CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Prejudice means prejudging or having a bad opinion of other people just because they are members of a certain category, whether or not one knows them personally. Instead of bringing or holding people together, prejudice pushes them apart. Ironically, even prejudice implies some sort of relationship. If there were no relationship people would be completely unaware of another person’s or groups’ existence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/prejudice. Retrieved October 5, 2005).
Prejudice implies coming to a judgment on a subject before learning where the evidence actually lies, or forming a judgment without direct experience. When applied to social group, prejudice generally refers to existing biased toward the members of such groups, and at its most extreme, results in groups being denied benefits and rights unjustly or conversely, unfairly showing unwarranted favor toward other. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/prejudice. Retrieved October 5, 2005).
In other cases, it may be a matter of early education: people taught that certain attitudes are the "correct" ones may form opinions without weighing the evidence on both sides of a given question. Many prejudicial behaviors are picked up at a young age by children emulating their elders' ways of thinking and speaking, with no malice intended on the child's part. The prejudiced adult might even be shocked to hear a slew of racial slurs and their own half-cocked opinions on various groups echoed back at them from their children. Early learning is highly influential, however, prejudice can be learned at any age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/prejudice. Retrieved October 5, 2005).
According to Collin (1970:251), prejudice is an intergroup phenomenon; a group is the basic target of prejudice and individuals are hated or despised because of their membership in that group. Although any groups can become the object of prejudice, racial, ethnic, and minority groups are most often victimized. Thus we shall here often use the terms “Racial Prejudice.”
Racial prejudice is attitudes or beliefs concerning any minority racial, ethnic or national group that are disadvantageous to the members of that group. As written in Encyclopedia Americana (2004: 545a), prejudice is a negative attitude toward a group of people who have some characteristic in common that is not shared by all people.
According to Hornby (1995: 909) racial prejudice is expressed in attitude showing dislike or distrust of certain racial group or people that is based on fear or false information rather on reason or experience.
Racial prejudice is a crucial problem in the early twenty centuries. It happened in America as a multicultural country but also around the world. Thus, the United Nations makes a declaration to handle the problem of race and racial prejudice to bring peace on earth.
As a social issue, racial prejudice has a correlation with literature. Because literature is a kind of a documented social product and it takes place in the society, which it is same as racial prejudice as one of social products. One of literary works which talks about racial prejudice is a novel entitled “Capricornia.” Capricornia is very interesting to read and full of social problems especially in Australia in the early twenty centuries. It reveals the condition of half-castes under whites domination. In Australia, the definition of half-caste is to describe children of mixed Australian Aboriginal and European descent. This novel vividly draws the ruthlessness of whites against half-castes. Whites discriminate halfcastes in every life aspects like education, health facilities, employment, housing, etc. besides practicing discrimination, they also practice prejudice against halfcastes.
Half-castes lives in poverty, starving, and homeless. Half-castes cannot do anything to make their life better, they are always underestimated by whites because they think that half-castes are the descendent of Aborigine, lower class, weird, and stupid person. As the result whites make a distance with half-castes and do not want to have close relationship with half-castes. Thus, in this final project I would like to analyze racial prejudice against half-castes in Australia in
