A THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Attainment of a Sarjana Sastra Degree in English Language and Literature
By:
Tiara Dewi Panduwati
NIM. 12211141031
ENGLISH LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
YOGYAKARTA STATE UNIVERSITY
MOTTOS
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
“Indeed, Allah will not change people’s condition until they change what is in themselves,” (Al Quran, Surah Ar-Ra’d: 11)
“What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written.” (Jacques Derrida)
DEDICATIONS
I dedicate my “masterpiece”to:
My pair of angels,
Bapak
Sabar Triatmoko and
Ibu
Tugi
Haryanti
My strong Grandma,
Uti.
My pair of loveable sisters, Mika Mahatma Sura Karlina and
Maharani Tata Bhanuwati
My pair of helpful and patient mothers in campus, Dr.
Widyastuti Purbani, M.A and Nandy Intan Kurnia, M.Hum
My partner in crime, Faiz Zakiy Yamani
LITERATROOPS’12 and ENGLISH LITERATURE 012
Those who concern o
n children and children’s literature
All children in the world, and
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Alhamdulillah, all praises to Allah SWT that has given me all guidance, help, and patience. Without Allah‟s blessing, mercy and grace, this thesis will never be finished well. I would like to express my best appreciation and gratitude for those
who have helped me a lot during the process of writing this thesis.
Firstly, I would like to thank my super consultants, Dr. Widyastuti Purbani,
M.A as my first consultant and Nandy Intan Kurnia, M.Hum as my second
consultant, who have shared their time, knowledge, and guidance patiently. I
would like to thank them for all of the support and encouragement they have
given to me. With them, all impossible things seem possible when dealing with
this thesis.
Secondly, my gratitude goes to all lecturers of English Literature study
program who had shared their knowledge and made me fall in love with literature
in every single explanation they gave in every class.
Thirdly, I would like to thank my incredible parents, Bapak Sabar Triatmoko
and Ibu Tugi Haryanti, who have supplied much support featuring with their never
ending love, care, and prayer for me without asking when I will graduate.
Fourthly, I would like to give my gratitude to my silly but loveable sisters,
Mika Mahatma Sura Karlina and Maharani Tata Bhanuwati who always support
me with their laughter.
Fifthly, I would like to express my thank to my partners in consulting this
thesis and in spreading spirit while dealing with this thesis, Ulik Chodratillah,
TABLE OF CONTENT
PERNYATAAN ...iii
MOTTOS ... iv
DEDICATIONS ... v
ACKNOWLEDGMENT ... vi
TABLE OF CONTENT ...viii
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ... xi
ABSTRACT ... xii
CHAPTER I ... 1
INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. Background of the Study ... 1
B. Research Focus ... 10
C. Research Objectives ... 11
D. Research Significance ... 12
CHAPTER II ... 13
LITERATURE REVIEW... 13
A. Post-structuralism ... 13
B. Deconstruction ... 20
1. Binary Opposition... 22
2. Logocentrism ... 25
3. Ideology ... 27
4. Deconstruction in Literature ... 30
C. Children‟s Literature ... 34
1. Conventional Children‟s Literature ... 40
2. Unconventional Children‟s Literature ... 46
3. Conventional Images of Children ... 53
4. Deconstruction in Children‟s Literature ... 56
D. Previous Research Findings... 60
CHAPTER III ... 65
RESEARCH METHOD ... 65
A. The Research Design ... 65
B. The Data and Sources of Data ... 67
C. Research Instruments ... 68
D. The Technique of Data Collection ... 69
E. Data Analysis ... 71
F. Data Trustworthiness ... 72
G. Analytical Construct ... 73
CHAPTER IV ... 75
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ... 75
A. Findings ... 75
1. The Unconventional Images of children in Jacqueline Wilson‟s The Illustrated Mum ... 75
a. Unconventional Traits of Children... 78
1) Caring ... 78
2) Sensitive ... 83
3) Unselfish ... 87
4) Responsible ... 90
5) Independent ... 92
b. Unconventional roles of children ... 95
1) Parenting ... 96
2) Protecting One Another... 101
3) Doing Household Responsibility ... 105
2. The Ways of Deconstruction are Used in Wilson‟s The Illustrated Mum ... 107
a. Creating Complicated Plot ... 108
b. Using Different Point of View ... 114
c. Employing Sensitive Issues... 123
d. Subverting Adult/Child Image ... 126
e. Subverting Good/Bad Image ... 131
g. Denying Logocentrism ... 138
B. Discussion ... 142
CHAPTER V ... 151
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 151
A. Conclusions ... 151
B. Suggestions ... 153
REFERENCES ... 155
APPENDIX I ... 158
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Figure 1: Framework of Thinking ………..………...……… 64
Table 1: The List of Data 1 ...………...………..……... 69
Table 2: The List of Data 2 …………...………..………….. 69
DECONSTRUCTION ON THE CONVENTIONAL IMAGES OF CHILDREN IN JACQUELINE WILSON‟S THE ILLUSTRATED MUM
by
Tiara Dewi Panduwati
12211141031
ABSTRACT
This research has two objectives. The first is to reveal the unconventional images of children deconstructed by Wilson‟s The Illustrated Mum. The second is to show how deconstruction is presented in Wilson‟s The Illustrated Mum. This research applies Derrida‟s deconstruction and children‟s literature theory.
The researcher used qualitative analysis. This research‟s main data were words, phrases, sentences, clauses, and discourses taken from Wilson‟s The Illustrated Mum. To analyze the data, the researcher used content analysis. This is a technique of gathering and analyzing the content of the text. The content refers to a means of communication using various media such as novels. To ensure trustworthiness of the data, the researcher used triangulation.
The result of this research is that there are two unconventional images of children shown by the unconventional traits and unconventional roles of children. The unconventional traits include caring, sensitive, unselfish, responsible, and independent. The unconventional roles are parenting, protecting one another, and doing household responsibility. The second result is that Wilson uses seven ways to deconstruct the conventional images of children and children‟s stories. Those seven ways are creating complicated plot, using different point of view, employing sensitive issues, subverting adult/child image, subverting good/bad image, subverting male/female child image, and denying logocentrism.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
“In her anger she clutched Rapunzel‟s beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off…And she was so pitiless that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in a great grief and misery.” (Grimm, 1972: 107)
Rapunzel‟s beautiful hair is cut off because she wants to escape from
the enchantress who has imprisoned her in an attic of a high tower. When the
enchantress cuts her hair off, what she can do is nothing and she is exiled in a
forest in which nobody knows where she is. Later on, the prince finds her and
takes her to his kingdom. Finally, they live happily ever after. From the story
of Rapunzel, it can be seen how weak and passive the character of Rapunzel
is.
Another weak and dead character in fairy tale is shown by Cinderella.
She is rewarded by a fairy godmother named Mother Holle after being exiled
by her mother and comes to a strange place. Cinderella is very happy because
of her kind heart and patience; she can finally go home and is given a reward.
Gretel, in Hansel and Gretel, is another example. She is punished by a
wicked witch because she does not want to do what the wicked witch
From the above examples of traditional fairytales and other stories,
especially in Grimm’s Fairy Tales, it is seen clearly that those traditional children stories have brought logocentrism that is commonly understood as
the winning of speech and thought as the center of truth, especially in
constructing children‟s images. The first logocentrism is that children
characters in those stories are made to be weak, innocent, dependent, and
unknowledgeable. The other one is that children are exposed with only easy
plot where there is no meaningful conflict and suddenly the story is ended
with a beautiful conclusion. This characteristic of plot in traditional literature
influences the readers when reading the stories. They will have less effort in
thinking critically about the correlation of the conflict and suddenly beautiful
ending presented to them.
Even though those fairy tales have been written long time ago, they are
still read and enjoyed by many children and their parents until now.
Moreover, some of them have been reproduced with some nicer illustrations
and some of them have been filmed, too. This situation can be problematic if
children are always given those kinds of stories. There will be certain
ideology that is penetrated in their mind as readers from those everlasting
fairy tales and other same typical stories.
As people know, literature is believed as the reflection of society or a real
life which possibly brings an ideology. Oxford English Dictionary (in
usu. relating to politic or society, or to the conduct of a class or group, and
regarded as justifying action….” In society, ideology is a common sense or
universal truth that is unconsciously accepted and agreed. It also happens in
children‟s literature that often brings ideology on gender, race, class, and
even children‟s images. Based on Hollindale (1988, 8-17), ideology can be
presented in children‟s book in three ways. The first is explicitly told as a
didactic medium, just like children‟s literature in the past that is used to be
didactic media. The second one is by hiding it implicitly; and the last is by
unconscious way that even the writers are not aware of the ideology‟s
existence inside their stories. This ideology brings conventional children‟s
images which are often depicted as weak, innocent, dependent, selfish, and
unknowledgeable.
Conventional image is derived from the word conventional and image.
Based on Oxford English Dictionary (2006: 320), conventional is “tending to
follow what is done or considered acceptable by society in general; normal
and ordinary.” Therefore, conventional image is defined as someone or
something that is widely accepted in a society or something related to a
convention. It is considered as acceptable since society agrees. The examples
of conventional images can be: a) a bride that wears white on her wedding b)
people wearing black for funeral c) women who are depicted as weak and the
second class in society and d) children that are perceived as inferior, incapable
that have unconsciously been taken for granted by society. Martalock (2012:
3-4) says that conventional images of children refer to what people and society
believe, understand, and assume about children‟s role in society. The images
include how society thinks about children‟s development, motivation, and
purpose. The conventional images of children also include incapability of
speaking for themselves.
The conventional images of children have been presented in most
children‟s stories where society sees children as inferior and as the “second
class” that are ruled by the “first class”, adults. As stated before, the first
possibility is that children are controlled by adults in the way that they are
depicted as weak, dependent, innocent, and unknowledgeable characters. The
other possibility is that they are not introduced to the stories that expose
complexity of life. What they receive in the stories is only a nice, good, and
beautiful plot. Sensitive issues, such as sexuality, divorce, diversity, racism,
etc, are forbidden to be introduced to children as adults believe that those
issues are not appropriate for children.
Nevertheless, if they are not introduced to these sensitive issues, they will
„depend‟ their curiosity on adults and it makes them defined themselves as
innocent and unknowledgeable. This situation is in line with Nodleman‟s
statement, as he (1992: 30) states that “…we produce children‟s literature that
is almost totally silent on the subject of sexuality, presumably in order to
This statement affirms that adults hide those sensitive topics from children‟s
stories as adults thought that children are really innocent.
People, including parents, who are not well aware about the danger of
these situations might simply agree and will hardly question how and why
those conventional images can be created. This case will create problems for
children since, compared to adults, they are lack of experiences in reading. If
it happens, the absorption of any ideology to their mind will be easier. Some
conventional images even contain discrimination on race, gender, and class.
To make it even worse, both for children and parents who do not have
awareness in reading children‟s stories, conventional images of children in
children‟s stories can perceive a misleading perception about those
conventional images since children‟s literature plays roles in developing
child‟s character and lead young readers to the new ideas and concepts. It can
create unconscious “truth” that will be penetrated deeply in their mind and
later will be agreed by them as society does.
Related to the sensitive issues in children‟s stories, people must
understand that children have opportunity as well as need to read and learn
more about literature. Children need to read literature to get and learn about
life lesson including the complexity of life. However, the form of literary
works intended for children must be different from the ones for adults. Lukens
(1999: 9) clarifies “children are not little adults. They are different from adults
kind.” It means that just like the adults, children also need to know about love,
laugh, happiness, sadness, death, divorce, mental illness, loss, pain, etc.
Nevertheless, the author has to use different ways to tell the story to the
children.
Children need to know about sensitive issues such as death, divorce, pain,
loss, mental illness, sadness, etc. Mostly in the past, children are only
provided with one topic of literature which is very limited. They are only
introduced and provided with stories about kingdom, princess, prince, magic
and happy ending things. Those topics are good, but children need to be
introduced to various kinds of topics, too, such as fantasy, realistic story, and
many more genre. By giving children various kinds of topics to read, their
capability of reading and thinking critically will be improved since they have
abundance of different things to discuss. They also will have a wide horizon
that life is not that simple and easy. Thus, they have to struggle to gain a better
life.
However, nowadays, children and their perception have developed as
culture develops, too. There are unconventional images of children that are
strong, independent, responsible, and knowledgeable and those new images
can be introduced to the children in order to strengthen their characters.
Jacqueline Wilson as one of the greatest children‟s literature writers in U.K
shows those positive images of children in her stories. Mostly, she writes
and faced by children in today‟s era. There are some novels that she has
produced, for example, The Suitcase Kid which portrays the life of a child
who has to be separated from her parents because they have divorced; Vicky
Angel that discusses about death and children‟s response on it; and The Story
of Tracy Baker which is focusing on the issue of abandonment. In her novels,
Wilson introduces emotional and sensitive issues that were once considered as
taboo by the society.
Another example of Wilson‟s well-known novel is The Illustrated Mum
which was published in 1999 in Great Britain. This novel has been filmed by
Film4Schools in 2003. It was directed by Cilla Ware and starred by Michelle
Colins as Marigold Westward, Allice Connor as Dolphin, and Holliday
Grainger as Star. Though The Illustrated Mum is considered as the darkest and
the most depressing novel, according to a review from Jill Murphy (2014) in
The Book Bag, it is also perceived as the best work of Jacqueline Wilson. It
even won some awards, such as, the Annual Guardian Children‟s Fiction Prize
that is judged by a panel of British Children‟s Writers, the 2004 BAFTA
Award for the best School Drama, the Winner of Children‟s Books of the Year
in British Book Awards 2000, the Winner of the Highly Commended for the
Carnegie Medal in 1999, and was voted as “The Book I Couldn‟t Put Down”
in the Bleu Peter Book Awards. Starting from 2001, The Illustrated Mum has
also been translated into many languages such as Italian, Spanish, Finnish,
The Illustrated Mum is a story about a dyslexic girl named Dolphin and
her sister, Star, who have to deal with a bipolar mother named Marigold.
Every day, they have to cope with many difficulties and problems of life
caused by their mother. It happens because, as a parent, especially as a single
parent, Marigold is not responsible enough to take care of her daughters.
Dolphin and Star have to protect their mother from society and authorities,
they have to provide their needs by themselves, and indirectly, they have to
switch the role as „parents‟ for their mother.
The main characters, Dolphin and Star, are different from other children
characters in most children stories. Although in several children stories there
are children characters who are strong, smart, independent and
knowledgeable, the characters of Dolphin and Star do not only possess those
positive traits, but also significant roles of being “adults” while they are only
10 and 14 years old. It can be said that they are more mature than children
commonly. This novel shows new images about children and it has
deconstructed the conventional images of children that are unconsciously
accepted and agreed by society. It captures things that many children today
live with. Although this story seems so desperate, it is told in smooth and
funny ways to make children interested in reading it. At the end of the story,
the readers are given hope, too, after struggling against problems that seem
impossible to solve. This story teaches without preaching children how to
introduced to children in order to make them understand that life is not that
easy.
Children‟s story like The Illustrated Mum is a good example of a literary
text which introduces deconstructed pattern especially the one which is related
to children images, and how the writer deconstructs the conventional images
of children‟s stories. By presenting deconstructed images of children in a
novel, an alternative way of reading a text can be accepted in smooth ways by
people who are not aware of the importance of seeing from another
perspective. Thus, The Illustrated Mum‟s story is an interesting novel to be
read, not only for children but also for adults since it offers new ways of
reading for readers by deconstructing the conventional images of children.
Therefore, the researcher uses Derrida‟s deconstruction theory to reveal
the unconventional images of children in the novel. In addition, the researcher
intends to show how deconstruction is presented in Wilson‟s The Illustrated
Mum in order to see and offer a new perspective in reading children‟s stories,
especially for children. Deconstruction is the best approach to analyze this
novel because by using this approach, readers, especially nowadays children
can be more aware that they can be strong, independent, and knowledgeable in
solving their problems where there is not too much adults‟ interference.
Deconstruction is a method which makes a new foundation to see a story and
an attempt to unveil the unseen to be accessible to be seen. Children‟s
intrinsic elements of children‟s literature. It is hoped that readers, especially
children, can be more aware that there is a new perspective in reading
children‟s stories in which children are not always depicted as weak, innocent,
dependent, and unknowledgeable.
B. Research Focus
The Illustrated Mum is a story that reveals how conventional images of
children have been deconstructed and they have been replaced by a new
alternative of seeing the images of children. It breaks the logocentrism in
which children are seen as being incapable of having positive traits and roles.
The researcher‟s prior assumption is that there are some new positive images
of children that are different from the conventional images of children. The
logocentrism of children traits and roles are no longer depicted as incapable,
weak, dependent, innocent and unknowledgeable. This assumption is shown
by the main characters of the novel, ten-year-old and fourteen-year-old
children named Dolphin and Star. This research focuses on those two
characters, Dolphin and Star, who reveal the unconventional images of
children. Besides, this research focuses on how the deconstruction works in
the novel as well.
To prove this assumption, Derrida‟s deconstruction is used to show that
there are unconventional images of children that are no longer seen as
sometimes cannot be proven in all contexts. It also challenges that there are
certain possibilities to show what they have hidden behind the unhidden one.
By revealing the unconventional images of children in the novel that have
been deconstructed and how the deconstruction is presented in this novel, it is
possible to offer new perspective and new way of reading, especially children
literature texts. Besides, there is possibility to empower children themselves
to be the ones who are strong, independent and knowledgeable. Based on the
background and the focus of the research, the researcher formulates the
problems of the research as follows:
1. What are the unconventional images of children deconstructed by
Wilson‟s The Illustrated Mum?
2. How is deconstruction presented in Wilson‟s The Illustrated
Mum?
C. Research Objectives
This research has two objectives. It is intended:
1. to reveal the unconventional images of children deconstructed by
Wilson‟s The Illustrated Mum.
2. to show how deconstruction is presented in Wilson‟s The Illustrated
D. Research Significance
Hopefully, this research can be advantageous:
1. to create awareness about the unconventional images of children which
are positive and no longer seen as always inferior.
2. to enlarge the readers‟ way of seeing on how deconstruction works in the
CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Post-structuralism
Talking about post-structuralism is almost impossible without looking
back at the previous view, structuralism. As a movement which challenges
structuralism, post-structuralism tries to fix the error of structuralism view.
Structuralism believes that human being‟s knowledge of reality is not only
coded, but it is also conventional. It is because language is conventional
and the job of structuralism is to group the signs and the codes based on
their characteristics.
Klages (2013: 31) describes structuralism as “a way of thinking that
works to find the fundamental basic units or elements of which anything is
made.” For example, if people are given three characters: a prince, a
princess and a stepmother, their mind will relate to Cinderella. Even
though they make up a story using those characters with different title, the
stories have the same pattern: a princess who is persecuted by her
stepmother and finally saved by a prince (Klages, 2013: 33). The other
example is that when people are given three characters, a man, a woman
and two hostile families, they will think about Romeo and Juliette. That
same pattern and foundation becomes the concern of structuralism.
As the movement after expressive realism, structuralism can be said
structure, not from the moral value of a literary work. The way
structuralism analyzes work is by having objective criteria. Nevertheless,
what makes structuralism and formalism different is that structuralism
pays attention more on the deep structure. It is the pattern of a thing, for
example, myth, folktale, culture, knowledge and truth (Klages, 2013: 32).
It is not something related to grammar, syntax, and semiotic.
Such pattern or the structure can have similarities in different cultures
spread in different geographic areas. That is why people need to be aware
that myth such as a princess hated by her step mother, a couple from
different classes or a princess saved by a price has existed everywhere in
the world, even in different parts of countries. Castle (2013: 28) in his
book entitled The Literary Theory Handbook says that cultures such as
kinship, structure of family, and gender role are also the same in all parts
of continents. This kind of “pattern” or “structure” is the concern of
structuralism.
The key in structuralism is that there has been a system that controls
humans and their activities and it is believed by structuralism as
“structure”. However, there are several beliefs of structuralism that have
been criticized by post-structuralism. That is why “post-structuralists are
actually the structuralists who see an error of their ways” (Selden, et al,
2005: 144). It can be said that post structuralism believes there are some
Castle (2013: 28) says that post-structuralism is not like
postmodernism which tends to ignore the importance of “structure” that is
made by structuralism. Instead, it keeps criticizing the problems created by
the structure itself. The first thing criticized by post-structuralism is that
structuralism always tries to create meanings that are not essential. Derrida
(in Sarup, 1993: 33) believes that when people read one sign, “meaning is
not immediately clear to us; signs refer to what is absent, so in a sense
meanings are absent, too.” In other words, the meanings created are
arbitrary in which they stand for common usage as well as constructed
since the only differ themselves from others (Eagleton, 1996: 84). When
there is a “sign” which creates “signifier” (the sound of an image) and
“signified” (the mental concept), actually, there is no essential meaning
from its signifier.
Eagleton (1996:112) in Literary Theory: An Introduction gives an
example from the word “cat” that has meaning as “four-legged furry
animal” or “malicious woman”. The meaning will depend on the context.
However, “cat” is not a “mat”, “bat”, “pat”, or “fat” not because of its
meanings, but simply because it does not have quality as “mat” or “bat” or
“pat” or “fat”. It happens since the word “cat” , as explained before,
differs themselves from other signifiers, “mat”, “bat”, “fat” and “pat”. The
above explanation is supported also by him by giving the binary
opposition between man/woman. He explains that “Woman is the
chiefly negative value in relation to the male first principle.” It happens
quite irrational, why man should have positive quality or meaning while
woman does not (Eagleton, 1996: 115).
Another thing is that structuralism, as the name suggests, tries to create
“structure”. After creating structure, it builds “center” which holds the
“structure” itself. Rather than becoming a specific truth, the center is used
as a common or a universal truth. However, it is questionable for
post-structuralism, if the “center” is the one that holds and governs the
structure, why it can be both excluded and included as the part of the
structure. Therefore, it seems that the “center” is within the structure, as
well as outside of it. Thus, according to Derrida, post-structuralism
believes the concept of structure with center is not absolute as it is
contradictory coherent (Klages, 2013: 56-57).
The third thing is that structuralism is satisfied with binary opposition
that creates coding and that binary opposition then creates a hierarchy
(Venturino, 2013: 231). Moreover, structuralism gives the privilege for the
first term. Binary opposites such as good/evil, man/woman, nature/culture,
white/black, adult/children, right/left, strong/weak, and up/down create a
hierarchy as structuralism places good, man, nature, white, adult, right,
strong, up over evil, woman, culture, black, children, left, weak, and
down. Nevertheless, post-structuralism argues that structuralism cannot
give reason for this „privilege awarding‟. Simply, the one over opposition
that man is given privilege over woman not because of its meaning, but
because man does not possess woman‟s quality. It is because man differs
himself from “the other” of man, and it is woman. It is acceptable when
good is placed over evil, but why man, white, adult are put over woman,
black, and children is something that is questioned by post-structuralism
(Klages, 2013: 54). After all, it is believed by post-structuralism that it
only makes the pair of the binary opposition is never equal.
Based on some arguments from experts, it can be concluded that by
creating a hierarchy, there will be no justice sinceone of the parties will be
subordinated by another. Therefore, Derrida suggests particularly,
deconstruction reading in which people should fail or re-observe the pair
of binary opposition where they are accustomed to believe as well as think
in the metaphysical thinking (Sarup, 1993: 38). It can be argued that
people need to re-think about the structure of binary opposition which has
no reason why one should be over “the other”.
The other thing is that structuralism builds the meaning from the
“deep” structure that becomes the universal truth of human‟s knowledge.
Klages (2013: 31) writes in her book that structuralism is “a way of
thinking that works to find the fundamental basic units or elements of
which anything is made.” It can be said that the units or elements of a
thing, for example a myth, is what builds the deep structure itself. For
instance, Cinderella is a story about a stepmother and a stepdaughter.
“daughter”. Those pairs are related to superior/inferior and strong/weak.
The other example is Romeo and Juliette. It is a story of a man and a
woman. The elements are “man” and “woman” which are related to
powerful/powerless, strong/weak, superior/inferior, and major/minor.
Those elements which create deep patterns are the results of binary
oppositions and they create universal truth for people everywhere in the
world. People, as a result, believe that daughter and woman are weak.
Klages (2013: 48) also mentions in her book entitled Literary Theory:
A Guide for the Perplexed that structuralism shakes the idea of humanist
theory. She (2013: 50)writes that humanism believes human, as the source
of all the things including meanings, has “self”. Humanism as well
believes that the “self” has two characteristics: it is unique to different
individual, but it contains as well some characteristics which are same in
common and universal. That is why “self” becomes the “center” of all
truths, meanings, and knowledge. Language, then, helps “self” to express
feelings, perceptions, and thoughts.
On the contrary, for post-structuralism, that human has “self” is no
longer the “center” of all meanings, truths, and knowledge. It is the
structure that becomes the “center” which decides the source of meanings,
truths, and knowledge. The “structure” itself shapes all of activities. In
other words, it is not the “self” of human that decides the activity and way
Klages (2006: 50) adds that post-structuralism deals with language,
self, reality construction, and the concept of truth. There are at least three
ultimate principles of structuralism. The first principle is that
post-structuralism rejects the idea of absolute truth. What people think as
something constant and fixed is substantively not stable. Truth that people
perceived, such as gender and national identity, is rather socially
constructed. It is changing and unstable. When people think about gender
role, for instance, it is in fact constructed by language and metaphysical
thinking from Western philosophy (Klages, 2013: 50-1). It can be
concluded that when people think man is associated with power, knight,
authority, while woman is associated with domestic, weakness, obedience,
is rather shaped by society. The society itself is influenced by Western
metaphysical thinking.
The second principle is that post-structuralism, mentioned by Klages
(2013: 51), holds a belief that “language speaks us” and language plays
role in shaping people‟s conception towards themselves, life, world, truth,
even literary texts. It believes people are the products of language itself
(Klages, 2013: 51).It is supported by Sarup (1993: 3) saying that “While
structuralism sees truth as being „behind‟ or „within‟ the text, post
-structuralism stresses the interaction of reader and text as productivity.” In
other words, what influences people to build their identity and
characteristic is language and discourse, not purely them. Language
action and perception about a thing. That is why language is the driver of
reality. It means that the one who will win is actually the winner of the
discourse struggle. It is affirmed by Castle (2013: 168) in his book:
“Post-structuralism questions the ability of language to designate a center, to guarantee a stable and stabilizing authority, to provide an absolute criterion for assessing the truth, to construct a discourse in science or politics that could presuppose universal validity.”
The last principle of post-structuralism is that it believes that truth,
rather than absolute, is relative. People think that what they do and think is
new ideas. Nevertheless, those that have been thought and spoken are only
those that have been already available.”Everything one thinks or does is in
some degree the product of one‟s past experience, one‟s belief, ones
ideologies” there is no such things as objectivity” (Klages, 2013: 51). It
emphasizes that there is nothing objective because people only mask their
ideology. Stories like Cinderella, Snow White, Romeo and Juliette can be
re-created in other era and other places.
B. Deconstruction
As previously explained, post-structuralism, rather than ignoring
“structure” which structuralism constructs, concerns on the “structure”
itself. One method which is used by post-structuralists is deconstruction.
Deconstruction is often perceived as a practice that is confusing and
“…to seek out of the contradiction, gap, errancy, play, or aporia that defines and undermines the „structuralization of structure,‟ the transcendental signified that stands behind and authorizes the very possibility of stable and centered structures” (Castle, 2013: 160).
In other words, deconstruction looks for the problems that are created by
“structure”, “center” and “fixed truth” that have been constructed by the
Western philosophy.
As a new movement in the U.K and U.S in late 1960s, deconstruction
challenges the Western philosophy in basic metaphysical assumption. In
Western philosophy, there has been constructed “structure” and that
structure creates a “center”. However, the center itself, though governs
and holds the structure, “it is not the subject of structural analysis (Selden,
et al, 2005: 164).”
Derrida insists that to deconstruct does not mean to destroy. It never
intends to destroy the structure that has been created by structuralism and
Western philosophy. Yet, it means to construct or to distract. Since the
center, belief, truth and binary are constructed, it means that it can be
deconstructed. Eagleton (1996: 115-116) argues that
“Deconstruction tries to show how such oppositions, in order to hold themselves in a place, are sometimes betrayed into inverting or collapsing themselves, or need to banish to the text‟s margin certain niggling details which can be made to return and plague them.”
It means to say that deconstruction intends to show the problem that is
caused by the structure itself, the logocentrism, binary opposition, and
The other job of deconstruction is to reveal the deconstructed pattern of a
text in order to break the traditional belief.
The leading figure of deconstruction theory is Jacques Derrida.
However, Derrida himself insists that Deconstruction, rather than a theory,
is a strategy or a method of reading (Klages, 2013: 53). Derrida proposes a
method of reading and seeing something that is perceived as “the other” or
“the unseen”. Therefore, Deconstruction offers alternative ways of
reading.
Western philosophy has promoted some beliefs by giving privilege to
speech over writing, man over woman, light over dark, adult over child,
white over black, etc. That kind of belief, called as binary opposition, can
cause a hierarchy that is dependent on the dominant values over the
marginal values. In addition, Derrida challenges Western philosophy on
this by saying that binary opposites are inseparable; even they depend on
each other, on the dominant that stands against the marginal (Venturino,
2013: 231).
1. Binary Opposition
Structuralism has created binary opposition such as good/evil,
white/black, man/woman, adult/child, light/dark, speech/writing, etc.
Selden, Widdowson, and Brooker (2005: 166) explain how the distinction
perceived as full presence or original fullness of being; therefore, “evil” is
thought as the secondary. “Evil” is perceived as contaminating “good”.
What is problematic about this is that when people try to find “good”
without “evil”, there will be long depressing and unstoppable end. People
must remember when they attempt to find good without the presence of
evil, they must remember that before the Fall, before Satan‟s Fall, and
before Human‟s Fall, there is Pride. In addition, the one who creates Pride
is God. Derrida (in Selden, et al, 2005:166-167) also adds that God creates
humans and angels free to sin. Humans can do good things if they are
given chance to struggle to fight against evil. That is why “goodness”
comes after “evil”. Thus, people cannot say someone is good without
knowing the concept of evil.
Derrida (in Selden, et al, 2005: 165) argues the binary opposition
between good/evil, just like speech/writing, creates violent hierarchy.
Speech is perceived as an activity that includes “presence”. The opposite
of “presence” is “absence”. When people are speaking, it means that they
are present, they are there. Yet, writing is thought as not so. When people
write, they cannot interact to the readers because they, as writers, are
absent. Here, speech/writing relates to presence/absence. Writing is
impure, only the transcript of speech and it contaminates speech.
Derrida (in Selden, et al, 2005: 166) then, uses the term “supplement”
to convey the relationship between couplets or between binary oppositions
.„Suppléer‟, in French, means „to substitute‟ or „to take place of‟. As added
by Castle (2013: 161) in his book entitled The Literary Theory, Derrida
believes supplementation is more than simply adding something. “It
means also, and perhaps primarily, a substitution, something that
“insinuate” itself in-the-place-of.” When something becomes a suppléer,
that „something‟ will not only substitute the role of its “other”, but also to
take place of that role. In other words, that something also replaces the
role or the place of the “other”.
For example, structuralism believes that writing is impure since it can
be reprinted, reproduced, and repeated that causes interpretation and
re-interpretation (Selden, et al, 2005: 165). While, Derrida (in Castle, 2013:
161) argues that writing does not only act as a supplement, but also a
substitution. It means that writing can replace or take place of speech as
speech actually is written already. He explains what structuralism (Plato as
well) worries is that writing is vulnerable to be read and re-read by anyone
else. He argues, behind this, there is a traditional logic that writing is an
exterior of speech and speech itself is an exterior of internal thought of
human beings. Therefore, Derrida believes “writing is no more external
than speech is” (Venturino, 2013: 229). What Derrida emphasizes, as a
result, is that writing should not be underestimated because it is the
product of speech. In addition, speech is not pure as well, since it is the
is as important as speech because it can complete, even, take place of
speech.
If speech is believed as trusted and has authority, this statement can be
correct if the speakers cannot write as the speaker will rely on the
conventions and grammar rules to make sense of their spoken language. It
is only the matter of rules and conventions which have developed over
time in society (Venturino, 2013: 228). In Deconstruction‟s view, each
term in binary opposition has meaning because it does not have meaning
of its opposite. Man, for example, is not woman. What makes man
perceived as different from woman is because man does not possess
woman‟s quality and trait. This is proven by Klages (2013: 55) statement
that:
“Each term has meaning…only in reference to the other, and only as what the other is not. Being is what is not nothingness, reason is what is not madness, word is not what is not silence, etc. The binary opposites are inseparable in their opposition, because the term on one side of the slash only has meaning as the negation of what‟s on the other side of the slash.”
This statement clarifies that it is only “NOT” which differs each term of
binary opposition. Each of term negates “the other” in order to create its
meaning.
2. Logocentrism
Deconstruction cannot be separated from the term Logocentrism.
becomes the heart of structuralist foundation. Logocentrism is often
known as word-centerness. Eagleton (1996:113) describes logocentrism as
“…a belief in some ultimate „word‟, presence, essence, truth, or reality
which will act as the foundation of all our thought, language, and
experience.” It is structuralism desire to make some ultimate „word‟,
presence essence, truth, or reality as a center of human activity.
Selden, et al, (2005: 164) explains logocentrism as well. It is derived
from the Greek word “Logos” which means word that includes speech,
though, and law as the central or fundamental principle. Logocentrism
holds belief that it is speech that becomes the central to language, not
writing because speech is associated with presence, while writing is NOT
associated with presence. It is associated with absence. That is why speech
becomes the primary (Klages, 2013: 54-55). However, the center which is
believed and held by structuralists is something that deconstruction
questions.
Structuralists believe the center of all the things is word because it is
the beginning of everything. God creates world by speaking (as
command). God‟s speech and command are poured into Bible. God‟s
speech is related to “presence”, that is why it is considered as the origin of
all the things. Speech from God and speech that has been poured to Bible
are considered as closer to thought. Deconstruction questions, if it is so,
the system, the world as well as the reality have a center and it is God. If
the structure where one is superordinated by the other which is divided by
slash (/) (Klages, 2013: 55).
As formerly explained, logocentrism places a privilege speech over
writing. This privileging system, Derrida argues, is called phonocentrism.
However, he believes that there is an ambiguity. Derrida, (in Selden, et al,
2005: 165) “invests the term „différance‟ to convey the divided nature of
the sign. In French, the „a‟ in „différance‟ is not heard and so people hear
only „difference‟. The ambiguity is perceptible only in writing…”
The ambiguity of „différance‟ can only be seen in writing. The verb
„differ‟ can have two meanings. They are: „to differ‟ and „to defer‟. When
it is „to differ‟, it is related to a special concept where something, for
example, is divided then placed into some groups that are placed in, for
instance, different „spaces or „places‟. While, „to defer‟ is a temporal
concept because it means „to postpone‟, „to delay‟ or „to put off‟.
However, phonocentrims rejects the idea of „différance‟ and still
emphasizes on the importance of self-presence from the speech (Selden, et
al, 2005: 165).
3. Ideology
Ideology is perceived as a language game. People often do not realize
that ideology is a common sense that is used to win the battle of ideas.
believe that idea is used for individuals‟ need and it is for them only.
Whereas ideology is used to be spread silently and unconsciously and it
“specifies meanings in so far as they are social and collective.” It means to
say it can be categorized as ideas when people use their “ideas” for the
sake of their need. Nevertheless, when that “idea” is for many people and I
is hidden but „spread‟, it is ideology.
Hollindale (1988: 15) believes that it is the power of ideology which is
inscribed in the text, within the words, the codes, and the rule system that
constitute the text. The power of ideology also controls the texts and
human beings who are not aware. Though it is inscribed in the text,
ideology is more powerful when it is not “told” or “spoken” or “written”.
Hollindale believes that ideology can be also present in literary texts.
Easthope and McGowan in their book entitled A Critical and Cultural
Theory Reader argue,
“Another is that, in the prevailing tradition, the concept of ideology can be accused of ignoring issues of gender or subsuming them in traditionally masculine concerns such as the economy and the outward institutions of political power. And a third, as briefly, is that ideology does not so obviously address the exercise of discursive power in the arenas of empire and race (Easthope and McGowan, 1992: 44).”
Eagleton (in Easthope and McGowen, 1992: 42) also adds the power of
ideology in the cause of wife and husband‟s quarrel between who needs to
burn the toast for the breakfast. It does not need to be an ideological
matter but when it is related to gender role and sexual power, it becomes
role, gender identity, social class, even race. It can act as well as an
expression of class interest, subjectivity and hegemony.
The first thing is that ideology is an expression of class interest.
Usually, it is used by bourgeoisies to win power. To win the power, they
need to win the ideas by performing some maneuvers. They can step aside
from the religious value and they can represent their own class interest as
democratic and universal values. The worse is that people often do not
aware that ideology is a false consciousness (Easthope and McGowen,
1992: 42-3).
The other is that ideology performs as hegemony and subjectivity.
“Hegemony specifies ideology as ways of ruling group, bloc, or class must rule by winning consent in conjunction with the threat of force, the effectiveness of hegemony depending on how rarely force, always present, actually has to be used.” (Easthope and McGwan, 1992: 43).
It means that ideology here is used by a certain group which intends to
„rule‟ the other groups. The way this group rules and then dominates the
other group is by threatening. If the threat is used then the hegemony will
be effective and the group using that hegemony will achieve its power.
That group, the rulling one, tends also to be „dominant‟ and finally it
will take control or lead the other group. Moreover, ideology is closely
related to the binary opposition in which it likes to give rigid boundaries
between something acceptable and something not acceptable, “between
self and non-self, truth and falsity, sense and nonsense, reason and
Very often, ideology acts as the “ruler” of what can be seen as acceptable
and good by society and what is not. It divides as well the one which
should be over the other one such as the central one and the marginal one.
That is why often people do not aware that they might be in the false
consciousness where that ideology can be false but acceptable easily by
society because of the construction of that metaphysical thinking from
Western philosophy (Eagleton, 1996: 115).
4. Deconstruction in Literature
As previously stated, Derrida proposes Deconstruction as a new
method of reading in which it offers another alternative. When reading a
text, sometimes people are not aware that there is a certain ideology in
literary works. Structuralism has tried to “construct” human beings with
its concept of center, binary opposition, and logocentrism. If there is no
awareness in analyzing literary works, people often get the universal
pattern and commonsense in the text. Therefore, as what Derrida always
emphasizes, the job of deconstruction is “to discover…”the other” of
philosophy” (Selden, et al, 2005: 169). In other words, deconstruction
offers readers texts which show and raise the marginalized one to be seen,
discovered and perceivable. It also shows how the marginalized one is
There are so many possibilities that texts are ideological. Certain
ideology such as binary opposition, logocentrism, and centerness can
create injustice. The ideologies about man over woman, white over black,
Western over Non-Western, adult over children, etc, can win their places
in constructing people‟s ideal in seeing and thinking about something.
Sarup (1993: 40) emphasizes, Derrida “…questions the structure of the
binary opposition. He invites people to undo the need for balanced
equations, to see if each term in an opposition is not, after all, an
accomplice of the other.” Deconstruction helps people to shake the
structure of binary oppositions, logocentrism, and the “center” of the truth
where they do not neatly stay in their positions divided by the slash (/).
Derrida invites readers of the texts to see the term in that binary opposition
as a supplement of one another.
If it is good/evil, good might be acceptable to be chosen over evil.
However, if it is man/woman, white/black, adult/children, light/dark, the
question is that why should be man, white, adult, light over woman, black,
children, and dark (Klages, 2013: 54). Deconstruction in literature tries to
challenge the readers of any literary texts to open their arguments and see
what is “hidden”. It asks the readers to give, for instance, woman, black,
children, writing, and dark, (the ones that are perceived as secondary or
supplement), the same privilege as man, white, adult, speech, and light
get. It is so as Deconstruction, as post-structuralism, always believes there
concluded that reader can openly think and re-think about the other
alternative possibility including showing and giving the same privilege to
the marginalized or under-repressed terms.
What deconstruction does in literary work is doing two ways. The first
is reading the texts against itself, “…looking for the holes or shaky parts
of the system of stable meanings the text tries to set up” (Klages, 2013:
60). Therefore, the first tactic of deconstructionists, confirmed by Eagleton
(1996: 116) as well, is to show that the texts come to discomfit the ruling
system and the structure of logic that they have built. It is done by
showing there are possibilities that the texts get to trouble and they are
even contradictory themselves. In other words, deconstructive way of
reading shows the fault of a traditional belief that has become universal
truth.
For instance, one character in a literary work is seen by society as the
one who has done mistake or the one who needs to be blamed. However,
by employing deconstruction, the readers can challenge whether that
character is truly wrong. If there are some reasons and evidences showing
he or she is not the one to blame and showing society‟s construction is not
always true, and then the method of deconstruction has worked.
The second way of deconstructive reading is to reveal some literary
works that have deconstructed form. It is “a made of experience, the
possibility of experiencing the impossible, which is „never a stranger to
(Castle, 2013: 163). The examples of those texts are the ones „giving
privilege‟ to the secondary term or the marginalized one of binary
opposition like how woman struggles and survives in patriarchal society,
how children do effort to fight against life without too much adults‟ roles
and how blacks show their identity that might be better than whites. Those
are “new experience” of the texts which were once not written. It happens
as, so far, people are busy with a text that has binary such as
masculine/feminine, private/public, rational/irrational, true/false, etc
where the first term is given privilege. It also shows that the binary can be
broken through and the binary is „inside‟ the text. Not only that, people
need to rethink that the first term actually depends on the second term. The
identity or the meaning of the first term is got from its way of excluding
the second term only (Sarup, 1993: 50-1). People do not aware that the
term given privilege is in fact dependent to the secondary term. By
revealing the strengths that the secondary term of binary opposition
possess, readers can be aware and re-think that in fact, those terms are
worthy to have the same rights as the first terms. Moreover, they are
worthy as well to be seen and discovered. Texts talking about Black, child,
person with disability, Asian, are texts which try to deconstruct the
C. Children‟s Literature
When people are asked what children‟s literature is, they will mostly
answer it is children‟s books with some nice illustrations, colorful
drawings, easy language, easy vocabulary happy ending, or books without
romance story, sexual or racism theme (Gapalakrishan, 2011: 4). Those
answers might be correct since some children‟s books are presented with
some illustrations and drawings. Others have easy vocabulary and happy
ending and some others do not put any sensitive issues on race, gender,
sex or disabilities. It is actually quite difficult to define what children‟s
literature is. However, the ultimate and most important thing about
children‟s literature definition is that it has children as its main target or
main audience.
Some practitioners on children‟s literature such as Martinez, Temple,
Naylor, and Yakota (in Gapalakrishan, 2011: 4) believes “children‟s
literature is the collection of books that are read to and by children…from
birth to about age fifteen.” It affirms that children‟s literature is any
literary works whose main audience is no more than 15-year-old children.
However, again, there is still one debate saying that even children around
16 to 18 years old are still categorized as young adult, not yet adult.
People then ask what the difference of children‟s literature to other types
of literature such as adults‟ literature. To end the debate, there is one
ultimate indicator; children‟s literature needs to prove all experiences of
Those experts argue that it is not important to distinguish children‟s
literature to other types of literature as some children‟s stories are not
written with children mind. Gapalakrishan (2011: 5), in her book entitled
Multicultural Children’s Literature: A Critical Issues Approach, gives some examples. The first example is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
is considered as children‟s literature. It has a character of 8-year-old child.
Nevertheless, the story is not written with children‟s mind. The way the
child character in the story thinks and perceives something is not like
children. Other example is J.K Rowling‟s Harry Potter Series. Although it
is intended for children as its main readers, it is now still debatable
because most of the readers who enjoy it are more adults. The other
example is The Catcher in the Rye that is adult‟s book but widely read by
children as well as young adults (Hunt, 1999: 6). It can be said that
defining children‟s literature is a complex task. Rather, people should
understand that whether the book is read by children or adults, children‟s
books are always intended for children.
In addition, since children are categorized into some stages, such as
younger children, children, adolescence, and young adults, the books for
children are categorized, too. There are picture books which are primarily
for children under five years old since they are still learning about words
and pictures to build ideas. The pictures and illustrations help them to get
characters do, and how it can be believable or imaginative (Nodelman,
2008: 11).
Different from picture books, children‟s books for six to nine year old
child will be different. The illustrations are minimal and replaced by more
sentences. The vocabulary, sentences, and form are not complex. It does
not mean that children only understand simple words and they have
limited abilities to understand some complex ideas, but it is more that
children have shorter span of attention compared to adults. Again, they are
still one step higher process in learning language. Therefore, by using
simple language, it will make them easier to understand and get the whole
idea in the story (Nodelman, 2008: 198).
The next step is children‟s books intended for ten to fourteen year old
children which are more complex because they have collected some better
reading experience. In this stage, they are given more complex words and
sentences as well as more complex ideas. The last is young adults‟ books
that are more advanced. The words, sentences, forms of stories and ideas
are more complex. Besides, the issues discussed in the stories are also
advanced. Pictures are no longer used to deliver some information. It is
affirmed by Nodelman (2008: 13) saying that:
“The older and more experienced the intended audience, the less visual information is offered by pictures. Readers…are expected to fill in on their own the sort of information that the pictures in The Snowy Day
It is why, for instance, Harry Potter series have more sentences, less
pictures except the cover, and more book‟s thickness since they are
intended for young adults, not five or seven year old children. Nodelman
also supports this opinion as the books having less pictures or without
pictures for older young readers, “require a reader to fill in—how much
they do imply a shadow text (Nodelman, 2008: 13).”
Leaving that debate, Lukens (1999: 9-10) believes that the most
important thing about literature for children which makes it different from
literature for adults is “in the degree but not in kind”. Also, she believes
children, just like adults, need to get both “pleasure as well as
understanding”. It means that children have the same needs with adults in
which they have to read and learn as well about life, happiness, pain,
death, difference, diversity, sadness, etc. However, the way they get those
things is different. Children should be given literature which uses a
smooth and soft way in telling the stories. Lukens adds another plus side
of children‟s literature which children can get is that they enjoy the
process of reading the book, and they get “something else and something
new” from it.
Lukens‟ opinion is supported by Hunt (1999:11) affirming that
children‟s book might be entertaining but it must have something that is
useful as a lesson for children as readers. That is why children‟s literature,
to attain its role. The first thing is that children‟s literature must have
simpler language and forms as children, compared to adults, have less
reading experience. Therefore, the vocabulary and form of the literature
must be easier and simpler. It is to make them easier to understand, too. It
is, again, rude to say that it is because children are incapable of
understanding not-simpler language or sentences. Nevertheless, it is
because children, by nature, have shorter attention span than adults do.
The second requirement is that the stories must be told directly
(Lukens, 1999: 9). Writers of children‟s literature should understand that
too complicated plot such as progressive regressive plot of flashback will
likely confuse them. It happens since they are still in the reading learning
process. That is why they need to go through step by step in getting to
know the plot. The stories they read will help them “to develop
comprehension abilities, expand vocabularies, and expose young readers
to new concept and ideas” (Serafini and Moses, 2014: 465). In other
words, to attain those abilities, children need to be interested in those
stories. If they are given too complicated words, plot, language, they will
end up leaving the page of the book. Then, the mission of developing
children‟s ability and exposing them to new concepts and ideas will fail.
Next, children‟s literature must content and represent children
themselves. It means, children‟s experiences and behaviors must be there
in the stories (Galapakrishan, 2011: 5). It is used to make them identify
