Review of the Related Studies

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A. Review of the Related Studies

There are two studies related to this study. Both studies use the same object, which is Anita Shreve’s The Pilot’s Wife. The studies related are “Middlebrow Aesthetics and the Therapeutic: The Politics of Interiority in Anita Shreves The Pilots Wife” by Timothy Aubry and “The Importance of Secondary Characters in the Novel The Pilot’s Wife” by Lauren. The study titled “Middlebrow Aesthetics and the Therapeutic: The Politics of Interiority in Anita Shreves The Pilots Wife” by Timothy Aubry is related to this study. In the study, Aubry writes about his though that feminism is not the only one exist in a feminist novel, there is another issues tried to be revealed up through the novel, for example is the political conflict related to a country’s institution, IRA Aubry, 2008: 87. Even though he agrees that many novels within the category of womens fiction exhibit a therapeutic emphasis, he does not believe that the meanings, implications, and ideological functions of this emphasis have been adequately described. He gives the example of this case by stating the politics issue happening in the feminist novel The Pilot’s Wife Aubry, 2008: 89. In his study, Aubry writes his thought that the reason for Kathryn’s husband committing suicide has relations to political conflicts with IRA. Through this study, he does not try to analyze the characteristics of each character but analyze the motive behind Jack, the character who commits suicide in a plane. Another thing that Aubry states in The Pilot’s Wife is the author or Shreves writing nevertheless demonstrates the capacity of individual-centered, therapeutic discourse to describe larger social formations and class anxieties through the depiction of a single characters conspicuously conventional interiority Aubry, 2008: 87. He assumes that The Pilots Wife works actively to politicize the domestic sphere in a systematic fashion, cataloguing the ways in which the husbands secret affiliation with the Irish Republican Army has shaped the protagonists family dynamics Aubry, 2008: 92. Moreover, he gives explanations that what have been passed by Kathryn concerning the painful truths about her husband are not only caused by her position as a wife but are also still related to the affiliation with IRA. Through this study, Aubry explains about the ending of the novel which he thinks Anita Shreve succeeds at endowing all of the psychological impulses, physical gestures, conversations, and memories that usually constitute intimate familial relations with the dramatic valences and affective energies of high-stakes political conflict . The excessive appropriation and proliferation of the political serves psychological needs particular to the protagonist and the category of middle-class women in this novel whose name is Kathryn Lyons Aubry, 2008: 103. In the end of the study, Aubry argues that reading The Pilot’s Wife carefully reveals a psychological realm ripe for the kind of politicization. In this study, he also compares The Pilot’s Wife with another similar literary work such as Portrait of the Artist. He fistly compares the main female character from both literary works then he relates them to the politic issue Aubry, 2008: 98-99. Aubry’s study is different from this study. This study analyzes the symbol found in the main female character ’s action showing that women lack power in society while the study by Aubry focuses on the political issue related to Jack’s committing suicide which is unconsciously giving contribution to Kathryn’s characteristics. The second study is an essay titled “The Importance of Secondary Characters in the Novel The Pilot’s Wife” by Lauren which is also related to this study. This essay explains that contributions given by minor or secondary characters are very important in a novel including The Pilot’s Wife. She argues that no matter how many times or how long the minor characters appear in the story, each of them must have significant roles that contribute to the meaning of the story. Lauren states that Jack Lyons had never appeared in the novel but he was depicted through the minor characters around him such as his father, his mother, his brother, his another wife and children in Ireland that Kathryn had never known before Lauren, 2004 . Jack’s another wife was Muire which was once a stewardess in an airplane company where Jack worked, they had two children from this marriage which one of them was Diedre. Lauren states Kathryn’s realizing that once the life of a child was involved in a relationship, it become more complicated for the couple to solve their problems, since they must undergo the consequences and responsibilities of being a parent. Kathryn realized that Diedre knew nothing as the mistakes were done by his parents, therefore Kathryn treated him like her own daughter. Jack was not a faithful husband, yet Kathryn found that Jack was a very responsible father through Diedre and Mattie which was her own daughter. The main idea of the essay written by Laura is that every minor character, no matter how long and how many times they appear, holds important and significant roles to help the reader get the meaning of the story Lauren, 2004. The article written by Laura gives contribution in term of characterization. What makes Laura’s study different from this study is this study analyzes the symbolic act of the main character and how it represents the idea of social castration while Laura’s study analyzes the importance of minor characters which help the depiction of the main character.

B. Review of Related Theories