5 The objectives of this study are to find out the changes of the major
character ’s characteristics and to show women’s oppression which is exposed in
the novel. By understanding the objectives of the study, the readers are hoped to have high awareness of how to treat people around them. So, there will be no
oppression happened in the society. As the readers have known how is the feeling of people who are being oppressed.
B. Approach of the Study
In conducting this research, the researcher employs sociocultural-historical approach. According to Woods and Rohrberger 1971, sociocultural-historical
approach insists that the way to understand a literary work is to have better understanding about the society p.9. Besides, Woods and Rohrberger 1971
also state, the only way to locate a real work is in reference to the civilization which produced it p.9. Then Woods and Rohrberger 1971
define “civilization as the attitudes and actions of a specific group of people and point out that
literature takes these attitudes and actions as its subject matter ” p.9. This
approach is occupied to observe the society and the history in Afghanistan. Therefore, the researcher needs to provide sufficient understanding on the society
in Afghanistan. By implementing this approach, the researcher expects the reader would have a better understanding about the study through society in Afghanistan
which is provided. The object of this study is a novel of Deborah Ellis entitled The
Breadwinner. This novel consists of fifteen chapters in 166 pages. In this novel,
6 the author provides some notes about the real situation in Afghanistan at that
moment, and also some knowledge about the Taliban which are useful for the readers. This novel tells about Parvana, an eleven-year-old girl who disguises
herself into a boy and becomes the breadwinner for her family because of women
’s oppression in Afghanistan. She has a younger sister, a younger brother, and an older sister. In becoming the breadwinner for her family, she disguises
herself into a boy so she could go outside and earn money freely. She does her Father
’s work in the market in order to keep her and her family alive. Besides that, the novel also reveals about women
’s oppression which is done by Taliban during their regime. Moreover, the novel also reveals how the Taliban treat people there,
not only women but also men. The Taliban would punish everyone who is disobeying the rules. However, they are stricter to women. An-
Na’im 1998 states after taking control the capital city of Afghanistan, Taliban had forbidding
women to work outside the home, attend school, or to leave their home unless accompanied by a husband, father, brother, or son p.11. The characters in this
novel are fictional ones; however the situation is real because the story of the novel is inspired by the author
’s experience when she visited Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. She interviewed Afghan people there.
The method in this study was library research. The primary source was the novel itself, while other sources and data were taken from books and internet. In
order to finish this study, there were some steps passed. First, the researcher selected this novel as the main book, and the researcher read the book for several
7 times in order to have better understanding about the novel. This step also helped
the researcher to make a summary of the novel. The second step was deciding the interesting things which were happened in
the novel. In this step, the researcher chose the interesting topic which is needed to be analyzed. After finding the topic, the researcher made the problems
formulation, then read books and journals which could help the researcher to answer the problems formulation.
The third step was to answer the questions which were made in the problems formulation. In this step, the researcher analyzed the character which
was described in the novel. In order to analyze it, the researcher employed the theory of character and characterization and the theory of types of character. After
answering the first question in the problem formulation, the researcher analyzed the next question. In order to analyze this question, the researcher employed the
theory of setting, the theory of women ’s oppression and a review on Afghanistan
during the Taliban regime. Those theories helped the researcher analyze how women
’s oppression experienced by Afghan women in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime exposed in the novel, supported by the character and the setting.
After analyzing and answering the questions which were stated in the problem formulation, the last step was to draw conclusion. In this part, the answer
of the problems formulation was discussed briefly. After finishing the analysis, the researcher drew conclusion and proposed suggestions for the future
researchers, and also proposed the implementation of this study for teaching and learning English by using the novel, The Breadwinner.
8
CHAPTER II DISCUSSION
