CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF FEMINISM

4.3 Women can make decision in self determination……… 36

CHAPTER V : CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

…………………….. 51 4.1 Conclusion………………………………………………… 51 4.2 Suggestions……………………………………………….. 51 BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIXES Appendix 1: Summary of Little Women novel Appendix 2: Biography of Louisa May Alcott Universitas Sumatera Utara ABSTRACT Judul skripsi ini adalah An Analysis of the Aspect of Feminism in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Skripsi ini menganalisis tentang kehidupan wanita pada abad ke-19 yang menjadi tonggak dimulainya feminism yang tercermin melalui novel Little Women karya Louisa May Alcott. Metode yang digunakan dalam penulisan skripsi ini adalah metode analisis deskriptif. Kesimpulan dari skripsi ini adalah perempuan memiliki sifat feminisme yang ditunjukkan dari kepercayaan diri yang kuat dan dapat menghadapi masalah yang dahulunya perempuan dianggap tidak layak untuk itu. Perempuan juga bisa memberikan keputusan yang tepat untuk dirinya sendiri tanpa ada pengaruh dari orang lain. Universitas Sumatera Utara

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Background of Analysis

There are so many thought that women are dominated by men in family and society and treated as the ‘second’ society because women are weak and powerless. Women are supposed to be good mothers and women are only to speak when they are spoken to. I am interest to talk about women because women should get their independence just like men have. I want to show about women’s independence from this thesis because women are not meek like the men thought. Based on my opinion above, I found a good literary work which talked about women independence. This literary work shows us about women’s determination. The literary work entitled Little Women written by Louisa May Alcott 1832-1888, published in 1868. The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts. Little women is one of the best-loved children’s stories of all time, based on the author’s own youthful experiences. It chronicles the lives of March family; father, Marmee Mrs. March, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy and it details the struggles of the March women, especially Jo, to find sustenance for their family and identities of their own in the culture of a masculine society. When Mr. March lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend, the two oldest girls begged to be allowed to do something toward their own support. Meg, hired out as a governess, while Jo hired out to Aunt March as a companion. But Jo’s desire to be a successful writer and to support her family had long been cultivated in her strong and independent mind. Jo toiled at the confinement of being companion and then a governess, but her imagination could not be confined to the quarters of her mind. Write she must, and write she would, until she was good enough to earn her bread. Jo’s conviction that she should provide support for her family has been bound up with her Universitas Sumatera Utara desire to become a fluent and financially independent writer. It also describes about the story of their domestic adventure, their attempts to increase the family, their friendship with the neighboring Laurence family and their later love affairs remain as fresh as ever. I choose Little Women to be analyzed from the point of view of feminism because in Little Women , the characters have to struggle for the life by their own support without men. Alcott deliberately creates strong female characters in order to support the self determination of women. When Mr. March left for the war, Marmee should continue to take care for the girls by her own and can run their home without a man supporting it. And also the daughters should be strong females and make decision by their own choice and work to support their family. In this thesis, I will discuss a novel since novel is the main object to be discussed. Novels are stories of book length written in prose. They are about imaginary people and events. Novels are about individual human beings, living in a particular time and place, caught up together in a series of events. Novel is included into the prose fiction besides myth, parables, romance and short stories. Based on Robert statement in Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing 1995:2, prose fiction, poetry, drama and nonfiction prose are classified as the literature genres. Literature is one of the great creative and universal means of communicating the emotional, spiritual, or intellectual concern of mankind. The basic material of literature is experience. Through literature, an author tries to express his or her ideas about what heshe ever experienced in hisher life time or what was happening around them from natural phenomena to the lives of the people in their community. The word literature, basically, comes from the Latin ‘littera’ which refers to the written or printed works. Literature helps people grow, both personally and intellectually as it provides an objective base for knowledge Universitas Sumatera Utara and understanding. It makes people understand human dreams, desires and struggles that happen in different places and times.

1.2 The Statement of Problem

From this analysis I want to show that women have to be independent to discover every aspect of their being and to develop each component in their own way by using Little Women. The book, Little Women, chronicles the lives of the March Family; Father, Marmee, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, and it details the struggles of the March women, especially Jo, to find sustenance for their family and identities of their own in the culture of a masculine society. www.wikipedia.com Based on the statement above, I point out that the problems of analysis are: 1. How do the women struggle in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women? 2. How do the characters fight for life in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women?

1.3 The Objectives of Analysis

The objectives of the analysis tend to answer the problems of the analysis. Based on the problems above, the objectives of this analysis mainly: 1. To show the women struggle in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. 2. To show the characters fight for life in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.

1.4 The Scope of Analysis

In doing the analysis of literary work, actually there should be a scope of analysis, so the object that will be analyzed become clear and the purpose of the analysis are easy to Universitas Sumatera Utara understand by the readers. In this thesis I would like to analyze the women struggle through the characters of Little Women.

1.5 The Significance of Analysis

The analysis of this thesis is expected to give significance to the readers who want to understand and appreciate literature in general and the works of Louisa May Alcott in particular. I also hope this thesis will be useful for the readers or people who need this thesis as a reference. As for human being, this thesis hopefully can help us to give more respect to others especially women indeed.

1.6 The Theoretical Approach

In order to search the relationship between the novel and social values, there are two approaches which can be used. First, intrinsic approach which an approach that emphasized on the elements of the novel itself. As Rene Wellek and Austin Warren says in their book Theory of Literature 1967:73, 81, 110 that the natural and sensible starting point to work in literary scholarship is the interpretation and analysis of the work of literature themselves. It means that it is important to analyze the literary works from the elements of the literary works themselves in order to get the information. Second, extrinsic approach which analyzes the literary work from external factors of the literary work such as; biography, autobiography, history, psychology and other factors that support the making of the novel. In analyzing this thesis, I use both of the approaches. Deals with the intrinsic approach, I have to attempt to read the text carefully, try to classify them into their own element and make a conclusion. I also use extrinsic approach because there is a relation between the novel and the author. Jo’s character in the novel has almost the same character of Alcott in the past.

1.7 The Theoretical Review

Universitas Sumatera Utara M.H. Abrams in his book The Mirror and the Lamp in 1953 Quoted from www.uwec.eduranowlanintr_crit_rdg_lit_081400.htm divides critical theory of literature into four kinds. They are mimetic theory, pragmatic theory, expressive theory, and objective theory. Mimetic theory the theory of imitation defines literature in relation to life, seeing it as a way of reproducing or recreating the experiences of man’s life in words. Abrams 1976:8-9 stated that mimetic theory is the most primitive aesthetic approach. The idea was developed through Plato’s vision that the literary work itself cannot represent the real life, but is only the imitation of what happened in our surroundings. Aristotle, on the other hand, declined Plato’s argument by stated that literary work as an art aims to purify the emotion the Latin word ‘catharsis’. Pragmatic theory relates literary work to its readers. It is called pragmatic because literature may give the practical result to its readers, and is sometimes also called affective since literature may give emotional effect to its readers. Pragmatic theory is used to reveal the functions of literary work in the middle of society, the spread, and the development. Pragmatic theory deals with the competence of the readers. Expressive theory focuses on the relation between the literary work and its writer. This kind of theory believes that literary work is produced through the expression and the emotion of its writer which are influenced by the background and the experience of the writer. Objective theory focuses on the literary work itself, its language, forms, and devices. This kind of theory declines the relation among literary work, historical aspects, sociological aspects, cultural aspects, and biographical aspects. Universitas Sumatera Utara In analyzing this thesis, I use expressive theory which will prove that the women character in Little Women actually reflect the women struggle at the nineteenth century and which will show that the novel is a result of the writer’s imagination and creativity to copy her life into the novel as one of the independent writer. Feminism is a phenomenon in the society. When we hear the word “feminism”, the very first thing that comes up in our mind is “woman”. Feminism is, indeed, identical with women, especially in their struggle upon the equality with men. Ratna 2004:184 says, “Dalam pengertian yang paling luas, feminis adalah gerakan kaum wanita untuk menolak segala sesuatu yang dimarginalisasikan, disubordinasikan, dan direndahkan oleh kebudayaan dominan, baik dalam bidang politik dan ekonomi maupun kehidupan social pada umumnya In its broadest sense, feminist is a women’s movement which rejects the marginal, subordinated and underestimated things by the dominating culture either in politics, economics or social life in general. Feminist rejects the injustice as the result of patriarchal society. Feminist also rejects the history and philosophy as they are assumed as male-oriented disciplines. Through feminism, women claim to cultural consciousness that they will not be assumed as the marginal and that the dynamic balance will be achieved Ratna 2004:186- 188. Feminism is an idea and movement that appose the traditional view on woman. It is about women who want to struggle to raise their status and their right in family and society. They will discuss women who want to get free from the domination of men in family and society. They refuse to be treated as the ‘second’ society and regarded as inferior. They do not want to live under the shadow of men’s power. Selden states that in pre-Mendelian days men regarded their sperm as the active seeds which give form to the waiting ovum which lacks identity till it receives the male’s impress. Selden et.al. 1997:121 This idea leads to a belief that the mother is no parent to her child. Mary Ellman, in her book Thinking about Women Universitas Sumatera Utara 1968, apropos the spermovum nexus above, ‘deconstructs’ male-dominated ways of seeing by suggesting that we might prefer to regard the ovum as daring, independent and individualistic rather than ‘apathetic’ and the sperm as conforming and sheeplike rather than ‘enthusiastic’. Elaine Showalter in A Handbook to Literature 1999:211 says: “Feminist criticism has become a wide-ranging exploration of the construction of gender and identity, the role of women in culture and society, and the possibilities of women’s creative expression.” By using the feminist theory above, hopefully this analysis can show that women can do what men can do. Also, women can get the equal right with men. As we know that everything in this world is God’s creation and every person can have it, no exception for men and women.

1.8 Reviews to Related Literature

In supporting this analysis, a number of books deal with the study are needed. The several books are used as the main sources that useful to get further information, idea, or other inputs deal within the analysis. Those books are: 1. An Analysis of Feminism in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre 2008 by Verawati Tarigan. This thesis discusses about feminism in the Jane Eyre to find out how far the attention of Charlotte Bronte in the social condition and how Charlotte face the women condition in the 19 th century, also the ideas of Charlotte Bronte about women and how far the feminism ideas in Jane Eyre. 2. Feminism in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Kareninna 2005 by Ramadani Fitri. This thesis discusses feminism and women’s right in Anna Kareninna. Universitas Sumatera Utara

CHAPTER II THE METHOD OF STUDY

In the analysis of the aspect of feminism in Little Women, I apply library research. I collect the data from related books and other literature that can be connected to the object of investigation. I also find suitable references from the internet in doing this analysis. I got the primary source from the novel Little Women Good Wives. 1993. London: Wordsworth Edition Limited, in this case through the characters, while my secondary source is from other books that related to Feminism.

2.1 Data Collecting Procedure

The very first procedure I collect the main sources of the data which is Little Women novel by Louisa May Alcott. The technique is used by gathering all the data from the library or from the internet and other supporting material relevant to the topic of this thesis as many as possible, and then I begin to read the data carefully, to take down notes and I compose it properly. In reading the novel I underline every data that show about feminism to make me easier in collecting from the whole data. The whole data, the quotation will be put in my thesis later on and find out the relations with the study. The right data are divided into parts to suit the parts of the study. All of the data are read carefully line by line to find out the relation with study. Universitas Sumatera Utara

2.2 Data Selecting Procedure

The second procedure is data selecting. After I read the novel many times and underline the data, then I select the data that show feminism. The whole data, the quotation will be put in my thesis later on and find out the relations with the study. The right data are divided into parts to suit the parts of the study. All of the data are read carefully line by line to find out the relation with study.

2.3 Data Analyzing Procedure

For the last procedure is data analyzing. In composing this analysis, I have to combine the important data from many sources which have been collected and analyzed them well. I apply library research. Library research is a kind of research where researcher gains the data from related books and other literature, I analyze the selected data, describe clearly the analysis and then I can make a conclusion in the end of the analysis. Universitas Sumatera Utara

CHAPTER III A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF FEMINISM

When we talk about feminism, we talk about women who want to free themselves from men domination in family and society. They refuse to be treated as the “second” society and regarded as inferior. The distinction between biological sex and society constructed in gender is a key concept to understand feminist theory, which underpins the woman’s movement of the subordinate status assigned to woman in patriarchal culture. Patriarchy is the popular sense of male domination either in home or outside home and the power relation by which man dominates woman. This cultural construction of gender forms the basis for feminist demands for sex equality and woman liberation. Feminism is not only about woman’s struggle for political rights but also a system of ideas and a social movement directed toward opposing men’s privilege of position and woman subordination. This term includes redistribution of power and recognition of sex equality. Feminism is also called woman freedom in which want to get the equal right with men. As Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in Women and Economics 1898, insisted that women not be liberated until they were freed from the ‘domestic mythology” of home and family that kept them dependent on men. Cordelia Fine, in Delusions of Gender, argues that there is currently no scientific evidence for innate biological differences between men and women’s minds, and that cultural and societal beliefs contribute to commonly perceived sex differences. In the late 14 th - and early 15 th -century France, the first feminist philosopher, Christine de Pisan, challenged prevailing attitudes toward women with a bold call for female education and feminists proclaimed that women would be the intellectual equals of men if they were Universitas Sumatera Utara given equal access to education. In the late 16 th century Mary Astell issued a more reasoned rejoinder in A Serious Proposal to the Ladies 1697. Astell suggested that women inclined neither toward motherhood nor religious vocation should set up secular convents where they might live, study, and teach. Feminism is an idea and movement that appose the traditional view on woman. It is about women who want to struggle to raise their status and their right in family and society. They will discuss women who want to get free from the domination of men in family and society. They refuse to be treated as the ‘second’ society and regarded as inferior. They do not want to live under the shadow of men’s power. Selden states that in pre-Mendelian days men regarded their sperm as the active seeds which give form to the waiting ovum which lacks identity till it receives the male’s impress. This idea leads to a belief that the mother is no parent to her child. Mary Ellman, in her book Thinking about Women 1968, apropos the spermovum nexus above, ‘deconstructs’ male-dominated ways of seeing by suggesting that we might prefer to regard the ovum as daring, independent and individualistic rather than ‘apathetic’ and the sperm as conforming and sheeplike rather than ‘enthusiastic’. Selden et.al. 1997:121 At the beginning, feminism was only a social movement, then it transformed into social theory with various theoretical forms. These terms oppose woman’s subordination after frontal challenge to patriarchal culture and social organization. It is a political label indicating support for the aim of the new woman’s movement. The movement’s history has gone through three waves, beginning in the late 18 th century. The first wave was oriented around the station of middle or upper-class white women, and involved suffrage and political equality. Writers such as Virginia Woolf are associated with the ideas of the first wave of feminism. In her book A Room of One’s Own, Woolf Universitas Sumatera Utara “describes how men socially and physically dominate women”. The argument of the book is that “women are simultaneously victims of themselves as well as victims of men and are upholders of society by acting as mirrors to men”. She recognizes the social constructs that restrict women in society and uses literature to contextualize it for other women. The second wave is identifying from the record publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. In the book Friedan hypothesizes that women are victims of a false belief system that requires them to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husband and children. Here Friedan as a housewife and mother also writing about middle class wives and mothers like herself too, who looking at their nice homes and families. The third wave was a reaction to and continuation of the second wave, taking a post- structuralist analysis of femininity to argue that there is in fact no all encompassing single feminist idea. The feminist movement has brought a sweeping variety of social and cultural change, its impact touching family relations, the place of women in society, gendered language, and relationships between men and men. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Feminism is the belief and aim that the women should have the same rights and opportunities as men. It is about woman liberalization, sexual equality between woman and man that have the same responsibilities and privileges in society, against woman and children violence, rape, and pillage a woman’s body and emotion, also teaches woman to defense herself from improper condition, how to maximize her talents and side by side work with man to make a better life. Feminism teaches woman how to give birth and how to raise their children. It shows us that relationship between women and her children never ends. It demands that society be compelled to refrain inserting itself into that relationship at all stages of motherhood. Universitas Sumatera Utara Feminism teaches us that we have both the responsibility and the right to educate our own children. This is a paramount duty that belongs to both the mother and father. The feminist rebels against the involuntary intermittent incarceration of children for the crime of being young. The feminist seek to educate mother and father so that they are able to have and use their intellect and to develop it to full capacity. ‘Gender studies’ Healey, J. F. 2003:31, is a field of study of interdisciplinary studies which analyze the phenomenon of gender. Gender studies are sometimes related to studies of social class, race classification of human beings race, ethnicity, and gender identity sexuality and location geography location. In gender studies, the term ‘gender’ is used to refer to the social and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities, not to the state of being male or female in its entirety. Nancy F. Cott tells the term feminist entered the English language sometimes around 1910. Then, as known, it means a “complete social revolution” in the roles of women. Cott explain that early feminism had “two dominating ideas: the emancipation of woman both as a human-being and as a sex being”. It goals were the elimination of all barriers that prevented women from achieving their complete development as individuals. More radical in its demands that the suffrage movement, it attracted only a few of the youngest and most educated woman of its day. It persisted organizationally as the Nationally Woman’s Party, with its demand for complete constitutional equality of women and men. The premises of modern day feminism are traceable to its roots in early feminism. Three main tenets of this philosophy continue today: i. Women should be the equal of men. No gender is superior. Universitas Sumatera Utara ii. Women’s roles and status are a product of the social structure, and thus changeable iii. Women are self-identified as a social group; thus they are positioned to act “as a group” to change their status. Castro 1990:46 says that true feminism embraces all women. It is not the product of one political ideology. It embraces conservative and libertarian women as well as liberals and socialists. It is not the exclusive property of white middle to upper class women in the United States, who dictate to the rest of the world what it means to be a woman. Feminism bring about the world in which people of all ages and both sexes embrace full responsibility for their action, it teaches that women are not slaves to men. Our bodies are our most precious material possession we will only have one body. We deserve to have that body respected by men. This means that rape is unacceptable. Assault is unacceptable. We have a right to a fortress of peace in which or raise our children and we have right to be free of the mind control which is used a woman to convince them that do not deserve peace in their homes. Mary Wollstonecraft as the first feminist or mother of feminism in her book length essay talk about women’s rights and especially on women’s education, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack of education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason. Mary Wollstonecraft is usually considered a liberal feminist because her approach is primarily concerned with the individual woman and about rights. She could be considered as Universitas Sumatera Utara a difference feminist in her honoring on women’s natural talents and her insistence that women not be measured by men’s standards. Lubis 2006:122 stated that there are several feminist theories that develop in the society, such as liberal, social, Marxist, psychoanalytic, post-modernism, post-structuralism and ecofeminism, which develop in different situation and condition to represent women’s experiences which cannot be equated to men’s. Liberal feminist believe that “female” subordination is rooted in a set of customary and legal constraints that blocks women’s entrance into andor success in so called public world. Liberal feminist thus believe that if the rules of the game are defined by constitutions, laws, and the mechanisms established fro their implementation, enforcement, and adjudication and if they encourage or permit unfair policies to exist then the constitutions, laws, and mechanisms must be changed. Socialist feminists see prostitution, domestic work, childcare and marriage as ways in which women are exploited by a patriarchal system that devalues women and the substantial work they do. Socialist feminists focus their energies on broad change that affects society as a whole, rather than on an individual basis. According to some socialist feminists, this view of gender oppression as a sub-class of class oppression is naive and much of the work of socialist feminists has gone towards separating gender phenomena from class phenomena. Marxist feminism attributes women’s oppression to a capitalist economy and the private property system. Argues that capitalism must be overtrown if the oppression of women is to end. Draws parallels between women and “workers” and emphasizes collectives change rather than individual change. Universitas Sumatera Utara Lesbianism is considered as one of the result of Second-Wave Feminism. The dissatisfaction of women towards the men makes the women to search for the fulfillment in women. The beginning of lesbianism was in World-War II where many of women participated in the army. They used man’s clothing, acted like man and fell in love with women. The lesbians assume the heterosexuality as a part of patriarchy. Lesbian ethics is not just a sexual orientation; it is a refusal to be defined either sexually or morally by men. Liberal feminism is a kind of feminism which focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices. The important issues to liberal feminism include reproductive and abortion rights, sexual harassment, voting, education, equality of wage, affordable childcare, affordable health care, and the reduction of sexual and domestic violence against women. Post-feminism is a reaction against second-wave feminism, especially lesbianism. Post-feminists believe that women have achieved the goal of feminism; the equality for everyone has been done. The characteristic of this idea is when a woman is happy with her sexuality and is confidence with it. Marrying a man is not considered as something patriarchal. Instead, it is the realization of finding someone who will make everything worthwhile. Anti-man is rejected by post-feminism. The post-structural feminism combines various epistemological movements, including psychoanalysis and political theory Marxist, which maintains that difference is one of the most powerful tools that females posses in their struggle with patriarchal domination, and that the definition of equality is still defined from the masculine or patriarchal perspective. The ecofeminism evaluates the patriarchal systems, where men own and control the land which is seen as an oppression of women and destruction of the natural environment because of the exploitation for men’s own profit and success. Universitas Sumatera Utara The social feminism evaluates the unequal standing in both the workplace and the domestic sphere which holds women down. Social feminism sees prostitution, domestic work, childcare and marriage as ways in which women are exploited by a patriarchal system that devalues women and the substantial work they do. Socialist feminists gain their power so that the effect of the movement will spread out to the whole of society rather than to individual basis. According to Rosemary Tong, Radical Feminism focused on two parts. First, it focuses on man’s manner in controlling woman’s body, dealing with sterilization, contraception, abortion law, and violence. Second, it articulates the way of man’s construction on woman’s sexuality to serve their need, desire, without considering women’s need and desire. Radical feminism focused on reproduction and motherhood, gender and sexuality themes. Radical feminism: Cutting-edge branch of feminism focused on sweeping social reforms, social change, and revolution. Argues against institutions like patriarchy, heterosexism, and racism and instead emphasizes gender as a social construction, denouncing biological roots of gender difference. Often paves the way for other branches of feminism.

CHAPTER IV AN ANALYSIS OF THE ASPECT OF FEMINISM IN LOUISA MAY ALCOTT’S