Feminism
in The Girl Who Can by Ama Ata Aidoo
by
Berliana Ayu
Abstract
In
this writing, the writer aims to analyze The Girl Who Can by Ama Ata
Aidoo. The purpose of this writing is to determine the feminism in the short
story. The theory and method used in this writing are feminism theory and
textual method. The feminism theory is used to find out the feminism aspect in The
Girl Who Can. In conclusion, the feminism in this short story becomes an
important theme that creates the issue in the story.
Keywords: intrinsic,
feminism, theme, Ama Ata Aidoo
CHAPTER I
Introduction
I.1. Background of the Study
Samuel Coleridge
described prose as “Words in their best order, where poetry is the best words
in the best order. “ Prose includes different genres of fiction such as
mystery, action, romance and others. Prose also includes non-fiction such as
news papers, magazine, etc. the writers choose to analyze The Girl Who Can
which will focused on the feminism as a theme in the short story.
I.2. Purpose of the Study
a. To analyze the theme in The Girl Who
Can by Ama Ata Aidoo
b. To appreciate Ama Ata Aidoo’s
literary works
I.3. Scope of the Study
The scope of this study is to
analyze the intrinsic element in The Girl Who Can by Ama Ata Aidoo. In this
study, the writer chooses to analyze the feminism as the theme in Ama Ata
Aidoo’s The Girl Who Can.
CHAPTER II
The
Author and The Synopsis
II.1.
The Author
Ama
Ata Aidoo, in full Christina Ama Ata Aidoo (born March 23,
1942, Abeadzi Kyiakor, near Saltpond, Gold Coast , Ghanaian writer
whose work, written in English, emphasized the paradoxical position of the
modern African woman.
Aidoo
began to write seriously while an honours student at the University of Ghana (B.A.,
1964). She won early recognition with a problem play, The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), in which a Ghanaian
student returning home brings his African American wife into the
traditional culture and the extended family that he now
finds restrictive. Aidoo herself won a fellowship to Stanford University in
California, returned to teach at Cape Coast, Ghana (1970–82), and
subsequently accepted various visiting professorships in the United States and Kenya.
Aidoo
published little between 1970 and 1985, when Someone Talking to Sometime,
a collection of poetry, appeared. Her later titles include The Eagle
and the Chickens (1986; a collection of children’s stories), Birds
and Other Poems (1987), the novel Changes: A Love Story (1991), An
Angry Letter in January and Other Poems (1992), The Girl Who Can and
Other Stories (1997), and Diplomatic Pounds and Other Stories (2012).
II.2 The Synopsis
The Girl Who Can by Ama
Ata Aidoo is a short story about an African little girl who lives in a
traditional society. Adjoa, the central character fights against female’s right
in the society she lives in because she has imperfect physic. Her grandmother
and her neighbors keep underestimating her although her mom supports her
because her mom doesn’t want her to regret her past like her mother does.
CHAPTER
III
Discussion
III.1. Feminism in The Girl Who Can
According to Barbara
Ryan in Feminism and the Women's Movement: Dynamics of Change in
Social Movement Ideology, and Activism (1992:84) states that feminism
“is a movement for the liberation of
women which, because women’s oppression is deeply embedded in everything, must
necessarily, then, be a movement for the transformation of the whole society”.
In The Girl Who Can,
Adjoa struggles to fight for her rights as a girl. She lives in a remote area
and judging society who think her ideas and opinions don’t matter. Society
where she lives in doesn’t believe that women should go to school and express
their opinions. They still think that women truest role is to become wife, bear
children, and serve the family. It can be seen from Adjoa’s grandmother and her
neighbors. “You see how neither way of hearing me out can encourage me to
express my thoughts too often?” page 12 and, “ School is another thing
Nana and my mother discussed often and appeared to have different ideas about.”
Page 15. The society she lives in
fails to see that a woman doesn’t have to be married and give birth for a woman
to be perfect and powerful, Aidoo wants to highlight this issue as a critic for
society. At the end of story, Adjoa wins the running competition and finally
succeed in proving everyone especially Nana that she can be powerful and worth
to be proud of despise her physical condition that counts as imperfect for a
girl. That any imperfect condition a woman has which defined by society,
doesn’t define a woman herself.
CHAPTER
4
Conclusion
Ama Ata Aidoo wants us to see that
stereotypes of woman which created by society has to come to an end. For many
years women had lived a life according to society’s perspective that women are
weak and inferior to man. How Adjoa finally
opens her grandmother’s heart shows that woman’s movement is possible and woman
also can be as successful as man.
REFERENCES
Reference.com.
What is Prose. Accessed on 29th May, 2017, From
Reference.com: https://www.reference.com/education/prose-6714f4411a8c8259
Ryan,
Barbara. 1992. Feminism and the Women’s
Movement: Dynamics of Change in Social Movement Ideology, and Activism. New
York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall Inc.
Britannica.com.
Ama Ata Aidoo. Accessed on 29th May, 2017 from
Britannica.com: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ama-Ata-Aidoo
good job.
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