Research Focus Research Objectives

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D. Research Significance

Hopefully, this research can be advantageous: 1. to create awareness about the unconventional images of children which are positive and no longer seen as always inferior. 2. to enlarge the readers‟ way of seeing on how deconstruction works in the Children‟s Literature text. 13

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

A. Post-structuralism

Talking about post-structuralism is almost impossible without looking back at the previous view, structuralism. As a movement which challenges structuralism, post-structuralism tries to fix the error of structuralism view. Structuralism believes that human being‟s knowledge of reality is not only coded, but it is also conventional. It is because language is conventional and the job of structuralism is to group the signs and the codes based on their characteristics. Klages 2013: 31 des cribes structuralism as “a way of thinking that works to find the fundamental basic units or elements of which anything is made.” For example, if people are given three characters: a prince, a princess and a stepmother, their mind will relate to Cinderella. Even though they make up a story using those characters with different title, the stories have the same pattern: a princess who is persecuted by her stepmother and finally saved by a prince Klages, 2013: 33. The other example is that when people are given three characters, a man, a woman and two hostile families, they will think about Romeo and Juliette. That same pattern and foundation becomes the concern of structuralism. As the movement after expressive realism, structuralism can be said almost similar to formalism. Both of them see a literary work from its 14 structure, not from the moral value of a literary work. The way structuralism analyzes work is by having objective criteria. Nevertheless, what makes structuralism and formalism different is that structuralism pays attention more on the deep structure. It is the pattern of a thing, for example, myth, folktale, culture, knowledge and truth Klages, 2013: 32. It is not something related to grammar, syntax, and semiotic. Such pattern or the structure can have similarities in different cultures spread in different geographic areas. That is why people need to be aware that myth such as a princess hated by her step mother, a couple from different classes or a princess saved by a price has existed everywhere in the world, even in different parts of countries. Castle 2013: 28 in his book entitled The Literary Theory Handbook says that cultures such as kinship, structure of family, and gender role are also the same in all parts of continents. This kind of “pattern” or “structure” is the concern of structuralism. The key in structuralism is that there has been a system that controls humans and their activities and it is believed by structuralism as “structure”. However, there are several beliefs of structuralism that have been criticized by post- structuralism. That is why “post-structuralists are actually the structuralists who see an error of their ways” Selden, et al, 2005: 144. It can be said that post structuralism believes there are some basics of structuralism beliefs which needs to be seen deeper.