THE BLACK MAID’S VOICE IN KATHRYN STOCKETT’S THE HELP
A THESIS
Submitted as the Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By :
MANGUHAL PARSAULIAN HUTAGALUNG Registration Number 2113220026
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTEMENT FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
i ABSTRACT
Hutagalung, Manguhal Parsaulian. 2016. The Black Maid’s Voice in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan.
This study dealt with the Black maid’s voice in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. The study was conducted by using descriptive qualitative approach. The objectives of the study were to find the actions and sayings that the Black maids do and say, and the consequences toward the actions. The data were collected from the narrations and dialogues in the novel. The study revealed that there were three multiple resistances that the black maids do in the novel according to Shorter-Gooden and Jones’ theory: ongoing internal coping strategies, ongoing external coping strategy, and ongoing specific strategy. The consequences that they faced before the publication of the book are: physical abuse, loss of employment, destruction of property, and family’s live. The book was the representative of their sayings to White people. The responses of White people were analyzed by Peccei’s perlocutionary acts theory and the responses are: White woman threat the writer and everyone who participated in that book, White woman refused the book and another one felt happy because everything about her was good in the book.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, the writer would like to express his praises to Almighty Jesus
Christ who has blessed and given the ability to the writer to complete this thesis as
a partial fulfillment for the requirement for the degree of Sarjana Sastra (S-1) at
the English Department of Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of
Medan.
This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and the help
of several individuals who always contributed and extended their valuable
assistance in the preparation and completion of this thesis. The writer’s special
appreciation goes to:
Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean Faculty of Language and Arts, State University of Medan.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature Department, Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English Department
and his thesis examiner, Nora Ronita Dewi, S.S., S.Pd., M.Hum., the
Head of English Education Program and Syamsul Bahri, S.S., M.Hum.,
the Head of English Non-Educational Program, Faculty of Languages
and Arts, State University of Medan.
Prof. Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S and Morada Tetty, S.S., M.Hum as his Thesis Advisors who always gave their time to finish this thesis. Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd, Drs. Lidiman Sahat Martua
Sinaga, M.Hum and Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed as his Thesis
Examiners.
All of Lecturers and Staff of English Education Department who have
given the great knowledge, so that the writer can finish writing this research. Eis Sri Wahyuni, M.Pd as an Administration Staff of English
iii
Baktiar Hutagalung and Pesita Siregar for the patience, affection, prayer and everything that have given in order to finish his study.
Thanks also given to his brothers: Dennis Hutagalung, Kevin
Hutagalung, and Febrian Hutagalung who always share happiness and
give the best support.
Grandparents B. Hutagalung, M. Manalu, H. Siregar, and T. Sitanggang for the wise words that the writer always remembers
wherever he walks.
Theresa Malau, S.Pd, Zulkifli, Sophyan, Alexon, Charli, and Bonar who have shared everything before the writer started to learn English in
State University of Medan
special time and for all the sweet and happy memories.
The people who direct or indirectly contributed in this study, your kindness means a lot to him.
iv
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ... 7
A. Theoretical Framework ... 7
b. Structural Analysis ... 15
c. Voice ... 16
2. Speech Acts ... 18
v
B. Relevant Studies ... 20
C. Conceptual Framework ... 23
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHOD ... 25
A. Research Design ... 25
B. Source of the Data ... 25
C. Techniques of Collecting Data ... 26
D. Techniques of Analyzing Data ... 26
CHAPTER IV: DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 27
A. Data ... 27
B. Data Analysis ... 27
1. Analysis of Black Maid’s Actions and Sayings to realize their voice ... 27
a) Ongoing Internal Coping Strategies ... 27
b) Ongoing External Coping Strategy ... 29
c) Specific Coping Strategies ... 31
2. Analysis of the Consequences Toward the Actions ... 32
a) Before the Publication of the Book ... 32
1) Physical Abuse ... 33
2) Loss of Employment ... 34
3) Destruction of Property ... 35
4) Threat to Family’s Live ... 36
b) After the Publication of the Book ... 37
C. Research Findings ... 39
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 41
A. Conclusion ... 41
B. Suggestion ... 41
vii
LIST OF APPENDIXES
Pages
APPENDIX A ... 44
APPENDIX B ... 48
APPENDIX C ... 50
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
Humans use literature as the medium to represent life. Despite it is
sometimes imaginative or imaginary, literature is always made based on real life.
Literary works cannot be separated from history, such as in Indonesia, every
century genre of literature is always changing, agreeing to the circumstances that
occurred in that century. Sometimes most of authors or poets portray the story
about events that happened in the past or any future events in their works. It
depends on the imaginary and thought of the author.
Novel has become a literary work which is favored because it can tell you
many things in it like circumstances of time, places, events and issues. More texts
inside can make the story in the novel more exciting to read, and the narrative and
storyline can make our imagination work and put ourselves in the novel itself.
Nurgiyantoro (1995:35) says that to read a novel the reader is required to
reconstruct the problems between characters.
The Help is a novel that tells the story about African-American maids
working in White Households in Jackson, Mississippi, during the early 1960s. The
novel became phenomenon since it was published for the first time. The Help has
been published in 35 countries and three languages. As on August 2011, it has
sold five million copies and has spent more than 100 weeks on The New York
Times Best Seller list. Furthermore we can simply see its difference. There were
2
about the lives of Black people in 1960s or even older than that. They had poured
their thoughts by their points of view about what happened, what should have
happened, and what should have not happened in their works. For example Alice
Walker with her Color Purple and other African- American women writers like
Gayl Jones with Eva's Man, Toni Cade Bambara with War of the Walls, etc. On
the other hand, The Help of Kathryn Stockett needs to be paid by attention,
because by her work we can see the point of view of White people about the
Black maids because she is basically a White American girl.
Human rights become a main topic in the story where discrimination and
racism frequently appear. Kathryn Stockett’s with The Help draws that situation
word by word where it chronicles events from late summer of 1962 through 1964
the time where civil rights movement was intensively formed. Stockett puts some
kind of events which occur and refer to discrimination and racism such as Black
maid’s house should be separated far away from White people’s location and in
White people’s house, the Black maids should not use the same toilet with the
White bosses. Stockett also depicts the hard-struggles of Black women who work
as maids in the house of white people. The portraying is simple but the message is
clear. She explained that the Black maids to their jobs wholeheartedly but they are
not paid as they should have been paid. They neglect their children in their house
and they raise their boss’ children.
The struggles of women in history of Civil Rights Movement were as not
as men. Dingemans (2015) argued that although women’s actions were vital for
3
books. Stockett makes her novel different because this novel is about the Black
women who work as the maids under the discriminations that occurred in the
1960s. That is why the researcher chose The Help novel because he wanted to see
and reveal the struggles of the Black women in the 1960s through this novel.
The lives of Black people in the past might not be occurred in this era
because the success of the civil rights movement activists. It brought a brand new
view, where there no more the separated places between Black and White,
moreover America now have an African-American president for the first time in
history, he is Barrack Obama. But the election of Obama as the president seems
make no effect to Black women’s live. According to Black Women’s Roundtable
(2004:45) in sum, Black women’s lives matter. Yet, the value of their lives is
often diminished in the face of institutional and cultural structures that leave them
overrepresented among those who either experience violence or find themselves
entangled within the criminal justice system, but it seems, underrepresented
among those whom are empowered with the right of self-defense. It means that
the some of the past stories are still remaining nowadays. That is why The Help is
a readable book even though the story inside is about the 1960s, but it is still
containing the present events.
Stockett makes her novel become different by the characters, where there
is a White girl who wants to help all the Black maids in Mississippi, she is
Skeeter. Skeeter collects all the stories and experiences from all the Black maids
in order to help them by publishing. She decides to write a book detailing the
4
work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis. If there were mostly
stories tell that Black people tried to help their communities, this one would be
different because she is a white who able to help.
Armstrong (2012) has done the same thing. He discussed about the
situation of Black domestic workers in The Civil Rights Movement, it is about
how Black domestic workers negotiated their personal life with their public
spheres in the workplace and in the Civil Rights Movement. This includes
examining the social relationships between black domestic workers and white
employees, the roles they played within the Civil Rights Movement, and how
those roles affected their work and personal lives.
Seawell, et al (2014) analyzed the effects of general social support and
social support for racial discrimination on African American Women’s Well
-Being. It examined the role of general and tailored social support in mitigating the
deleterious impact of racial discrimination on depressive symptoms and optimism
in a large sample of African American women.
Dingemans (2015) revealed the vital roles of black women by focus on how
the Civil Rights Movement is memorized and how the contributions of Ella
Baker, Rosa Parks, and Fannie Lou Hamer shed another light on the master
narrative. By their works Dingemans analyzed the roles they played in the era of
Civil Rights Movement.
In the story of the novel, telling the stories to Skeeter is a kind of action
that they do to get their voices delivered to the white people. When the voices are
5
consequences towards the actions. From that explanation the researcher concludes
that this study concerns to expression, language, action, and consequences. Thus,
the researcher would like to uncover the effects of the voices in the novel by
applying speech act and focuses on perlocutionary because there will be
consequences for every action that the black maids take. As Horn and Ward
(2006) say that perlocutionary is a consequence or by-product of speaking
whether intended or not. Perlocutionary acts consist in the production of effects
upon the thoughts, feelings, or actions of the addressee(s) or other parties.
The researcher argued that the actions and sayings of the Black maids are
the voices that they have to say or express. They have to face the consequences
every time they do it, but the most consequences that they faced are the risk
because they are the lower class. They collected the stories to a white woman and
then published it. It means that the words they put in the book are their utterances,
so when the White people read the book, they may have some responses.
B. The Problems of the Study
The problems of the study were formulated in the followings:
1. What do the Black maids do and say to realize their voices?
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C. The Objectives of the Study
Dealing with the problems of the study, the objectives of the study were:
1. To find out how the Black maids realize their voices.
2. To find out the consequences that the Black maids get from the White people.
D. The Scope of the Study
The scope of the study was based on voices of Black maids in all their
utterances in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Voice means the actions and sayings of
the Black maids while they are enslaved by the White people. And the effects of
the utterances were analyzed by using perlocutionary act.
E. The Significance of the Study
The result of the study was expected to be useful and relevant
theoretically and practically.
1. Theoretically, the findings are expected to the students or literature
learners, to use the findings as their references to learn about Literature
especially about Voice.
2. Practically, the findings of the study are expected to be useful and relevant
for the researchers who are interested in doing research about Voice in
41 CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A.Conclusions
After analyzing voice on three characters in The Help novel, it could be
concluded some important points of analysis. The points are listed below:
1. Through the words that the Black maids say and the actions that they do in
the novel they showed their voice. All the three coping resistance strategies
are occurred in the novel, they are: ongoing internal coping strategies,
ongoing external coping strategies, and specific coping strategies.
2. They got the consequences towards their voice after publishing the book.
The consequences before and after the publication of the book which is the
collection of the Black maids’ stories and views about White people.
B.Suggestions
Considering the conclusions above, there are some important suggestions
needed to be examined. They are listed below:
1. The result of this study is suggested to be used as the reference for
researchers who will conduct the same researchers using voice and
perlocutionary theory or combinational theories to enrich the heterogeneities
and variances of literary work.
2. The novel, The Help is suggested to be used as tool and material in literature
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