FRAGMENTATION AS A MEDIUM TO REVALUE WOMEN’S POSITION AS SEEN THROUGH MARLENE’S LIFE IN CARYL CHURCHILL’S TOP GIRLS
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
FRAGMENTATION AS A MEDIUM TO REVALUE WOMEN ’S POSITION AS SEEN THROUGH MARLENE ’S LIFE IN CARYL CHURCHILL ’S TOP GIRLS
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
AMBAR FATAH MELANY
Student Number: 114214071
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2015
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
FRAGMENTATION AS A MEDIUM TO REVALUE WOMEN ’S POSITION AS SEEN THROUGH MARLENE ’S LIFE IN CARYL CHURCHILL ’S TOP GIRLS
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
AMBAR FATAH MELANY
Student Number: 114214071
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2015
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
DO IT NOW, SOMETIMES ‘LATER’ BECOMES ‘NEVER’
(Anonymous) You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream.
(C.S. Lewis) Whatever you do, DO IT LIKE A BOSS! (Gilit Cooper)
Dedicated to the readers:
May you find happiness.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thesis writing is not an instant process. It takes time and energy to finish it. Time and mood management are the key to success in writing this thesis. It was impossible for the writer to finish this thesis without any help from family and friends. Here, the researcher would like to mention some names who were willingly to help her academically and emotionally to finish this thesis.
The researcher would like to thank God for His guidance from the beginning until the end of this thesis writing. A sincere gratitude is directed to Dr. F.X. Siswadi, M.A., her academic and thesis advisor, who has supported the writer since the beginning of this thesis writing. He always encouraged her to do her best and finish this undergraduate thesis sooner for the better. The researcher would like to express her gratitude to J. Harris Hermansyah S., S.S., M. Hum, her co-advisor, for his valuable second opinion for the finishing touch of this thesis.
The researcher would also like to thank Umi and her adoptive parents for their love and support, financially and emotionally. A big thank is also directed to her Sprache friends especially Angel and Arum, and USD 2011 Class C friends for the great time and all the positive vibes. Without all the positives vibes, this thesis is impossible to finish in time. To all people who have willingly helped in this long process, the writer would like to say thanks.
Ambar Fatah Melany
TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ......................................................................................................... i APPROVAL PAGE ................................................................................................ ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE .......................................................................................... iii STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ...................................................................... iv LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH ..... v MOTTO PAGE ...................................................................................................... vi
DEDICATION PAGE ........................................................................................... vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................. viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................... ix ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... x ABSTRAK ............................................................................................................... xiCHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION.......................................................................... 1 A. Background of the study ............................................................................ 1 B. Problem Formulation ................................................................................. 4 C. Objective of the Study ............................................................................... 4 D. Definition of Terms ................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE .................................................... 6 A. Review of Related Studies ........................................................................ 6 B. Review of Related Theories ...................................................................... 8 C. Theoretical Framework ............................................................................. 15
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY .................................................................... 16
A. Object of the Study .................................................................................... 16 B. Approach of the Study ............................................................................... 17 C. Method of the Study .................................................................................. 18CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ................................................................................... 20
A. Fragmentation Depicted in the Play ......................................................... 21 1. Fragmented Character ......................................................................... 23 2.27 Fragmented Setting and Plot ..............................................................
B.
Fragmentation as a Medium to Revalue Women’s Position ...... ............ .. 34 1.
Women as Seen in the Traditional View and Women’s Liberation Movements ......................................................................................... 34 2. Fragmentation as a Medium to Revalue Women’s Position ............ .. 38
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ........................................................................... 48
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................ 50
ABSTRACT
MELANY, AMBAR FATAH. Fragmentation as a Medium to Revalue Women
’s Position as Seen through Marlene ’s Life in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2015.
Top Girls is a play produced by Caryl Churchill. All of the characters in this play are
women. This play tells about Marlene ’s getting promoted as a managing director in ‘Top
Girls ’ Employment Agency and her need to leave her family and her only daughter since she was young to get a successful life. Churchill uses fragmentation as her narrating style and method.
There are two objectives of this study. The first objective is to know how the play is fragmented, and the second is to elaborate how the fragmentation is used as a medium in revaluing women ’s position.
This study is conducted in a library research method. The primary source of this study is Caryl Churchill ’s Top Girls play script. Some written and internet based sources are also used in analyzing the work. The writer uses the Postmodern Feminism approach to analyze the problem formulation of this study.
The discussion indicates that the fragmentation is depicted in Marlene ’s characterization and the setting and plot of the play. Marlene as the fragmented character is told to have different characteristics depending on whom she is with. When she is with her imaginative friends who have the same power as her, Marlene becomes a good responsive listener and never uses any harsh words. When she is with her co-workers and Joyce who have lower power, she tends to be an ignorant person and uses harsh words a lot. Setting and plot are combined for the sake of the ease for understanding. Churchill uses a non-linear plot to narrate her story. Each scene of the play happens in different time and place. Besides analyzing the intrinsic element of the play, it also elaborates how women are seen in traditional view and some women movements happened years ago.
Both are useful to give the reader an acknowledgment of the value of women before the analysis goes further to the revaluing women ’s position. Fragmentation that has been mentioned earlier becomes Churchill
’s medium to trigger her audience to be actively involved in her play. To get to understand the message of the play, the audience needs to rearrange the plot, observes the motif of using fragmentation and interprets its relation to the real life. The result of the whole discussion of this study is that fragmentation is the only proper medium to help Churchill to voice her view in the need of revaluing women
’s position. If women in the past are seen as inferior, Churchill proves that women in the present can be as superior as men through the figuration of Marlene.
ABSTRAK
MELANY, AMBAR FATAH. Fragmentation as a Medium to Revalue Women
’s Position as Seen through Marlene ’s Life in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2015.
Top Girls adalah sebuah drama karya Caryl Churchill. Para pemeran dalam drama
ini adalah kaum wanita. Drama ini bercerita tentang Marlene yang berhasil dipromosikan sebagai manajer direktur di ‘Top Girls’ Employment Agency dan pengorbanannya yang harus meninggalkan keluarga dan anaknya demi meraih kesuksesan. Churchill menggunakan fragmentasi sebagai metode dan gaya penuturan cerita dalam drama ini.
Ada dua tujuan dalam penelitian ini. Tujuan pertama dari penelitian ini adalah menganalisis bagaimana drama ini terfragmentasi dan mengelaborasi kepentingan dari fragmentasi tersebut sebagai medium untuk menilai ulang posisi kaum wanita.
Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kepustakaan. Sumber utama dari penelitian ini adalan naskah drama Top Girls karya Caryl Churchill. Beberapa sumber tertulis dan sumber berbasis internet turut dipergunakan untuk membantu menganalisa karya tersebut. Penulis menggunakan pendekatan Postmodern Feminisme untuk menganalisa masalah yang tersaji di penelitian ini.
Fragmentasi dalam drama ini bisa dilihat dari penokohan watak Marlene serta setting dan alur cerita. Marlene, sebagai tokoh yang terfragmentasi, dikisahkan mempunyai watak yang berbeda tergantung dengan siapa dirinya sedang berada. Ketika ia sedang bersama teman rekaannya, Marlene menjadi seorang pendengar yang baik dan tidak pernah menggunakan kata-kata yabg kasar. Sedangkan ketika ia sedang bersama rekan kerja dan Joyce, ia merupakan orang yang acuh dan sering menggunakan kata-kata kasar.
Setting dan alur cerita dikombinasikan untuk kemudahan dalam memahami cerita.
Churchill menggunakan alur non linier dalam mengisahkan ceritanya. Setiap babak memiliki tempat dan waktu kejadian yang berbeda. Disamping menganalisa unsur intrinsik dalam drama ini, penulis juga mengelaborasi bagaimana kaum wanita dipandang dari sudut pandang tradisional dan gerakan-gerakan kaum wanita yang pernah ada. Hal tersebut dapat membanu para pembaca untuk mengetahui secara sekilas bagaimana kedudukan wanita pada waktu itu. Churchill menggunakan fragmentasi sebagai medium untuk merangsang para penontonnya untuk terlibat secara langsung dalam drama ini. Para penonton harus menata ulang alur cerita, meneliti motif dibalik penggunaan fragmentasi itu sendiri dan menginterpretasi hubungan dari keduanya dengan kehidupan nyata. Dari penelitian ini, bisa diketahui bahwa fragmentasi merupakan satu-satunya media yang bisa membantu Churchill untuk menyuarakan pendapatnya tentang perlunya menilai kembali kedudukan kaum wanita. Jika pada jaman dahulu kaum wanita dianggap lemah, Churchill membuktikan bahwa kaum wanita pada masa sekarang bisa menjadi sama superiornya dengan kaum laki-laki melalui penokohan Marlene.
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study Play has been seen as a result of someone‟s expression toward certain condition or
even ideology. It was also used by women playwright during nineteenth century. For women playwright at that time, play was used as a medium to protest an imposed silence and it was an expression of the need to create new lives for women. Thus, it could be
th
seen that 19 century play constituted feminist themes in that they portray the social and psychological restrictions placed upon women in a male dominant society (Friedman, 1984:70).
Cavanagh and Cree states that “Feminist has drawn attention to sexist attitudes implicit in social policy and practice, and to the existence of powerful patriarchal structure which oppress women as service- users” (1996:3). From that quotation, it is seen that women were oppressed by certain sexist attitudes from their working mates. One example of sexist attitudes is the existence of traditional view from society that women belong in the home, not working as only men who have responsibility to earn money. By that such stereotype, women hardly got better living because they could not get a promising job and salary like men. Society thought that women were only responsible for their children, husband, and parents so that there was no deal with getting job outside home. Although they got a job outside, women were treated differently from men; it is that they got disproportionately lower wage than men (Cavanagh and Cree, 1996:59).
2 Starting from the 1960s, women playwrights in Britain took their places to re-voice gender equality by producing some play performances. It was a continuation of former playwrights in the 1920s-1930s which were unsuccessful in voicing gender equality (Gale and Gardner, 2000:23).
th Caryl Churchill was one of the famous feminist playwrights in the late 19 century.
She had her own way in voicing the existence of women and gender equality. She packed all her idea related to that sort of theme into a play entitled Top Girls which was first performed in 1982. In this play, she introduced a unique way by having only women as the actresses.
Amelia Howe Kritzer, a lecturer of University of Wisconsin, in her journal states that: That brief moment in which the not possible is realized communicates Churchill‟s confidence in the potential of oppressed people to transcend the limitations of their material conditions, and her challenge to audiences to go beyond what she has been able to imagine in the process of re-forming society (1989:131). Churchill usually tries to challenge her audience to seek every single possible ideas from her story. It means that there is no limitation for her audience to interpret her story.
Churchill actually has given us space to go beyond her story. Top Girls is a feminism themed work using postmodernist style in its writing. This is what makes the study more interesting. While other researchers seek for feminism aspect, this study might do a bit different thing by looking deeper at the significance of using fragmentation, traditional postmodernist style, in a feminism themed work.
In the Theatre of the Absurd, the audience is confronted with actions that lack apparent motivation, characters that are in constant flux, and often happenings that are clearly outside the realm of rational experience. ... The relevant question here is
3 not so much what is going to happen next but what is happening? „What does the action of the play represent?‟ (Esslin, 1968:406).
Top Girls is a fragmented play. Its fragmentation can be seen from the non linearity
of the plot, mixed characters, and fragmented setting and place. There are time and place differences from scene to scene. Furthermore, in the very first scene, which is in Act One, it is shown that Marlene as the main actress has all her guests who come from different period of time to her dinner party. In order to get the message of the play, the audience needs to be more focus on every detail of the play: the character, plot, setting and place.
Through the time gaps showed in Top Girls, Churchill might want to share her idea that there is the similarity and also the difference(s) between women in the past and present. By the traditional stereotype of women in the past, women were seen as the ones who cannot be successful in men‟s world. In the present time, women are still seen as inferior because of the patriarchal system that has lasted for so long and it has become a social structure that can be hardly changed. Despite of that fact, women actually has struggled and sacrificed to revalue the traditional image and change the social structure that has made them suffer for so long by re-voicing gender equality through some feminist movements and tried to succeed working in men‟s world. Thus, it is obvious that through Top Girls , Churchill has tried to revalue women‟s position.
The beginning of second wave feminism, the term now usually used to described the post 1968 women‟s movement were thus marked by new political groupings and campaigns such as those organized around abortion legislation, demands for legal and financial equality, and equal opportunity at work (Sim, 2001:41).
It could be seen from Marlene‟s life. She is a successful woman with a promising job who has just promoted as a Managing Director in her agency.
4 Based on the short explanation above, it is obvious that the significance of Top
Girls ‟s fragmentation to revalue women‟s position is worth to analyze.
B. Problem Formulation In this study, there are two problem formulations to focus on to the further analysis.
They are: 1.
In what way is the play fragmented? 2. How does the fragmentation(s) reflect the idea of revaluing women‟s position?
C. Objectives of the Study
This study is intended to present an elaboration on how the play is fragmented and an analysis on the use of that Postmodernist‟s fragmentation as a medium to revalue women‟s position as seen through Marlene‟s life in Caryl Churchill‟s Top Girls.
D. Definition of Terms
In order to avoid misunderstanding of certain terminology, the writer would like to define the term mentioned in the title of the study and in the problem formulation.
1. Fragmentation
Fragmentation is a breaking to form a structure that would convey a hidden message rather than the obvious message to its audience (Tycer, 2008: 45).
Fragmentation can be seen as both method and style of plotting a story by breaking it into some parts which the detail will be different from one to another to make the audience realize that there is a hidden message built in the story. Its existence is to help the audience to dig the details of the play so that they could get the most suitable message from their multi-interpretation of the play.
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2. Revalue
To revalue means to consider that someone or something is important. In this case, women‟s position is revalued. It means that women‟s position is also as important as men‟s. Women in the traditional view were not seen as something important because their position is lower than men. Therefore, there is a need to revalue women‟s position to assure the society that women are as important as men. They are equal as human being living in this world.
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE A. Review of Related Studies The study on Caryl Churchill‟s Top Girls was also done by other researchers. In this
section, there are some short passages taken from journals. The first is from Rebecca Cameron‟s journal entitled “From Great Women to Top Girls: Pageants of Sisterhood in British Feminist Theater” who writes:
... however, this production expresses a feminist ideal more than they do a material reality; the performance of united sisterhood shows signs of strain with a certain degree of self-awareness (2009:143). From that short sentence, Cameron tells the reader that Top Girls only reveals the idea of feminism through the sisterhood of all the characters who come from different cultures and period of time. From Cameron‟s point of view, the play being discussed only deals with the „feminist ideal‟ which means it is on how men and society should treat women.
However one interprets the play, the experience of these six women exemplifies how male domination in the patriarchal system has occurred since centuries ago and is supported by most sacred institutions of the Church and flourishes in the marriage institution (Djunjung, 2002:174).
A bit similar to Cameron, Jenny M. Djunjung also writes that Top Girls deals with the idea of the existence of patriarchal system in that era that women could not resist.
They hardly resist that kind of male domination because it had already existed long time ago. Although there were some feminist movement, or what so called as suffrage movement, they run ineffectively because Church which was supposed to be neutral supported that patriarchal system.
7 After reading the other studies perspective toward Caryl C hurchill‟s Top Girls, there is a need to seek for a further learning point of the play. The previous studies only focused on one main point in which feminism took its place. It is the existence of patriarchal system and feminist ideal. Besides, like what Kritzer had said earlier, Churchill actually has given the reader space to go beyond her story (1989: 131).
A short passage below is from Hua Ni and Dawei Lian‟s journal entitled “Study of the Fragmented Structure in Oracle Night as a Metafiction.”
Fragmented narration at least has the following function in Oracle Night. In the first place, fragmented narration provides infinite space for the writer‟s imagination. ... In this kind of writing, we would have difficulty assuring ourselves whether the writer is narrating a real experience or is just simply creating a fiction (Ni and Lian, 2012: 545). From the quotation above, it is seen that fragmentation could help the audience to see something beyond the story itself. The researcher agrees that fragmentation exists to make the audience of Top Girls become more critical on the postmodern style in writing such a feminist themed work. Fragmentation is used simply to deliver Churchill‟s message on how the society has changed, which the researcher explains in the next chapter on the analysis part. If Hua Ni and Dawei Lian, through their journal, wonder „whether the writer is narrating a real experience or is just simply creating a fiction,‟ through this study, the researcher tries to explain how actually Churchill does both thing in her Top Girls.
Together with the fragmentation of the main figure, their remarks contribute to the transformation of the dramatic space, from the realistically depicted bedroom to non real landscape (Kolecka, 2009: 117-118). Anna Suwals ka Kolecka, through her work “Fragmentation and Discontinuity in
Three Tall Women,
” shows that fragmentation can be a medium for a „transformation‟
8 from something to something else. In her work, she states that the „transformation‟ being discussed is the change from „the realistically depicted bedroom to non real landscape‟ (2009: 118). In other words, fragmentation takes charge in transfiguring new identity of something. The researcher agrees with Kolecka‟s work. It means that fragmentation can be a media in „transforming‟ a new identity. This study is a development of the other studies that have been mentioned earlier. It explains how the fragmentation as seen through the non linear plot, mixed characters coming from different period of time, and the fragmented setting are described in the play being discussed. This study also examines how the fragmentation style used in Top
Girls makes a twist in each end of the scenes to trigger the audience thinking about
women‟s position and the fragmentation itself as a medium in revaluing women‟s position.
B. Review of Related Theories
In this section, the researcher presents several theories that are applied in analyzing the work for this study. They are theory of feminism, postmodernism, and postmodern feminism.
1. Theory of Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a movement originated within the arts and architecture. It is now a term which encompasses various approaches, including discourse analysis, genealogy, deconstructionism, textuality. What binds postmodernists is their rejection of modernity; they question, for instance, the Western knowledge (systems), the social construction of dominant interpretations, rationality, and are concerned with forms of resistance and silenced voices (Marchand and Parpart, 1995: 245).
9 Certainly many subsequent authors have done their best to sledge-hammer these four literary cornerstones into oblivion. Either plot is pounded into small slabs of events and circumstances, characters disintegrated into a bundle of twitching desires, settings are little more than transitory backdrops, or themes become so attenuated that it is often comically inaccurate to say that certain novels are „about‟ such-and-such (Sim, 2001:126).
It seems that plot, character, setting and theme are several main problems for postmodernist writers. What it means by problem is that they need to find a way to deliver their message to the reader by not following the mainstream. Since the postmodernist writers distrust the wholeness and completion associated with traditional stories, they prefer to deal with other ways of structuring the narrative. As mentioned by Sim earlier, the plot, character, setting and theme might be divided into several parts in order to restructure the narrative. Postmodernist writers distrust the unity only as a narrating style and method. They believe that unity can not really help them to voice their main idea. Thus, they prefer what so called as fragmentation which can be both a method and a writing style. Generally, fragmentation itself means the breaking of something. The text is broken into pieces so that the reader needs to rearrange it in order to get the message. Fragmentation is merely a piece that has survived the destruction of a whole (Hart, 2004: 69). Therefore it is considered as an import ant „part‟ of the literary work.
Fragmentation points a hidden center in each part. Therefore, it signifies the breaking rather than building up of information, to form a structure that would convey a hidden message, the reflection on concepts of reality and on its own status in reality. As such, postmodern drama addresses the fragmentation and constructiveness of every version of the real (Schmidt, 2005: 19).
10 “That narratives are discredited and fragmented is no reason to assume that they need always be so. This merely poses us a problem that we must direct our efforts towards resolving” (Sim, 2001: 33). Fragmentation exists of course for a certain reason. The aim of breaking down the narratives into pieces is to help the reader to reach an agreement of what should be done with those pieces. As mentioned earlier, since it is not for building up an information, fragmentation exists to guide the reader to dig every single detail of a story so that they could solve the „riddle‟ in the story and get the write r‟s idea. Through the pieces of text, the reader has already triggered to think why it is so which generates the first problem to solve. The next problem could be seen when the reader is able to identify the main point in each piece of the broken narratives.
There is no one central meaning to any text, but a plurality of possible meanings. From such a perspective conventional criticism is a pointless act, since it is based on the notion that each text has an essential meaning which it is the critic's duty to present to the reader. Active interpretation represents an explosion of this assumption, since by its manipulation of the text's language it continually discovers new meanings (Sim, 2001: 179).
Since a postmodern work always provides multiple meanings, interpreting is the proper way to solve the problem. Active interpretation is Derrida‟s term of not so much a reading of a text. Active interpretation here is in the standard sense of a critical interpretation, or „explication de texte‟ Derrida calls it (Sim, 2001:179). It is designed to reveal the text's underlying meaning. In sum, to interpret is to negotiate the value of several possible meanings in order to get the most suitable one (Sim, 2001: 179-180).
2. Theory of Feminism
Feminism has many divisions. In this section, there are only three divisions of feminism to be discussed. They are, radical feminism, bourgeois feminism, and
11 socialist/materialist feminism. In short, radical feminism supports the separation from male dominated culture. Apart from l iberating women from men‟s power, radical feminists also emphasize women‟s superior characteristics (Tycer, 2008: 15). Bourgeois feminism emphasizes on the struggle for equality with men within existing social structures. Women need equal opportunities for professional job, equal education, and also equal pay. Bourgeois feminism is also known as liberal feminism which women want to be „like men‟ (Wandor, 1981: 134). Socialist feminism, also known as materialist feminism, focus on the economic relationship.
Rather than assuming that the experiences of women are induced by gender oppression from men or that liberation can be brought about by virtue of women‟s unique gender strengths, that patriarchy is everywhere and always the same and that all women are „sisters‟, the materialist position underscores the role of class and history in creating the oppression of women ... Not only are all women not sisters, but women in the privileged class actually oppress women in the working class (Case, 1988: 82-83). The quotation above is from a feminist theater scholar, Sue-Ellen Case, who simply differentiate materialist feminism and the other feminisms. Women are not only oppress by men but also the other women from the upper class. During the 1970s, British socialist feminists found that they were underrepresented in labor hierarchies and struggled with the sexism. Therefore they tried to work with their union „sister‟ to enact social change (Rowbotham, 1997: 405-4015).
Social feminism deals with the belief that the oppression of women is not only based on the economic system, but also patriarchy and capitalism combined into one system.
This oppression needs to be understood, not just in terms of inequalities of power between men and women, but also in terms of the requirements of capitalism and
12 the role of state institutions in a capitalist society. Socialist feminist writers in the
1970s and early 1980s tended to concentrate on issues such as employment, domestic labour and state policy (Welch, 2001).
Social feminists try to achieve sexual equality through working in masculine world. They work hard there to get public‟s interest to make them realize the recognition of sex discrimination. What makes social feminism different from the other feminism is that it refers to the fact that women actually are not only oppressed by men but also by women.
In a word, lower class women, or they who are in the working class, are oppressed by not only the upper class women but also the working class women who have higher power and position than them.
3. Theory of Postmodern Feminism
Feminist experts have reacted to postmodernist thought in a number of ways. Some reject it directly, while others try to get a synthesis of feminist and postmodernist approaches. Some feminists believe feminist theory has always dealt with postmodern issues and indeed, has more to offer women than male-centric postmodern writers. Thus, it is seen that postmodern feminist attempts to criticize the dominant order.
Postmodern feminists offer women differential power relations that allow them to be constructed as women in the first place. According to the existentialist Simon de Beauvoir in her Second Sex, women are socially constructed as the Other (Sim, 2001: 43). In this case, women's exclusion is not an accidental omission but a fundamental structuring principle of all patriarchal discourses. It is called as a fundamental structuring principle because it is like what Beauvoir, in The Routledge Companion to
Postmodernism , states that women have, historically, be
en considered “deviant, abnormal and contends” (Sim, 2001:43). It confirms that women had been seen as the
13 inferior compared to men. Woman at that time had represented the Other that can confirm man's identity as Self, as rational thinking being. Thus, in that patriarchal system, women seemed to have no rights to be equal to men because of what society had labeled them as the inferior, the „different‟ one. They were different because they were not men.
Women, according to Kant, are passive rather than active. They are dependent creature. They are made for a dependence on man. Kohlberg has responded to the initial Gilligan critique. He has argued that the differential performance of women and men reflects variations in education and job experience (Assister, 1996: 100-1003). Women tend to have lack of education and job experience than men. This is what makes women hardly get a promising position for their job.
As the evolutionary philosopher Herbert Spencer, put it: „the deficiency of reproductive power among upper class girls may reasonably be attributed to the overtaxing of their brains
—an overtaxing which produces a serious reaction on the physique‟ (Asisster, 1996: 115). Furthermore, in the late nineteenth century, in Britain and elsewhere, theories about natural sex differences were used to refuse women access to higher education and to justify differential treatment of the sexes. This is what makes women could not get equal rights to have equal wage as men.
Borrowing Gaten‟s words that is cited in Assister‟s book, the subject is always a sexed subject. Patriarchy is, in her view, not a „system of social organization that enhances the value of the masculine gender over the feminine gender. Gender is not the issue; sexual difference is‟ (1996: 121).
Bel ow is a quotation from World Bank cited in Marchand and Parpat‟s book on how the women‟s position in the 1980s:
Culture and tradition vary but often confine women and girls inside the family or
14 close to home. As a result, women‟s productivity is frequently depressed well below potential levels
—and this carries a cost in economic efficiency. Women are, in a sense, wasted ... women feel reluctant to seek help for themselves or their children ... In some societies where women are not encouraged to think for themselves, authority figures have helped persuade women to seek health or family planning services, continue breastfeeding, and so on (Marchand and Parpat, 1995: 228). The quotation above shows how women are seen as the Other, like what Simone de Beauvoir in her Second Sex. Women are bound by tradition and gender based difficulties.
Women have problems with their own self confidence by means that they could not voice what is on their mind. Therefore, there is imposed silence from women who are too afraid to state the oppression they had experienced for so long.
In many cases, feminist theorists only speak up only as women so that they only theorize things based on their own desires. Some postmodernist French philosophers embrace them in the context of respo nding to the “contemporary crisis of the rational subject” (Sim, 2001: 206). Since the postmodernists embrace the feminists, it is now known as postmodern feminism. The vision of postmodern feminism itself is to respond the pessimism of postmodern philosop hy by “embracing its emphasis on the fragmentary nature identity while retaining a politics, ethics of a sexual difference” (Sim, 2001: 207).
The difference between traditional feminism and postmodern feminism lies in their point of view of what to show t o public. Traditional feminism goes public with “no more masks” (Sim, 2001: 310). On the other hand, postmodern feminism argues that “we are nothing but masks” (Sim, 2001: 310). Postmodern feminism tends to expose all the sexual roles as nothing more than performance. Women tend to represent themselves as something different from what society demands.
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C. Theoretical Framework
The criticisms that are discussed in this chapter are needed to help the writer to analyze her object of this study. Those criticisms have given information about how feminism and the idea of patriarchal system depicted in Caryl Churchil's Top Girls. Those three theories being mentioned in the Review of Related Theories are useful in helping the researcher to analyze how the play is fragmented and elaborate its significance in revaluing women‟s position through Marlene‟s life in Top Girls.
The theory of Postmodernism helps the researcher to analyze how the play is fragmented, while the theory of Feminism and Postmodern Feminism help the researcher to see the significance of the fragmentation as a medium to revalue women‟s position.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY A. Object of the Study Top Girls is a play produced by a famous British female playwright Caryl Churchill. It was produced in the 1980s and was first performed at Royal Court London and Public Theater New York in 1982. Caryl Churchill got her Obie Award for Playwriting from this
play. Since its first debut, Top Girls had been performed in many theaters around Europe, United States and Australia. It also was filmed by the BBC in 1991.
Caryl Churchill wrote Top Girls as a response to political event in which Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister in Britain and that of Thatcherism took its place. Churchill wrote and produced this play in opposition to Thatcherism existing at that time. What makes Churchill felt the urge of producing Top Girls was that there was a shift from socialist mindset to capitalist one; it is of which women are not only oppressed by men but also by the other women of a higher position.
Top Girls is a play that all the actresses are female. Using the overlapping dialogue
technique, non-linear plot, fragmented characters, and fragmented settings, Churchill tries to expose her criticism on capitalism by showing not only how women became very ambitious in pursuing power and money but also how the main character needed to abandon her daughter to reach her success.
This play is actually about how Marlene, the main character, abandons her daughter and taken care by her sister just for the sake of gaining power and money. She wants to be the most dominant woman in manly world. She wants to show the society that women
17 can also reach their successful life although her competitors are men. She is described as a successful career woman who gets a promotion for a higher position in her agency. Ironically, she has to leave her only daughter for getting her success.
B. Approach of the Study
Postmodern feminism approach is used in this study for giving further explanation on the significance of fragmentation as a medium to revalue women‟s position reflected through Caryl Churchill‟s Top Girls. Top Girls is a play which has a fragmented plot, fragmented characters, fragmented setting, overlapped dialogue, and unclear ending.
This approach challenges the oppressive and patriarchal construction in which women suffer from for so long.
„One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one‟ (Butler, 1999: 143). That is what Simone de Beauvoir has stated in Butler‟s book Gender Trouble. Beauvoir argues that no one born with a gender because gender is something that needs to be acquired. , there is a difference between sex and gender. Sex is only an attribute of a human so that there is no human who is not sexed. Besides, sex does not cause gender. Gender is the „variable cultural construction of sex‟ (Butler, 1999: 143). Thus, it is obvious that sex is what human have naturally, but gender is what they need to acquire.
The mainstay of women‟s oppression lies in a symbolic system that is dominated by the „male imaginary‟ (Assister, 1996: 31). Women‟s oppression lies in some feature of women‟s experience, for example women‟s domestic canon that they only suppose to work only at home, parenting, and being a care-taker of her dependent family member(s).
While socialist feminists focus on the material realities of women within the world system, postmodernist feminists add other differences like ethnicity, race and age to the
18 socialist feminist difference of class and gender (Marchand and Parpart, 1995: 39).
In the male-centric world, working women are double oppressed by not only men but also the other women who have higher position. There is still distance between men and women. Postmodern feminism, through language, tries to remove the boundary between sexes. It sees women are equal to men. They have no difference. Thus, from those gender equality, there are no more „women‟s rights‟ to claim.
From those brief explanation above, it is clearly seen that postmodern feminism approach is an appropriate tool to explore Caryl Churchill‟s Top Girls. This approach is applicable in this study as it is helpful in relating the use of postmodernism‟s fragmentation with its significance as a medium to revalue women‟s position.
C. Method of the Study
The study was conducted in a library research method. Written sources from many books, journals, and articles were used in analyzing the work. Some sources from the internet were also used for additional information related to the study. The primary source of this study was a play script entitled Top Girls which was written by Caryl Churchill, while the other sources were some books and journal of the related theories and studies that were related to postmodernism, feminism, and also postmodern-feminism.
The study was done in some steps. The first step was close reading the script and note taking so that some important keys were not missed. Close reading was also a proper way to help formulating the problems that later were written in the problem formulation part.
The second step was observing the structure of the play script and watch the play in
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YouTube. Watching the play online was also helpful to see details of the play like how character, setting, and plot were arranged and how the dialogues were overlapped.