CHAPTER 2

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Term Clarification

In this chapter, there are some terms that are going to be discussed more.
They are: character, symbol, setting, postcolonial criticism, feminist criticism,
postcolonial feminism.

2.2 Theory

2.2.1 Character

Character is one of the intrinsic elements which is an important part in

literary works because if there are no characters, a literary work cannot goes well.
Since every literary work presents us directly with plot or scenes which are based on
people’s actions and interactions, characters play a dominant role. Perrine (1970)
stated that “reading for character is more difficult… for character is much more
complex, variable, and ambiguous.” (p.66). In here, it is obvious that examining a
character in a literary work is not easy because a character is not just a person but it
is beyond than that; it is complicated and vague. Besides, characters can be classified
into two types; it is major character and minor character.

A major character is an important figure at the center of the story’s action or

theme…Supporting the major character are one or more secondary or minor
characters whose function is partly to illuminate the major characters. (DiYanni,
2001, p. 55)

Major characters in literary works take important role to the story. All of the actions
and events in the story will always refer to the major characters. Major characters
also take role to spark the story’s conflict. Meanwhile, minor characters are created
to support the major characters in the story. Their function is to light up the major
characters so they can be the center of the story.
Beside the classification, character also has some types; they are flat
character, round character, static character and dynamic character. Perrine (1970)

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explained that “the flat character is characterized by one or two traits; he can be
summed up in a sentence. The round character is complex and many-sided…” (p.68).
In other words, flat character really contrasts to round character. According to
Perrine, only in a sentence the characterization of flat character can be summed up
but it cannot be done to round character because round character is a complex one.
Meanwhile in his book, Perrine (1970) also explained that “the static character is the
same sort of person at the end of the story as he was at the beginning. The
developing (or dynamic) character undergoes a permanent change in some aspect of
his character, personality or outlook.” (p.70). The static character is the character
who remains the same from the beginning of the story until the end of it while
dynamic character is the character who experiences changes during the story; he is
not the same person at the beginning and at the end. Usually, minor characters are
often static or unchanging: they remain the same from the beginning of a work until
the end.
Beside character, there is also characterization. These two things are different
and this is how to differentiate them.

There is an important distinction to be made between character and characterization.

A character is a person in a literary work. Characterization is the way in which a
character is created. (Gill, 1995, p.127)

So, character and characterization are two different things. Character is the person
who appears and acts in a story of a literary work. Meanwhile, characterization is the
characteristics that the character has inside them. The characterization shows us how
the character is made and the characterization cannot be seen, but it can be felt
through the story or plot. Therefore, there are two ways that the author used to show
the characterization of the characters.

An author may present his character either directly or indirectly. In direct

presentation he tells us straight out, by exposition or analysis, what a character is
like, or has someone else in the story tell us what he is like. In indirect
presentation the authors shows the character in action; we infer what he is like from
what he thinks or says or does. (Perrine, 1970, p.67)
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The two ways that authors used are direct and indirect presentation. From direct
presentation, it can be easily known how a character like because someone else in the
story says to the readers directly how he or she is, or maybe the character itself tells
the readers about himself or herself. Meanwhile indirect presentation is totally a
different thing from direct presentation. How a character is like is explicitly shown in
the story; it cannot be found directly for the character itself. Maybe it comes from
what the character thinks or does in the story.

2.2.2 Setting

Setting is another important element in a story. It is a critical component for

assisting the story. In literature, the word ‘setting’ is used to identify and establish
the time, place and mood of the events of the story. It basically helps in establishing
where and when and under what circumstances the story is taking place. Kennedy
and Gioia (2005) stated that “the idea of setting includes the physical environment of
a story: a house, a street, a city, a landscape, a region.” (p.124). It is clear that setting
in a story refers to where an event or a scene takes place. Setting is not only talking
about the place but also the time. In their book, Kennedy and Gioia (2005) explained
that “…beside place, setting may crucially involve the time of the story--- hour, year, or
century.” (p.124). It means a setting in a story also involves the time when the event
happens and it may become a very essential thing that a literary work wants to show
through the setting of the time.
Deeper than that, Gill (1995) in his book discusses the word ‘setting’
specifically; he stated that “setting can be used to cover: the places in which
characters appear; the social context of characters, such as their families, friends and
class; the customs, beliefs and rules of behavior that give identity to a society; the
particular locations of events; the atmosphere, mood and feel that all above elements
create.” (p.148). In conclusion, setting is not only talking about places in the story or
time, but it also discusses the social context of the characters and even the tradition
and culture that appears in the story. Setting which discusses the social context is
called social setting and it is a significant point in literary work.

Yet even today it is important to be aware of the context within which the action of a
novel takes place – and this does not just mean its geographical setting; social and
historical factors are also important. It is just as important to ask why the author has
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chosen the setting he has chosen when it is generalized as when it is highly specific.
(Hawthorn, 2005, p.120)

Hawthorn clearly stated that social and historical factors, which are social setting, in
a literary work have an important role. He wanted to show that not just the setting of
place and time are important, social setting is also important. To conclude, setting is
not always about where and when a story happens, it also discusses the culture or
even the history in the story. DiYanni (2001) stated that “functioning as more than a
simple backdrop for action, it provides a historical and cultural context that enhances
our understanding of the characters.” (p.61).
In other hand, Gill (1995) has different opinion. He stated that “settings can
reflect the mood of a character in that they can become mental landscapes. They can
also reveal the situation of a character and, by working symbolically they can express
personality. (p.149). One function of setting is to know the mood of the characters;
the atmosphere of the story. From setting, it is able to know what the characters feel
in the story. Not only that, setting also reveals what the character is facing at that
time; the situation and condition that appear in the story. Moreover, in a symbolic
way setting can show the personality of the characters.

2.2.3 Symbol

Symbol is also one of extrinsic elements in literature. Kennedy and Gioia

(2005) stated that “a symbol in literature, a thing that suggests more than its literal
meaning.” (p.251). A symbol is literary device that contains several layers of
meaning, often concealed at first sight, and is representative of several other aspects
or concepts or traits than those that are visible in the literal translation alone.
Kennedy and Gioia (2005) also explained that “symbols generally do not “stand for”
any one meaning, nor for anything absolutely definite; they point, they hint…” (p.
251). A literary symbol is something that means more than what it is; an object,
person, situation, or action that in addition to its literal meaning suggests other
meanings as well. Often, the thing or idea represented is more abstract, general, non-
or super-rational; the symbol is more concrete and particular. DiYanni (2001)
explained that “symbols in fiction are simply objects, actions or events that convey
meaning. The meaning they convey extends beyond their literal significance, beyond
their more obvious actual reason for being included in the story.” (p.95). From
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DiYanni’s explanation, symbols are not only objects but it can be various; it can be
actions or maybe events that appear in the story.
However, interpreting symbols in literary works is not an easy thing to do.
The ability to interpret symbols is essential for a full understanding of literature. That
is why there are things that should be known first before interpreting symbols. In his
book, Perrine (1970) stated some ways to recognize what are the meanings of
symbols in stories; he stated that “the story itself must furnish a clue that a detail is to
be taken symbolically… The meaning of a literary symbol must be established and
supported by the entire context of the story… To be called a symbol, an item must
suggest a meaning different in kind from its literal meaning; a symbol is something
more than the representative of a class or type… A symbol may have more than one
meaning.” (p.230-231). One thing that should be remembered that most stories
operate with symbols within them and that is the reason why interpreting symbols is
a significant thing to do in understanding literary works. Things that Perrine
explained in his book about symbolical meanings are very essential to interpret the
symbols that can be found in literary works.

2.2.4 Postcolonial Criticism

Postcolonial criticism is a theory that can be found in literary criticism. It

emerged as a distinct category only in the 1990s. Post-colonial criticism is similar to
cultural studies, but it assumes a unique perspective on literature and politics. Barry
(2009) stated that “Postcolonial criticism draws attention to issue of cultural
difference in literary texts…” (p.191). According to Barry, postcolonial criticism
concerns more in the issue of the cultural differences that can be found in literary
works. Specifically, post-colonial critics are concerned with literature produced by
colonial powers and works produced by those who were/are colonized. Post-colonial
theory looks at issues of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture and how
these elements work in relation to colonial hegemony.
Postcolonial criticism foregrounds questions of cultural difference and
diversity and examine their treatment in relevant literary works. It also examines the
representation of other cultures in literature as a way of achieving this end (Barry,
2009, p.192). In addition, because postcolonial criticism focuses on cultural
difference and diversity issues, there are some terms that are very essential in
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postcolonial criticism study regarding to the issues. These terms are going to be used
for the theory in analyzing the chosen media, they are hybridity and mimicry.
Mimicry in postcolonial literature is most commonly seen when members of
a colonized society imitate the language, dress, politics, or cultural attitude of their
colonizers. Huddart (2006) stated that “anxiety is matched by mimicry, with the
colonized adopting and adapting to the colonizer’s culture.” (p.39), so the colonized
people are trying to apply and also to adjust with the colonizer’s culture which can be
the culture in dressing, lifestyle or even in attitude.

…with the colonized adopting and adapting to the colonizer’s culture….Mimicry is

not slavish imitation, and the colonized is not being assimilated into the supposedly
dominant or even superior culture. In fact, mimicry as Bhabha understands it is an
exaggerated copying of language, culture, manners, and ideas. (Huddart. 2006, p.39)

It is clear that mimicry is not an action of slavery towards the colonized people and it
is also not an action where the colonized is forced to mixed up or to apply the
colonizer’s culture in their life, but mimicry is the way which colonized people
imitating the colonizer’s culture in language, manners, ideas, etc. in an exaggerated
way. This exaggeration means that mimicry is repetition with difference, and so it is
not evidence of the colonized’s slavery. Mimicry is often seen as a pattern of
behavior under colonialism and in the context of immigration: he/she imitates the
person in power, from the culture, lifestyle, language and etc., because he/she wants
to have access to that same power oneself. Probably, while copying the master,
he/she has to intentionally suppress their own cultural identity.
Meanwhile hybridity is really contrast to mimicry. Hybridity refers to any
mixing of east and western culture. Within postcolonial literature, it most commonly
refers to colonial subjects from Asia or Africa who have found a balance between
eastern and western cultural attributes. Huddart (2006) stated that “the idea of
hybridity usefully characterizes the mechanisms of the colonial psychic economy.”
(p. 83). Hybridity is not a common thing in human’s life. Hybridity itself has the
possibility to be common, to spread to all culture in the world but it would make
hybridity loses its uniqueness, it will become the same and will vanish all the
differences that hybridity has before. Huddart (2006) explained that “cultural
hybridity is not, then, something absolutely general. Hybridity may appear to go all
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the way down, in all cultures, but that would blur all difference into indifference,
making all hybridity appear the same. (p. 84)
Because the main point that hybridity has is the mixing culture which make it
looks unique and different from other. Therefore it makes hybridity is not a common
one. In his book, Huddart (2006) also stated that, quoting Bhaba’s theory of
hybridity, “[C]olonial hybridity is not a problem of genealogy or identity between
two different cultures which can then be resolved as an issue of cultural relativism.
Hybridity is a problematic of colonial representation…” (p.84). It is clear that
hybridity is not just an issue about two or more mixing cultures but hybridity is far
deeper than that. The existence of hybridity itself shows the image of colonization;
the tradition and culture that the colonizers have which affect the colonized. Further
more in the colonial situation, the production of cultures is an inevitable consequence
of argued authority. In addition, Huddart also explained that “…the importance of
hybridity is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third
emerges, rather hybridity to me is the ‘third space’ which enables other positions to
emerge. This third space displaces the histories that constitute it, and sets up new
structures of authority, new political initiatives, which are inadequately understood
through received wisdom.” (p.85)
Furthermore, in postcolonial criticism the writers tend to encounter some
phases from the way they write. The writers of postcolonial criticism can be
classified into 3 phases; Adopt, Adapt and Adept.

All postcolonial literatures, it might be said, seem to make this transition. They
begin with an unquestioning acceptance of the authority of European models
(especially in the novel) and with the ambition of writing works that will be
masterpieces entirely in this tradition. This can be called the ‘Adopt’ phase of
colonial literature, since the writer’s ambition is to adopt the form as its stands, the
assumption being that it has universal validity. (Barry, 2005, p.189)

The first phase is ‘Adopt’ phase. In this phase, the writers adopt the colonial cultures
to be used in their literary works. The cultures could be the traditions, languages,
lifestyles and so on. Most of postcolonial writers tend to accept the authority of
colonial models especially the European; hoping that their literary works will
become masterpieces by adopting colonial’s cultures. The second phase can be called
the ‘Adapt’ phase. Barry stated that “...since it aims to adapt European form to
African subject matter, thus assuming partial rights of intervention in the genre.”
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(p.189). The last phase is the ‘Adept’ phase. In his book, Barry also explained that
“In the final phase there is, so to speak, a declaration of cultural independence
whereby African writers remake the form to their own specification, without
reference to European norms. This might be called the ‘Adept’ phase, since its
characteristic is the assumption that the colonial writer is independent ‘adept’ in the
form, not a humble apprentice, as in the first phase, or a mere license, as in the
second.” (p.189)

2.2.5 Feminist Criticism

Feminist criticism is a type of literary criticism, which may study and

advocate the rights of women. The feminist literary criticism of today is the direct
product of the ‘women’s movement’ of the 1960s. According to Barry in The
Beginning Theory, the representation of woman in literature was felt to be one of the
most important forms of ‘socialisation’, since it provided the role models which
indicated to women and men (Barry, 2009, p.117). Feminists also pointed out, for
example, in nineteenth-century fiction very few women work for a living, unless they
are driven to it by dire necessity.

Feminist literary criticism ….. the term usually given to the emergence of women’s
movements in the United States and Europe during the Civil Rights campaigns of the
1960s. Clearly, though, a feminist literary criticism did not emerge fully formed
from this moment. Rather, its eventual self-conscious expression was the
culmination of centuries of women’s writing, of women writing about women
writing, and of women – and men – writing about women’s minds, bodies, art and
ideas. (Plain & Sellers, 2007, p.2)

Feminist literary criticism started to emerge on 1960s, during the Civil Rights
Campaigns. It is the symbol of women’s movements in the United States and Europe
but it was not fully emerged at that moment but they expressed it through their
writings. Women at that moment expressed their movements mostly with writings
and it was usually about women’s minds, bodies, art and ideas to show that they
wanted to have their rights. In relation with postcolonial criticism, Plain and Seller
(2007) in their book stated that “Feminist literary studies have played a central role
in the development of postcolonial studies.” (p.286); it means that feminist criticism
gives a huge contribution to the significant growth of postcolonial criticism.
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2.2.6 Postcolonial Feminism

It has been discussed above that postcolonial criticism concerns more in the
issue of the cultural differences that can be found in literary works, meanwhile
feminist criticism studies and advocates the rights of women. These two theories can
be combined as one called postcolonial feminism. Barry (2009) stated that
“postcolonial criticism… is one of several critical approaches we have considered which
focus on specific issues, including issues of gender (feminist criticism)…” (p.191).
Postcolonial criticism is one of some literary criticism theories that considered to be
focused on some specific issues especially in gender issues or feminist criticism. It
shows that postcolonial criticism and feminist criticism are two theories that
connected to each other and called postcolonial feminism.
Postcolonial feminism theory started to emerge by 1980s. Before it comes to
postcolonial feminism, there is a history behind it.

In its formative years – the late 1960s and 1970s – second-wave feminist criticism in
the West had two main aims. The first was to analyse literature as vehicle for
reproducing and contesting patriarchal images of women in fictional texts. The
second was to identify and analyse the specificity of women’s writing. (Plain &
Sellers, 2007, p.282)

It started on the late 1960s and 1970s, there were two main purposes in second-wave
feminist criticism in the past. The purposes were to criticize literature as tool for
reproducing and contesting patriarchal images of women especially in fictional texts.
Meanwhile, the other purpose is to recognize and analyze the specificity of women’s
writing.
By the 1980s, this process was increasingly being questioned by women
critics who found both its underlying assumptions and the range of texts and
traditions that it privileged narrow and exclusionary. Plain and Sellers (2007)
explained that “the tendency to focus on the work of white, middle-class, Western,
heterosexual women, often under a general heading of ‘women’s writing’, had led to
the silencing or 15arginalization of issues of class, heterosexism, racism and the
colonial legacy as they affected women’s cultural production.” (p.282). After all the
processes, postcolonial feminism spread to worldwide and it focuses on gendered
nature in history. Plain and Sellers (2007) stated that “Feminist postcolonial critics
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insist on the gendered nature of this history and look in particular at the relationship
between colonialism and patriarchy. (p.284)
Colonialism has not only affected wealth, levels of development and the
composition of former colonies and Western societies, but also national cultures,
including both literary traditions and popular culture, together with the taken-for-
granted meanings of racialised otherness and ethnic difference. Because of this
colonialism, it leads postcolonial feminism theory to emerge and it is proved that
feminist literary studies have played a central role in the development of postcolonial
studies (Plain &Sellers, 2007, p.286).
Plain and Seller (2007) also stated that “the turn to cultural history has been
an important influence on feminist postcolonial literary studies…” (p. 288), so it is
clear that a defining characteristic of feminist postcolonial literary studies is its
commitment to the analysis of history and social specificity and the goal of linking
analyses of literary texts to broader social relations. Key areas of work in
postcolonial literary studies have included the ways in which power works through
language and literary culture to shape meanings, values, subjectivities and identities.
The best of this work has attempted to keep power relations of gender, class and race
in the frame, seeing them as always integrally related.

2.2.7 Comparative Literature

Beside postcolonial feminism theory, the theory of comparative literature is

going to be used in this research which has significant role in doing the research. In
general, comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two
or more different linguistic, cultural or nation groups. Behdad and Thomas in A
Companion to Comparative Literature (2001) stated that “Comparative Literature
occupies a distinct and unique position in the humanities.” (p.1). The position of
comparative literature in literary world is differ from others. Bhedad and Thomas
(2001) again stated that “that even national literature departments… suggest that
comparative approaches to literature are no longer the exception but the norm in the
academy. (p.2)
Comparative literature according to national literature departments is no
longer an exception in literary world but it includes as a criterion inside an academy.
The comparison in comparative literature itself is clearly explained by Bhedad and
Thomas (2001). They explained that, “…the foregrounding of comparison in
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Comparative Literature highlights the methodological basis of the fields that

comprise the humanities and, in so doing, implicates those fields…” (p.33) but
comparison is not just comparing two different things or more, it has deeper
meaning.

That any comparison is, inevitably, not just a comparison of two things that pre –
exist the comparison, but itself an attempt (conscious or unconscious) to determine their
natures, to solidify their outlines, to locate them in some social, political, or historical space:
in short, to know them through the act of comparison. (Bhedad &Thomas, 2001, p.88)

Comparison is not just comparing the things to find out the differences but
comparison is an effort to specify the natures, to harden the outlines and to put the
things in some social, political or historical space. In other words, to identify the
things that is going to be compared throughout comparison itself. Bhedad and
Thomas (2001) also stated that, “That any comparison expresses, inevitably, not just
a comparison of two things, but also a theory of comparison, of comparability, that is
an act of philosophy and an act of practice. Any comparison shapes what it
compares; and it shapes the theory of comparison that makes what it compares
comparable.” (p.88). This is the next point of comparison which makes what things
that is compared become comparable in literary world.
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