CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Language which can be defined as the communication of thoughts and emotions by means of a structured system of symbols fulfills three main functions, namely labeling, interaction and transmitting information, as noted by Baker (1987:22). He also states that among the three functions, transmitting information is the most important one.
There are two ways for people to transmit information to others. First they could directly transmit the information by speaking to other people. Secondly they could write the information through a piece of writing such as a note, a newspaper, book, catalogue, novel, poem, and many more. This kind of transmission is called literature.
Literature comes from the Latin word litterae which means a piece of writing or a literary work. Rees (1973:1—2) divided literature into two meanings: broad and narrow sense. Literature on the broad sense simply means anything written. And for the narrow sense he defines literature as a writing that expresses and communicates thoughts, feelings and attitudes toward life. Literature is also used by feminists to deliver information or to communicate their thoughts, feelings, and also their attitudes towards women or anyone who may be of concern to them—women.
Etymologically the word feminist comes from the word femme (woman), which means a person, a woman who struggles for the rights of women, as a social class (Ratna, 2004:184). He adds that the main goal of feminism is equality interrelations of gender. Feminism is a women movement to resist all actions of being marginalized, subordinated and disparaged by dominant culture, whether in political, economic and social life. In other words, women want to prove their existence. Lavine (2003:59) quotes Karl Marx’s idea that human consciousness does not determine their existence, yet on the contrary their social existences determine their consciousness. In relation with literature Ratna states that feminism is related to methods to comprehend literary work on the process of production or reception.
Feminists use novels, newspapers, textbooks, and poems to accommodate their thoughts, feelings and attitudes toward their life, so that they could resist all actions of being marginalized, subordinated and disparaged by the dominant culture and also to prove their existence. There are two reasons why feminists use newspapers, magazines or pamphlet. The first reason is because people cannot avoid them. Budiman (1999:11) states that people cannot escape from mass media.
People, whether they like it or not, are already inside the mass mediated culture. They have become the “reader” of mass media, whether in the form of newspaper, magazine, radio, TV or other means of communication that produce and spread public messages. The other reason is probably because those kinds of medium are easy to get, so a lot of people can easily consume them.
One of the feminists is Candace Bushnell who wrote one of the most phenomenal books entitled Sex and the City. It tells about her and her friends’ weird and shocking experiences. The aim of this book is to answer one question; why do many women in New York decide to live single? The book has gained a big success. It can be seen from the fact that HBO, one of the biggest TV stations in America, got inspired to make a TV series out of Sex and the City.
The book takes its name after a column that Bushnell began to write in 1994 for the New York Observer newspaper. She uses a fiction style in the process of producing it. This kind of writing is called literary journalism. This journalism uses fiction style in its process of writing the report, as quoted by Kurnia (2002:16). Although it uses the style of fiction it is not a fiction.
I choose this book, since it is a bestseller. Its TV series has become a big hit and brought a new trend for New Yorkers, especially women. Besides, it is also based on Candace Bushnell’s experiences, the experience of a woman.
1.2 REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC
The feminist movement emerges because women want to achieve equality with men. According to Djajanegara (2000:1—3) there are at least three aspects which brought feminist movement up. They are the aspects of political, evangelist, and socialist or Marxist concept.
The Marxist concept considers women as a downtrodden class in the capitalist society. Women have no values; their activities are regarded only from their role as housewives. Women do not earn money like men do since women
