consciousness of her social environment, Iowa People. There is a quotation which shows Francesca’s reaction toward the society around her.
‘I’m supposed to say, just fine, it’s quiet. The people are nice. All of that’s true, mostly. It is quiet. And the people are nice in certain ways. We all
help each other out. If someone gets sick or hurt, the neighbors pitch in and pick corn or harvest oats or do whatever needs to be done. In town,
you can leave your car unlocked and let your children run without worrying about them. There are a lot of good things about the people here
and I respect them for those qualities…” Waller, p.42.
She realizes that she lives in a social community that is totally new for her. She tries to settle in the situation in it. Here, Francesca is portrayed as an outgoing
person. It is true that Francesca cares of the other like Iowa society, the society in
which she lives, but since she moved to Iowa she becomes an introvert person. Then, after twenty years of living the close life, a life of circumscribed
behavior and hidden feelings demanded by rural culture, Francesca Johnson surprised herself by saying, “I’ll be glad to show it to you, if you
want.” Why she did that, she never had been sure. A young girl’s feelings rising like a bubble through water and bursting out, maybe, after all these
years Waller, p.29.
The quotation above shows that it has been for twenty years that Francesca Johnson should live in the situation which is restricted by the rule of rural culture,
in this case the rule of Iowa society. Francesca lives in a place in which she can not develop herself nor shows her feelings or ideas. And when she says that she
wants to shows Robert the location of the bridge he tries to find, that is the first time for Francesca to do what she want, that is to make a new relationship with
someone new, which is for the Iowa society it is improper to be done by a woman who has a husband to have a relation with a stranger especially a man.
“She sat on the front porch swing. Richard came out after his program finished at ten o’clock. He stretch and said, ”Sure is good to be home.”
Then looking at her, “You okay, Frannie? You seem a little tired or dreamy or somethin’”
“Yes,m I’m just fine Richard. It’s good to have you back safe and sound.” Waller, p.121
That is why Francesca prefers to hide her feeling rather than to tell Richard about what she feels and about what happened in their house when Richard and their
children went to Illinois. She tries to keep that secret by herself instead of letting the others know it.
Although she is described as an introvert person, there is a time when she is able to share her feeling with someone she trusts, in this case Robert.
“But” – she hesitated, smoked, looked across the table at Robert Kincaid – “It’s not what I dreamed about as a girl. “The confession at last. The words
had been there for years, and she had never said them” Waller, p.42.
That line gives an idea of Francesca’s disappointment of reality she faces up. She has a dream, but she can only keep it for herself for a long time, therefore she has
a delusion world where she lives with all her dream. Francesca lives in a situation which lacks of happiness. It is hard for her to
stay in it, in the family in which she can not express her ideas and feeling freely. Her rights and ideas are limited by an unseen boarder that puts her in a corner. She
is a woman who is seldom has a chance to choose something or makes a decision for herself, but once she has it, she becomes a woman with a firm attitude who is
able to make a choice clearly. She’d been thinking about just that since they talked earlier. But she had
decided. “No, I’d like to see you do your work. I’m not worried about talk.” She was worried, but something in her had taken hold, something to
do with risk. Whatever the cost, she was going out to Cedar Bridge Waller, p.79.
The quotation above shows Francesca’s explicit decision. There is a moment when she has a chance to accompany Robert making picture in Cedar Bridge.
After Francesca thinks deeply about the risk of her choice, she decides to take that chance.
Francesca is a woman with a firm attitude in making a choice. She never hesitates with the step she takes, but she always takes a choice with a deep
thought before she decides to take it. It can be concluded that Francesca is a thinker. She always thinks about the problem she faces, analyzes it, before she
decides what to do. Then he added, “If you want to come along while I’m shooting, that’s fine.
It won’t bother me. I could stop by for you about fine-thirty… Francesca’s mind worked the problem. She wanted to go with him. But what if
someone saw her? What could she say to Richard if he found out? Cedar Bridges sat fifty yards upstream from and parallel to the new road and its
concrete bridge. She wouldn’t be too noticeable. Or would she? In less than two seconds, she decides. “Yes, I’d like that. But I’ll drive my pickup
and meet you there. What time?” Waller, p.76-77.
Inside her heart, Francesca really loves Robert and she definitely wants to be with him. She thinks about the consequences and the safe plans to meet Robert in
Cedar Bridge. As the last step, she decides that she wants to accompany Robert, and there is nothing that can stop her.
B. Francesca Johnson as the Reflection of Women in the Middle of the
Emerging Feminist Movement
The setting of time in this story is in the year of 1965. It means that the setting of the story in this novel is about five years after the second wave of
American Feminism that happened in 1960’s, which marks the establishment of PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
the modern Women’s Movement. Than, it can be concluded that this story might represent the general situation of women in the middle of the emerging feminist
movement. According to the background above, the writer tries to portray the women’s life in that era by analyzing the aspect of life of the character of
Francesca Johnson. Here, the writer divides the second part of the analysis in this study into some point in order to make it easier for the readers to catch the
writer’s idea.
1. Francesca and Her Past Life
It has been for a long time that the society considers men as superior and women as inferior. This paradigm was started by the traditional thought and up to
now, it is still strongly embedded to the way of thinking of the society. The gender discrimination places women as a second sex and to be the party who should obey
the rules of which are made by the first party which is consist of another elements of society: men and parents. There is such belief in the society which is said when
unmarried, a woman was the property of her father, and once married, she became the property of her husband.
Simon De Beauvoir in Maggie Humm’s FEMINISM A Reader quotes ‘The female is a female by virtue of a certain lacks of qualities,’ said Aristotle;
‘we should regard the female nature as afflicted with natural defectiveness.’ And St. Thomas for his part pronounced woman to be an
‘imperfect man’, an ‘incidental’ being. This is symbolized in Genesis where Eve is depicted as made from what Bossuet called ‘a supernumery
bone’ of Adam Humm, p.47.
Simon adds, she is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he
with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the absolute – she is the other Humm, p.47
The oppression toward women was undergone by Francesca in her past
life which in the end gives a big impact for Francesca’s life. She faced some experiences that placing her in a situation which harmed her.
a. Francesca’s Obedience toward Her Father
The first oppression is Francesca’s obedience toward her parents. Francesca’s parents are traditional parents who tend to force their daughter to
accept the decision they make. “She had been twenty-five when they met – out of the university for three
years, teaching at a private school for girls, wondering about her life. Most of the young Italian men were died or injured or in POW camps or broken
by the fighting. Her affair with Niccolo, a professor of art at the university, who painted all day and took her on wild, reckless tours of the underside
of Naples at night, had been over for a year, done in finally by the unceasing disapproval of her traditional parents Waller, p. 19.
That part of the story tells that as a woman, Francesca can not decide by herself what is good for her according her own thought and choice that she really want to
choose. Here, her parents take a role to make a decision for Francesca to choose a man with whom she would live in the future. It is a proof that Francesca as a
woman has no right to decide the thing that actually it is a very personal matter for her. Her right and her will are defeated by her parent’s superiority toward her.
Francesca’s parents’ involvement in making a decision brings a consequence that she does not have other choices anymore about with whom she
can past the rest of her life. She wore ribbon in her black hair and clung to her dreams. But no
handsome sailors disembarked looking for her, no voices came up to her window from street below. The hard press of reality brought her to the
recognition that her choices were constrain. Richard offered a reasonable alternative: kindness and the sweet promise of America Waller, p.19.
There is nothing else can be done by Francesca except to accept Richard as her life partner. She accepted Richard by the consideration that he might fulfill her
needs and finance. As a woman Francesca thinks that financial matter is more important rather than the matter of love, and she thinks Richard is the one who is
able to support her life, although there is no guarantee that she will get the happiness and the feeling to be loved by someone if she marries Richard. The
most important thing for her was, Richard offered to take her to America, far away from her strict, disapproving parents.
b. Francesca’s Experience to be Abused
When Francesca studied in High School, she had faced an experience which is until now; it is not easy for her to forget.
But the bias against poetry they had picked up, the view of it as a product of unsteady masculinity, was too much even for Yeats to overcome… She
remembered Matthew Clark looking at the boy beside him and then forming his hands as if to cup them over a woman’s breasts when she read,
“The golden apples of the sun”. They had snickered, and the girls in the back row with them blushed Waller, p.60.
The quotation above shows Francesca’s disagreement toward what was done by Matthew Clark. Francesca loves poetry with its beautiful words, but she was
disappointed by the act of man, in this case Matthew Clark who was abusing and humiliating women by interpreting the words on Yeats poetry as the description of
the part of women’s body. For that, she could not do anything, although inside her heart she wanted to complain and fought for her self-respect as a woman.
They would live with those attitudes all their lives. That’s what had discouraged her, knowing that, and she felt compromised and alone, in
spite of the outward friendliness of the community Waller, p.60. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
