Dalam novel “A Country Doctor” karya Sarah Orne Jewett, tokoh protagonis Nan Prince, yang merupakan yatim piatu, diasuh oleh Dr.Leslie setelah neneknya meninggal. Tumbuh besar bersama Dr.Leslie memberikan banyak pengalaman bagi Nan di dunia medis. Sejak kecil, Nan sering ikut bersama Dr.Leslie mengunjungi pasien yang sakit. Nan Prince, karakter utama dalam novel “A Country Doctor” karya Sarah Orne Jewett ini akhirnya memilki kertertarikan yang besar di dunia medis hingga ia dewasa. Sering berkutat di perpustakaan milik Dr.Leslie dan membaca buku-buku yang berhubungan dengan kesehatan membuat Dr.Leslie menyadari ketertarikan Nan di dunia medis. Meskipun demikian, ia tidak pernah memaksa atau mendorong Nan untuk berkecimpung di dunia medis. Namun, Nan Prince digambarkan sebagai tokoh yang melakukan resitensi terhadap konsturksi gender yang telah terbentuk di masyarakat.
Dalam “A Country Doctor”, konstruksi gender terbentuk dari orang-orang di sekitar Nan. Digambarkan pandangan dari tokoh perempuan bernama Nyonya Fraley yang mengatakan “But I warn you, my dear, that your notion about studying to be a doctor has shocked me very much indeed. I could not believe my ears,—a refined girl who bears an honorable and respected name to think of being a woman doctor! If you were five years older you would never have dreamed of such a thing. It lowers the pride of all who have any affection for you. If it were not that your early life had been somewhat peculiar and most unfortunate, I should blame you more; as it is, I can but wonder at the lack of judgment in others. I shall look forward in spite of it all to seeing you happily married”. Terlihat seolah konstruksi gender yang terbentuk bahwa perempuan tidak pantas untuk melanjutkan pendidikan tinggi. Nyonya Fraley berharap Nan akan menyadari bahwa sebagai perempuan yang harus dilakukannya adalah menikah dan mengurus urusan rumah tangga. Mengambil keputusan meneruskan pendidikan hingga menjadi dokter dianggap perbuatan yang tidak tepat untuk seorang perempuan dan akan dipandang buruk oleh orang-orang sekitar. Penulis memberikan gambaran konstruksi gender mengenai perempuan yang dianggap ideal tidak hanya melalui tokoh perempuan namun juga tokoh laki-laki. Dr.Ferris yang berkunjung ke kediaman Dr.Leslie merasa kaget dan tidak yakin saat Dr.Leslie mengungkapkan bahwa Nan memiliki ketertarikan di dunia medis. Ia merasa Nan dapat menjadi apapun yang diinginkan tanpa harus dihalang-halangi. Namun Dr.Ferris berargumen “"You're right!" said Dr. Ferris; "but don't be disappointed when she's ten years older if she picks out a handsome young man and thinks there is nothing like housekeeping.”. Terlihat bahwa tokoh laki-laki pun memperkuat akan adanya batasan bagi perempuan. Seperti halnya Nyonya Fraley, ia beranggapan bahwa pada akhirnya perempuan harus memilih menikah daripada menjalani karir sebagai dokter.
Saya melihat selain menampilkan Nan Prince sebagai tokoh yang menentang konstruksi gender, dihadirkan juga Eunice yang seolah berada di persimpangan. Eunice yang tidak menikah mengurus ibunya sampai ia sendiri berumur 60. Eunice tertarik akan kemandirian Nan. Di Bab 8 Eunice berargumen bahwa “ Though I believe every word you said about girl’s having an independence of her own. It is a great blessing to have always had such a person as my moter to leon upon”. Walaupun Eunice merasa iri pada kemandirian Nan, namun ia juga merasa senang karena ia memiliki seseorang yang bisa diandalkan dalam hal apapun, yaitu ibunya. Di sini saya melihat, dengan adanya tokoh Eunice semakin menonjolkan karakteristik Nan yang gigih memperjuangkan keinginannya. Nan telah melihat berbagai macam pilihan hidup, namun ia tetap yakin akan keputusannya menjadi dokter.
Jika merujuk pada tahun pembuatan novel, yaitu tahun 1884, kondisi yang terjadi di Amerika yakni masih kentalnya ketidaksetaraan gender antara laki laki dan perempuan. Pada masa itu perempuan tidak memiliki kesempatan untuk memberikan suara, melanjutkan pendidikan ke jenjang yang lebih tinggi, juga tidak memiliki wewenang atas hak properti. Saya melihat dalam “A Country Doctor”, tokoh laki-laki dan perempuan menyetujui adanya batasan bagi perempuan. Walaupun Eunice, menyadari adanya ketidakadilan antara laki-laki dan perempuan, namun ia pasrah karena tidak dapat melakukan apa apa. Selain itu, ia juga tidak mempermasalahkannya karena ia merasa mendapatkan keuntungan. Di laih pihak, Dr.Leslie juga memegang peranan penting pada keputusan Nan. Saat orang-orang di sekitarnya mempertanykan kenapa ia tidak membelikan Nan pakaian yang bagus agar nampak cantik selayaknya seorang perempuan anggun, ia berargumen bahwa ia harus membiarkan seorang anak tumbuh apa adanya tanpa terlalu diatur atau dihalang-halangi. Ketika Dr.Ferris dan Nyonya Fraley menentang keinginan Nan untuk menjadi dokter pun Dr.Leslie beranggapan bahwa ia percaya setiap orang memiliki panggilannya sendiri. Dan jika Nan merasa menjadi seorang dokter adalah panggilannya, maka Dr.Leslie tidak akan menentangnya, ia justru akan sangat membantu agar Nan bisa menjadi dokter yang lebih hebat dari dirinya. Di sini saya melihat adanya dukungan bagi Nan untuk melakukan pertentangan terhadap anggapan masyarakat tentang pendidikan bagi perempuan.
Selain seolah mendapat pengaruh dari Dr.Leslie yang membuat Nan tertarik di dunia medis, keputusan Nan juga dianggap tepat oleh Dr.Leslie. Hal tersebut dikarenakan Dr.Leslie khawatir apabila Nan terjebak di gaya hidup yang buruk layaknya ibunya. Setelah kematian suaminya, ibu Nan menjalani gaya hidup yang buruk. Ia suka mabuk-mabukan. Di sisi lain, Nan dirasa mendapat pengaruh dari ayahnya yang dulu bekerja di dunia kesehatan. Hal tersebut menjadi salah satu faktor Dr.Leslie yakin menjadi dokter adalah jalan yang tepat bagi Nan.
Resistensi terhadap konstruksi gender dalam novel Jewett ini juga terlihat dari kegigihan Nan melanjutkan pendidikan yang tinggi walaupun tidak sedikit orang yang meremehkannya, bahkan menganggap keinginannya hanyalah mimpi atau sekedar gurauan belaka. Tokoh Nan digambarkan sebagai perempuan yang mandiri. Meskipun ia tahu bahwa hidupnya dapat terjamin dengan terus menjadi rekan Dr.Leslie dalam dunia medis, atau sekedar merawat rumah Dr.Leslie, namun ia tetap memperjuangan cita-citanya menjadi dokter. Ia merasa itulah panggilan untuk dirinya. Ia menolak menikah dengan pria yang ia sukai, Gerry George, dan memilih melanjutkan pendidikan untuk menjadi dokter. Ia bahkan membandingkan jika ia menikah, ia akan membahagian keluarganya, namun jika ia menjadi dokter dan menyembuhkan orang-orang yang sakit, ia dapat membahagiakan banyak keluarga. Ia tidak berusaha memaksakan dirinya untuk menjadi layaknya perempuan lain agar dapat diterima di lingkungannya, namun ia memilih menghadapi anggapan remeh dari orang sekitarnya akan cita-citanya. Saya juga melihat bahwa melalui novelnya, Jewett ingin menunjukkan keberhasilan tokoh yang menentang konstruksi gender yang ada di masyarakat.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Resistance to Gender Construction in Sarah Orne Jewett’s Novel
Sarah Orne Jewett, an American novelist and short stories writer, was born in South Berwick, Maine on September 3, 1849, to Dr. Theodore Harmon Jewett, a country doctor, and Caroline Frances Jewett. Living in well established family, as a woman, she had privilege to continue her study at Miss Olive Rayne's school and then at Berwick Academy, graduated in 1865. Accompanying her father as a country doctor made her could expand her knowledge about many regions and its people. Thus she got inspiration for her writing. Jewett published her first important story in the Atlantic Monthly when she was 19, and her reputation grew throughout the 1870s and 1880s. Many of her writing are reflecting her father and her early ambitions for a medical career. Willa Cather also described Jewett as a significant influence on her development as a writer, and "feminist critics have since championed her writing for its rich account of women's lives and voices." (http://www.poemhunter.com/sarah-orne-jewett/biography/)
Jewett was heavily influenced by another American female writer, Harriet Beecher Stowe, writer of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Life Among the Lowly that were the most popular American book of the 19th century. It was told that Jewett was inspired to write the novella after being disappointed by Stowe's portrayal of Maine in The Pearl of Orr's Island. Some years later, Jewett became inspiration for Willa Cather, whose 1913 novel, O Pioneers!, was dedicated to Jewett.
Jewett chose not to marry, and earned money for living by writing. This decision not to be a wife and taking care of household for women had become more possible in the social climate of nineteenth-century America.Jewett also adapted her life experiences in her writing. Like other nineteenth-century American writers, Jewett employs this representation of medical woman to expand the possible narratives of woman’s fiction and woman’s lives. Through the characters in her novel, she also confronts unstable construction of nature and gender and dismantles associated culture dualisms. (Jurecic, 1994)
In nineteenth century, woman’s position in America was far away from gender equality with man. At that time, they were denied to vote, barred from professional schools and most higher education, forbidden to speak in public and even attend public conventions, and unable to own property. (VanSpanckeren, 1994). Women were expected to remain subservient as a wife. Their occupational choices were also extremely limited. Women in that era generally had to take care of the household, children and be obedient with their husband or father.
Portrait of American woman also could be seen in The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. Patmore in The Angel in the House shows how woman have to be obedient to man figure, her husband. Patmore also adduces many details to stress the almost pathetic ordinariness of her life: she pick violets, loses her gloves, feeds her birds, waters her rose plot, and journeys to London on a train with her father the Dean, carrying in her lap a volume of Petrarch borrowed from her lover but entirely ignorant that the book is, as he tells us,”worth its weight in gold” (Gilbert and Gubar, 1979). Woman placed as the party that did not have authority to do other things except taking care of household. Woman had to make sure that the house is neat and the members of the family are all happy served by her. If woman could have a trip, it was not as her independent trip but rather accompany male figures (her father or husband). In short, like Goethe’s Makarie, Honoria has no story except a sort of antistory of selfness innocence based on the notion that “Man must be pleased; but him to please/ Is woman’s pleasure (Gilbert and Gubar, 1979). It clarifies that woman primary duty is to please man. Woman’s pleasure would not be in any sphere but pleasing man. Women are defined as wholly passive that they even do not know what actually they want because they are always dictated by man. The arts of pleasing men, in other words, are not only angelic characteristic; in more worldly terms, they are proper acts a lady (Gilbert and Gubar, 1979). It made not only man that wants woman as Angel in the House, but rather woman, too. Woman was enticed to be an Angel in the House also because it portrayed as perfect figure; a lady.
The delineation of woman also could be seen in Cixous’ Castration or Decapitation?. Woman described as the one who was lack of opportunity to be greater than man because woman is small, inferior, low, and even History. Culture made as it is woman’s nature to be inferior to man. With the opposition between Man and Woman, it is clear that they have different competence. Like what Cixous argues that there is difference between activity and passivity. Of course the activity is for man. They have more authority than woman. There are many things than man can do otherwise woman cannot. The differences based on gender clearly shown here. While man is obviously the active, upright, the productive . . . and besides, it’s how it happened in History. (Cixous, 1981). It shows that History support the delineation that man is the active one, the productive that hold important role in many cases. Meanwhile, woman is delineated as the one who cannot do anything without man. Most interesting! It’s all there, a woman cannot, is unable, hasn’t the power. Not to mention “speaking”: it’s exactly this that she’s forever deprived of. (Cixous, 1981). With the limitation that woman cannot speak, it shows hat that there is distinction of language based on gender. These distinction and definitions contribute to the construction of gender-based identities because it creates the opposition between man and woman. With the explanation about the passiveness of woman through act and language, it strengthens man’s position.
In the nineteenth century, as I explained before that woman endured many inequalities. They were denied to vote, barred from professional schools and most higher education, forbidden to speak in public and even attend public conventions, and unable to own property. (VanSpanckeren, 1994). Meanwhile, many women did not just surrender in such this destiny. Many of them bravely speak up through letters, personal friendship, formal meetings, woman’s newspaper, and books. They struggled for furthered social change. Woman writers began to lift up the issue of men and woman are created equal and includes a resolution to give woman the right to vote. The struggle of woman writer gave the portrait that woman started to shift the position of being passive into more active. They tried to shift the idea that woman’s faith was taking care of household.
In Jewett’s writings, she showed the resistance to gender construction through her character in the novel. She did not bring the idea of The Angel in the House, but rather in the contrary. Marriage was not the focus of woman character in Jewett’s novel. The issue of inequality between man and woman began to be lift up through novel. Resistance to gender construction started to speak loudly through the novel. As in the character in Jewett’s novel, she presented woman character refused to end up her life marry and take care of household. She insisted to reach vocation as high as man although education was not proper thing for woman in that period. The resistance also showed through the character’s point of view that she could be anything she want without be glued in certain norms. Jewett’s medical woman, and ever her male physicians, operate such a third type. They denaturalize the difference between men and women, and they also suggest that the categories male and female not unified within themselves, that there is no gendered nature (Jurecic, 1994). The passage clarifies that woman has tight boundaries in every aspect of her life, include the vocation. Medical woman even classified as third type that is outside the normal norms. Woman placed as a party that had to accept her destiny to be passive in her whole life. Being active is not her right. Woman character in Jewett’s novel also portrayed as anxious woman to choose her life path. She gained many disagreement because she refused to follow the common path for woman. Woman’s vocation assumed includes of being obedient to male authority and domestic service and reproduction within marriage, or if one does not marry, in domestic service to the family. In the contrary, the character in Jewett’s novel had such a belief that woman also have individual callings, just as man. It began to appear that through the novel, woman could speak for her disagreement of patriarchal.
Works Cited
Cixous, H. (1981). Castration or Decapitation?.
Gilbert,Sandra and Susan Gubar. (1979). The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer
and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Jurecic, Ann.(1994).Gender and the Healing Arts in the Writings of Sarah Orne Jewett.In Ann Jurecic, The Genus Medical Woman: Representation of Female Doctors and Nurses in America Fiction from the Civil War into the Twentieth century.
VanSpanckeren, K. (1994). American LIterature-Revised Edition. USA: United States Departement of State.
(n.d.). Retrieved January 3, 2015, from PoemHunter.com:
http://www.poemhunter.com/sarah-orne-jewett/biography/
Jewett was heavily influenced by another American female writer, Harriet Beecher Stowe, writer of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Life Among the Lowly that were the most popular American book of the 19th century. It was told that Jewett was inspired to write the novella after being disappointed by Stowe's portrayal of Maine in The Pearl of Orr's Island. Some years later, Jewett became inspiration for Willa Cather, whose 1913 novel, O Pioneers!, was dedicated to Jewett.
Jewett chose not to marry, and earned money for living by writing. This decision not to be a wife and taking care of household for women had become more possible in the social climate of nineteenth-century America.Jewett also adapted her life experiences in her writing. Like other nineteenth-century American writers, Jewett employs this representation of medical woman to expand the possible narratives of woman’s fiction and woman’s lives. Through the characters in her novel, she also confronts unstable construction of nature and gender and dismantles associated culture dualisms. (Jurecic, 1994)
In nineteenth century, woman’s position in America was far away from gender equality with man. At that time, they were denied to vote, barred from professional schools and most higher education, forbidden to speak in public and even attend public conventions, and unable to own property. (VanSpanckeren, 1994). Women were expected to remain subservient as a wife. Their occupational choices were also extremely limited. Women in that era generally had to take care of the household, children and be obedient with their husband or father.
Portrait of American woman also could be seen in The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. Patmore in The Angel in the House shows how woman have to be obedient to man figure, her husband. Patmore also adduces many details to stress the almost pathetic ordinariness of her life: she pick violets, loses her gloves, feeds her birds, waters her rose plot, and journeys to London on a train with her father the Dean, carrying in her lap a volume of Petrarch borrowed from her lover but entirely ignorant that the book is, as he tells us,”worth its weight in gold” (Gilbert and Gubar, 1979). Woman placed as the party that did not have authority to do other things except taking care of household. Woman had to make sure that the house is neat and the members of the family are all happy served by her. If woman could have a trip, it was not as her independent trip but rather accompany male figures (her father or husband). In short, like Goethe’s Makarie, Honoria has no story except a sort of antistory of selfness innocence based on the notion that “Man must be pleased; but him to please/ Is woman’s pleasure (Gilbert and Gubar, 1979). It clarifies that woman primary duty is to please man. Woman’s pleasure would not be in any sphere but pleasing man. Women are defined as wholly passive that they even do not know what actually they want because they are always dictated by man. The arts of pleasing men, in other words, are not only angelic characteristic; in more worldly terms, they are proper acts a lady (Gilbert and Gubar, 1979). It made not only man that wants woman as Angel in the House, but rather woman, too. Woman was enticed to be an Angel in the House also because it portrayed as perfect figure; a lady.
The delineation of woman also could be seen in Cixous’ Castration or Decapitation?. Woman described as the one who was lack of opportunity to be greater than man because woman is small, inferior, low, and even History. Culture made as it is woman’s nature to be inferior to man. With the opposition between Man and Woman, it is clear that they have different competence. Like what Cixous argues that there is difference between activity and passivity. Of course the activity is for man. They have more authority than woman. There are many things than man can do otherwise woman cannot. The differences based on gender clearly shown here. While man is obviously the active, upright, the productive . . . and besides, it’s how it happened in History. (Cixous, 1981). It shows that History support the delineation that man is the active one, the productive that hold important role in many cases. Meanwhile, woman is delineated as the one who cannot do anything without man. Most interesting! It’s all there, a woman cannot, is unable, hasn’t the power. Not to mention “speaking”: it’s exactly this that she’s forever deprived of. (Cixous, 1981). With the limitation that woman cannot speak, it shows hat that there is distinction of language based on gender. These distinction and definitions contribute to the construction of gender-based identities because it creates the opposition between man and woman. With the explanation about the passiveness of woman through act and language, it strengthens man’s position.
In the nineteenth century, as I explained before that woman endured many inequalities. They were denied to vote, barred from professional schools and most higher education, forbidden to speak in public and even attend public conventions, and unable to own property. (VanSpanckeren, 1994). Meanwhile, many women did not just surrender in such this destiny. Many of them bravely speak up through letters, personal friendship, formal meetings, woman’s newspaper, and books. They struggled for furthered social change. Woman writers began to lift up the issue of men and woman are created equal and includes a resolution to give woman the right to vote. The struggle of woman writer gave the portrait that woman started to shift the position of being passive into more active. They tried to shift the idea that woman’s faith was taking care of household.
In Jewett’s writings, she showed the resistance to gender construction through her character in the novel. She did not bring the idea of The Angel in the House, but rather in the contrary. Marriage was not the focus of woman character in Jewett’s novel. The issue of inequality between man and woman began to be lift up through novel. Resistance to gender construction started to speak loudly through the novel. As in the character in Jewett’s novel, she presented woman character refused to end up her life marry and take care of household. She insisted to reach vocation as high as man although education was not proper thing for woman in that period. The resistance also showed through the character’s point of view that she could be anything she want without be glued in certain norms. Jewett’s medical woman, and ever her male physicians, operate such a third type. They denaturalize the difference between men and women, and they also suggest that the categories male and female not unified within themselves, that there is no gendered nature (Jurecic, 1994). The passage clarifies that woman has tight boundaries in every aspect of her life, include the vocation. Medical woman even classified as third type that is outside the normal norms. Woman placed as a party that had to accept her destiny to be passive in her whole life. Being active is not her right. Woman character in Jewett’s novel also portrayed as anxious woman to choose her life path. She gained many disagreement because she refused to follow the common path for woman. Woman’s vocation assumed includes of being obedient to male authority and domestic service and reproduction within marriage, or if one does not marry, in domestic service to the family. In the contrary, the character in Jewett’s novel had such a belief that woman also have individual callings, just as man. It began to appear that through the novel, woman could speak for her disagreement of patriarchal.
Works Cited
Cixous, H. (1981). Castration or Decapitation?.
Gilbert,Sandra and Susan Gubar. (1979). The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer
and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Jurecic, Ann.(1994).Gender and the Healing Arts in the Writings of Sarah Orne Jewett.In Ann Jurecic, The Genus Medical Woman: Representation of Female Doctors and Nurses in America Fiction from the Civil War into the Twentieth century.
VanSpanckeren, K. (1994). American LIterature-Revised Edition. USA: United States Departement of State.
(n.d.). Retrieved January 3, 2015, from PoemHunter.com:
http://www.poemhunter.com/sarah-orne-jewett/biography/
Defining Self and Other in Mirror Stage
“This act, far from exhausting itself, as with the chimpanzee, once the image has been mastered and found empty, in the child immediately rebounds in a series of gestures in which he playfully experiences the relations of the assumed movements of the image to the reflected environment, and of this virtual complex to the reality it reduplicates the child's own body, and the persons or even things in his proximity.” (Lacan, page 442)
In The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience, Lacan stated about an infant age 6-18 months about his own experience seeing chimpanzee and its behavior. Looking at chimpanzee’s movements made him recognize the differentiation with his own movements. He would find out that he was different from the chimpanzee looked from the movement and the images he saw on the mirror. He started gain experience in series of gesture, his environment, and people around him. Then he would find out about his own moving.
” We have only to understand the mirror-phase as an identification, in the full sense which analysis gives to the term: namely, the transformation which takes place in the subject when he assumes an image -whose predestination to this phase-effect is sufficiently indicated by the use, in analytical theory, of the old term imago.” (Lacan, page 442)
Unable yet to do many activities such as walking and standing, and infant would ask other people to help him to fix his attitude to get proper image on the mirror. Realizing the difference of objects he saw on the mirror made him understand the reflection of himself on the mirror. Lacking of intelligibility about his position or place in family or society, he would understand himself narrowly as “I”, that was different from other people that is not-I. When he started to understand about the language, he would know about interaction and know more about himself. Thus he was able to see the Other.
“…the mirror-image would seem to be the threshold of the visible world, if we go by the mirror disposition which theimago of our own body presents in hallucinations or dreams, whether it concerns its individual features, or even its infirmities, or its object-projections; or if we notice the role of the mirror apparatus in the appearances of the double, in which psychic realities, however heterogeneous, manifest themselves.” (Lacan, page 443)
The reflection that an infant saw in the mirror seems real. It seems like the threshold of the visible world. When he saw his reflection, he would see the whole reflection of his body. Meanwhile, without seeing the mirror, he could not see his body as unity. His body would be fragmented into many parts. He would only saw his hands seem like hanging in the air and his foot that separated from the body. However, it seems impossible for “I” to see himself as a unity. He can only see the unity through the mirror.
Work Cited
Lacan, J. (n.d.). The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.
In The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience, Lacan stated about an infant age 6-18 months about his own experience seeing chimpanzee and its behavior. Looking at chimpanzee’s movements made him recognize the differentiation with his own movements. He would find out that he was different from the chimpanzee looked from the movement and the images he saw on the mirror. He started gain experience in series of gesture, his environment, and people around him. Then he would find out about his own moving.
” We have only to understand the mirror-phase as an identification, in the full sense which analysis gives to the term: namely, the transformation which takes place in the subject when he assumes an image -whose predestination to this phase-effect is sufficiently indicated by the use, in analytical theory, of the old term imago.” (Lacan, page 442)
Unable yet to do many activities such as walking and standing, and infant would ask other people to help him to fix his attitude to get proper image on the mirror. Realizing the difference of objects he saw on the mirror made him understand the reflection of himself on the mirror. Lacking of intelligibility about his position or place in family or society, he would understand himself narrowly as “I”, that was different from other people that is not-I. When he started to understand about the language, he would know about interaction and know more about himself. Thus he was able to see the Other.
“…the mirror-image would seem to be the threshold of the visible world, if we go by the mirror disposition which theimago of our own body presents in hallucinations or dreams, whether it concerns its individual features, or even its infirmities, or its object-projections; or if we notice the role of the mirror apparatus in the appearances of the double, in which psychic realities, however heterogeneous, manifest themselves.” (Lacan, page 443)
The reflection that an infant saw in the mirror seems real. It seems like the threshold of the visible world. When he saw his reflection, he would see the whole reflection of his body. Meanwhile, without seeing the mirror, he could not see his body as unity. His body would be fragmented into many parts. He would only saw his hands seem like hanging in the air and his foot that separated from the body. However, it seems impossible for “I” to see himself as a unity. He can only see the unity through the mirror.
Work Cited
Lacan, J. (n.d.). The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.
Structure and Deconstruction in Literary Works
There is development of term “structure” in human life. Since the beginning that “structure” had been analyzed from the etymology that came from Latin structura, until finally classify in differentiation of the usage of structure.
“In its modern usage, “structure” more commonly to “built up” than to “scatter, spread here and there as by scattering or sprinkling, “ in the conventional usage of the verb strew.” (Rowe, page 23)
The quotation above states that structure in the meaning of scatter, spread here and there shows that there is relation between the elements that are being scattered. The space was already there before, so the elements that are related could be scattered. In the other side, structure in the meaning of built up shows that the connection between the elements will create space. Thus, foundation is important thing in this concept. If the foundation is changed, it will change the structure too.
From the etymology of “structure”, there began come linguists who studied about structure that finally became important knowledge. One linguist that did some research about structure is Saussure. Saussure brought the theory of arbitrariness of the sign and the basic division of the sign into “signifier” and “signified”. These lead to the difference between structural linguist and philology.
“Philology is basically concerned with meaning, even though the study of historically different meaning for the same word (such as those given in the Oxford English Dictionary) made etymology a speculative venture at best. Structural linguist like Saussure are less interested in the meanings of words and more interested in how meaning is made possible.” (Rowe, page 27)
Although working in same field, philology and structural linguist had different view. Philology focused finding the proper meaning of words. Meanwhile, structural linguist revealed much more complicated system of relation even in synchronic stability of a particular moment in the history of language. Because of the view that there is such a foundation and heaped elements, in short it could be said that there is an existing construction in structure. What linguist did was not describing the function of each element, but rather describing the relation of each element. How meaning is made also related with Saussure’s theses about arbitrariness.
“Saussure insists that the world’s different language teach us that there is no necessary relation (or “motivation”) between signifier and signified.” (Rowe, page 29)
It clearly shows that the different words in different language came from the conventional of each region. There is not any relation of the sound uttered with the things or object represented. The signifier and signified cannot be separated from the historical side. The signifier and signified that is used nowadays is a result of agreement of people long time ago until finally many words are valid to use. Like Saussure’s other argument that words are not things they name and the only arbitrarily associated with those things (Miller, p.201). It related with Derida’s argument:
“Derida suggests that all language is constituted by difference, …: words are the deferred presence of the things they mean, and their meaning is grounded in difference.” (Miller, page 201)
It related with people needed to utter things to make their conversation easily. So, a word emerges along with the needed. With a word represent a thing they want to say, they will run communication well with people around.
Seeing structure in a text could emerge a term “deconstruction”. According to J.Hillis Miller;
“Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. “ (page 199)
It means that to deconstruct a text is not about describing the elements in it but rather seeing the relation, opposite “discourse”, and the arrangement of meaning. Many people misunderstand the concept of deconstruction thinking that they have to find certain meaning of the text, or show the text has the opposite meaning. As what Derida argues that we tend to think and express out thought in terms of opposite. (page 200). It shows that people just want to make it simple after they read a text with classify something is black but not white, beginning/end, speech/writing, etc. From the opposite also could be classified which is the superior and inferior. As a philosopher of language, Derida doesn’t seek to reverse the hierarchized opposition but he seeks to erase dividing line or boundary between oppositions.
Being familiar with words they utter daily, deconstruction reveal the other fact that can be seen in Deconstruction and Heart of Darkness, there is written that
“Once deconstructed, “literal” and “figurative” can exchange properties, so that the prioritizing between them is erased.” (Miller, page 206)
Related to agreement that create signifier and signified in a language, all word would stay in human mind as figures. People will not notice that it is a real figure like in their mind, but rather a result of agreement that they used for so long. Then they will forget how arbitrary, metonymic they are. There are two groups that working in the development of text. Although having similarity focus on the literary text, formalist and deconstructors have their own view of text.
“Whereas the formalist believes a complete understanding of a literary work to be possible-and understanding in which even the ambiguities will be seen to have a definite, meaningful function---post-structuralist celebrate the apparently limitless possibilities for the production of meaning that come about when the language of the critic enters the language of the text.” (Miller, page 205)
Based on that argument, it could be seen that formalist assumed that total understanding of a work is possible. Every aspect must render big role in a text that will make the text has organic unity. It strengthens the structuralist’s belief that text has “center” of meaning. Formalist will treat possible configurations or patterns that make no contribution are rejected as irrelevant. Meanwhile, post-structuralist treats every element or aspect as having important role, so they do not limit the possibilities.
Works Cited
Rowe, Carlos John. (1995). “Structure”
Miller, J. Hillis. (1989). “Deconstruction and Heart of Darkness”
“In its modern usage, “structure” more commonly to “built up” than to “scatter, spread here and there as by scattering or sprinkling, “ in the conventional usage of the verb strew.” (Rowe, page 23)
The quotation above states that structure in the meaning of scatter, spread here and there shows that there is relation between the elements that are being scattered. The space was already there before, so the elements that are related could be scattered. In the other side, structure in the meaning of built up shows that the connection between the elements will create space. Thus, foundation is important thing in this concept. If the foundation is changed, it will change the structure too.
From the etymology of “structure”, there began come linguists who studied about structure that finally became important knowledge. One linguist that did some research about structure is Saussure. Saussure brought the theory of arbitrariness of the sign and the basic division of the sign into “signifier” and “signified”. These lead to the difference between structural linguist and philology.
“Philology is basically concerned with meaning, even though the study of historically different meaning for the same word (such as those given in the Oxford English Dictionary) made etymology a speculative venture at best. Structural linguist like Saussure are less interested in the meanings of words and more interested in how meaning is made possible.” (Rowe, page 27)
Although working in same field, philology and structural linguist had different view. Philology focused finding the proper meaning of words. Meanwhile, structural linguist revealed much more complicated system of relation even in synchronic stability of a particular moment in the history of language. Because of the view that there is such a foundation and heaped elements, in short it could be said that there is an existing construction in structure. What linguist did was not describing the function of each element, but rather describing the relation of each element. How meaning is made also related with Saussure’s theses about arbitrariness.
“Saussure insists that the world’s different language teach us that there is no necessary relation (or “motivation”) between signifier and signified.” (Rowe, page 29)
It clearly shows that the different words in different language came from the conventional of each region. There is not any relation of the sound uttered with the things or object represented. The signifier and signified cannot be separated from the historical side. The signifier and signified that is used nowadays is a result of agreement of people long time ago until finally many words are valid to use. Like Saussure’s other argument that words are not things they name and the only arbitrarily associated with those things (Miller, p.201). It related with Derida’s argument:
“Derida suggests that all language is constituted by difference, …: words are the deferred presence of the things they mean, and their meaning is grounded in difference.” (Miller, page 201)
It related with people needed to utter things to make their conversation easily. So, a word emerges along with the needed. With a word represent a thing they want to say, they will run communication well with people around.
Seeing structure in a text could emerge a term “deconstruction”. According to J.Hillis Miller;
“Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. “ (page 199)
It means that to deconstruct a text is not about describing the elements in it but rather seeing the relation, opposite “discourse”, and the arrangement of meaning. Many people misunderstand the concept of deconstruction thinking that they have to find certain meaning of the text, or show the text has the opposite meaning. As what Derida argues that we tend to think and express out thought in terms of opposite. (page 200). It shows that people just want to make it simple after they read a text with classify something is black but not white, beginning/end, speech/writing, etc. From the opposite also could be classified which is the superior and inferior. As a philosopher of language, Derida doesn’t seek to reverse the hierarchized opposition but he seeks to erase dividing line or boundary between oppositions.
Being familiar with words they utter daily, deconstruction reveal the other fact that can be seen in Deconstruction and Heart of Darkness, there is written that
“Once deconstructed, “literal” and “figurative” can exchange properties, so that the prioritizing between them is erased.” (Miller, page 206)
Related to agreement that create signifier and signified in a language, all word would stay in human mind as figures. People will not notice that it is a real figure like in their mind, but rather a result of agreement that they used for so long. Then they will forget how arbitrary, metonymic they are. There are two groups that working in the development of text. Although having similarity focus on the literary text, formalist and deconstructors have their own view of text.
“Whereas the formalist believes a complete understanding of a literary work to be possible-and understanding in which even the ambiguities will be seen to have a definite, meaningful function---post-structuralist celebrate the apparently limitless possibilities for the production of meaning that come about when the language of the critic enters the language of the text.” (Miller, page 205)
Based on that argument, it could be seen that formalist assumed that total understanding of a work is possible. Every aspect must render big role in a text that will make the text has organic unity. It strengthens the structuralist’s belief that text has “center” of meaning. Formalist will treat possible configurations or patterns that make no contribution are rejected as irrelevant. Meanwhile, post-structuralist treats every element or aspect as having important role, so they do not limit the possibilities.
Works Cited
Rowe, Carlos John. (1995). “Structure”
Miller, J. Hillis. (1989). “Deconstruction and Heart of Darkness”
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