characters’ moral and natural qualities are seen through their speech and action. Edgar
V. Robert in Thinking and Writing about Literature shares the same opinion about the definition of characters: Character in literature is an extended verbal representation of speech, and behavior. Through dialogue, action, and commentary, literature captures some of the interactions interesting by portraying characters who are worth caring about, rooting for, and even loving, although there are also characters at whom you may laugh or whom you may dislike or even hate (1989 : 54). Major characters are usually the major figures in a story. They have many realistic traits and are relatively fully develeoped by the author. For this reason they are often given the names hero or heroine. Because many major characters are anything but heroic, it is probably best to use the more descriptive term, protagonist. The protagonist is central to the action, moves against an antagonist, and usually exhibits the human attributes we expect of rounded characters. They demonstrate their capacity to change or to grow (Roberts and Jacobs, 1987 : 5).
According to Baldick in his book The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms , character is different from characterization.
Characterization is the way in which a character is represented. Therefore, character is the result, while characterization is the process (1991 : 83). His defineiton also supported by Roger and Henke in Reading the Novel : An
Introduction to the Techniques of Interpreting Fiction . He stated that the
characterization is central to the fictional experience. The principle objective if the creation of characters in novels is to enable readers to understand and to experience people (1977 : 86). According to Roberts and Jacobs in An
Introduction to Reading and Writing, authors use four different ways to conveys information about characters in fiction. a. What the characters themselves say (and think, if the author expresses their thoughts).
b. What the characters do.
c. What other characters say about them.
d. What the author say about them, speaking as storyteller or observer.
2. Theory of Postcolonialism and Postcolonialist
As stated by Ascroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin in their book entitled Key
Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies, postcolonialism deals with the effects of
colonialization on culture and societies. From the late 1970s the term has been used by literary critics to discuss the various cultural effects of colonialization (1998 : 186).
The book of Elleke Boehmer, Colonial and Post-Colonial
Literature, gives the definition of colonialism. Colonialism are related to the
combination of colonial power, the settlement of territory, the exploitation or development of resources, and the attempt to rule the native people of an island. Colonial literature, which is usually assumed to be literature reflecting a colonial culture, concerns with colonial expansion and it is also based on the theories concerning the superiority of European culture and the rightness of Empire (1995 : 2-3).
In order to understand colonialism and the relation between the colonizer and colonized, Edward Said through Orientalism explains that the Orient (colonized) is an intergral part of European material civilization and political theoriests, economists, and imperial administrators, have accepted the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, mind, destiny, and so on (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 1995 : 87-88). Edward Said talks about Orientalism deploying a variety of strategies whose common factor is they guarantee a position of superiority for the Westerner over the Orient.
The word postcolonial cannot be used in any single sense. It is a variety of perspective by people who were not all oppressed in the same way or to the same extent. For example the politics of decolonialization on parts of Latin America or Australia or South Africa where white settlers formed their own independent nations is different from the dynamics of those societies where indigenous populations overthrew their European masters (Loomba, 1998 : 7-9).
The term ‘postcolonial’ addresses all aspects of the colonial process from the beginning of colonial contact untill after-independent. The development of new elites within independent societies; the development of internal divisions based on racial, linguistic or religious discriminations; the continuing unequal treatment of indigenous people in settler/invaders societis – all these testify to the fact that postcolonialism is continuing the process of resistance and reconstruction. Postcolonial theory involves discussion about experience of various kinds: migration, slavery, suppresion, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, and place. Postcolonial studies are based in the ‘historical fact’ of European colonialism and its diverse effects (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, 1995 : 2).
It is appropriate to use this theory since Women of the Sun is stories about the effects of British colonialism to Aborigine people. The experience of migration, slavery, suppresion, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, and place that major characters faced.
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffith, and Helen Tiffin in The Empire
Writes Back describe the idea of the emerges of postcolonial literary theory:
The idea of ‘postcolonial literary theory’ emerges from the inability of European theory to deal adequately with the complexities and varied cultural provenance of post-colonial writing (1989 : 11). Ania Loomba in her book Colonialis/Postcolonialism describes concepts that many writings on postcolonialism emphasised; concepts like
‘hybridity’ and fragmentation and diversity. They describe ‘the postcolonial condition’. Or ‘the postcolonial subject’ or the postcolonail woman’ (1998 : 15). Moreover, ‘postcolonial’ refers to specific group of (opressed or dissenting) people (or individual within them) (1998 : 17); intellectuals and activists who fought against colonial rule, and their successors who now engage with itscontinuing legacy, challenged and revised dominant definition of race, culture, language, and class in the process of making their voice heard (1998 :20). It can be concluded that postcolonialist is the intellectuals who fought against colonial rules, and their successirs who now engage with its continuing legacy, challenged and revised dominant definitions of race, culture, languange, and class (Loomba, 1998 : 20).
Postcolonialist struggles has takes many forms such as literatures, by war, and by awarness of locality, rebellion. According to Frantz Fanon on
Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader : the progress of
national conciousness among the people modifies and gives precision to the literary utterances of native intellectual. The crystalization of the national consiousness will both disrupt literary styles and themes. This may be properly called a literature of combat, in the sense that it calls on the whole people to fight for their existence as a nation. It is a loterature combat, because it moulds the national consiousness, giving it form and contours and flinging open before ot new and boundless horzons; it is a literature of combat because it assumes responsibility, and because it is the will to liberty expressed in terms of time and space (1994 : 47). According to Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial
Theory: A Reader: beginning in 1947, the formal dissolution of colonial
empires and the granting of independence to previously colonised countries followed various campaign of anti-colonial resistence, usually with an explicity nationalist basis. These took forms ranging from legal and diplomatic manoevres – opposing colonisers on their ideological high grund of principles and procedures – to wars of independence, as in Kenya and Algeria in the 1950s – opposing the colonisers in what many would regards as the real ground of colonialism: military power (1994 : 3).
According to Amilcar Cablar’s speeches in the book Colonial
Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader: the study of the history of national liberation struggles shows that generally these struggles are preceded by an increase in expression of cultural personality of the dominated people, as a means of negating the oppressor culture (1994 : 56). Cultural resistance may take on new forms (political, economic, armed) in order fully contest foreign domination (1994 : 53). The value of culture as an element of resistance to foreign domination lies in the fact that culture is vigorous manifestation on the ideological or idealist plane of the physical and historical reality of the society that is dominated or to be dominated (1995 : 54). Thus it is understood that imperalist domination, by denying the historical development of dominated people, necessarily also denies their cultural development. It is also understood why imperialist domination, like all other foreign domination, for its own security, reaquires cultural oppresion and the attempt at direct or indirect liquidation of the essential elements of the culture of the dominated people (1994 : 55). A people who free themselves from foreign domination will be free culturally only if they return to the paths of their own culture (1994 : 56). According to Franz Fanon: National existence comes from national consiousness oas expression of culture (1994 : 51). We may consider the national liberation movement as the organized political expression of the culture of the people who are undertaking the struggle (1994 : 56).
The conceptualisation of ‘race’, ethnicity and ethnic identity is a major concern both within and alongside post-colonial theory. It is perhaps that both whiteness, and ‘mixed-race’, or ‘mixed Saxonism’ and as ‘half- caste/hybrid’ respectively, were eugenic concepts which hold a strong theoretical and cultural currency within dominant Western intellectual production, throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Patric Williams and Laura Chrisman, 1994 : 17).
In many respects, discussion of ethnicity is always also by implication a discussion of gender and sexuality. Women, as the biological ‘carriers’ of the ‘race’, occupy a primary compex role in representations of ethnicity (Patrick Wiliiams and Laura Chrisman, 1994 : 17).
According to Frantz Fanon in his book the Wretche of the Earth, the land is the most essential value for a colonized people because the land will give them bread and above all the land will bring them dignity.
For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity (1963 :34).
C. Theoretical Framework
This thesis will focus on the aspect of inferior mindset found in Hyllus Maris and Sonia Borg’s Women of the Sun. In this thesis there are some theories that will be used in the analysis. Those theories are the theoriy on Character and Characterization. By using and appying the theory on the analysis the writer will try to answer the Problem Formulation.
Theory on Character and Characterization will be used to answer the first and the second question of the Problem Formulation. Theory on Character father. The same theory will be used to reveal the character of Lo-Arna as the representation of inferiority and her father as the superior.
The theory of conflict by Stanton is needed to find out the conflict that appear in the story which makes a change in the main character life. As Stanton states, one of the important elements in the story in conflict. As we can see in the novel the conflict in the novel especially in the Lo-Arna story in very complicated that make a change in her life.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY A. Object of the Study The story which is discussed in this thesis is taken from Hyllus Maris
and Sonia Borg’s work entitled Women of the Sun. This novel was written by Hyllus Maris and Sonia Borg. Hyllus Maris was born on Echuca Victoria as an Aborigine into the Yorta Yorta Tribes, an arean near Murray River which is known as the Aborigines area, while Sonia Borg was born in Vienna Austria.
Hyllus Maris was the co-founder of the National Council of Aboriginal and island Women. Her grandmother on Cummeragunja Victoria taught her the Aboriginal culture. She was also known by her dedication to the right of the Aborigine people. Sonia Borg was born in Vienna Austria. Later she moved to India and joined with Shakespearean Theater. In 1962 she attended to Crowford Production as drama coach in Australia. In 1970s, Hyllus Maris and Sonia Borg collaborated working together on nover Women of the Sun.
This nover was first published in 1985 by Penguin Books Australia Ltd. This primary object of the thesis consists of five chapters and 175 pages. Every chapters of this novel presents different character in which they have same background as Aborigine of half blood of Aborigine. The first chapet is About character name Towradgi. In this chapter tells how Towradgi gets a view about the invasion from another nation. The second chapter tells about Alinta in the beginning of colonialization. The third is about Maydina under colonialization.
The forth and the fifth are about Nerida and Lo-Arna after colonialization.
Women of the Sun was first designed for a series of television. However
the spirit to bring the story to public never dies. The story then also presented as a novel. This novel is originated from the historical relationship between Whites and Aborigines in Australia. The story has won several awards from United Nation Peace Prize, Australian Writer’s Guild Award, the Australia Society Television Awards and the Canadian Banff Television Festival.
B. Approach of the Study
The writer chooses the sociocultural-historical approach. According to Rorhberger and Wood, the point of this approach is seeing a literary work from its relation with the social history of a certain time and place. Critics whose major interest in the sociocultural-historical insist that the only way to locate the real world is in reference to the civilization that produce it. They define civilization as the attitudes and actions of a specific group of people and point out the literature takes this attitudes and actions as its subject matter (1971:9- 10).
According to Guerin in his book, A Handbook of Critical Approaches
to Literature , Sociocultural-hustorical approach is an approach that studies a
literary work from its social milieu and literary work (1979: 272). It means that this approach is applied to see a literary work as a reflection of/and commentaries on something in certain society. There is an interaction betweeen social milieu and literary work.
Sociocultural-historical approach is an approach that has something to certain civilization in certain time and place. In analyzing the novel, the writer sees that it is important to see the condition of civilization to see the effect of the condition to the character.
C. Method of the Study The method of the study which is used in this study is library research.
The writer refereed to some books on English literature to collect the information in the process of analyzing and answering the problems.
To interpret the novel, some steps were taken. The first step is reading the main novel Women of the Sun especially the last chapter which is the main topic in the thesis. Rereading the novel for many times is really help me to finding out the topic for this thesis. In order to develop the topic, the problem formulatio was made.
The second step was reading the secondary sources and collecting some references that is needed to solve the problem of this thesis and clasifying the data that have been collected.
The third step was to analyzing the novel. In this part, the writer tries to identify the main character of Lo-Arna, the changes that was happen to her before she knew her true identity and after she found out her true identity. The changes happened to her has changed her way of thinking about everything even about herself. The last step was drawing a conclusion from the analysis.
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS This chapter will provide the answers for the three problem formulations. The first analysisi discusses the characterization of Lo-Arna and her father, Doug Cutler. The characterization of Lo-Arna will be divided into two chapters, the first
chapter will discuss about Lo-Arna before she realizes her true identity as the mixed-race girl and the second chapter will discuss about Lo-Arna after she find out the truth that she is a mixed-raced girl. In this first analysis will also talk about Lo-Arna’s father, Doug Cutler, as the representation of White people. The second analysis will discuss about the inferiority and superiority reflected through the character of Lo-Arna as the inferior and her father, Doug Cutler, as the superior. The last analysis will discuss about the identity crisis that appear in the character of Lo-Arna.
The story of Women of the Sun is presented into five parts. This thesis will be focussing on the last last story, the story of Lo-Arna the Beautiful. Lo-Arna is a mixed-race girl whose father is a White and her mother is an Aborigine. She believes that she is an adopted child, and does not that her father is her real father, her biological father. She is told that she is a French-Polynesian girl instead of mixed-race girl.
Although her father always tries to hide her true identity, Lo-Arna’s appearance is completely different from other White people and also Aborigine people. Once she was told by a stranger that she is an Aborigine but she ignores it since she is told that she is a French-Polynesian. Strangely, she often sees a vision of an old woman, whose appearance is like an Aborigine elders, but still she ignores it and think that the woman is an old Polynesian woman rather than Aborigine woman.
She studied her reflection. Ever since Sunday afternoon, off and on, she had done the sam: she had studied her appearance critically, anxiously, and with puzzlement. She could still hear the woman’s voice : ‘I’ve seen you before somewher, haven’t I?You’re Aboriginal. Aren’t you?’ Why would anyone think that?Not that she believed for a moment there was any truth in it, but the idea that someone could suspect it worried her. She knew little about Aborigines. A picture sprang to mind of some of them seated in the river-beds around Alice Springs, covered in flies, of children with many dogs. Now and then her father talked of their drinking problems. On the whole they were a group one seldom talked about, although from discussions at uni, she knew they struggled for land rights (1985 : 150).
Although Lo-Arna is always told that she is not an Aborigine but her appearance cannot hide her true identity. What she knows about Aborigine is just as far as her father told her or what she learns in the university. Her father told her that she is a French-Polynesian, and that what she believes in mid.
She picked up her towel and went confidently downstairs: she was a French-Polynesian, and she was an idiot to be upset by a stupid incident like that (1985 : 150).
Although she believes she is a French-Polynesian she often sees an vision of an old woman whose face is like an Aborigine elder.
Lo-Arna dived into the pool and swam a few lengths, saviouring the cool, clean water around her body. She turned and floated on her back, and looked up into the sky with its few white clouds. Her minds began to drift, and an image come to her, something that she had seen now and then over the years whe she had just ready to drop off to sleep; a face was bending over her, and the woman’s hair was like the clouds. The face was dark and in shadow, but she could see the eyes which were like her own. It was a faint memory, she could not relate it to anything, but it was pleasant, soothing, comforting. Who could the woman be?Her grandmother,perhaps; some old Polynesian woman…? (1985 : 151).
The conflict begins when she finds out her true identity that she is an Aborigine. She cannot accept the truth that she is a part of Aborigine people. She feels that everything ends for her.
Lo-Arna did not go to uni. She stayed at home, unable to find the will, the energy, to do anything constuctive. Her future, once so bright, so full of possibilities and challenges, now stretched out in front of her like a wasteland under a grey sky. She vaguely considered leaving home, but even that seemed pointless: she would never be able to escape from her own self (1985 : 161).
The changes that she felt makes her feel so dirty. She hates herself, abandon her own existance, she wants to be clean as she was before, but she realizes that it cannot be that way. She must accept what she was.
She did not resist when he put her into his car. She sat in it like a zombie when he drove her home. Back at the house she did not take any notice of Joy and her father as she walked past them up to her room. There she lay on her bed, starring at the ceiling, till the sin was up. Then she had a shower. She scrubbed herself till she was red and sore, and still she felt unclean(1985 : 161).
A.
How are the Character of Lo-Arna and her Father Shown in the Story?
1. Characterization of Lo-Arna before She Finds out the Truth that She is a Mixed-race Girl Lo-Arna’s character has a change in the story. The first part is when she lives as Ann Cutler, daughter of Doug Cutler, a wealthy White officer. She believes she is an adopted child. She never knows who her biological father is. She is told that she is a French-Polynesian,
Lo-Arna is Doug Cutler’s daughter, a White officer who takes care of the housing for the Aborigine people. As the White officer he is a
Lo-Arna was in her room on the first floor of the split-level home in the street lined with liquidambar trees. She believed she was Ann Cutler (1985 : 150). As the daughter of White officer she is well educated, a rare oportunity for the Aborigine people at that time to get education.
She had just got home from university, and thought it would be nice to have a quick dip in the pool in the back of the garden. She put on her swimsuit and was just about to leave the room when she caught sight of herself in the mirror (1985 : 150).
She has a confusion about herself when she sees her own reflection in the mirror. She is different from common White fellow and once she was told that she is an Aborigine. She was confused when someone thinks that she is someone else who is Aborigine, how could anyone say that she is an Aborigine if she has no common similarity to the Aborigine.
She studied her reflection. Ever since Sunday afternoon, off and on, she had done the some: she studied her appearance critically, anxiously, and with puzzlement. She could still hear the woman’s voice:’I’ve seen you before somewhere, haven’t I?You’re Aboriginal, aren’t you?’ Why would anyone think of that? Not that she believed for a moment there was any truth in it, but the idea that someone could suspect it worried her. She knew little about Aborigines. A picture sprang to mind of some of them seated in the river-beds around Alice Springs, covered in flies, of children with mangy dogs. Now and then her father talked of their drinking problems. On the whole they were a group seldom talked about, although from discussions at uni, she knew they struggled for land rights (1985 : 150).
She ignores her similarity with the Aborigine people by comparing her appearance to Aborigine people common appearance. She studies every single of her appearance to them, and she comes to a conclusion that she has no connection with the Aborigine.