Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Literature can be divided into four types; there are Poetry, Prose, Non Fiction and Drama. Laurence Perrine says that poetry is as universal language and almost ancient. 1 Like other daily language activity, poetry heads for conveying the information, but the poets use language with their pattern. The work of art is a historic fact, an art cannot be separated from his own history when and why it is created, because an art was created at specific circumstance and many factors will influence the artist. Literary cannot be separated from its writer. Many things influence the writer when creates a work such as the sociology of writer, her and his circumstance or the society where the writer lives and writer communities’ history. The poet as a woman – or a man- is affected by the wisdom, the attitude, the occurrences and the issues of the world about the poet. Literary works became the media to socialize the opinion, the ideas and experiences, as values to the society. So that, the literary may have big contribution in influence and deliver the value to the reader. Even the literary is written by his creator as individual or as individual work but the theme he or she writes is the problem of his society. In this case the poems themselves as the representative of the society. The poet is trans-individual construction and not 1 Perrince Laurence, Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry. Third edition Orlando Harcourt Brance Collage Publisher, 1969. P.3 only the representation of his or her self. 2 Racism issue is interesting, as if racism is never ending issue, we can find the historical fact and earlier fact in any states, when racism became basic reason of conflict, abuse, violence, and genocide and many discussions, books, and some organizations talk and concern about racism. In other hand, racism issue also become main theme in much art works such movies, drama, literary and others. In America many literary works talk about racism, mostly created by African American. Over the years, so many students was interested in racism discourse even in literary work. This issue became big attention in this context the writer has big attention especially in the literature. The writer chooses the Maya Angelou 3 poems because most of her literary work themes are about the discrimination and the life experience of African American. And the most important thing is she is an important figure in the American civil right movement. Based on the reasons above the writer is interested in Maya Angelou works, she is an author, poet, historian, stage and screen producer. Angelou is the first women who write and delivers her poem, at the inauguration for president at his request. According to Angelou the art cannot be apart from the people and whole 2 Nyoman Kutha Ratna, Teori Metode dan Teknik Penulisan Sastra, Yogyakarta : Penerbit Pustaka Pelajar, 2004 Cet ke-1,h.124. 3 Maya Angelou was born as Marguerite Ann Jhonson in St. Louis, Missouiri, on April 4, 1928. Angelou is an author, poet, historians, song writer, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer singer and civil right activist. In 1959, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King jr. Maya angelou become northeren coordinator for the southern Christian leadership conference. In 1993, Angelou wrote and delivered poem “on the pulse of morning” at the inauguration for president bill Clinton at his request. art works just for the people. Angelou was born as African American and she had big attention and participation for civil right movement, in 1959, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Maya become the northern coordinator for the southern Christian leadership conference. 4 In Maya Angelou poems, the writer sees the relation between the poems and her society as her background where she lived. Maya Angelou herself was African American and most of her poems tell about African American miseries, torture, abuse, poverty, segregation, violence, and discrimination. Actually, Americans treatment toward African American was contradictive with their concept about American dreams, American concept about freedom; equality of opportunity which it’s mean, every American has equal chance for enter the race and win. In other words the race for success is affair one and that person cannot win just because he or she was born into African American family or lose because she as African American. One of Maya Angelou’s poems Preacher Don’t Send Me told about the wornness of African American to live in the same life after his death. The persona assumes that his life today like living in the hell. The persona describes the ghetto as hell which there is no prosperity inside this world. This description can be founded by the reader in first stanza Preacher don’t send me When I die To some big Ghetto In the skyWhere rats eat catsOf the leopard typeAnd Sunday branch Is grits and tripe 4 http;en. Wikipedia.orgwiki Racial Discrimination 217-2007 10:05 PM This poem told about African American worries, the African American was worrying to live in the same life after his death. The Ghetto was imagined as the hell, where the whole experiences in ghetto as the horrible experiences. The African American had no chance for competition, good position in job, equality treatment at public area, life in ghetto was hard, many violence, prostitute, because of their less education and jobless, the superior the white kept the African American in such condition for keeping them in stupidity, poverty, and misery. Ghetto areas were economically disadvantaged areas as the location of the areas were often isolated from its outer world. The meaning of Ghetto in the Oxford dictionary is: An area of a city where many people of the same race or background live, separately from the rest population. 5 Ghetto is an area where people from a specific racial or ethnic background are united in a given culture or religion lives as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. The term Ghetto is referring to racist, elitist and culturally insensitive, and the mention of such a word to describe a working-class ethnic community is considered a generalization or an insult 6 The other Maya Angelou poem is Still I Rise, this poem also told about segregation and discrimination of African American, this is example of her poem: You may shoot me with your wordsYou may cut me with your eyesYou may kill me with your hatefulness.... This poem discussed clearly about the discrimination 5 A.S Horn By, Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary,Newyork ; Oxford University Press Sixth Edition,2000, p.19 6 Op Cit and conditions of their life. The chosen words, shoot, cut, kill gave us the information how terrible the discrimination to African American at the time. The Equality also discussed about discrimination and segregation in America. In this poem, the African American became invisible human I stand before you boldly, Trim in rank ‘they dehumanized by the superior. The white hatefulness imaged as the sight of white as if in deem even the African American was in front of the white eyes.

B. The Focus of Study