ABSTRACT
Dalam skripsi ini, saya akan menganalisis penggambaran tokoh utama wanita dalam dua novel, yaitu The Portrait of a Lady karya Henry James dan The
Awakening karya Kate Chopin dari sudut pandang feminisme. Kedua novel ini
menceritakan tentang wanita yang mengalami tekanan sosial dalam institusi pernikahan pada akhir abad ke-19.
Isabel Archer dalam The Portrait of a Lady, seorang wanita yang mandiri (independent), berjiwa bebas (free-spirited), ekspresif (expressive), dan pandai (intelligent) berubah menjadi tunduk (compliant) dan nonasertif (unassertive) setelah memasuki institusi pernikahan. Edna Pontellier dalam The Awakening, seorang wanita yang tunduk (compliant), pendiam (reserved), dan patuh terhadap kewajibannya (dutiful), berubah menjadi tidak tunduk (incompliant), ekspesif (expressive), dan tidak patuh terhadap kewajibannya (undutiful) setelah berusaha lepas dari perannya sebagai wanita. Pada akhirnya Edna memutuskan untuk mengakhiri hidupnya karena tidak mendapat penerimaan dari masyarakat.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Organization of the Thesis ... 4
CHAPTER TWO: THEORY OF FEMINISM ... 6
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS OF THE PORTRAYAL OF THE FEMALE PROTAGONIST IN HENRY JAMES’ THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY USING FEMINISM APPROACH ... 9
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
In the 19th century, women and men were expected to fill separate spheres of society. Men were expected to live a public life, while women were bound to their domestic work at home (Sailus). In other words, women’s freedom were
limited to the responsibilities as a mother and a wife. The inequality roles between men and women make women socially considered as inferiors.
There are two notable authors who deal with the issue of women in the 19th century. The first is Henry James, one of the major figures and successful writers in American literary realism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In some of his works, James creates “female characters, women who are independent of their social role, remaining strong in their personality” (Ludwig).
Some of his major works are Daisy Miller (1878), Washington Square (1880), and
The Portrait of a Lady (1881). The second author is Kate Chopin, one of the
sexual freedom amid the restrictive mores of nineteenth-century Southern society” (“Kate Chopin 1851–1904”). As she raises taboo issue about women in her
second novel The Awakening (1899), she got a lot of criticism. Chopin is “recognized for her pioneering examination of sexuality, individual freedom, and
the consequences of action—themes and concerns important to many later twentieth-century writers” (“Kate Chopin 1851–1904”).
There are two novels that I will analyze in this study. The first novel is Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady, which “stands as James’s contribution to the great nineteenth-century novel” (Bellringer 59). The story is about an American
woman who feels oppressed mentally by her husband; however, she prefers to stay in her awful marriage. The second novel I chose is The Awakening, Kate Chopin’s most prominent work. The story is about an American woman who feels
oppressed by her role as a mother and a wife and commits suicide at the end to get the freedom that she wants. The novel becomes a controversy in the 19th Century, as “most critics regarded the novel as vulgar, unholy, and a misappropriation of
Chopin’s exceptional talent” (Sprinkle). However, later it is “re-discovered in the
late 20th century, bringing Chopin attention as a remarkable storyteller and feminist writer” (Godin). I think both novels are compatible to be compared as
both novels deal with women in the 19th century.
I am going to analyze the portrayal of the protagonists because the stories of the two novels happen around the female protagonists. According to Harry Shaw in Dictionary of Literary Terms, portrayal “refers to the portrait
character is ”one that does undergo important change in the course of the story” (Baker).
As both novels happen around the 19th century, an age characterized by gender inequality (“Women in the 19th Century”), I think it is suitable to use
feminism approach. Feminism is “the organized movement which promotes
equality for men and women in political, economic and social spheres” (“Different Types of Feminist Theories”).
I choose the theory from Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949). Simone De Beauvoir is a French existentialist philosopher and women’s rights activist (“Simone De Beauvoir”). De Beauvoir states that man considers himself
as the self or the subject and woman as “the Other” or the object which causes
The problems I would like to discuss in this thesis are: 1. How do the authors portray the female protagonist?
Purpose of the Study
Based on the statement of the problems above, the purposes of the study are:
1. To show how the protagonists are portrayed in the novels.
2. To show how the change in characteristics of the protagonists is related to feminism.
Method of Research
I use the library research that includes reading and understanding the primary texts which are Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady and Kate Chopin’s
The Awakening. Then, to support my analysis, I perform a research for additional
information, which is done through secondary reading from Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Then I gather some information from the Internet which supports my research. Lastly, I draw some conclusion from my analysis.
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of five chapters, preceded by Table of Contents, and Abstract. Chapter One is the Introduction, which consists of Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research, and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two deals with the theoretical background of feminism. Chapter Three is the discussion on the portrayal of the protagonist of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady. Chapter Four is the discussion on the
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION
After analyzing the portrayal of the female protagonists in Henry James’
The Portrait of a Lady and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and relating it with
feminism theory in Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, I am going to draw some conclusions in this chapter. Both the protagonists of the novels are women who experience changes in their characteristics. Thus, they are dynamic characters. Isabel Archer, the protagonist in Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady is an
American bachelorette. As her father lets her live by herself, she grows to be an independent, free-spirited, expressive, and intelligent woman. However, she enters the patriarchal system after she marries a man who controls her life totally. She experiences a change in her characteristics and becomes compliant and unassertive. From her characteristics before she gets married, it is shown that Isabel is free from
man’s authority, she is also independent financially by the great fortune she gets
from her uncle, on top of that, she is intelligent. Thus, it is obvious that she is an ideal woman De Beauvoir mentions in her theory. From the analysis, Isabel’s
theory that in a marriage, a woman is subjugated by a man and defined as “the
Other”.
Edna Pontellier, the protagonist in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is an
American wife of a successful businessman and a mother of two children. At first, Edna is portrayed as compliant, reserved, and dutiful. However, she experiences a change in her characteristics when she is aware of her position as her husband’s possession. Feeling oppressed by her husband, who forces her to be a mother-woman, she tries to escape from her roles as a mother-woman by losing her womanly characteristics. Edna changes into an incompliant, expressive, and
undutiful woman. In accordance with De Beauvoir’s theory, Edna’s changes
represent her effort to escape from her being labelled as “the Other” by her husband.
However, it is still hard for the society to accept her new self, which leads her committing suicide to get the freedom she yearns.
There are some similarities in both The Portrait of a Lady and The
Awakening. First, both stories have similar setting of time which is the late 19th
century. Second, both novels are about a woman who undergoes the oppression from a man in a marriage. Last, both authors depict the negative view of marriage institution in the late 19th Century, which suits the depiction of marriage institution
in De Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex. It is said that in a marriage, a woman is
defined as “the Other”.
Besides the similarities, these novels also have some differences. First, The
Portrait of a Lady tells a story about a bachelorette until she gets married, while
The Awakening tells a story about a wife who tries to escape from the oppression
also different. Both are American women, but they live in different places. Isabel moves to Europe and lives there after she gets married, while Edna lives in America. Third, the ending of the story is different. Isabel in The Portrait of a Lady prefers to stay in her dreadful marriage, while Edna in The Awakening decides to commit suicide by drowning herself in the sea instead of going back to her family.
The decisions that the protagonists make describe that a woman does not have a choice except to accept their role as a woman. Isabel who is once a free
woman becomes “the Other” in a marriage and cannot escape from it, while for
Edna, the only way to escape from her role as “the Other” is by committing suicide.
Thus, I conclude that marriage institution in the 19th Century is an unfair institution for women as it provides unequal roles between men and women, the roles which make women not to have freedom.
In my opinion there is a connection between where the protagonists live and the decision that they take in the end of the story. America is known as a land of freedom while Europe is very conventional. The conventional society in Europe
changes Isabel’s American idealism. Thus, at the end of the story, she decides to
I am of the opinion that these novels are worth-reading and interesting to be analyzed. I find it surprising that both authors make a contrastive change in the
protagonists’ characteristics. James, as a realist, creates a character more lifelike
than Chopin, who portrays her woman character frontally. She creates in different kind of woman, which causes the novel to receive a lot of criticism and to be banned due to the taboo issue of women. However, through feminism approach, I can get a better understanding of what both authors want to deliver. Concerning the writing style, I find out that James uses more details in describing things than Chopin, who writes the story simpler and not long-winded. Therefore, James makes the readers easier to imagine the situation of every events that happen in the story.
After reading the novels and doing my profound analysis, I learn a lot about
women’s existence and the gender inequality between men and women, especially
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Texts
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Selected Short Stories. New York: Bantam Dell, 1988. Print.
James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1996. Print.
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