WOMAN’S STRUGGLE AGAINST THE OPPRESSION IN MOIRA FOWLEY- DOWLEY’S ALL ...

WOMAN'S STRUGGLE AGAINST THE OPPRESSION IN MOIRA FOWLEYDOWLEY'S ALL THE BAD APPLES: CULTURAL MODEL OF GYNOCRITICISM

Nikmatul Ulfa Sastra Inggris. Fakultas Ilmu Budaya, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Jl. Semolowaru No.45, Surabaya,

Indonesia E-mail: ulfa.9g@

Abstract

Gynocriticism is a part of feminism theory frame work which pays special attention toward women as the narrator of literary work. Thus, this thesis will scrutinize the womans role to explain gynocriticism in Moira Fowley-Dowleys All The Bad Apples. Focused on cultural model of gynocriticism, the writer tries to analyze portraid of womans struggle in the work. The method used is descriptive qualitative to make an extrinsic analysis about the work. The writer gets the evidences based on narration and dialogues in the work and literature journal as sources to collect the data which support the problem statement. The result shows that the cultural oppression towards main character in the work is from the hereditary of familys rule. Because there is an oppression, so is also the struggle against the oppression from the main character. The womans struggle in the work divided into three stages: building a ,,self-consciousness, demanding autonomy, getting the basic right. And the work reveals the characters culture, which is in Ireland, including the law and the ironic story in it. The conclusion is Moira Fowley-Dowleys All The Bad Apples could be explained using feminism approach because its the work of a woman writer who writes about who writes about woman in her work.

Keyword: gynocriticism, feminism, cultural model of gynocriticism, cultural oppression, patriarchal

Abstrak

Gynocriticism adalah bagian dari kerangka teori feminisme yang memberikan perhatian khusus pada wanita sebagai narrator dari suatu karya sastra. Dengan demikian, tesis ini akan meneliti peran wanita untuk menjelaskan ginokritik pada novel All The Bad Apples karya Moira Fowley-Dowley. Berfokus pada model budaya gynokritik, penulis mencoba menganalisis perjuangan perempuan pada novel. Metode yang digunakan adalah deskriptif kualitatif untuk menganalisis unsur ekstrinsik dari karya tersebut. Penulis mendapatkan bukti berdasarkan narasi dan dialog dalam novel dan jurnal sastra sebagai sumber untuk mengumpulkan data yang mendukung rumusan masalah. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa penindasan terhadap karakter utama pada novel berasal dari aturan keluarga yang turun-temurun. Karena terdapat penindasan, demikian pula terdapat perjuangan melawan penindasan oleh karakter utama pada novel . Perjuangan wanita melawan penindasan terbagi menjadi tiga tahap: membangun 'kesadaran diri', menuntut otonomi, mendapatkan hak dasar. Dan karya tersebut mengungkapkan budaya yang terjadi pada karakter cerita, yang ada di Irlandia, termasuk hukum dan kisah ironis di dalamnya. Kesimpulannya adalah All The Bad Apples karya Moira Fowley-Dowley dapat dijelaskan dengan menggunakan pendekatan feminisme karena novel tersebut merupakan karya seorang penulis wanita yang menulis tentang wanita berdasarkan pengalaman nyata yang wanita alami.

Kata Kunci: ginokritik, feminisme, model budaya ginokritik, penindasan budaya, patriarki

INTRODUCTION

Murphy in Beyond Feminism (1995: 74) states that women are placed in the lowest level and are often treated both assumed as the second class. That is why feminism begins with premise that women and mens position in society is the result of social factors and natural ones, and they must be balanced. Basically the feminism existence was forced by the oppression caused by the patriarchy system, a system that places men as the first class and priority while women is the second class who serve the men in every aspect of their life.

Based on Elaine Showalter in her book The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory (1979: 34), feminism is divided into three phases: the ,,feminine (women writers imitate mens writer), the ,,feminist (women arranged protest to get minority rights), and the ,,female phase (women finally create their own text based on womens real experience to opposing the misogyny in mens text).

The ,,female phase of feminism critic is also well known as gynocritcism, this theory pays special attention to women as producers of a literary work or women as a textual producers who write about women based on womens real experience. The programme of gynocritic is to construct a female framework for the analysis of women's literature, to develop new models based on the study of female experienxce, rather than to adapt male mode and theories.

Gynocritics is introduced with two main objectives:

1. To free women from the literary history that is determined by men, and stop trying to adjust women to the foundations of male traditions.

2. To try to look into women's imagination and creativity, which is a new matter in womens culture.

Showalter formulated that differences or abnormalities contained in the literary works of women versus men are not accidental. She argues, what is the basis of thought and the

process of creating women's literature is

influenced by several important factors. In

explaining this case, which became the basis of

gynocritical theory, Showalter put forward four

different models in gynocriticism.

1. Biological model of gynocriticism (the

body structure is seen as textuality or

text content)

2. Linguistical model of gynocriticism

(the differences between men and

women in conversation, intonation,

and language use are seen as text

content)

3. Psychoanalitical

model

of

gynocritcism (psychological analysis

links differences in womens writing

style)

4. Cultural model of gynocriticism (the

way women form the concepts of their

bodies and the nature of their sex in

their textual work is related to their

cultural environment)

One of a literary work that written by

women, tell about women, based on womens

real experience is All The Bad Apples by Moira

Fowley-Doyle. The work tells about the story

of a girl named Deena who is just turned

seventeen years old. Deena lives with her two

sisters, Rachel and Mandy because her father

leaves them since following a particular cult.

Mandy is her older sister who taught Deena

about freedom and always disputes with their

father. It is contrast with Rachel who always

saves Deena when their father gets angry but

has certain intentions to shape Deena to be an

obedient housewife in accordance with their

family traditions. The fact that Deena turns out

to be a lesbian makes Deena in two choices,

revealing her true identity as a lesbian, be

cursed as ,,Bad Apples punished to death by

,,basnhee or complying with their family rules

to be an obedient girl.

RESEARCH METHOD

This research uses qualitative research, especially descriptive qualitative method. According to Creswell (2014: 4) qualitative

research is an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. The writer will explain the data which are taken from Moira Fowley-Doyles All The Bad Apples. The data will consist all of the words, the phrases and the sentences that are relatable to gynocriticism theories.

This research is extrinsic analysis research because this research will reveal the background information of the work such as: the time period, the author's biography, and historical references. This research uses the theory of feminism approach focusing on cultural model of gynocriticism. By bring out cultural gynocriticism as the topic, the research will examine the cultural oppression, womans struggle in the work and reveal the background culture in the work.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

A. Cultural Oppression in the Moira Fowley-Doyle's All The Bad Apple

Culture is defined as set of reality held in common by people who share distinctive way of life (Kluckhohn, 1962). Culture tells us what the person ought to do, to think, to be and expect of others. Gender expectations of culture are sometimes expressed subtly in social interactions. In different ways and for variety of reasons, all cultures use gender as a primary category of social relation. The common thing happen is the stigma between women and men in the society, which women should be a ,,feminine and men as ,,masculine creature.

The story of the work is set in Dublin, the capital city of Ireland. The main character of the story is Deena, a 17-year-old teenager gets word from her sister, Rachel, that her another sister, Mandy, is died because of suicidal. The first oppression towards Deena is from her father, William Rys. William Rys, who has left the three of them for a long time ago, returns to home because he hears that Mandy is died.

Our absent father all but abandoned us ? his three motherless children ? when I was

less than a year old. He oversaw from afar our education (in the strictest single-sex Catholic school he could think of). (Fowley- Doyle, 2019: 3)

In the work, William Rys represents masculinity, and the rule that man is a masculine creature while woman is a feminine one seems to be hereditary in the Rys family. As written that Deena is attending strictest single-sex Catholic school because of her father wants to shape their children into women who are in accordance with the Rys familys order.

He only called us if hed heard rumours that we are not upholding the Rys family name, ... so determined was he to make sure we were the good traditional, Godfearing daughters he expected us to be. All the while clearly not caring enough about us to actually stick around. (Fowley-Doyle, 2019: 4)

The quotation above explains that the expectations which William always emphasizes to his children (to be a ,,good girl) is not balanced by his presence role as a father in the family, because he left Deena since she was baby to be raised by her fraternal twins sisters, Rachel and Mandy.

Masculinity is identical with traditional gender roles. It brings out men as a strong, rational, and absolute creature. While women as irrational, weak, and indecisive creature. Gender regulations inherent in this culture succeeded in making women prohibited from interfering in the realm of leadership and are not given the opportunity to make decisions in their lives. This irony applies in various aspects of life, both in the realm of family, economics, politics and academia (Tyson, 1950). It is told in Moira Fowley-Doyles All The Bad Apples as the quotation below:

Like my dad, hes very traditional. Very religious and conservative. He still believes that a womans place is truly in the home. Which is actually backed up by our constitution, you know so he clearly isnt alone. (Fowley- Doyle, 2019: 104)

The statement stated by Deena above shows that there is a law in her country which also regulates that a woman must comply with the prevailing traditional gender role. This also indicates that this law has been running for a long time so it has become a guideline for every man to make women as the inferior class.

Deena also gets bullied at her school because Deena is a lesbian. Surely William Rys would be angry if he knew the fact that his daughter is a lesbian, even her sister Rachel openly rejected the fact and said, "Everyone knows Deena is a nice, normal girl" (FowleyDoyle, 2019: 9) in front of William when the fact that Deena is a lesbian was almost known by him, Rachel tries to convince their father and it hurts Deena's feeling. This quotation means that traditional gender role has affected someones life. Someone who adheres to traditional gender role tends to impose their standard of rule into others, like what Rachel and William do to Deena.

In the Rys family, the ones who don't follow the rules, the ones who dress differently, think differently, and love differently will get a curse and claimed as a "Bad Apples". The suspected bad apples will be visited by Banshee as quoted below:

"The ghost of an old woman with gray hair who is dangling and screaming loudly if to threaten and indicate that the death of bad apples is near" (Fowley-Doyle, 2019: 30).

That's why Rachel tries to shape Deena to be a woman in accordance with family rules so that the curse will not happen to Deena.

You know, she likes to think of you as the perfect blank slate for everything she never got to be. A mother and wife with a worthwhile career. Shes probably planned your and Finns wedding and picked put your babies names already. She just wants you to get the life she couldnt. As a nice, normal girl. (Fowley-Doyle, 2019: 27)

The character of Rachel in the work indicates a patriarchy woman. Patriarchy is by definition, sexist, which means promotes the belief that women are innately as the second to men. This belief is related to biological essentialism between men and women, because it is based on unchanging biological differences between men and women. Feminists don't deny the biological differences between men and women. But they disagree about the idea that the differences between men and women make men naturally superior to women. For example, more intelligence, more logical, more courageous and better leaders rather than women so that women don't deserve any field that needed all of these qualifications. Patriarchy places women to be more suitable as domestic workers, housewives, cookers in the kitchen, caring for babies, and serving their husbands as an obligation. These stereotypes have been culturally produced, not biologically. Biologically, women are born not to be feminine, and men are not born masculine, but the patriarchy culture in the society has constructed these gender categories (Tyson, 1950).

Patriarchal treatment also happens in Deenas school environment. Because Deena attends the strictest single-sex Catholic school, the school also imposes a number of strict regulations, one of which is dressing well according to Catholic religious principles.

No pins, badges or garish accessories will be allowed during school hours and on school uniform. As always, Our Lady girls are all expected to be well groomed, well presented and uphold the reputation of our school. (Fowley-Doyle, 2019: 14)

Even there is an incident where the school canceled the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) education workshop which is made by one of the well-known communities in the school, unilaterally because they thought the workshop was not in accordance with Catholic religious principles. As proven in the quotation, "It had been all over local news and radio: Dublin school calls off LGBT youth groups

anti bullying workshop" (Fowley-Doyle, 2019: 13). The quotation indicated that the school (Deenas school) does not give any chance to them who is not accordance with Catholics rule, including the LGBTs activists in their school.

Deena has never met her mother since she was 4 months old, her mother died of aneurysm but Deena bore the psychological burden of her mother's death, she continues to blame herself that she might be the cause of her mother's death, "It was not my fault, but I carried it with me" (Fowley-Doyle, 2019 : 44 ). This behavior is called ,,hysteria, derives from hystera (Greek, the meaning is womb). Hysteria refers to psychological disorders usually felt by women, characterized by overemotional and extremely irrational behavior and this is another reason why women are disallowed to be the leader or choose their own way. ,,Women suffer more hysteria than men, rather than fact, it is a patriarchal assumption. But because this nickname has been attached to women, then hysteriacal behavior that occurs in men tends to be ignored and given nicknames that are more amelioration such as ,,shortness of temper (Tyson, 1950).

It is said that Deena has 2 twin sisters, Rachel and Mandy. Rachel is a person who obeys the family rules and acts at the same time as a mother. Rachel seems obedient to William Rys, while Mandy is Rachel's opposite.

In the absence of a mother, I had two sisters. Rachel, especially, I told myself, with her busy, no-nonsense nature, her domesticity, her structure and routine, filled the role of mother in my life. Sometimes I even believe it myself. (Fowley-Doyle, 2019 : 44 )

The patriarchal culture is originally a hereditary culture in the family that originated from its predecessors by adopting the system and norms prevailing at the time the culture was created, without realizing that systems and norms in society are dynamic and flexible so that they can change by the times as well.

Instead of giving kindness, these gender roles are destructive as well for men and women. This traditional gender role states that men are supposed to be physically strong and emotionally, men are not supposed to cry too because cry is a sign of weakness (Tyson, 1950). The hereditary patriarchal culture is depicted in the life story of William Rys when he was a child. William Rys is the daughter of Julia Rys, William does not know who is his father and is abandoned by his mother when he was 1 year old and then raised by nuns in a laundry shelter for women who got pregnant out of wedlock and their children labeled as illegitimate children. Instead of being raised lovingly, the children there were treated as sinners and educated with strict Catholicism, including William Rys. William was also surrounded by children with gloomy backgrounds like himself.

Sometimes the children died. They fell down the stairs; they became sick; they didnt eat enough. The babies died even more often, one every couple of weeks. Sometimes their mother were gone already, those were never even told their babies had died... He wasnt a healthy child, none of them were. All a bit thin, all a little grey, like they were reflefting the walls around them... It took a few days to Nellie to realize where the nuns had buried her baby. No priest, no funeral. Just a few prayers, like when a family pet dies. (FowleyDoyle, 2019: 196-198)

Infants and children in the laundry have almost no choice in life other than being adopted by wealthy Catholic Americans as infants, the rest will be sent to industrial schools after the age of ten, or unmarked grave at the back of the garden. Young Willam Rys, lived in a harsh environment in an industrial school founded by Christian brothers. Aside from getting teased as ,,home baby as he was suckling his mother's breast, as he even knew what home was. In the industrial schools, there were only boys like him. Bastards ad thieves, vagrants and orphans. All they as were fists and spit, cocked heads and cheek,.... He soon realized that this was because the home babies were neglected. (Fowley-Doyle, 2019: 228)

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