i
SEXUAL REVOLUTION AS REFLECTED IN THE
CHARACTER OF INGE IN ANGELIKA FREMD’S
HEARTLAND
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree ofSarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
PRAMUDYA WISNU WIJAYA
Student Number: 014214062
Student Registration Number: 010051120106120062
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
iv .
In endless rain I've been walking
Like a poet feeling pain
Trying to find the answers
Trying to hide the tears
But it was just a circle
That never ends
When the rain stops, I'll turn the page
The page of the first chapter
[…]
I see red
I see blue
But the silver lining gradually takes over
When the morning begins
I'll be in the next chapter
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For the things that words cannot say, I thank the Father, the living longhaired Lord, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, and the Holly Spirit, and Mother Mary too.
With the love, respect, and apology, my gratitude goes to my beloved parents for bringing me to life and showing me what life is. I also thank my beloved little sister, who sometimes is also my older sister.
As this undergraduate thesis is about women and life, I would like to thank all women in the world, especially the ones in my past for introducing me to the inexplicable thing called love, and for making me flown with fantasy and drown in lunacy, for inspiring my life.
I would also like to thank Maria Ananta Tri Suryandari, S.S., M.Ed., my thesis and academic advisor, and Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S.S., M.Hum. as the co-advisor for their guidance and motivation. I think I cannot make it without them.
vii
thank them all for the true friendship they have given to me and for all the moment we have been through together. Thanks for the memory.
Last, but certainly not least, I thank all English Letters’ lecturers and staffs, Mbak Ninik, canteen staff; library staffs, and the ‘ponytail’ in the library.
viii A. Background of the Study ……… 1
B. Problem Formulation ……….. 4
C. Objectives of the Study ……….. 5
D. Definition of Terms ………. 5
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies ………. 8
B. Review of Related Theories ……….. 10
Theories on Character and Characterization ……….... 10
The Second Wave Feminism ……… 12
The Interrelation between Literature, Second-Wave Feminism, and Sexual Revolution………... 19
Theory of Sexual Revolution ……… 20
C. Theoretical Framework ……….. 26
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY A. Object of the Study ……… 28
B. Approach of the Study ……….. 29
C. Method of the Study ……….. 30
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS A. Inge’s Life Experience as One of the ‘Women inHeartland ‘. 32 B. The Sexual Revolution …...………. 51
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ………... 62
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ABSTRACT
PRAMUDYA WISNU WIJAYA. Sexual Revolution as Reflected in the Character of Inge in Angelika Fremd’sHeartland. Yogyakarta: Department of
English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2008.
Angelika Fremd’sHeartlandis a literary work that pictures depressing life in Australia post First World War. The novel stands for women and the struggles within women’s life.Heartland is a place where patriarchy has rooted deeply, and the domesticity is the place where sexual coercion happens. Nevertheless, the constructed circumstance directs the women to the concept of acceptance and self denial. In the novel, the reader can notify the dehumanization, the sexual objectifications toward women, as this novel is illustrated with several explicit sexual actions. Inge Heinreich, the major character is one of those women of Heartland. As a growing woman, she herself experiences the coercions. She is a product of the circumstance. But solely, she attempts to break down the determination. Inge represents the ideas of the second wave of feminism which utters the right for women to determine their sexuality in its major campaign. An idea of sexual revolution is provided here.
The writer intends to present a deep discussion on the sexual revolution reflected in Angelika Fremd’s Heartland through this undergraduate thesis. Firstly, the writer tries to find out the major character’s characterization through her experience and life as a woman in Heartland. Thus, the writer understands how the women in Heartland occupy sexual objectification and victimization from the patriarchy. Finally, the writer tries to see the major character’s resistance to overcome the objectification and victimization, the major character’s sexual revolution.
This undergraduate thesis is using feminist approach. Generally, feminist approach is really helpful for the writer to understand more about women and what in women’s mind is, since the writer is a man. The writer analyzes the novel based on feminist’s perspective because the novel is about women in facing the hardship of life.
x
ABSTRAK
PRAMUDYA WISNU WIJAYA. Sexual Revolution as Reflected in the Character of Inge in Angelika Fremd’sHeartland. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra
Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2008.
Heartland oleh Angelika Fremd adalah sebuah karya sastra yang menggambarkan kehidupan yang penuh tekanan di Australia pasca perang dunia pertama. Novel ini adalah tentang wanita dan perjuangan dalam hidup.Heartland adalah sebuah tempat dimana patriarki telah dalam berakar, dimana kekerasan seksual dalam rumah tangga terjadi. Sayang sekali, kondisi yang telah terbangun menggiring wanita-wanita dalam novel ini pada sebuah konsep penerimaan dan penyangkalan diri. Dalam novel ini, para pembaca akan menjumpai dehumanisasi, objektifikasi seksual terhadap kaum perempuan, sebagaimana novel ini dipenuhi ilustrasi aksi seksual. Inge Heinrich, si karakter utama, adalah salah satu dari wanita-wanita di Heartland tersebut. Sebagai wanita yang sedang tumbuh, ia mengalami sendiri kekerasan-kekerasan itu. Dia adalah produk dari keadaan tersebut. Tetapi seorang diri ia mencoba membalikkan keadaan. Inge merepresentasikan pemikiran-pemikiran dari gelombang kedua feminisme yang mengutarakan hak- hak seksualitas kaum perempuan. Gagasan tentang revolusi seksual tercantum di sini.
Penulis bermaksud menyajikan diskusi mendalam tentang revolusi seksual yang tercermin dalam karya Heartland oleh Angelika Fremd melalui tesis ini. Pertama, penulis mencoba mempelajari karakterisasi tokoh utama lewat pengalaman dan kehidupannya. Dari sana, penulis mengerti bagaimana wanita-wanita di Heartland mengalami objektifikasi dan viktimisasi oleh patriarki. Dan terakhir, penulis mencoba melihat perlawanan karakter tersebut terhadap objektifikasi dan viktimisasi; revolusi seksual dari si karakter utama.
Tesis ini menggunakan pendekatan feminis. Secara umum, ini sangat membantu penulis untuk lebih mengerti tentang wanita, dan apa yang ada dalam benak wanita, karana si penulis adalah seorang pria. Penulis melakukan analisis berdasar pada sudut pandang feminis karena novel ini bercerita tentang wanita dalam menghadapi kerasnya kehidupan.
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1
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
In Theory of Literature, Rene Wellek and Austin Warren declare: “Literature is a social institution, using as its medium language, a social creation” (1956: 94). In accordance, Georg Lukacs states that work of literature has great social power. It depicts the human being directly and with the full richness of his inward and outward life. It is capable to portray the contradictions, struggles, and conflicts of social life in the same way as these appear in the mind and actual life of human beings (Lukacs, 1980: 143). Definitely, literature already becomes a reflection of the changes, the struggles, the revolutions that happen in the long way history of society.
In resemblance to literature as the portrayal, revolution also means to seek a fundamental construction through comprehensive changes for a better life. Through the social changes, literature and revolution have their way to mingle each other, as asserted in David Bevan’sLiterature and Revolution.
Like literature itself revolution also seeks, fundamentally, to construct another, better, more meaningful and more beautiful world, to effect an almost alchemical metamorphosis (Bevan, 1989: 4).
In literary criticism, feminism and literature are in the area that cannot be separated. Better condition for women is the actual thing the feminist does seek. It is never a simple way to come across this condition, and literature is just the medium. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Feminist Literary Criticism mentions that the interrelation of sexual ideology and culture is addressed as a fundamental condition of literary form (Humm, 1994: 22). Therefore, literature becomes one media of the feminist impact. From the ideology of feminism, Lisa Maria Hogeland also states that fiction becomes the arena, for what is called with Sexual Revolution (1998: 54).
The second wave of feminism (re-) introduces and realizes the so-called Sexual Revolution. Barbara Ehrenreich defines sexual revolution as women’s equal sexual freedoms as men (1986:108). Talking about sexual revolution, Jane Gerhard, in Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of Twentieth-Century American Sexual Thought, points out the liberated view that sees the issue echoes to women’s genital affair. She figures out that the sexual revolution does not only overwhelm the provision of gender equality but also includes equalization for women in treating their genital sexuality (2001: 208).
However, the issue of sexual revolution, the second-wave period of feminism brings, also remains as a controversy among the feminists themselves; when different representatives of feminists viewed sex and sexuality as central to both women’s oppression and women’s liberation (Humm, 1990: 208). An Australian feminist writer, Germaine Greer, provoked the controversy with her best-selling The Female Eunuch (1970). In the book she advocated sexual freedom for women and criticized the institutions of marriage and the nuclear family. (“Feminism.” Microsoft® Encarta® 2006 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2005.)
There is another predicament. There are notes that media insist in the misconception of sexual revolution (Macpherson, 1998: 2). Therefore, in the popular conception, sexual revolution means sexual permissiveness. Yet, the feminists are about to counter against this conception of permissiveness, which used to be associated with sexual exploitation and sexual politics as a product of patriarchal system.
The feminist vocabulary of sexual exploitation and sexual politics was ambiguous because of its ostensible association with the Sexual Revolution, which in popular mind meant sexual permissiveness. And if anything feminist were against that kind of permissiveness and their political analysis went well beyond that of sexuality all the way to patriarchy as an all encompassing system of gender oppression (Lauret, 1994:57).
Of course this circumstance is contradictory to what Lauret asserts as women’s sexual revolution derived from women’s liberation (1994: 54).
2). When studying English Social Structure, the writer found the term ‘Sexual Revolution’ along side the social movements in the 60’s on the third chapter “The Rebirth of Feminism” of the book entitled Road to Equality: American Women since 1962.
By 1969, in contrast, rules had become synonymous with fascism. […] a new sexual revolution had swept the country, accompanied by wide spread experimentation with drugs at the legendary rock festival at Woodstock (Chafe, 1994: 47).
Then, when studying English Prose the writer was encountered with a novel that positively contained a reflection of the sexual revolution, from women, feminist’s point of view. That was how the writer brought up these elements into the topic of the thesis.
Therefore, it is how Angelika Fremd’s Heartland is worth studying. Upholding the discussion, the novel portrays the sexual revolution through and from women’s, feminists’ perspective, which can be seen in the character of Inge Heinrich. The novel of Heartland itself tells about Inge, the major character; a girl who grows up into a woman, who wants to be free from all the prejudices surrounding her life, and from her stepfather and other men who try to use her as a sexual object. But deliberately, she loses her virginity. This becomes the state point of the thesis on how Inge, as a woman, defines and treats her sexuality as a constituent for her self-identity.
advance for women, because it enables woman to take their own genital sexual needs seriously, which is a necessary component of self- identity (Humm, 1990: 208). Even though, as another worth-discussing point of the novel,Heartland was not written during the second-wave of feminism.
B. Problem Formulation
1. What is Inge’s life experience as a woman within the frame of patriarchal culture in Heartland?
2. How does the character of Inge in Angelika Fremd’s Heartland define her sexual revolution?
C. Objective of the study
There are many arguments in the society on the sexual revolution. Therefore, this study is just purposed, to give one more reference for literary study. This study is directed to reveal the idea of sexual revolution in Angelika Fremd’s Heartland, considering that the novel is given a portrayal of a leading strong women character. As how it gains the objectives, by some analysis, it tries to see the sexual revolution from the second-wave feminist criticisms and perspectives reflected in the major character of the novel. And this is the major thing of the thesis, whereas Heartland itself was originally written after the second-wave.
formulations, the writer tries to find out how the character of Inge in Fremd’s Heartlanddiscovers her sexual revolution.
And finally, it will come to the final conclusion. It shows how the characters end up with their attainment. As this study’s objective, it explains what sexual revolution belongs to this character.
D. Definition of Terms
There are some definition on the terminologies used in this study in order to avoid confusion and differences in understanding about certain terms in this thesis:
1. Sex and Sexuality:
Sex refers to the male and female duality of biology and reproduction; the anatomical features. The developed implication of sexuality is about human sexual perception, about sexual activities and practices, as Gerhard says:
In humans, "sex" is often perceived as a dichotomous state or identity for most biological and social purposes - such that a person can only be female or male. But many factors, including one's biology, environment, psychology and social context, have a role in determining how particular people, and those around them, view their sex. Although the table below shows common differences between males and females, many people do not correspond to "male" or "female" with regard to every criterion (2001: 207).
2. Second-wave
Kingdom and the United States during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, and the third wave of feminism began in the early 1990s. (“Feminism.” Microsoft® Encarta® 2006 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2005).
3. Women’s liberation movement or women’s movement
The movement that combined liberal, rights-based concerns for equality between women and men with demands for a woman’s right to determine her own identity and sexuality. These two strands of ideology were represented and established between 1970 and 1978 (Shelden&Widowson, 1997: 129).
4. Sexual Revolution
Generally,Australian Humanities Reviewdescripts it as:
8
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
The writer’s objective is to figure out the idea of sexual revolution inside the literary works to gain deeper understanding, that this undergraduate thesis will show how Angelika Fremd’s becomes the reflection of the feminist’s ideology. Therefore, it is necessary to observe some studies on the novel that were already written.
A review on the literary work by ‘Kings Cross’ literary magazine (1997) seesHeartland as a sensitively drawn and haunting tale of Inge Heinrich's coming of age as a German migrant in postwar Australia. As Inge matures, she struggles for her share of love and protection in a hostile society by becoming a flirt, but is rapidly entangled in relationships that turn sour and dangerous. Inge and her family, meanwhile, are drawn increasingly into a painful awareness of the effects of war, displacement, and the legacy of Nazi Germany on their lives and national identities. Fraught with the complexities of growing up in a strange land the problems of an emergent sexuality, the compelling story of Inge Heinrich is richly
illuminated with insight and humour.
<www.nswwriterscentre.org.au/bookproject.html>
Nunez's A Feather on the Breath of God. The study sees the feminism in the works in the issue of mother-daughter relationship.
There are also two undergraduate theses done on the novel. The first is entitledInge’s Revolt Against Patriarchal Society in Angelika Fremd’s Heartland written by Micael Bosco Kellen, and the second is Searching for Woman Existence As Seen in Inge’s Character: A Feminist Reading on Fremd’s Heartland by Betty Andriany. Both work on feminism as the topic. Bosco Kellen’s undergraduate thesis focuses on the struggle against the patriarchy, while Andriany’s sees Inge as a liberal feminist.
In more specific term, both works are concerned in the issues of gender. It is how this thesis becomes a complementary for both previous works. This undergraduate thesis sees the term sexuality as not only overwhelms the provision of gender equality, but also includes equalization for women in treating their genital sexuality. Over more, “Feminisms” is more properly used than “Feminism” of the plurality acknowledged for the diversity of motivation, method, and experience (Warhol & Herndl, 1997). Thus surely, the theories on feminism applied in this undergraduate thesis are totally different from the previous ones.
B. Review of Related Theories
In this study, the writer will focus on the description of Inge’s characterization in Fremd’s Heartland and how this character defines the sexual revolution. The writer takes the topic of women’s sexual revolution that is reliable with the second wave feminism, therefore the writer uses the feminist approach or more specifically the second wave feminist criticism and theory, and the theory of character and characterization for the analysis.
1.a Theories on Character and Characterization
Abrams, in A Glossary of Literature Terms, states that character is the person who appears in dramatic or narrative work that has both moral and dispositional qualities. Those kinds of qualities can be seen through his action and speech constitutes his motivation Moreover Abrams adds that character is “the person presented in a dramatic work, which is interpreted by readers as being endowed with moral, dispositional, and emotional of qualities that are expressed in what they say in the dialogue, and do in the action” (1981: 20-23).
from his/ her place in the work, means; as he/ she is treated by the author toward his/ her place in the story, as a leading or a minor one (1981: 94). It also can be observed from his/ her social relationship, which means the personal relationship with other character or wider social relationship. The mental qualities, that is the typical ways of thinking, feeling and acting seems significant to identify the characters (1981: 93).
An Introduction to Fiction states that character has more complexity in meanings. It poses the meaning of the individuals who appear in the story. Over more, it also refers to the mixture of interests, desire, emotions and moral principles that shape each of these individuals (1965:17). And to analyze a character in a literary work, Bernet formulates that there are some vital factors that must be considered when learning about character in a fiction; those are: what the character says, what the character does, what other characters (including the narrator of the story) say about the character, and what other characters do (Bernet, 1988: 72).
does not involve more than just in the background. Characterization is meant to help the reader in understanding the character’s reason for doing such thing. Moreover, the readers will be emotionally involved when they read the story (Yellend &Easton, 1953:30).
Characterization is also the process by which the characters are rendered to make them seen real to the reader. In Reading And Writing About Literature Rohrberger and Woods say that there are two principal ways an author characterizes the characters. First, the author uses direct means to describe physical appearance, intellectual, moral attributes, and the degree of sensitivity of the characters. Second, the author uses dramatic means and place of the character in situation to show what the character is by the way he or she behaves or speaks (1971: 20).
Methodically, Holman and Harmon give three ways observing a character’s characterization. First, characterization is seen from the explicit presentation from the author of the character through direct exposition. Second, characterization can be recognized from the presentation of the character in action. And the last, to figure out a character’s characterization is by the representation from within a character (1986: 81).
2. The Second Wave Feminism
Australia. Second-wave feminism hits Australia at the end of 1969. In the Australian context, this fundamentally global characteristic of feminism gains special significance. Since the beginning of Federation, Australian society has been perceived and portrayed as democratic and egalitarian. Therefore, the second wave of feminism coincides with an outbreak of social movements struggling for the rights of other marginalized groups such as immigrants, particularly those from non-English speaking backgrounds. The movement focuses on a revolution pushing for women to change their perception of themselves and society. The emphasis is placed on raising female awareness and promoting personal transformation <http://www.abc.net.au/ola/citizen/women/women-power.htm>.
The ideology is in a great extent influenced by the writings of French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and American feminist Kate Millet, who draw attention to the structure of the western society that plots circumstance of women oppression. InThe Second Sex(1949) de Beauvoir argues that culture regards men as normal and women as an aberration or “the other”, and she identifies that under the patriarchal culture, this is the nature of women (Humm, 1994: 144).
terms, if the first-wave feminism talks about ‘production’, while the second-wave brings revolutionary issues of ‘reproduction’.
Reproductive rights are to second wave feminism what productive rights were to first wave feminism. […] Second wave feminism takes as its starting point the politics of reproduction, while sharing first wave feminism’s politics of legal, educational, and economic equal rights for women (1992: 53).
Reproduction, besides pointing to the process of intergenerational reproduction or the reproduction of daily life in the maintenance, it also points the socially mediated process of biological reproduction and sexuality (Humm, 1992: 53).
Second wave feminists gather the demands for a woman’s right to determine her own ‘identity’ and ‘sexuality’. These two strands of ideology were represented in the seven demands of the movement. The demands are: equal pay; equal education and equal opportunities in work; financial and legal independence; free 24 hour day care for children, and the specific demands for ‘sexuality’ are: free contraception and abortion on demand; a woman’s right to define her own sexuality and an end to discrimination against lesbians; and freedom from violence and sexual coercion like domestic violence, family violence, and rape (Shelden&Widowson, 1997: 129; Madsen, 2000: 155).
Sexuality is prescribed as heterosexuality, of which masculine heterosexuality is prescribed as heterosexuality, of which masculine heterosexuality is the norm and feminine heterosexuality is the complement. Sex not only expresses but also determines how power is experienced in personal relationship and social behaviour (2000:268). It means that women under the masculine- prescribed heterosexuality do not have actual power to determine their sexuality. Therefore they lose the genuine identity of being human. They are sexually only a complement for men’s. They are dependent.
Non establishment of sexual identity of women makes men has transformed his penis into an instrument of power to dominate and determine women’s sense of sexuality. The femininity or female sense of sexuality under patriarchy does merely serve the male. This is the major activity of patriarchy; men’s control over reproduction and the sexuality of women’s body.
Women’s sense of sexuality is a product of this sexual culture. It brings women into what Mary Daly calls with women’s “true self” and “false self”. Under patriarchy women have a false self, because they are alienated from their authenticity. Women are obscured with misshaped self image. The victimization happens through the ‘acceptance’, when women follow the determination and innately see themselves this way.
Second-wave feminist’s writing that becomes a model of criticism is Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch. In the book, this Australian feminist promotes sexual freedom for women, and in this same writing she criticized the institutions of marriage and the nuclear family. Family is a major site of women’s oppression, in view of the fact that there is a ‘reducing of women to an instrument for men’s sexual pleasure within the family.’ The culturally built conception sees that in heterosexual marriage the wife is a property belongs to the husband. It makes the husband, the patriarchal representatives supreme for everything including the sex, the sign of genuine self identity. There is fact that patriarchy uses violence to suppress women’s powers and sexuality. Women’s life is determined; it brings women to the alienation from their authenticity (2000: 420). Feminists have argued that sexual and domestic violence are not isolated incidents but are central to the subordination of women by patriarchy (2000: 155-157).
Nuclear family is also a site where the victimization continues. It reproduces patriarchy; from the parent to the children. Greer argues that women are feminized from childhood by being taught rules that subjugate them. When women embrace the stereotypical version of adult femininity, they lose the autonomy. The result is an acceptance of powerless, isolated, and diminished sexuality (2000: 420).
thus this emotion is corrupted. On the same way, second wave feminism argues that romance is a cultural tool of male which conceals a false eroticism. As Marry Wellstonecraft criticizes, romance has been giving false construction of love because it encourages the patriarchal socialization of women. Thus, second wave feminists, like Kate Millet, Andrea Dworkin, and Germaine Greer herself argue that emotion of love by this way is socially constructed and not innate. Firestone claims that romance identifies women as love object. Therefore it contributes women’s devaluation. She looks at romantic love as an ideology that traps women in marriage (Humm, 1990:245).
In literary tract, The second wave feminist theorists Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray explores ways of creating knowledge from the viewpoint of the female body, including the idea of ‘ecriture feminine’ or women’s writing that will look from women’s point of view. Cixous formulates her criticism into some questions; about what a woman wants, how a woman experiences sexual pleasure, and how it is put into writing. Supporting Cixous, Irigaray’s criticism is questioning the actuality of women’s discourse, values, dreams and desires, everywhere in all things, and about how women define women’s function and social role, the sexual identity (1988: 256& 415). These theories are applicable for seeing everything in the novel from women’s perspective and finding the actual message, the feminism value represented in the novel.
against women. In response to these threats, as sex for the symbolization of power, the second wave feminists assert women’s legal rights to their own bodies, including the importance of the right to choose motherhood. The second-wave feminists also campaign that women might use motherhood as a source of strength and as a way of influencing future generations, rather than as a means of reproducing patriarchy. In particular, some feminists advocate different forms of parenting, as single mothers or within lesbian relationships to escape from the long time built patriarchal circumstance (Madsen, 2000: 155-158).
The solution to the issues of women’s dependence, for Greer, therefore is to free women from the destructive mental dependence that patriarchal culture induces. It is by mean with a ‘revolution’, as she asserts in her booksThe Female Eunuch on the chapter with same title; ’Revolution’. Women should promiscuously correct false representation of femininity and form sexual freedom. And first step to sexual liberation is through individual revolt. The feminists believe that personal is political (Humm, 1994: 43).
3. The Interrelation between Literature, Second-Wave Feminism, and Sexual Revolution
Feminism and literature are inseparable. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Feminist Literary Criticism mentions that the interrelation of sexual ideology and culture is addressed as a fundamental condition of literary form (1994: 22). And, “literature, in its polysemic use of language can therefore produce knowledge that afforded by feminist theory (Lauret, 1994: 15).” Hence, literature becomes one media of the feminist impact.
For Gayle Greene, feminism, correlated with literature, is a ‘teaching movement’, thus, it is a ‘reading movement’, and ‘writing movement’. Feminist writings such as fiction, poetry, or nonfiction have the function to transform confusion into consciousness. It enables people to understand the changes the women are living through and to interpret it (1991:50).
As mentioned inLiberating Literature, Feminist fiction begins to emerge in the mid to late 1970s, on the crest of the second-wave Women’s Movement. Feminist fiction transforms the literary arena, and makes a political space in which women’s issues are discussed and feminist readership is constituted (Lauret, 1994: 1). Also from the perspective of gender politics, in The Revolution in Popular Literature, Print, Politic, and the People, Ian Haywood examines that the literary tracts, of feminized method, are considered as a progressive works, promoting strong character of women, who emerges not as a conservative but as a liberal (Haywood, 1990: 57).
to examine these tenders of women’s desire, the actual ideas the writers try to promote. The women’s movement writers are using a variety of fictions and novels to depict or reflect the desire for a different space, a different and better circumstance (Macpherson, 1998: 93).
On the social function of work of literature, publicly, literature gives models of women’s struggle in defining their sexual identity. In the progress, literature develops the sexual politics that opened the way for second-wave feminism to think afresh about reproduction and sexuality (Humm, 1994: 22).
Thus, discussing about the sexual revolution as it is declared in the title, and the study of literature; fictions and novels already become the tools of the feminist impact (Lauret, 1994; Macpherson, 1998). Lisa Maria Hogeland also states that fiction becomes the showground, for what is called with Sexual Revolution.
This chapter examines the discourses about sexuality in Women’s liberation movement, both the junctures and disjunctures between women’s Liberation and changing discourse about women sexuality created nothing less than a “women’s sexual revolution”. And fiction was a crucial arena of that revolution (1994: 54)
4. Theory of Sexual Revolution
This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution, sex and race; because they are easy visible differences have been the primary ways organizing human being into superior and inferior groups, and into the cheap labor on which the system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there’ll be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism (“Feminism.” Microsoft® Encarta® 2006 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2005).
In Feminism: A Reader, Maggie Humm mentions that since women’s sense of sexuality is a product of sexual culture, women need to use the concept of ‘revolution’ to describe changes in sexuality. Still in the same book, she says that sexual revolution tries to overcome the major activity of patriarchy; men’s control over reproduction and the sexuality of women’s body (Humm, 1990:208). Sexual revolution is necessary for women in this patriarchal culture to be free from men’s projection and to be autonomous to represent her sexuality. Maggie Humm inThe Dictionary of Feminist Theoryalso puts in the information that sexual revolution initiatively plants its seed in the late nineteenth century, but it comes up couple years later. She stresses that sexual revolution is a positive advance for women, because it enables woman to take their own genital sexual needs seriously, which is a necessary component of self- identity (Humm, 1990: 256).
Seeing the subject, Jane Gerhard, in Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of Twentieth-Century American Sexual Thought, points out the liberated view that sees the issue as well echoes to women’s genital affair. She figures out that the sexual revolution does not only overwhelm the provision of gender equality but also includes equalization for women in treating their genital sexuality. However, by examining the work of Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan, Erica Jong, and Kate Millet, among many others, Jane Gerhard already reveals it as no other than the desire that women gain control of their own sexual destinies (1990: 208).
The sexual revolution was for women. Feminists were (and are) able to use its liberationist rhetoric to make their critique of sexual practice. Women need a real liberation of sexuality; a transformation of women’s relationship to their own body and to another’s. By this way there will be no domination. The sexual revolution makes it possible for women to demand genuine “sexual self-determination.” And the feminist reclaims it as much a movement for “sexual liberation” (Hogeland, 1998: 57).
5. Theory of Sexual Self- Determination
The females, besides stereotyped with simply domestic matters, they always becomes the object to the males.
Women’s sense of sexuality is a product of this sexual culture. It brings women into what Mary Daly calls with women’s “true self” and “false self”. Under patriarchy women have a false self, because they are alienated from their authenticity. It makes in contemporary society, a women is usually represented only as her body. And women are obscured with misshaped self image. They see themselves this way. The feminist argues that women’s attempts to achieve it are a prescription for failure, victimization, and severe mental illness (Humm, 1990, 190-191).
Sexual self-determination is the way for women’s sexual liberation, against sexism and the control of women’s own body. This issue talks about the sovereignty of woman’s sexuality. It is a crest point of the liberation of women from men’s world. Women are independently determining their existence and the life of their own (Hogeland, 1998: 57).
a. Sexual Autonomy
Sexual autonomy is the sense of self direction and determination.Women Experience of Modernity says that Carla L. Peterson points sexual autonomy as the right to bodily integrity. This is a statement of being as separate from men, and as far removed from patriarchy as possible. Upon this idea, women’s are liberated. The idea of sexual autonomy breaks down the culturally built conception that sexually women are inseparable from men, which makes men gain the domination in every aspect of life (Lewis, 2003: 135).
b. Personal Freedom
Reproductive freedom is one scheme to bodily self determination. It also means the freedom from sexual coercion, where sexual coercion by men is a strategy for sustaining patriarchal control (Humm,1990; Lewis, 2003: 137). An appalling example of the sexual coercion or sexual violence by men the women are about to fight is rape. A rape for a woman is for all women. Rape is regarded as a general masculine characteristic. It means that all women are victimized by rape because the threat of rape is dedicated towards all women in patriarchal culture and therefore benefits all men in that culture (Madsen, 2000: 12).
theory, or by means it needs knowledge and private awareness, and action in social life to make it real (Humm,1990).
c. Social critique on the inequities generated by sexual differences.
Carla L. Peterson explains it as the capacity to resist the sexual oppression made of sexual difference. The sexual differences are explained as the differences between men and women, among women, and within each woman (Eagleton, 1996: 415). The difference between men and women is used by the patriarchy as a means for what feminists think as negative categories which includes the exclusion and subordination of women. The feminist argues that sexual difference is not innate but the result of the “man- made sex role” allocated to men and to women on the basis of biological sex. And for the feminist, the sex role is some kind of unwanted advance of men to women that symbolizes the way men objectify women. It is the head mechanism of women’s oppression that brings the victimization and objectification toward women (Lewis, 2003; Humm, 1992; Eagleton, 1996).
C. Theoretical Framework
To gain the objective of the study, this study uses statements, theories and other studies in the framework. It is important to gathered more than one theory or studies that are supporting one another in order to make a strong sense of the studies proposed. The writer tries to develop the studies and uses those reviews as references.
To analyze the novel the writer uses theories within the second-wave of feminism. It is to cross -examine the prescribed value depicted in the novel with the actuality of women’s desire reflected by the major character. It also aims to see the objectification and victimization experienced by the female characters. The writer already involves a proper theory of character with the consideration that points to the characterization to find out the actual message of the novel centered in the major character.
To answer the next questions of formulated problem, in this study on the novels, the writer applies the subsequent theory of the feminism. That is the theory of sexual revolution. The theory is useful to analyze the effort of the character to breakdown the determination of the life, especially the sexism she faces as a woman, and how she determines her sexuality.
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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The writer tookHeartland written by Angelika Fremd as the object of the study. The novel was published in 1989 by University of Queensland Press. It is the first part of a trilogy of novels dealing with the life of the leading character, Inge Heinrich.
The story tells about German migrant society in Australia, specifically about the central protagonist, Inge Heinrich.Heartlandchooses a time period and culture which regards women as the property of their spouses. It is reflected in the main character, Inge. She develops by dropping the pretense of being a “model” of the woman in the community, and liberating her inner emotions and ambitions.
Inge and her family are depicted as German migrants in postwar Australia. Inge and her family, meanwhile, are drawn increasingly into a painful awareness of the effects of war. They experience displacement, and sentiment of Nazi Germany on their lives.
So as the topic of the thesis,Heartlandmaintains the issues of sexuality, in accordance with feminism’s awareness of getting free from sexual exploitation and how women treat it. It is a “new” forthright look at a woman's life that begins at the 20 century. As during the 1970s, in which second-wave feminism began to socialize throughout the entire culture, feminist works reemerged as a precursor to women's rights. And the novel of Heartland seems to be the successor of the feminist’s ideas.
B.Approach of the Study
Dealing with portrayal of the spirit of feminism, the approach that will be used is feminist approach. This approach concerned with the marginalization of all women; that is, with their being relegated to a secondary position. Most feminists believe that our culture is a patriarchal culture; organized in the favor of interest of men. Feminist literary critics try to explain how power imbalance due to gender and sexuality in a given culture are reflected in or challenged by literary texts (Labor, 1999).
Therefore in analyzing the novels, this approach seems to be crucial, to look upon it in the feminist point of view. As Charles E. Bressler declares in Literary Criticism, this approach is exposing the effort against male superiority throughout the literary work, and such characterizations must be identified and challenged throughout the work. (1994: 190)
in the works and how the elements inside the works influence it. Seeing that, then, the writer found that there is linking topic in the work. It is about how the central character in the story as a woman treats her life, sex and sexuality as feminism’s component of self-identity, even the self-centered tendencies revealed in the novel.
C. Method of the Study
The writer used the novel ofHeartland as the primary sources. Holding up the thesis, the writer used this 159 pages novel and some secondary sources including data on Internet. They were implemented as the major and supporting information for the thesis.
This study is to figure out the feminism idea of sexual revolution beneath the topic; therefore, the writer used feminist approach to examine the literary work. There were sources that grant varied theories on Sexual Revolution, from feminism, social, psychological, even medical point of view. But the writer only used the theories of Sexual Revolution from the feminist theorists’ writings, to keep focusing on the objective of the study. The writer gathered the materials for the study from library research.
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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS
Work of literature, of its function, gives models of women’s struggle in defining their sexual identity. It opens the way for the feminists to think afresh about sexuality (Humm, 1994: 22). Hence, the writer uses this interrelation between literature and its content, to examine women’s desire, the actual ideas the author tries to promote, to figure out the sexual revolution substance reflected on the novel, to find ‘the positive advance for women to take their own genital sexual needs seriously as a necessary component of self- identity (1990: 208).’ Thus, undeniably, this thesis will explicitly discuss the sexual and other supporting contents of the novel ofHeartlandto gain its objectives.
Second wave feminism in the sharing fundamental global issues of feminism gains special significance. In Australia, it mentions and adopts social movements struggling for the rights of other marginalized groups such as immigrants, particularly those from non-English speaking backgrounds. Still, the movement focuses on a revolution pushing for women to change their perception of themselves and society. The emphasis is placed on raising female awareness
and promoting personal transformation.
A. Women inHeartland
Inge, the leading character, comes from Heinrich family, a German migrant family in Australia during post First World War era. The atmosphere of discrimination toward the migrant moreover the woman is revealed here. They are also anxious about it, as Inge's (half-) sister Monika speaks out, ‘If being grown-up makes you bleed and becoming a migrant makes your hands grow purple, then I don't want to be a woman or a migrant!’ (p. 34). Incidentally, those words said by the character of Monika are on one level merely an allergic reaction to the new country, on another, a telling mark of estrangement more specifically for women, once she says that she does not want to be a woman. And this is the indication that shows the shaped mentality that becomes significant for the idea of feminism to raise then.
Before having analysis on the feminism inside the story, it is essential to see the characterization of Inge. Inge, the major character of the novel, realizes that for the society in the time, she comes from an awful background of the family. She lives through the discrimination just because her family is German migrant, even in her school.
Next morning, during arithmetic, a note was passed across the classroom, landing finally on Inge’s desk. It was in Brian’s legible scrawl:My father says that your father is a Nazi and you take after him. Bright red blood shot into Inge’s. Her heart pounded (p.47).
willing for life. She ever thinks that their surroundings are just temporary aberration and soon they would be ”somebodies” again (p.21).
In An Introduction to Fiction, Stanton states that character has more complexity in meanings. It poses the meaning of the individuals who appear in the story. Over more, it also refers to the mixture of interests, desire, emotions, and moral principles that shape each of these individuals (1965:17). Inge’s search to be ‘somebody’ is the main topic of this proposed thesis. Therefore, the writer at first will explore Inge’s character development by involving feminism theories in the analyses, as this thesis is using feminist approach. Stanton’s statements, utterly, on moral principle as an aspect of the characterization, will be the ground to cross-examine the principles Inge finds in the story with the theories on feminism. Hence, besides discussing men’s treatments, the writer will also bring the depiction of ‘women inHeartland’ with whom Inge lives and grows, and from whom she learns the condition of being a woman, as Little states in Approach to Literature that a character can also be observed from his/ her social relationship (1981: 93).
comment to Inge. A circumstance showing that being a woman means carrying burden is found here.
While her hands and feet were stained purple, Inge woke up one morning to find her bed sheets discoloured by blood […] Lisl commented curtly that Inge would now begin to understand the burden she, Lisl, had had to carry in life, and gave her a packet of modess (p. 34).
‘Women of burden’, caught in Lisl saying is directing the writer to the following analyses on women inHeartland.
1. Sexual determination
The second wave feminism brings the learning on how women lose their genuine identity as human being. The concept of dependency of women on men gives possible way for patriarchy to control over reproduction and the sexuality of women’s body.
The situation is comparable with the situation of, Lisl, the mother, who lives in this conception, that she cannot control her life alone but depends on man. It is why she is married to Karl. When Lisl explains why she is married to Karl, Inge hears her mother says:
“When you are alone with an illegitimate child and a mother to support and a man comes who is handsome enough, who says he will love you and support you, you have no choices. All you have to do is give him your body in exchange. It is a simple bargain. You lie there and count the panels on the ceiling and then before you’ve had time to think it out, you are pregnant and it’s too late. War makes us women into merchandise” (p.130).
term ‘merchandise’ shows how helpless the women are depicted in the novel. Her life is no more than a ‘merchandise’ that the word considerably only gives reflection of physical object, the body. Moreover, the body, the only thing that she possesses does not belong to her anymore, but to Karl, the representation of the men, the patriarchy. ‘…you have no choices.’ shows how Lisl has accepted herself to be the object of man and plays out the role of other a defined by man.
The powerlessness and inability to establish her own (sexual) identity seen in Lisl words of “…you have no choices (p.130) ”. It shows the space for patriarchy to define women identity derived from the women’s other sophisticated problems like ‘love’, with which she barter her body, and the bond of ‘marriage,’ including the emergent coercion on sexuality issues as the bodily sign of the identity, or in other word the sexual identity. Lisl is alienated from her authenticity as a woman, when Karl takes over her power to define her self. Like the feminist argues, it means that she already loses her genuine identity as human being. This is a sign of victimization.
understands how the patriarchy sees the women. This determination makes women become the object of the men’s sexuality.
2. The Building of Love through the Romance.
From Lisl’s statements the writer finds ‘love,’ as the feminist’s saying (Humm, 1990:245), as a tool of the patriarchy to puts women into sexual victimization and objectification. Lisl says: “…who says he will love you and support you, you have no choices (p.130).” ‘Love’ becomes a tool of the patriarchy because it lasts the basic resistance strand of the feminist, women dependency on men, that is like why Lisl gives up her life to Karl. It is like how Schulamit Firestone claims that women are taught to develop an emotional need for men, which is called ‘love’ by patriarchy (Humm, 1990). The building of love by the patriarchy also appears in the novel. The following analysis will discuss on it.
One way of the constructing of love by the patriarchy is evidently depicted in the novel, when Inge, in her growing age, also puts a big interest in romance.
‘ …,he led her to the dozen or so selves that constituted the library and told her to choose whatever books she wished to read during the holidays. Inge choose half a dozen from the few she had not yet red. She did not tell Mr Cooke that she now preferred to read romantic fiction.’ (p. 39)
The romance fiction seems to affect Inge’s mind deeply. Here, the romance captivates Inge’s mind, and encourages the socialization of women from men’s eye. Inge begins to take care of men’s estimations on her.
‘Inge read love poems and romances. Her body ached to transformed, entered. Everything was possible, nothing real. She often found it difficult to keep her mind on schoolwork or conversation. Her world seemed split into random segments which she practiced aligning. Her identity was her most daring experiment. She had seen an image of herself in Mr. Koch’s and Dan’s eyes. These images, reflections, gave her direction.’ (p. 75) Romance brings Inge to question her identity, ‘Her identity was her most daring experiment (p.75),’ thing that she should answer her self. But, ‘She had seen an image of herself in Mr. Koch’s and Dan’s eyes. These images, reflections, gave her direction (p. 75)’ seems gives a figure that romance induces men’s determination on women, when the women is labile to find the identity her self. Therefore, second wave feminism also argues that romance is a cultural tool of male which conceals a false eroticism, because it encourages the patriarchal socialization of women (Humm, 1990).
will victimize her, encouraging the patriarchal model of women to her, and patriarchal model of ‘love’.
There is also mentioned that Lisl used to read romances too. ‘I used to read romances at school when I was young.’ (p. 130). And Inge also likes to read the romance belongs to her mother. ‘She read avidly the books forbidden to her on her mother’s bookshelf. Books with titles such as Forever Amber and Sinuhe the Egyptian(p. 33).'
The writer has explored how Inge’s reading on romance in some way leads her to have an intention for the men. In the following citation the romance also reflects the determination toward women. As under patriarchy women sexual determination is merely to serve men (humm, 1990), the romance Inge read portrays that woman is a source of comfort for the men.
‘She became fascinated by female characters who were a source of comfort to the men they loved. Men, or so it seemed to her, were sad incomplete creatures who could only be saved by the love of a woman. When the time came, she would be such a woman.’ (p.33)
Moreover, Inge tells about this to her friend “You must read Forever Amber, Loise,” Inge would entice. “Amber gives up everything for the man she loves (p. 108).” ‘Amber gives up everything for the man she loves.’ (p. 108) is a reflection of victimization (Humm, 1990). The feminist criticism may points to ‘Gives up everything for the man she loves,’ because it gives men chance to persist the domination, and by means a chance to objectify women. Thus, Sculamith Firestone claims that romance identifies women as love object. Therefore it contributes women’s devaluation (Humm, 1990).
For Germaine Greer, romance has replaced coercion in heterosexual marriage. It coerced women into instrument for man’s pleasure through the mind (Humm, 1990). This is proved when Inge, being fascinated by the female character of the novels, thinks that she can be such a woman when she is able to comfort man (p. 33). This fascination of the romance seems to shape Inge with the conception that woman’s life is dependent on man.
“.., she would run to her man. She would sink into the strong curve of his arm. They would have children, many of them, sitting around the table at mealtimes, bright- eyed and happy” (p.74)
sees that the ‘love’ in this case is not innate, but constructed by the patriarchy using romance.
Firestone claims that romance identifies women as love object. Therefore it contributes women’s devaluation. She looks at romantic love as an ideology that traps women in marriage (Humm, 1990: 245). Lisl says: “…who says he will love you and support you, you have no choices. All you have to do is give him your body in exchange (p.130).” In Lisl’s case, the writer sees that ‘love’ traps her in the marriage. The writer analyzes that in Heartland, the marriage, the nuclear family mostly turns into a site where sexual objectification and victimization toward women happens.
3. Sexual objectification and victimization: sexual coercion within the family
a. Objectification
identity. There is fact that patriarchy uses violence to suppress women’s powers and sexuality (Madsen, 2000: 155-157).
The novel briefly depicts the sexual violence, when Inge witnesses several sexual actions around her. Like when she sees Karl sexually arouses Lisl.
Her feet were swelling. She stretched her aching back and adjusted her distended belly with one hand to ease the weight. Karl pulled her down on to his lap. He caressed her belly and her breasts…(p.16)
Furthermore, she sees that the woman is objectified by the man for his sexual pleasure. There is pressure from Karl to Lisl. The following statements say: ‘She neither expressed interest nor pleasure.’(p.16), and ‘She sat still and absent, sheltering herself from his passion.’(p. 16). It means that the woman has less control in most essential things of her life, her body. The woman is in one way alienated from her authenticity. It shows the central aim of the patriarchy (2000: 157).
Women in Heartland grow in a heterosexual patriarchy where sexual coercion for woman happens. It may become an example of the evidence why Germaine Greer ever criticized the institution of marriage and nuclear family (1988: 420).
In her life, Inge herself frequently experiences roughly becoming sexual object, that she is depicted for having prominent sexual appeal; it makes almost all men around her try to arouse her. Such a depiction in the novel is when Mr. Koch, Inge’s widower neighbor, tries to seduce her by showing his genital organ. He pretends to call Inge by her late wife’s name.
“Come here Christine,” he called. His white, puffy body with its rolls of fat was repulsive. His penis was stiffening as he played with it. There was a deranged look on his face. Come here Christine, and play with me just like you used to. Come on! Come on!”
Inge stared. She had not seen a man’s sex before. She had not imagined it to be so ugly. As she stood there, he moaned and thick white semen ran over his fingers and thighs. Inge shut the door and ran out of the house. She took the nearest bush track not caring where it would take her. She wandered about aimlessly for some time, unable to quell the revulsion in her. Once she vomited. She did not want it to be like that- dirty and ugly. She had imagined it to be otherwise. Was it like that for Mrs Gerhard and her mother? (p. 70-71)
From above quotations, besides Inge’s first experience seeing man’s sexual coercion, when Karl arouses Lisl, and becoming the target of objectification herself, it is also shows a glimpse the ways in which men controls and subordinates women’s bodies. These are the pictures of how patriarchy coerces women using violence to suppress women’s powers and sexuality (2000: 155-157).
For a moment Inge is lucky, since she can escape from the coercion (p71), but ‘’family is a major site of women’s oppression, in view of the fact that there is a reducing of women to an instrument for men’s sexual pleasure within the family (1988: 420).” Thus, for Inge, the real sex war seems to happen in her own house. Karl, who is married to her mother, Lisl, is always attracted with her, also in sexual ways.
Karl has been married to her mother, (p.50) and a father for her as long as she can remember (p. 49). Therefore, Inge used to think that Karl is a good man.
‘At this moment it did not matter to her. Her father was a good man, he saved a life. He is a good man, a good man, it echoed in her mind and she felt joy and excitement which she could barely contain’ (p. 124)
Inge thinks that she gets the love, from a father to the daughter she considers, when Karl gives her a book cased of inlaid wood carved with her initial on it at Christmas (p. 40-41). Thinking that Karl as a good man, Inge even promotes him to become a teacher in her school (p.76). On the other hand, Karl always adores Inge, always attempts to say to her that she is beautiful (p. 70,144). Even more, he rather dismisses Lisl, his wife, to pay attention and compliment to Inge.
‘Karl started to pay attention to her. He became kinder, more patient, taking her part against Lisl more often.’[…]
“The dress looks nice to you,” he would say, making sure Lisl was not in hearing. He made her feel beautiful, fashionable in her second- hand dress. He called her princess and sat with her at night when Lisl had gone bed,…’(p. 75)
Seeing the case, the writer may recall the ‘building of love’ by the patriarchy that women are taught an emotional need called ‘love’. In this case, for Inge it seems to be an affection of a father, but for Karl it is no more than a false eroticism. Inge lazes around the affection, but later by chance, Inge recognizes that it is in different way for Karl. ‘She still watched Karl for signs of hidden evil, but she could not help basking in his attention (p.75).’ However, Inge sees Karl’s hidden intention then.
through her, but she remains dead. I don’t know why she married me (p. 105).”
He wants Inge to replace her mother, who is no more sexually satisfying for him Don’t go, Inge, please. Your mother is insane. She lies in bed and spreads her legs worse than any whore and begs me to take her, to do anything with her, but I can’t, I can’t. My God, I’ve waited all these years. I’ve courted her as long as I can’t bring my self to touch her. She disgusts me…(p. 151)
And later when Lisl is told as dead, Karl violently harasses Inge to replace her position.
“Come here little one!” Sit on my lap.There is plenty of room for both of us.” […] One evening Karl too called Inge Lisl. Unlike Emma he had not made a slip of the tongue “..You are so much like your mother. You must take her place now.”(p. 156)
Over and over before, Karl frequently persuades to coerce Inge. Like the one happens after the school, at which, Inge notably has presented to Karl the job opportunity as a teacher.
The Greek and Romans had also initiated their sons and daughters. It had been part of the social custom, and a very beautiful custom at that, which eased the adolescent boy or girl into sexual maturity without the usual traumas. He was very persuasive. […] He put his hand on her thigh. He wanted to paint her naked.
“No” she said firmly, seeing again his hugely erect, dark red organ aimed at her, feeling disgust and terror to close to excitement, so that she clung to the image of herself as she wanted to be when she sat in Mr Loanes’s class, as if it were the only taught that could save her. Karl made her hate her body; her lewd female form. She hurried past mirrors and hid her breasts. (p. 147-148)
term ‘erotic’ is stressed more; and applied more by the men. Like it has been quoted, from the statement, the writer finds out that Karl tries to fill Inge’s mind with classic, the Roman and Greek image of the nude. This scheme is also sustained when Karl arouses Inge, and he is trying to paint Inge naked.
He hesitated at her cleavage. Then, as if in a trance, he slipped his hand inside her blouse and held her breast in his cupped hand. He kissed her nipple. His other hand held her crutch, his finger probing, his mouth now on hers.
“You are beautiful, you are real woman, not like your mother, he stammered.
Inge sat still; like a rabbit mesmerized by a beam of light.
“You were born to please men Inge, it is your duty as a woman.” (p. 144)
Second wave feminists gather the demands for a woman’s right to determine her own sexual identity. Patriarchy subordinates woman’s body. Karl makes Inge feels lewd. Karl reflects it, the sexual and domestic violence (2000: 155-157). It also demands to the determined sexual role, seen from Karl who says “..,you are a real woman,..” and “You were born to please men it is your duty as a woman” (p. 144). It is explicitly seen here, the reducing of woman into body, and the sex- role of a woman that is determined to please man.
b. Victimization
evil?” “My dear, you must never ask why man is so bad, you must feel joy that he is so good.”’(p. 94).
The women accept the determination. From ‘He taught me to simply be…’ and so on from the quotation below, the writer notices that her husband, the patriarchy’s representation, is the one who plant the seed of the thought. Thus, the women have the acceptance of the determined life.
‘I met Roland Schmidt.[…] he taught me to simply be. It had never occurred to me before that life needs no justification. Roland used to say that no- one questions the existence of a lion and a tree – they just exist. Why should we always be questioning our existence? Life is its own justification and reward (p.94).
Much less for the existence for being a woman, they are never questioning as if the determination is unfair since they already takes it as natural reward for being born as women. Mrs Gerhard, also a neighbor to the Heinreich, even tells Inge that she lets her husband goes to another woman to keep her marriage goes well.
“My Rudi, he, well,” Mrs Gerhard began once, lowering, lowering her voice and glancing at Inge, “he doesn’t bother me anymore. He goes to the back of the hotel. You know the barmaid with the big breasts and low –cut blouse? She has male visitors. I’m pleased in a way, really. He used to be at me every night. Now he hardly bothers me. He knows that I know, but we never talk about it. He has been much gentler since he has been going to her. There is more to marriage than just sex. “(p.129)
The feminist argues that women’s attempts to achieve it are a prescription for failure, victimization, and severe mental illness (Humm, 1990, 190-191). The victimization of women is clearly defined in Lisl’s following expressions.
“My Karl is like that.” Lisl studied one of her nipples. ”he pursues me all the time. He always has an erection. You wouldn’t believe it, Gretchen. He wakes up with it every morning. At night he is still ready. I feel like an animal that is always being hunted. Wherever I go he is there and wants me. […] I didn’t think to be like this. When Karl can’t get near me, he paints or sculpts me. He always has to touch me. He makes my skin crawl.” (p. 129-130).
It becomes the way how women inHeartland are depicted. Lisl is conscious that she is objectified, sexually hunted by man. As within Inge’s family, Lisl and Emma are also living their life this way, they know that Karl is bad.
‘Emma made Karl feel dirty. His attempts to squeeze small emotional and erotic gifts from Lisl had to be made behind closed doors. In this Emma and Lisl were united. When Karl pressed his thick sensuous lips on Lisl’s thin, uncompromising mouth within Ema’s view, the two women signaled agreement to each other – Karl was a sexual pig.’ (p. 100)
Appallingly, the women always reflect the failure of self-determination, and victimization by it. It is a great quest for Inge as a woman who is searching her genuine identity as a woman. But one day, when Inge tells Emma about Karl’s sexual harassment, she instead tells her that it is thing to happen for woman.
Inge tried to tell Emma about Karl that night. “Karl has been trying to paint me, but he tries to touch me all the time, she broaches the subject. [..] “Yes dear, I’m sure you’re right, but he is your father and you sometimes have to do things you don’t like. I have to all the time. Men are a bit funny. I’m sure he means no harm. “Emma seemed to have forgotten that he was not her father.
“But Mami, he touches me here on my breasts, and if Monika hadn’t come, he would have…”
Like Emma’s saying to Inge above, she blames Inge for the incident instead. It is clear that Fremd depicts the women like this. They always blame themselves for the unfair things happen to them. It is shown in Mr Gerhard’s response to Lisl words that she gives up her condition that she used to be sexually victimized by Karl. “Sometimes I think we are to blame, you know. We had such a strict upbringing. May be it’s our generation as women.” Mrs Gerhard mused (p. 130).’
“Sometimes I think we are to blame, you know. We had such a strict upbringing. May be it’s our generation as women.” (p. 130). These expressions from the quotation above may conclude the depiction of women in Heartland; showing the women’s failure and victimization by patriarchy, the failure of finding the identity of being a woman when they surrender to the determination.
The writer also finds how the failure of being a woman is sexually illustrated asHeartlandis a novel that is fulfilled with sexual action.
Her hair was ashen blonde and permed, her face heavily made up, her lips and nails dark red. Her new black dress revealed a small amount of nipple. When she stood up she walked clumsily on stiletto heels, far too high and uncomfortable for one so tall. [...]
” Come, Karl, let’s go to the bedroom now,” Lisl said loudly, closing the bedroom door behind her with a bang. Karl came out of the room shortly afterwards and left the house.
During the next evening, Lisl was more audacious. She sat close during the meal, her skirt pulled up to expose black, lacy suspenders. She picked up Karl’s fork and tried too feed him.
“How’s my darling Karlchen today?” she flirted and put her hand on his thigh.
It makes Lisl a figure of complete failure. From the perspective of feminism, she fails because she follows the determination. And further, from the quotation above, Lisl pictures the women in Heartland who adapt the constructed thought that women are to please men, and men are the source of the happiness. That makes her life dependent on her man, also in the sexual term. But, when she is not sexually attractive to her man anymore, she thinks that she fails as a woman. She is desperate, and in some way, Lisl obviously expresses it of how she feels that she has terribly failed as a woman that brings the jealousy toward Inge.
“I love you terribly when you were a baby and I still do. But you cause me so much pain. I see myself in you. I try to reach out to you and fail. I miss my chance a year ago and now it’s too late. It seemed as if everyone and everything determined to take you away from me. The war, Emma, Karl. Emma has replaced me as a mother. You are educated. I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t know what a mother should be. Have I left it too late?” (p. 153)
Lisl closes the whole failure by ending her life; she commits suicide after knowing that Karl attempts to make love with Inge ‘Karl tries to make love to me. I try to avoid him because I don’t want to hurt you and it’s wrong (p. 153).
At noon the next day a police car stopped in front of the house. “We regret to inform you…”
Lisl had been found dead on the disused railway line (p. 154). It tells as if Lisl restrains in victimization (p. 88&153).
