Woman Exploitation in Arthur Golden’s the Memoirs of a Geisha as Feminism Study.
Abstract
Key words: feminism, characteristic, setting
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden is a novel which tells about the struggle of a woman frrom the exploitation that fights and learns about all aspects of geisha life. They learn how to be beautiful woman, and are admired by many people. Geisha is seen as a woman of high social class who looks beautiful, elegant and behavioral. Based on the reason, the author chooses the title: Woman Exploitation in Arthur Golden’s the Memoirs of a Geisha as Feminism Study.
The method of the study is based on the library research in which the data are taken from books, magazine, newspapers and internet. The data are classified into main and supporting data. The main data are taken from novel itself and the supporting data are taken from the sources which are related with and support the subject matter of the study. The researcher tries to analyze one of the Japanese culture especially geisha in Arthur Golden’s Memoir of a Geisha, because people usually misunderstand when they hear or know about the word “Geisha”. The researcher also wants to know more about the story about Geisha’s life. Based on the background of the study, the statements of the problems can be formulated as follows: (1) what are the characteristic of the main character? (2)What are the characteristic of the minor character? (3)What are the settings of place, time, and social?
After having analyzed the novel, the writer discovered Sayuri’s feminist attitude is built because all her lives is always prosecuted to be a strongly woman. Sayuri’s character represents as an extraordinary woman. She shows the quality as a young woman who could raise dignity through her struggle in facing life by her good deed. To the eyes of feminists, Sayuri is a symbol a strong and independent woman who has highly survived in facing the details of life in the geisha society and succeeded in becoming respected person. Thus, it becomes the good example for women in the whole society.
