THE BLACK MAID’S VOICE IN KATHRYN STOCKETT’S THE HELP.
THE BLACK MAID’S VOICE IN KATHRYN STOCKETT’S THE HELP
A THESIS
Submitted as the Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By :
MANGUHAL PARSAULIAN HUTAGALUNG Registration Number 2113220026
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTEMENT FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN 2016
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i ABSTRACT
Hutagalung, Manguhal Parsaulian. 2016. The Black Maid’s Voice in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan.
This study dealt with the Black maid’s voice in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. The study was conducted by using descriptive qualitative approach. The objectives of the study were to find the actions and sayings that the Black maids do and say, and the consequences toward the actions. The data were collected from the narrations and dialogues in the novel. The study revealed that there were three multiple resistances that the black maids do in the novel according to Shorter-Gooden and Jones’ theory: ongoing internal coping strategies, ongoing external coping strategy, and ongoing specific strategy. The consequences that they faced before the publication of the book are: physical abuse, loss of employment, destruction of property, and family’s live. The book was the representative of their sayings to White people. The responses of White people were analyzed by Peccei’s perlocutionary acts theory and the responses are: White woman threat the writer and everyone who participated in that book, White woman refused the book and another one felt happy because everything about her was good in the book.
Keywords: Voice, actions, Black Maids, The Help, multiple resistance strategies, consequences
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, the writer would like to express his praises to Almighty Jesus Christ who has blessed and given the ability to the writer to complete this thesis as a partial fulfillment for the requirement for the degree of Sarjana Sastra (S-1) at the English Department of Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and the help of several individuals who always contributed and extended their valuable assistance in the preparation and completion of this thesis. The writer’s special appreciation goes to:
Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean Faculty of Language and Arts, State University of Medan.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature Department, Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English Department and his thesis examiner, Nora Ronita Dewi, S.S., S.Pd., M.Hum., the Head of English Education Program and Syamsul Bahri, S.S., M.Hum., the Head of English Non-Educational Program, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
Prof. Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S and Morada Tetty, S.S., M.Hum as his Thesis Advisors who always gave their time to finish this thesis. Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd, Drs. Lidiman Sahat Martua
Sinaga, M.Hum and Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed as his Thesis Examiners.
All of Lecturers and Staff of English Education Department who have
given the great knowledge, so that the writer can finish writing this research. Eis Sri Wahyuni, M.Pd as an Administration Staff of English
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Baktiar Hutagalung and Pesita Siregar for the patience, affection, prayer and everything that have given in order to finish his study. Thanks also given to his brothers: Dennis Hutagalung, Kevin Hutagalung, and Febrian Hutagalung who always share happiness and give the best support.
Grandparents B. Hutagalung, M. Manalu, H. Siregar, and T. Sitanggang for the wise words that the writer always remembers wherever he walks.
Theresa Malau, S.Pd, Zulkifli, Sophyan, Alexon, Charli, and Bonar who have shared everything before the writer started to learn English in State University of Medan
Fytriani Siregar, S.Pd, his Beloved Breath who always shares everything.
Manuprojectpro and the Crews who always shared the moments and happiness.
Elia Masa Gintings and the Family who have given the help and support through the days. Elite- A, especially Serius, Sofyan, Bobby, David S, David H, Zack, Nella, Ucha, and Danty for the friendship, help, laugh, tears, having special time and for all the sweet and happy memories.
The people who direct or indirectly contributed in this study, your kindness means a lot to him.
At long last, humbly thank to his better half for the marvelous word so called love.
Medan, April 2016 The writer,
Manguhal Parsaulian Hutagalung NIM. 2113220026
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT ... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... iv
LIST OF APPENDIXES ... vi
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. The Background of the Study ... 1
B. The Problem of the Study ... 5
C. The Objective of the Study ... 5
D. The Scope of the Study ... 6
E. The Significance of the Study ... 6
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ... 7
A. Theoretical Framework ... 7
1. Literature ... 7
a. Novel ... 8
1) Theme ... 8
2) Plot ... 9
3) Characters ... 11
(a) The Major Character ... 11
(1) Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan ... 11
(2) Aibileen Clark ... 12
(3) Minny Jackson ... 13
(b) Minor Character ... 13
4) Settings ... 14
5) Point of View ... 15
b. Structural Analysis ... 15
c. Voice ... 16
2. Speech Acts ... 18
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B. Relevant Studies ... 20
C. Conceptual Framework ... 23
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHOD ... 25
A. Research Design ... 25
B. Source of the Data ... 25
C. Techniques of Collecting Data ... 26
D. Techniques of Analyzing Data ... 26
CHAPTER IV: DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 27
A. Data ... 27
B. Data Analysis ... 27
1. Analysis of Black Maid’s Actions and Sayings to realize their voice ... 27
a) Ongoing Internal Coping Strategies ... 27
b) Ongoing External Coping Strategy ... 29
c) Specific Coping Strategies ... 31
2. Analysis of the Consequences Toward the Actions ... 32
a) Before the Publication of the Book ... 32
1) Physical Abuse ... 33
2) Loss of Employment ... 34
3) Destruction of Property ... 35
4) Threat to Family’s Live ... 36
b) After the Publication of the Book ... 37
C. Research Findings ... 39
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 41
A. Conclusion ... 41
B. Suggestion ... 41
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LIST OF APPENDIXES
Pages
APPENDIX A ... 44
APPENDIX B ... 48
APPENDIX C ... 50
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
Humans use literature as the medium to represent life. Despite it is sometimes imaginative or imaginary, literature is always made based on real life. Literary works cannot be separated from history, such as in Indonesia, every century genre of literature is always changing, agreeing to the circumstances that occurred in that century. Sometimes most of authors or poets portray the story about events that happened in the past or any future events in their works. It depends on the imaginary and thought of the author.
Novel has become a literary work which is favored because it can tell you many things in it like circumstances of time, places, events and issues. More texts inside can make the story in the novel more exciting to read, and the narrative and storyline can make our imagination work and put ourselves in the novel itself. Nurgiyantoro (1995:35) says that to read a novel the reader is required to reconstruct the problems between characters.
The Help is a novel that tells the story about African-American maids working in White Households in Jackson, Mississippi, during the early 1960s. The novel became phenomenon since it was published for the first time. The Help has been published in 35 countries and three languages. As on August 2011, it has sold five million copies and has spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. Furthermore we can simply see its difference. There were so many Black writers who had written literary works where the stories mostly
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about the lives of Black people in 1960s or even older than that. They had poured their thoughts by their points of view about what happened, what should have happened, and what should have not happened in their works. For example Alice Walker with her Color Purple and other African- American women writers like Gayl Jones with Eva's Man, Toni Cade Bambara with War of the Walls, etc. On the other hand, The Help of Kathryn Stockett needs to be paid by attention, because by her work we can see the point of view of White people about the Black maids because she is basically a White American girl.
Human rights become a main topic in the story where discrimination and racism frequently appear. Kathryn Stockett’s with The Help draws that situation word by word where it chronicles events from late summer of 1962 through 1964 the time where civil rights movement was intensively formed. Stockett puts some kind of events which occur and refer to discrimination and racism such as Black
maid’s house should be separated far away from White people’s location and in
White people’s house, the Black maids should not use the same toilet with the White bosses. Stockett also depicts the hard-struggles of Black women who work as maids in the house of white people. The portraying is simple but the message is clear. She explained that the Black maids to their jobs wholeheartedly but they are not paid as they should have been paid. They neglect their children in their house and they raise their boss’ children.
The struggles of women in history of Civil Rights Movement were as not as men. Dingemans (2015) argued that although women’s actions were vital for the Civil Rights Movement, their contributions are largely neglected in the history
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books. Stockett makes her novel different because this novel is about the Black women who work as the maids under the discriminations that occurred in the 1960s. That is why the researcher chose The Help novel because he wanted to see and reveal the struggles of the Black women in the 1960s through this novel.
The lives of Black people in the past might not be occurred in this era because the success of the civil rights movement activists. It brought a brand new view, where there no more the separated places between Black and White, moreover America now have an African-American president for the first time in history, he is Barrack Obama. But the election of Obama as the president seems
make no effect to Black women’s live. According to Black Women’s Roundtable (2004:45) in sum, Black women’s lives matter. Yet, the value of their lives is often diminished in the face of institutional and cultural structures that leave them overrepresented among those who either experience violence or find themselves entangled within the criminal justice system, but it seems, underrepresented among those whom are empowered with the right of self-defense. It means that the some of the past stories are still remaining nowadays. That is why The Help is a readable book even though the story inside is about the 1960s, but it is still containing the present events.
Stockett makes her novel become different by the characters, where there is a White girl who wants to help all the Black maids in Mississippi, she is Skeeter. Skeeter collects all the stories and experiences from all the Black maids in order to help them by publishing. She decides to write a book detailing the African-American maids' point of view on the White families for which they
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work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis. If there were mostly stories tell that Black people tried to help their communities, this one would be different because she is a white who able to help.
Armstrong (2012) has done the same thing. He discussed about the situation of Black domestic workers in The Civil Rights Movement, it is about how Black domestic workers negotiated their personal life with their public spheres in the workplace and in the Civil Rights Movement. This includes examining the social relationships between black domestic workers and white employees, the roles they played within the Civil Rights Movement, and how those roles affected their work and personal lives.
Seawell, et al (2014) analyzed the effects of general social support and
social support for racial discrimination on African American Women’s Well -Being. It examined the role of general and tailored social support in mitigating the deleterious impact of racial discrimination on depressive symptoms and optimism in a large sample of African American women.
Dingemans (2015) revealed the vital roles of black women by focus on how the Civil Rights Movement is memorized and how the contributions of Ella Baker, Rosa Parks, and Fannie Lou Hamer shed another light on the master narrative. By their works Dingemans analyzed the roles they played in the era of Civil Rights Movement.
In the story of the novel, telling the stories to Skeeter is a kind of action that they do to get their voices delivered to the white people. When the voices are delivered, there will be some reactions from the white people, those are called the
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consequences towards the actions. From that explanation the researcher concludes that this study concerns to expression, language, action, and consequences. Thus, the researcher would like to uncover the effects of the voices in the novel by applying speech act and focuses on perlocutionary because there will be consequences for every action that the black maids take. As Horn and Ward (2006) say that perlocutionary is a consequence or by-product of speaking whether intended or not. Perlocutionary acts consist in the production of effects upon the thoughts, feelings, or actions of the addressee(s) or other parties.
The researcher argued that the actions and sayings of the Black maids are the voices that they have to say or express. They have to face the consequences every time they do it, but the most consequences that they faced are the risk because they are the lower class. They collected the stories to a white woman and then published it. It means that the words they put in the book are their utterances, so when the White people read the book, they may have some responses.
B. The Problems of the Study
The problems of the study were formulated in the followings: 1. What do the Black maids do and say to realize their voices? 2. What are the consequences toward the actions?
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C. The Objectives of the Study
Dealing with the problems of the study, the objectives of the study were: 1. To find out how the Black maids realize their voices.
2. To find out the consequences that the Black maids get from the White people.
D. The Scope of the Study
The scope of the study was based on voices of Black maids in all their
utterances in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Voice means the actions and sayings of the Black maids while they are enslaved by the White people. And the effects of the utterances were analyzed by using perlocutionary act.
E. The Significance of the Study
The result of the study was expected to be useful and relevant theoretically and practically.
1. Theoretically, the findings are expected to the students or literature learners, to use the findings as their references to learn about Literature especially about Voice.
2. Practically, the findings of the study are expected to be useful and relevant for the researchers who are interested in doing research about Voice in Novel or any other literary works as a basis for further study.
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41 CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A.Conclusions
After analyzing voice on three characters in The Help novel, it could be concluded some important points of analysis. The points are listed below:
1. Through the words that the Black maids say and the actions that they do in the novel they showed their voice. All the three coping resistance strategies are occurred in the novel, they are: ongoing internal coping strategies, ongoing external coping strategies, and specific coping strategies.
2. They got the consequences towards their voice after publishing the book. The consequences before and after the publication of the book which is the
collection of the Black maids’ stories and views about White people.
B.Suggestions
Considering the conclusions above, there are some important suggestions needed to be examined. They are listed below:
1. The result of this study is suggested to be used as the reference for researchers who will conduct the same researchers using voice and perlocutionary theory or combinational theories to enrich the heterogeneities and variances of literary work.
2. The novel, The Help is suggested to be used as tool and material in literature class that examines about voice and perlocutionary theory.
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REFERENCES
Altikriti, Sahar Farouq. 2011. Speech Act Analysis to Short Stories. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 2, No. 6, pp. 1374-1384, November 2011.Academy Publisher.
Armstrong, Trena Easly. 2012. The Hidden Help : Black Domestic Workers In The Civil Rights Movement. Electronic Theses and Dissertations. ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository.
Badger, A.J. 2007. Civil Rights: How did the Civil Rights movement change America.
Creswell, John W. 2001. Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Thousand Oaks, London: Sage Publication.
Dingemans, Anne. 2015. Letting Their Voices be Heard: Black Female Activism in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s -1960s. MA Thesis American Studies Program Utrecht University.
Gill, Richard. 2006. Mastering English Literature: Third Edition .New York: Palvrage Macmillan.
Horn, Laurence R and Gregory Ward. 2006. The Handbook of Pragmatics. Garsington Road, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Hudson, William. 2006. An Introduction to the Study of Literature. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors.
K, Priya. 2014. Violence in Alice Walker’s the Color Purple. Research Scholar
(UGC –JRF) Department of English Sree Kerala Varma College, Thrissur, Kerala. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science (IOSHR-JHSS). Volume 19 Issue 7, Ver. I (July. 2014), PP 51-54 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845.
Kennedy, X. J, Dana Gioia. 2007. An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. New York: Longman Publishers.
Ketuyahman, Widya Utami. 2012. Analisis Hubungan Prasangka dan Diskriminasi dalam Film The Help. Depok: FIB UI.
Klarer, Mario. 2005. An Introduction to Literary Studies: Second Edition. Taylor & Francis e-Library.
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Kothari, C.R. 2004. Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. New Delhi: New Age International (P) Limited, Publishers.
Muntolib. 2013. Analisis Tindak Tutur Novel Para Abdi Sami Cecaturan Karya Mas Ngabehi Wasesa Pangrawit. Jurnal Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra Jawa_Universitas Muhammadiyah Purworejo. Vol /0 2 / No. 03 / Mei 2013.
Nazir, M. 1998. Metode Penelitian. Jakarta: Ghali Indonesia.
Nurgiyantoro, Burhan. 1995. Teori Pengkajian Fiksi. Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press.
O’Neil, Tammie et all. 2007. Evaluation of Citizens’ Voice and Accountability:
Review of the Literature and Donor Approaches.
Peccei, J.S. 2000. Pragmatics. Foreign language Teaching and Research Press. New York: Rouledge.
Rountree, Stephanie. 2013. Poop, Pie, and Politics in “The Help”: Rescuing the (Literary) Body from Political Obsolescence. A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics Vol. III, Issue 2 December. Georgia State University.
Seawell, Asani H, Carolyn Cautrona, Daniel Russell. 2014. The Effects of General Social Support and Social Support for Racial Discrimination on African American Women’s Well-Being. Journal of Black Psychology 2014, Vol 40(1) 3–26. Sage Publisher.
Shorter-Gooden, K. and K. Jones. (2004). Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America. Published by Harper Collins.
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work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis. If there were mostly stories tell that Black people tried to help their communities, this one would be different because she is a white who able to help.
Armstrong (2012) has done the same thing. He discussed about the situation of Black domestic workers in The Civil Rights Movement, it is about how Black domestic workers negotiated their personal life with their public spheres in the workplace and in the Civil Rights Movement. This includes examining the social relationships between black domestic workers and white employees, the roles they played within the Civil Rights Movement, and how those roles affected their work and personal lives.
Seawell, et al (2014) analyzed the effects of general social support and social support for racial discrimination on African American Women’s Well -Being. It examined the role of general and tailored social support in mitigating the deleterious impact of racial discrimination on depressive symptoms and optimism in a large sample of African American women.
Dingemans (2015) revealed the vital roles of black women by focus on how the Civil Rights Movement is memorized and how the contributions of Ella Baker, Rosa Parks, and Fannie Lou Hamer shed another light on the master narrative. By their works Dingemans analyzed the roles they played in the era of Civil Rights Movement.
In the story of the novel, telling the stories to Skeeter is a kind of action that they do to get their voices delivered to the white people. When the voices are
(2)
5
consequences towards the actions. From that explanation the researcher concludes that this study concerns to expression, language, action, and consequences. Thus, the researcher would like to uncover the effects of the voices in the novel by applying speech act and focuses on perlocutionary because there will be consequences for every action that the black maids take. As Horn and Ward (2006) say that perlocutionary is a consequence or by-product of speaking whether intended or not. Perlocutionary acts consist in the production of effects upon the thoughts, feelings, or actions of the addressee(s) or other parties.
The researcher argued that the actions and sayings of the Black maids are the voices that they have to say or express. They have to face the consequences every time they do it, but the most consequences that they faced are the risk because they are the lower class. They collected the stories to a white woman and then published it. It means that the words they put in the book are their utterances, so when the White people read the book, they may have some responses.
B. The Problems of the Study
The problems of the study were formulated in the followings: 1. What do the Black maids do and say to realize their voices? 2. What are the consequences toward the actions?
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6
C. The Objectives of the Study
Dealing with the problems of the study, the objectives of the study were: 1. To find out how the Black maids realize their voices.
2. To find out the consequences that the Black maids get from the White people.
D. The Scope of the Study
The scope of the study was based on voices of Black maids in all their utterances in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Voice means the actions and sayings of
the Black maids while they are enslaved by the White people. And the effects of the utterances were analyzed by using perlocutionary act.
E. The Significance of the Study
The result of the study was expected to be useful and relevant theoretically and practically.
1. Theoretically, the findings are expected to the students or literature learners, to use the findings as their references to learn about Literature especially about Voice.
2. Practically, the findings of the study are expected to be useful and relevant for the researchers who are interested in doing research about Voice in
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41 CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A.Conclusions
After analyzing voice on three characters in The Help novel, it could be concluded some important points of analysis. The points are listed below:
1. Through the words that the Black maids say and the actions that they do in the novel they showed their voice. All the three coping resistance strategies are occurred in the novel, they are: ongoing internal coping strategies, ongoing external coping strategies, and specific coping strategies.
2. They got the consequences towards their voice after publishing the book. The consequences before and after the publication of the book which is the collection of the Black maids’ stories and views about White people.
B.Suggestions
Considering the conclusions above, there are some important suggestions needed to be examined. They are listed below:
1. The result of this study is suggested to be used as the reference for researchers who will conduct the same researchers using voice and perlocutionary theory or combinational theories to enrich the heterogeneities and variances of literary work.
2. The novel, The Help is suggested to be used as tool and material in literature class that examines about voice and perlocutionary theory.
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REFERENCES
Altikriti, Sahar Farouq. 2011. Speech Act Analysis to Short Stories. Journal of
Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 2, No. 6, pp. 1374-1384, November 2011.Academy Publisher.
Armstrong, Trena Easly. 2012. The Hidden Help : Black Domestic Workers In
The Civil Rights Movement. Electronic Theses and Dissertations. ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository.
Badger, A.J. 2007. Civil Rights: How did the Civil Rights movement change
America.
Creswell, John W. 2001. Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches. Thousand Oaks, London: Sage Publication.
Dingemans, Anne. 2015. Letting Their Voices be Heard: Black Female Activism
in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s -1960s. MA Thesis
American Studies Program Utrecht University.
Gill, Richard. 2006. Mastering English Literature: Third Edition .New York: Palvrage Macmillan.
Horn, Laurence R and Gregory Ward. 2006. The Handbook of Pragmatics. Garsington Road, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Hudson, William. 2006. An Introduction to the Study of Literature. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors.
K, Priya. 2014. Violence in Alice Walker’s the Color Purple. Research Scholar
(UGC –JRF) Department of English Sree Kerala Varma College, Thrissur, Kerala. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science
(IOSHR-JHSS). Volume 19 Issue 7, Ver. I (July. 2014), PP 51-54 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845.
Kennedy, X. J, Dana Gioia. 2007. An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. New York: Longman Publishers.
Ketuyahman, Widya Utami. 2012. Analisis Hubungan Prasangka dan
Diskriminasi dalam Film The Help. Depok: FIB UI.
Klarer, Mario. 2005. An Introduction to Literary Studies: Second Edition. Taylor & Francis e-Library.
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43
Kothari, C.R. 2004. Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. New Delhi: New Age International (P) Limited, Publishers.
Muntolib. 2013. Analisis Tindak Tutur Novel Para Abdi Sami Cecaturan Karya Mas Ngabehi Wasesa Pangrawit. Jurnal Program Studi Pendidikan
Bahasa dan Sastra Jawa_Universitas Muhammadiyah Purworejo. Vol /0 2 / No. 03 / Mei 2013.
Nazir, M. 1998. Metode Penelitian. Jakarta: Ghali Indonesia.
Nurgiyantoro, Burhan. 1995. Teori Pengkajian Fiksi. Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press.
O’Neil, Tammie et all. 2007. Evaluation of Citizens’ Voice and Accountability:
Review of the Literature and Donor Approaches.
Peccei, J.S. 2000. Pragmatics. Foreign language Teaching and Research Press. New York: Rouledge.
Rountree, Stephanie. 2013. Poop, Pie, and Politics in “The Help”: Rescuing the (Literary) Body from Political Obsolescence. A Journal of Literary
Studies and Linguistics Vol. III, Issue 2 December. Georgia State
University.
Seawell, Asani H, Carolyn Cautrona, Daniel Russell. 2014. The Effects of General Social Support and Social Support for Racial Discrimination on African American Women’s Well-Being. Journal of Black Psychology
2014, Vol 40(1) 3–26. Sage Publisher.
Shorter-Gooden, K. and K. Jones. (2004). Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America. Published by Harper Collins.