CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1Background of the Study
Human life cannot be separated from the existence of a work of art, and literature is a work of art that uses language as its media. Literature is one of the most creative and universal ways of expressing the emotions, spirituality, and intellectual concerning humankind. Literature is the coloring of one’s imagination in an attempt to make sense of one’s lives. Literature itself has been traditionally classified into three genres; prose, poetry, and drama. Each genre still has subgenres and one of the subgenres of prose is novel. In Mastering English Literature, Richard Gill states that a novel is a world specially made in words by the author (1985:77). Peck and Coyle stated that novels present a documentary picture of life.
Alongside the fact that novels look at the people in society, the other major characteristic of the genre is that novels tell a story. Most novelist focus on the tension between individuals and the society in which they live, and the novelist tell and describe the social life and society, Peck and Coyle, (1984:102). The novel basically can portray the reality of everyday life, because they can be used as a document to study issues in society. The novelists themselves might have inherited a recording of reality that made an impression on them and chooses to expand it into a literary work of art, splashed around in a canvas what will eventually turn into a living masterpiece.
differences of power in gender and sexuality. The real question related to feminism might not be ‘what is feminism?’ but why have women not been treated as equals and what has been the source of men’s prejudice against women? Feminism has argued that women are basically useful as men on the basis that there are no differences between men and women. However in this context, Nugroho (2008:62) have stated that this is not biological or sexual difference but more of a cultural construction. Any form of stereotyping, objectification, breach of human rights, or gender/sexuality-based oppression is a feminist issue.
The issues of feminism can be based on many aspects but in this study linking to the literary source that is being analyzed, the issue is mainly based on women’s role in society and how particular oppression is put on them and affecting their life. The Bell Jar consists of this issue where women experience a situation where they feel like they don’t belong to a certain society because of the various social oppressions that is forced on them. The reality that we live in now still consists of these kinds of problem where there occurs a conflict between a women and herself about what she wants to do in life but instead the society around her chooses the life she should be living. These things might not occur very often nowadays because we have already entered the modern era where women are successful, but to some women’s experience there are struggle and pressure for her to live the life she truly desire. The society forces her to do what they want.
The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath’s first novel that went on to become a shocking, realistic and popular novel. It is actually a semi-autobiographical novel based on her own life experience but she used different names and places. The book shows many reference to real people and events in Plath’s life distorted through the glass of a ‘bell jar’. It was first published in London in 1963 by William Heinemann Limited. Sylvia Plath used the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, this is because she did not think it was a ‘serious work’ and she also worried that the people close to her might be offended by the personalities she included in the book. In fact, Plath had put so many details of the people's real lives into The Bell Jar that "they could never look at each other again", and that it had caused the breakup of her marriage and possibly others. The story is written and takes place in New York and Boston in the 1950s where in America at the time still had a defined role for men and women. The society had been stuck to this idea that it affects the main character and her journey of becoming someone she desires. It was also the time in America where women were trying to step up their social status. The book tells the events of what the main character ‘Esther Greenwood’ experience in a time period of six months and is told directly from her point of view. She struggles to face society that gives her problems as well as struggle to live by the existing constructed social norms and traditions.
Plath told the reasons for writing The Bell Jar to her mother, “What I've done is to throw together events from my own life, fictionalizing to add colour- it's a pot boiler really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown.... I've tried to picture my world and the people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar". She also stated her novel as "an autobiographical apprentice work which I had to write in order to free myself from the past".
women, but it is also a portrayal of social realities. Novel is a work of art which enables us to enter into the world that is created by the writer and can feel what the writer want to express about the writer’s own life. It shows how Plath herself has experienced as her character in the novel. Esther falls into mental breakdown just the same as Plath's own experiences that underwent mental depression. Although the ending is different, Plath chose to end her own life whereas Esther’s life will be determined by the readers how she will continue it.
In this study, the writer wants to explain that novel is one of the most effective tools in presenting certain problems or ideas. Novels can also bring certain messages and hidden intentions from the author or certain social situations. The Bell Jar is one of the countless novels launched in the world of literature that has touched so many aspects of reality from its intrinsic sides and also its extrinsic. This study is hoped to send a message or a lesson for women living in society. Sylvia Plath has not only transferred her own life’s reflection “through the distorting lens of a bell jar” in the novel but she has made readers enter her world and mind, we can understand what she thought about the society.
1.2 Problem of the Study
Based on the topic and background of the study, the writer tries to formulate the problems of the study:
1. How does social construction decide everything for women’s life?
1.3 Objective of the Study
The purposes of this study are:
1. To describe how social constructions decide everything for women’s life.
2. To explain the struggles of the Esther Greenwood in facing social oppression.
1.4 Scope of the Study
In doing an analysis, it is necessary to limit the focus that is going to be analyzed in order that the study is not out of context.
Throughout the story The Bell Jar tells about the main character called Esther Greenwood and her struggles in New York City and Boston as a successful, intelligent young woman. The study analyzes Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and the writer focus only on the main character’s struggles in facing the social oppression. Other characters involvement will also be used in the study to support the analysis. The writer would like to identify the Esther’s problems and struggles in a society that is full of oppression and judgments. These are events leading to her mental breakdown until the attempts of trying to end her life. The writer will also try to show how Sylvia Plath’s work is influenced by feminism ideology and illustrate the phenomenon of social construction of women’s life during the social condition of the novel in American society.
1.5 Significance of the Study
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
In doing an analysis, it is important for reviews or theories that are related to the subject of discussion to support the study.
2.1 Sociology of Literature
The term of literature and sociology are two fields of knowledge that cannot be separated from each other. They are two studies that are different but have a very close relation. Sociology derives from Greek ‘socious’ (society) and ‘logos’ (science) which means the study of all the aspects of human and their relation in community. Literature derives from Latin ‘littera’ which mainly refers to written or printed words. Some relations between literature and society are: literary work is part of society and it uses language, which is part of social institution, and literary works is a picture of society. Novels and other literary works from a social phenomenon are strongly tied to a specific time in social history. The form and content of the novel comes from a social phenomenon and often related with moments in the history of society. According to Wellek & Warren, literary sociology has the task to explore classes of social status, to examine the dependency towards ruling classes, as well as study economical sources and prestiges in society (1989:115).
The quote below suggests that a novelist will show how society is actually like, how the men and women are. Through a society in the work they portray or imitate the truth about our real life society.
We do not look to the novel primarily for social documents; social historians and sociologists can tell us about particular societies. Novelists teach us the varied meanings that society has for individuals and for human life, they instruct us in the mutual responsibilities of individuals and societies; they use depictions of society to speak truths about what men and women are, singly and communally, and what they might be. We look to the novel for what we ultimately find there, imitations and intimations of human life in society. Langland (221:1984)
Literary works show a significant relationship between cause and effect, it also shows us what is going on where it is taking us. Modern novel like The Bell Jar
a contemporary perspective. They will evaluate the history in accordance with the needs and style of contemporary literary movement. (1989:43).
2.2 Dynamic Structuralism
The first steps in carrying out a literary analysis is to identify the elements that are in the literary works. These are important because they are the raw data that are going to interpreted in the study. These elements consist of character, plot, setting, theme, background and so on. The theories that are going to be used to analyze this literary work will help peel as much detail as possible in order to gain new meaning and conclusions.
Etymologically speaking, structure came from word, structura (Latin), means form or building. Structuralism is an understanding of elements of the structure itself. Definitively, structuralism gives attention to the analysis of elements in literary works. The elements of prose are theme, conflict, setting, characters, plot, point of view, and style of language. According to Mukarovsky and Felik Vodicka, literary works are the process of communication, fact of semiotic, consists of sign, structure, and values. The analysis of literary works should focus on the work itself without attention to things outside of work called extrinsic. This can be done by way of close reading, which is reading in detail.
Structural Analysis aims to unpack and explain as carefully, as precisely, as much detail, and in-depth and entanglement all elements and aspects of literature that together produce a comprehensive meaning. Teeuw (1984:135)
creators, and readers (Teeuw, 1984:190).
From the description above, before applying dynamic structuralism in studying
The Bell Jar, the researcher has to look at structural aspects that consist of plot, character, setting, theme, style, and point of view. From these aspects, the researcher will discuss about the phenomenon of female social construction and the main character’s struggles of social oppression in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
2.3 Feminism
Feminism consists of ideas and beliefs about what culture is like for women just because they are women, compared to what the world is like for men just because they are men. However, feminism is actually a transformation movement and not a movement to seek revenge towards the male. We can say that feminism is a process that aims to create a better relationship between both genders to improve and better the society (Nugroho, 2008:61). It is the women’s movement for political and social freedom that began in the nineteenth century; firstly gaining strength in the protest for the right to vote also known as the first wave of feminism. It was reborn in 1960’s and 1970’s in the women’s movement for sexual equality which is the second wave. From the 1990’s the movement has expanded into every discipline and activity in many parts of the world that is the third wave, Whitla (2010:287).
thought is expressed and realized, and feminist would state unequivocally that has been no accident”. Feminism assumes that such treatment of gender inequality is actually a cultural factor and is possible to change. Feminism looks and works towards activism in groups, to make personal and social change towards that more desirable culture. The changes achieved in activism can be different depending on the groups. The most is about having equal treatment of men and women, equal respects in any roles desired by men and women, fighting against unfairness, discrimination or oppression of women, respects to women of different races, classes, age group, experiences and so on.
Besides being a cultural movement, feminism is also one of the leading literary theories to the study of literary analysis that focuses on women's issues. Feminist literary criticism is expected to bring new perceptions and expectations in literary analysis. Feminist criticism focuses on reading as a woman. The term does not refer to a biological female but more to the approach and ideology. It is reading from women’s perspective at the same time putting their selves in the minds of the women, feeling their struggles and approaching a move from that point. Awareness of the role of gender and the social construction of culture is what a feminist strategy socialized in their struggle.
But a person’s view in literary works is still being differentiated, especially in describing women and men’s character in the literary work. Sometimes the description is not equal and it is still influenced by patriarchal view and gender discrimination.
Feminist theory was blown up to deconstruct the opposition of men or women and the oppositions connected with it in the history of western culture. To understand literature properly, requires a broad knowledge of the social culture and history. Similar to those expressed by other literary critics that the analysis of literary works cannot be separated from the social and cultural context in which it was originally created.
In a general sense, feminism is an ideology that drives women to reject patriarchal culture that have marginalized, subordinated, and degraded the position of women in the political, economic, and social life. Feminism grew as a movement and an approach that tries to change the existing structure because it has been regarded to cause inequality towards the female gender (Nugroho, 2008:62). There are many flow of feminism that have evolved with the modern culture, such as liberal feminism, radical feminism, Marxist and socialist feminism, multicultural feminism, existentialist feminism, postmodern feminism and so on. In the novel, Sylvia Plath has included issues that surround liberal feminism.
2.3.1 Liberal Feminism
mainly about fighting for freedom. They believe that everyone has equal rights, there is no such thing as male domination or that men are more superior to women.
According to this movement, in order to achieve equal rights between men and women, it needs to be supported with a powerful fundamental law. This is why liberal feminism focuses more on changing the laws that support patriarchal family institutions, such as changing the role of men as the head of the family (Nugroho, 2008:63). It works towards an equal society, which would uphold the right of individuals to fulfill their potential. It is an individualistic form of feminism and
theory, which focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain their equality through
their own actions and choices.
This theory also states that women have been excluded in almost all aspects of life, and believe that in order to equalize men and women, all arrangements or systems that limit women's self-actualization should be abolished (Nugroho, 2008:66). According to Tong (1998) in Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, women subordination occurred because of the existence of particular cultures and laws that limits access and success of women in a public sector. This kind of subordination towards women happens because there is a mistaken belief that claims women are not as strong and intelligent as men.
However, there are also problems with liberal feminism, the fact that when a system considered as biased is removed, or regulation of encouraging the creation of gender equality legislation, there is no guarantee of progress for women. And of the whole of reality, the most depressing is that liberal feminism seems to be referring to elements outside the woman, without looking deeper at the dynamics in the woman themselves. Because the limitation of a woman is not always in the form of oppressive regulations or even repressive, its actually in the form and manner of recognizing themselves are built from a very young, or even as a baby. Here is an issue of how social values affect the traditions and concepts of how a woman should recognize herself as from a young age.
2.4 Concept
2.4.1 Gender Roles in Society
Traditional roles in society have been accepted by people based on their biological forms. The role of a man and a woman in society is greatly influenced by a variety of factors. These factors can be due to difference with the region, religion, culture, climate, historical beliefs, living principles and experiences. Gender role in society is basically the role portrayed by an individual with respect to many factors depending on the social living condition. Gender roles are based on the different expectations that individuals, groups, and societies have of individuals based on their sex and based on each society's values and beliefs about gender. Interactions between individuals and their environments is what moulds gender roles, they give individuals reminders about what sort of behavior is believed to be appropriate for what sex.
are more interested in performing physically tough activities like, working in heavy industries while females perform tasks like raising children, cooking, sewing and so on. Just like in The Bell Jar, Esther is expected to get married and have children by her mother. Esther hated this, especially when the pressure is all around her. Many of her friends are married and having a family, it is hard for her to find support when her social environment is like this. The pressure is not just physical but emotional. While these stereotype roles are still adopted in many societies, this becomes rare now in developed societies like the US or Western Europe especially after the feminism movement took place. With the flow of time and being born of a 'liberal' value system, the discrimination between the male and the female have faded greatly.
Education, household work, childcare, professional tasks are the various responsibilities or activities in a normal social context. These roles are basically set apart on basis of sex, but now it is more of a choice and based on the interest of that individual. However, there are still many societies in the world which continue to stick and live to the way of the traditional gender roles. A female is expected to be interested and obliged in doing household work, childcare and education and leaving professional and social roles for the males.
2.4.2 Social Norms
rules that a group uses for values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. They provide us with an expected idea of how to behave in a particular social group or culture.
The idea of norms offers a key to understanding social influence in general. Every group has a particular standard of behavior which is the accepted social norms. Behavior which fulfills these norms are called conformity, and most of the time roles and norms are powerful ways of understanding and predicting what people will do.
2.5 Related Journals
The research paper entitled: Oppression Toward Women in George Eliots’s The Mill on the Floss, done by Uswatun Rozaqoh a student in The State Islamic University Maulana Malik Ibrahim of Malang. This thesis focuses on the struggles of oppression that is faced by the female character Maggie that faces patriarchal kinds of oppression. This paper reveals that the oppression Maggie faces begins from the nearest community that is her own family and then grows on that first begin with her father, then uncle, and continues with her brother; and then by people in her surroundings. It shows how the men as the member of patriarchal society, who considers women as objects and possessions that do not have values or rights to be respected. They put men as priority and put women aside. In Maggie’s case, she tries to overcome the suffering that she gets from the men in her life by finding her self-esteem. Through the hatred for men, Maggie finally reveals that it is not only hate that she feels for those men but also fear that holds her from finding her self-esteem. This is what she struggles to overcome in the process of finding her self-esteem after being oppressed by a lot of people. Since The Mill on the Floss concerns about patriarchal society, it shows how women were taught to be inferior since they were very young.
Subordination also takes place in the absence of the wife's name. She is labelled ‘wife’ implying again that the role of the wife is her dominant and only role, tending to the needs of the husband. Progression throughout the years has brought the status of women much closer to being equal to males, however subordination still exists, yet in a much different form.
CHAPTER III
METHOD OF THE STUDY
In every study or critical analysis, there is always a research method needed in the process in order to fully understand all the data and finally transform it into a complete study. In analyzing Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, the writer will use descriptive and qualitative method. The writer will go through the necessary steps for achieving the most effective study results and these steps involves research design, data sources, data collection, and data analysis.
3.1 Research Design
In this study, the writer will use descriptive method design. The main objective of this type of research is to describe the data that is going to be studied. This type of research also uses qualitative research method because all data are analyzed in the form of words and sentences. With descriptive research, the writer will aim to carry out an exploration of the certain phenomena, which in this case is social construction, feminism, social oppression and other related issues to The Bell Jar.
3.2 Data Sources
reference to further guidance.
3.3 Data Collection
In the step of data collection, the writer will need both primary and secondary data sources. First of all, the writer starts with getting the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath which is the primary data of this research and read it over and over until the writer understands the story well. The writer will also look into secondary data such as gathering data from books, articles, webs and other supporting material that is relevant to the topic of the study. After the collection of raw materials, the writer starts to go through the data more thoroughly and takes down any notes for necessary explanations. This involves underlining and highlighting important data as well as quoting from the novel to provide concrete evidence. The data will be selected and organized in accordance with the problem of the study so finally the writer can carry out an analysis.
3.4 Data Analysis
In analysis of this study, the writer will arrange the data in accordance to the area of analysis. The writer will then:
1. Classify the data accurately by relating it to the problems and aims of this study within the novel.
2. Investigate and analyze the phenomenon of social construction towards women that relates to the novel and social reality.
4. The writer then can make a conclusion from overall data analysis that have been analyzed and interpreted.
Below is the flowchart of research design:
Researcher Source of data: a novel
The Bell Jar
Quote/selected text related to social construction, feminism and social oppression
Data selected: Interpreted analysis using the theories: sociology of literature, feminism, dynamic structuralism and also by descriptive and qualitative method.
CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
4.1 Social Construction of Women’s Life
The phenomenon of social construction relies a lot on the idea that many aspects of our daily experience are the result of hidden social agreement, institutional practices and not a result of planned reality. Social reality is based on our behavior, language, culture and our institutional practices. Social construction is something you might not be aware of. You are somewhat living in separation depending on what gender, race and class you are. Race, class and gender don’t really mean anything. They only have a meaning because society gives them a meaning. Social constructions are the regulations made by people and how it privileges certain groups over others. For example, you are a woman or a man because society instructs what role you should do, not what you choose to. Just like it tells you what economic and social class you belong to.
and these behaviors then lead to stereotypes.
As stated in Riant Nugroho’s Gender dan Strategi, the nurture theory believe that the differences of gender relations between men and women are not determined by biological factors but by social construction. In other words, according to nurture theory, social roles is considered and understood as a religious doctrine. It is not God’s will or even the determination of biological products but rather as a product of social construction. Therefore, the widespread values of gender prejudice in society that are considered caused by biological factors, is actually by none other than cultural construction (2008:22).
This social construction is separating us depending on our physical appearance and our material possessions. We are seen differently because of where we live, where we come from and how we look. Women are weak, therefore men, who are strong and dominant, should be the one in power. If you live in an apartment, then you must be from the lower class, but if you live in a house then you must be either middle or upper class. If you go to a private school then you must be rich, but if you go to a public school then most certainly you’re poor or low income. This is all what society has planted in us, but we also have fault that we have been caught up on this whole idea of stereotypes and standard. We are supposed to follow because after all, we believe what we want to believe.
…and they were mostly girls my age with wealthy parents...and they were all going to posh secretarial schools like Katy Gibbs, where they had to wear hats and stockings and gloves to class…(Plath, 2013:3)
women live are not to her standards or her desires. This already shows the stratification that Sylvia Plath have introduced, these women all prefer the high class and are used to the excitement of the city life and luxuries. Whereas Esther feels like she does not belong there even though she has earned all those privileges.
With all the stratifications and distinctions that have been constructed by society, the way people think and act to each other is also considered. There are places and environments in which an individual might have to adjust even if they are not from the place. These are mainly their behavior towards other individuals and how they present themselves. The consciousness of having to act a certain way in a certain environment sometimes affects them either positively or negatively. Some people are even unconscious about the social constructions affecting and changing their behavior because they feel like they are part of that group. These behaviors are known as norms. Sociologists have described norms as informal understandings that govern society’s behaviors. Norms are unwritten rules about how to behave in a given context. Social norms are usually adopted by groups of people that expect others to behave a certain way. Norms can arise formally, where groups clearly outline and apply behavioral expectations. Laws or rules serve as an example of this. A large number of these norms we follow naturally such as driving on the right side of the road in America or not speeding in order to avoid a ticket. Many formal norms serve to provide safety to the major public.
The emergence of social norms or also known as ‘conventional laws’ in society maybe through informal evolution. This means that they emerge slowly as a result of repeated actions to control behavior. Social norms in American are important in society. The conscious and unconscious developments of social norms created order for the people in society in the big country. But it does differ from other cultures around the world. Americans lived a western lifestyle where they have more freedom to do what they want compared with other country. However, the lives of Americans are still set according to social construction. The social norms do exist formally and informally within society. Formal ones such as laws, religious taboos or informal such as mores, folkways, customs.
But the implementation of certain social norms on women’s life has impacted how they have to act around men and the rest of the society. Women were used to think they are indeed secondary compared to men, this way of thinking also leads to the way they behave. Because a level is put on men and women, women had to think carefully how men would accept their behavior. How they behave or what they say is what men judge them by. As social beings, individuals learn when and where it is appropriate to say certain things, to use certain words, to discuss certain topics or wear certain clothes, and when it is not. The norms make good order in society but between gender roles there are impacts because the norms are bias.
The quotation above from the novel shows how the society was bias during the time. Even the women writing the article with a career thought they have to keep themselves pure for men, whilst men can have a double life. Esther clearly disagrees and thinks this is absurd. The example that is set by the women and media is something that does not support Esther’s situation at all. The article itself is a form of social construction that oppresses women mentally and biologically as well as lowering their standards. This proves how the ideologies of most people back then were still under the traditional patriarchal system. Where most women still thinks and agrees to the rules and regulations set by the male dominance.
not work with high career men and that they have to behave the way men want them to behave.
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. (Plath, 2013:78)
Here we can see how social construction plays a big part in oppressing Esther’s thoughts. The quotation above sounds like sarcasm but at the same time she does consider all the options. She is packed by other people’s desires mixed with some of her own desires. The choices of life others ‘pressure’ on her, including her own mother definitely doesn’t make it any easy for her. Considering all those different lives clearly shows the influence of social construction slowly and successfully absorbing into her head. Her independence and her freedom is still there, the choice of her desired life is in one of those branches, but she still considers what society thinks is best for her, not what she thinks is best for herself.
4.1.1 Partriarchy vs Feminism
When we talk about women who are oppressed by men, we also talk about patriarchy, which has existed long ago. Patriarchal ideology is a system that gives priority for men. For centuries, the universe has been dominated by a patriarchal ideology, which has been defined as a set of beliefs that legitimizes male power and authority over women. For hundred years, patriarchy prohibited women from having a legal or political identity and the legislation and social attitudes support this way.
…in all columns, books and articles by experts telling women their roles was to seek fulfillment as wives and mothers. Over and over women heard in voices of tradition and of Freudian sophistication that they could desire no greater destiny than to glory in their own feminity. (Friedan, 1963:15)
According to Kate Millet in Prabasmoro’s Kajian Budaya Feminis, legitimacy is made to ensure that the system running in a society is in accordance with the desire of public authorities themselves. That is, when women are equal members of society to men, rules are created so that the power structure remains in accordance with the ideology that underlies the entire structure of society itself. That ideology itself, without much debate, is a patriarchal ideology that promotes the interests of men, prioritizing the masculine values and at the same time ignoring the interests of women and degrading feminine values. This points to low appreciation of work and domestic roles even to the stage where women share public and economic burden to reach the needs of families. This occurs because of the role of women in the public sector is considered purely as extra work, while domestic work is a women’s place.
Feminist claims for equality are generally accepted as reasonable principles in western society and they fight for equal status for women of all races, classes, sexualities and abilities in the 21st century, unfortunately this idea is mostly rejected by the dominant power of men.
In Tong’s Feminist Thoughts, feminist gender Nel Noddings claims that women and men speak different morals, and that our culture gives priority for the masculine ethics of justice rather than the feminine care ethics (1998:230). Here we can see how the women’s voices are stopped by cultural construction and feminine thoughts. Automatically, society decides what is more powerful.
When women wanted to question inequalities in their own lives they turned to history to understand the roots of their oppression. It is also to see what they could learn from challenges that they have faced in the past. Feminism in America has played an important role in the history and culture of the country itself. The whole thing started in the late 1800s when women fought for their rights to be heard and allowed to vote. Through the next century the desire for women to become more socially equal was the focus of the feminist movement in America.
The beginning of the first wave of Feminism in America began during the late 1800’s which was following the end of the American Civil War. The wave formally began at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 when 300 men and women rallied to
the cause of equality for women. The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities
The second wave began in the 1960s nearly as soon as the end of World War II and continued into the 90's. This wave unfolded in the context of the anti-war and civil rights movements and the growing self-consciousness of a variety of minority groups around the world. During the war, it was proven that women were completely capable of doing the jobs that men had abandoned when they went to war. Women requested to be freed from the traditional roles of housewife and caregiver. They hope to gain a higher position in the work force.
The third wave of feminism in America took place in the early 1990’s. This wave did not have a specific goal but instead raised awareness to gain all sorts of equality, such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and social class. This modern wave of feminism also gives attention towards issues like gender violence, reproductive right, sexual harassments and provides support of all sorts.
4.1.2 American Society During 20th Century
Betty Friedan’s book Feminine Mystique pressed on the idea that women had no other roles other than being a wife or mother. She began encouraging women to pursue what they desired to do in life and gain the roles in a society that was labeled as male-dominated. Women started to oppose to gender discrimination in workplaces and demanded full equality to men.
Popular since the 1950s, this tenacious stereotype conjures mythic images of culture icons - June Cleaver, Donna Reed, Harriet Nelson - the quintessential white, middle- class housewives who stayed at home to rear children, clean house and bake cookies. (Meyerowitz, 1994)
The idea of the ideal women gave a clear picture to women of what they were supposed to imitate as their proper gender role in society. As a result, women began to construct their identities around this image, and some still do so today. Gender construction is nothing new to American society or even to any other society. Society does play a huge role in the construction of individual gender roles, and in turn our identity. This is not to say that society has complete control over this construction.
Historians of American culture began to pay close attention to the socializing experiences of women from 1945 to 1960 also referred to as the “post-war” era. Before this change, historians considered these years fairly unimportant for women, often seeing them only as a passive link between women workers in World War II and the political activists of the 1960s. But in fact the ideological and institutional limitations of 1950s American society had a significant impact on the construction of women’s identities during this time period. Women had achieved perhaps too much economic independence during World War II, which makes the oppressive qualities of the domestic ideal of the 1950s harmful to the construction of women’s identities.
Betty Friedan was perhaps the first to identify what is now referred to as the stereotype of the “ideal woman”. In her classic study The Feminine Mystique she stated that, magazines did not passively participate in enforcing these gender roles, but were in fact an active force behind the creation of what she termed the “feminine monster.” She claimed that
the manufacturing sector had decided to make women better consumers of home products by reinforcing and rewarding the concept of women’s total fulfillment through the role of housewife and mother” (Friedan, 1963).
She was greatly alarmed at how advertising had become such a powerful force in shaping the social fabrication of women such as pressuring women to stay at home. She was also alarmed by how with certainty these advertisements shaped the creation of a woman’s identity in terms of this ideal model. Throughout almost every source discussing the domestic ideal there is an agreement that media, primarily magazines and film, were the primary methods of which this model was send out to women, in effect the social construction agent.
Women could find fulfillment only in sexual passivity, male domination, and nurturing maternal love. It denied women a career or any commitment outside the home and narrowed woman’s world down to the home, cut her role back to housewife (Friedan, 1963).
decades were fairly wealthy ones in American history, and women's social and financial positions are usually based on their husbands' occupation and income. Although more than six million women went to work when America was engaged in World War II, after the war ended, many were encouraged to leave the work force and the patriarchal system emerges back into society.
Dr. Benjamin Spock, who published the book Baby and Child Care, once even said that the federal government subsidizes housewives to discourage them from entering into the work force. Many single women worked out of economic needs, they were not encouraged to show ambition or to stay in the work force indefinitely. A married woman who is either with or without children that earns as much as her husband was rare. But women who worked in basic or low-paying jobs were less of a threat to mainstream America. Just like in The Bell Jar, Mrs. Greenwood encourages her daughter, Esther, to learn shorthand because that skill will at least guarantee her some kind of job after college. The lack of choice, freedom, and social support really puts a pressure on the roles of women at the time. It was either living their desired life but not deserving as much, and living the traditional role of women and relying on their husband.
The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket. (Plath, 2013:83)
The changing world of women has had a dramatic impact on Americans in the last 30 years. Historically, men have held jobs outside the home while women care for the house and family, the study noted, but that situation began to change when the baby-boom generation started to grow up. The 1950's were perhaps the last decade in which women's behavior and social norms were in agreement with the family oriented lifestyle. By 1960 one-fourth of married women with children were in the labor force, and today the figure is more than half.
The Bell Jar functions on many literary levels, but it is perhaps most obviously about the limitations forced on young, intelligent American women in the 1950s. A brilliant woman with literary desires, Esther glances into the future and does not like her choices. As it has been discussed before, The Bell Jar relies heavily on Plath's own life experience. Like Esther, Plath attended Smith College on scholarship, earned top grades, published poetry at a young age, and majored in English. Like Esther, she did a summer internship in New York City, suffered a mental collapse, and was institutionalized. Both eventually recovered to the extent they were released from psychiatric units into the "real world." While Esther's future, by the novel's conclusion, remains uncertain, Sylvia Plath's recovery only lasted a decade and on February 11th 1963, she chose to end her own life.
The way society is taught to be socialized is most important and goes unnoticed, therefore it is valid to claim that gender is socially constructed through our everyday practices, whether we are aware of the construction or not - Gender: A Social Construction (Greco, 2013).
But as society moved to a different decade, women were educated during the 1960s at a higher rate than in any previous time, many of them in fields not traditionally thought to be accessible to women. Birth control also became available during this time, which increased the sexual independence and professional career options of women.
The 1960s, with its increase of women in the workforce, education and availability of birth control, this idea appeared to be the exact opposite of the “ideal woman” of the 1950s. However, most studies indicate that while women succeed in these areas, they still felt it was necessary to hold on to the domestic ideal as much as possible in order to maintain their identity as a “good woman, mother, and wife.” So while women in result achieved great rise of liberation during the 1960s they were still bound by the oppression of the domestic ideal, much like the problem that workingwomen of today face. Even for Plath, after all the liberation and changes that have happened for women, the oppression in her life in the 1960s still made her to end her life.
unfair. The misjudging perspective that men put on women is lowering the standards of women, even if they are way more intelligent and skilled in various aspects than men are. It has almost become a tradition and a typical stereotypical ideology even to this day in certain places and culture. As we have looked into the social condition of how women’s life were constructed in America particularly during the 1950s, linking to The Bell Jar.
4.2 The Struggle of the Main Character in Facing Social Oppression
According to the data analysis that applies to dynamic structuralism, the first step to be carried out is examining the intrinsic element with the technique reading in detail. In analyzing the struggles of social oppression, the will researcher look at the social conditions between men, women and society in that time. According to the sociological approach to literature, elements in a literary work is directly linked to elements in society. This approach departed from the idea that literature is a picture of social reality and that literature documents and records socio-cultural reality of a society at a particular time. It also links the relationship of the elements in one work with the elements in the society portrayed in the works. As Wellek and Warren have stated:
Literature is a social institution that uses the medium of language. Traditional literary techniques such as symbolism and dimensions are social conventions and norms as a community. Literature "presents life" and that "life" itself consists mostly of social reality, although literature also “mimics" human nature and the subjective world.
Literature has a social function or 'benefits' are not entirely personal. Thus, the problem of literary studies imply or constitute a social problem: the problem of tradition, conventions, norms, types of literature (genre), symbol and myth. (1990:109).
Greenwood. The novel begins with Esther’s first exposure to New York City, the all-American metropolis that symbolizes the fast-paced, ultra-modern lifestyle that is envied by many people. Elements in the novel follows the way in which the feminist identity develops while existing in a society that is distinguished by sexism, patriarchy, double standards, and rigid expectations.
This study will involve approaching the text through both a feminist angle and sociological angle. The cycle of isolation, exclusion, death, and rebirth is not only physical, but also mental as well, and symbolizes Esther’s consciousness of her sexuality. This is in terms society’s imprisonment towards her by oppressing her life. Although the story of The Bell Jar is set in the American 1950s, many of the elements and issues in which Plath planned to show are still present and widespread even today. It describes how the health and happiness of women at a time were only considered important in reference to a man. The situation is also considered trapped because it shows how women are expected to work a certain career that is allowed and directed by society. This means they are the expectancy of society’s lifestyle for women in the career world and how they should live it. This phenomenon is then linked to the cultural elements that exist in the communities in which the novel was produced and used. It can be a socio-cultural customs, habits, ways of thinking, and the way people act at that time.
women. The limitations forced by sexism tend to block Esther’s talent at every turn until she is puzzled of her own self. Plath in The Bell Jar also demonstrates the way in which women are psychologically unhealthy for not meeting the expectations to socially given sex roles.
According to Phyllis Chesler, a leading feminist critique, female happiness is viewed and "treated" as a problem of individual pathology, no matter how many other female patients are similarly unhappy - and this by men who have diligently avoid the objective fact of female oppression. Women's inability to change to or to be satisfied by feminine roles has been considered as a difference from "natural" female psychology rather than as a criticism of such roles. Each woman as a patient thinks these symptoms are unique and are her own fault. She is neurotic, rather than oppressed. She wants from a psychotherapist what she wants--and often cannot get - from a husband attention, understanding, acceptance, merciful relief, a personal solution.
The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn't hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for all the good it did me. (Plath, 2013:18)
her shift in her desired-life, because Esther is not sure if this is the life or career that she wants. All the material and the excitement do not do any to her because she does not know if that is her preferred life. The pressure of the whole New York society and the experience eventually brings her to think none of it is real.
I thought of crawling in between the bed sheets and trying to sleep, but that appealed to me about as much as stuffing a dirty, scrawled-over letter into a fresh, clean envelope. I decided to take a hot bath. There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: "I'll go take a hot bath." I meditate in the bath. The water needs to be very hot, so hot you can barely stand putting your foot in it. (Plath, 2013:19)
I don't believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan or anything like that, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water. I said to myself: "Doreen is dissolving, Lenny Shepherd is dissolving, Frankie is dissolving, New York is dissolving, they are all dissolving away and none of them matter any more. I don't know them, I have never known them and I am very pure. All that liquor and those sticky kisses I saw and the dirt that settled on my skin on the way back is turning into something pure." The longer I lay there in the clear hot water the purer I felt, and when I stepped out at last and wrapped myself in one of the big, soft white hotel bath towels I felt pure and sweet as a new baby. (Plath, 2013:20)
cleansing her body with a hot bath. The fact that she is only pure during or a while after a hot bath really shows how much she is not living in her own wanted life. She has to force herself to stay in the route of society up to the point she considers herself not ‘pure’.
The woman's stomach stuck up so high I couldn't see her face or the upper part of her body at all. She seemed to have nothing but an enormous spider-fat stomach and two little ugly spindly legs propped in the high stirrups and all the time the baby was being born she never stopped making this unhuman whooping noise. (Plath, 2013:65)
While society celebrates motherhood, Esther views maternity as something disgusting and "unhuman." The woman she witnesses in the delivery room is reduced to a horrible spider. Her perspective about motherhood changes completely, yet after this her mother still pushes her to marry and start a family.
My list grew longer. I was a terrible dancer. I couldn't carry a tune. I had no sense of balance, and when we had to walk down a narrow board with our hands out and a book on our heads in gym class I always fell over. I couldn't ride a horse or ski, the two things I wanted to do most, because they cost too much money. I couldn't speak German or read Hebrew or write Chinese. I didn't even know where most of the old out-of-the-way countries the UN men in front of me represented fitted in on the map. For the first time in my life, sitting there in the soundproof heart of the UN building between Constantin who could play tennis as well as simultaneously interpret and the Russian girl who knew so many idioms, I felt dreadfully inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it. The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end. I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone. (Plath, 2013:77)
other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. (Plath, 2013:78)
The quotation above clearly shows the dilemma that Esther is facing. Her options about how to live her life stretches in more branches than she realized. Only one branch is what she really wants to live by, but the other branches are also making here confused. She cant quite make the decisions since everyone else around her is also trying to make the decision for her, each wanting different things she should do with her life. This kinds of oppression is what goes around her head all the time, considering all the things what people think is best for her. Esther as a women does not have the most stable support system around her, because we can see she is more of an isolated person. Her desires to do more with her life comes to pause, due to the pressure that other people put on her. Due to all this pressure, Esther lacks independence for herself as she contemplates more on other’s opinions instead of coming to solid terms with her own desires.
What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants is infinity security," and, "What a man is is an arrow into the future and what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from. (Plath, 2013:72)
Instead of having her future defined by long years of flattering over a husband, Esther wants to open up her perspective and explore the possibilities. The idea of being in a patriarchal environment scares and makes her want to do more for herself. The sayings of Mrs. Willard are the typical all mother sayings at that time. It is also the ideology of how women’s life should be, the way how easy and proud she says it already shows the how society has successful form her concepts of women’s life.
The Bell Jar is not simply about social oppression in the 1950s but it also dealt with the topic of mental illness. This oppression comes from society which put a climax on one’s life. Specifically, it is about one depressed and confused woman's suicide attempt at a time when the medical profession often relied on rough methods like electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). In ECT, a low electric charge is passed through a patient's body to cure such illnesses as depression and schizophrenia. Like Esther in
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath also received ECT. The impact of society’s social construction made someone want to end their life and the treatment at that time are as forceful and brutal as this. This cruel conception of social oppression is what makes some view society as an enemy in the world we live in. Esther was a victim of social construction and so was Plath to the point when she ended her own life. Others might have experienced the struggle and fear that they face at the time too.
"I'm through with that Doctor Gordon," I said, after we had left Dodo and her black station wagon behind the pines. "You can call him up and tell him I'm not coming next week."
My mother smiled. "I knew my baby wasn't like that." I looked at her. "Like what?"
"Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital." She paused.
Esther have just received shock treatments from Doctor Gordon, a psyciatrist. She is completely traumatized and obviously shock to have reacived this kind of treatment for her stressed condition. From the quote above we see that Esther’s mom actually blame her Esther for her own unstableness. It shows by the way she says ‘you’d decided’ as if Esther wanted to go through this path. As if Esther did it on purpose and now have enough of it and being back to her own self. Esther’s struggles is clearly not understood deeply by her own mother, she only sees what she wants to believe she sees and seems to blame it on Esther. Her mother lacks to see her own daughter’s real condition and why she is like this. This struggle is what leads Esther to hate her mother at most times.
I summoned my little chorus of voices. Doesn't your work interest you, Esther? You know, Esther, you've got the perfect setup of a true neurotic. You'll never get anywhere like that, you'll never get anywhere like that, you'll never get anywhere like that. (Plath, 2013:146)
Her mind is starting to go insane as she questions herself about her life. Esther struggles to find the right answer because she does not know what she wants to do or even recognize her own capabilities anymore. She is left to think she is suck nowhere forever. She does want to get better, that might be one of the reason she questions all this to herself, but she is still stuck at the point where she does not know how to overcome her struggles.
Esther's thought when she is suicidal and depressed. Unable to run away from the oppression that is forced on her and the trauma she has experinced, she is affected by dark thoughts and images. She doesn’t know what was the most beautiful thing anymore because everything she believes in is overshadowed and cant find herself out.
If I looked in the mirror while I did it, it would be like watching somebody else, in a book or a play. But the person in the mirror was paralyzed and too stupid to do a thing. Then I thought maybe I ought to spill a little blood for practice, so I sat on the edge of the tub and crossed my right ankle over my left knee. Then I lifted my right hand with the razor and let it drop of its own weight, like a guillotine, onto the calf of my leg. I felt nothing. Then I felt a small, deep thrill, and a bright seam of red welled up at the lip of the slash. The blood gathered darkly, like fruit, and rolled down my ankle into the cup of my black patent leather shoe.(Plath, 2013:147)
Somehow, in the broad, shadowless light of noon, the water looked amiable and welcoming. I thought drowning must be the kindest way to die, and burning the worst. Some of those babies in the jars that Buddy Willard showed me had gills, he said. They went through a stage where they were just like fish. (Plath, 2013:157)
Lately I had considered going into the Catholic Church myself. I knew the Catholics thought killing yourself was an awful sin. But perhaps, if this was so, they might have a good way to persuade me out of it. (Plath, 2013:164)
The various ways in which she tried to kill herself, but always tend to fail. Esther suffers from her own self, she does not know what she wants or what to do. The suicidal attempts are creeping more into her head like how her owns desires are being pushed away by everything else around her.
I pulled up a chair opposite Miss Norris at the table and unfolded a napkin. We didn't speak, but sat there, in a close, sisterly silence, until the gong for supper sounded down the hall. (Plath, 2013:191)
her chin and her hair arranged in a "schoolmarmish" bun. Miss Norris's silence could represent the way women's needs and desires are silenced by society, perhaps explaining Esther's "sisterly" identification with her. She can relate to her situation and mirror herself in the same condition. What society has done is cruel because even if they were rebellions, they are still successfully shut by society to be silenced.
I climbed up on the examination table, thinking: "I am climbing to freedom, freedom from fear, freedom from marrying the wrong person, like Buddy Willard, just because of sex, freedom from the Florence Crittenden Homes where all the poor girls go who should have been fitted out like me, because what they did, they would do anyway, regardless..."
I was my own woman. (Plath, 2013:223)
Esther feels liberated after acquiring birth control. This point she is confident that she can do what she wants and control her body the way she wants to. She actually admits to feeling free of things that have oppressed her in the past. All the main struggles that she have faced are actually beginning to be solved by this act she is doing for herself. This conveys a radical perspective that Esther has, she can now control her own body and is not afraid to be controlled over by someone as this is one of Esther’s stepping stone.
My mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English Major. But an English major who knew shorthand was something else again. Everybody would want her, she would be in demand among all the up-and-coming young men and she would transcribe letter after thrilling letter. The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters. (Plath, 2013:76)
The education she took is the stepping-stone for her desired life but she is in fact saddened and confused because people around her want her to be something else. What is the point of getting a high education when all society expects is for her to live a normal domestic life and not come to use any of her knowledge. She is passionate about writing poetry but is uncertain if she has a chance to fulfill it.
Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a magazine, and then she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there and ends up steering New York like her own private car. Only I wasn’t steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn’t get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo. (Plath, 2013: 2)
Esther’s illness rooted from society’s expectations of her and also her own self-concern about her abilities. Esther is an intelligent young woman with a huge desire to make it for her, but she is also unsure if that is what she wants. This confusion makes her loose herself, she is fighting or herself but also fighting for other people. Esther knows the consequences that she marries and live a domestic she’ll be unhappy, but she also knows that her mother expects her to become this and everyone around her to become that. She is expected to enjoy the things that other people enjoy. She doesn’t really have enough guts to say what she wants but instead takes goes down on what has affected her situation.
How did I know that someday-at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere-the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again? (Plath, 2013:241)
Esther is still in fear about the future as she is about to leave the asylum. Her experiences and views have made her strong but at the same time, the social construction that already exist will haunt her again. Expectations towards herself and her own expectations will have to be separated or she will loose it again. The impact that society has on her oppresses her to a great level, even when she is starting over, after leaving the asylum.
One of the most common interpretations of the novel sees Esther Greenwood's life as an example of the difficult position of educated women in America in the 1950s. Esther struggles with the combined rewards and stigmas of standing out in school, but she is not without humor.
Esther's intellectualism seems to be a disability to some people, perhaps including Esther herself. She benefits from the prestige associated with regularly dating Buddy Willard and she is much relieved when, just as she considers breaking up with him, he caught tuberculosis.
Even though Esther insists throughout the novel that she intends never to marry, she seems unable to eliminate it altogether as a possibility. She feels hurt by the photograph on Dr. Gordon's desk, by the "hairy, ape-shaped law student from Yale" who tells her she'll be a prude at forty, and by Buddy when he visits her at the psychiatric hospital and wonders who she'll marry now. To Esther's mind, all of these men seem to mock her being incompetent in a marriage. Esther's dissatisfactions may be typical of well-educated American women of her generation. Yet, Esther does not imagine herself as part of a community of women who suffer in the same way. Even in the psychiatric hospital, she distinguishes herself from the other women there. Esther is repulsed by Valerie, who has had part of her brain removed, and fascinated by Miss Norns, the mute, unresponsive patient. She is suspicious of the society women ten years her senior, like Dee Dee and Mrs. Savage who trade private jokes about their husbands.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1 Conclusion
A social construction is something that doesn't exist independently in the "natural" world, instead it is a creation of society. Cultural practices and norms shows the existence of social constructs and social practices, customs, and rules concerning the way we use, view, and understand them. In other words, we all act and think based on the philosophy of our people.
After analyzing the novel and linking it to the phenomenon of social construction of women’s life, the writer can conclude that Sylvia Plath has truly shown a realistic struggle that an individual can face in a particular society. Plath has made readers see the impact of how social standards and regulations can hit an individual hard. The rules and regulations that are constructed by society on women’s lives have become a cultural tradition for centuries. Patriarchal ideologies have oppressed women in many ways that they have been living in captivity ever since. A turn of events happened for women during the war and an unexpected opportunity made some women’s perspectives change, as well
