A postcolonial reading of literary works remains relevant since the characters, stories and various issues related to the colonial domination discussed in literary texts may serve as a means for its readers to learn more about life under colonialism. This article examines how Doris Lessing, a British-Rhodesian author, and Seno Gumira Ajidarma, an Indonesian author, reveal the issue of discrimination of African native community and Indonesian-Chinese community because of the act of othering, respectively, from a postcolonial lens. This study used the critical content analysis technique on two literary works, namely Lessing's short story entitled "No Witchcraft for Sale" and Ajidarma's short story entitled "Clara", which is based on Spivak's theory of othering. Specific dialogues and utterances related to instances of discrimination were analyzed to uncover the othering of individuals, in this case, the main characters of the stories Lessing's short story captures the struggles encountered by the main character named Gideon, who belongs to the majority group, while Ajidarma's short story provides the portrayal of a young native Indonesian-Chinese descent who is a member of a minority group. The study found that Gideon faced racial discrimination and on the other hand, Clara faces racial and gender discrimination. By comparing two different literary works coming from two different cultures, nationalities, and historical backgrounds focusing on the issues of othering from a postcolonial perspective, this article can serve as a means for its readers to learn more about how the discrimination stemmed from different histories and how cultural background can create similar outcomes.
A postcolonial reading of literary works remains relevant since the characters, stories and various issues related to the colonial domination discussed in literary texts may serve as a means for its readers to learn more about life under colonialism. This article examines how Doris Lessing, a British-Rhodesian author, and Seno Gumira Ajidarma, an Indonesian author, reveal the issue of discrimination of African native community and Indonesian-Chinese community because of the act of othering, respectively, from a postcolonial lens. This study used the critical content analysis technique on two literary works, namely Lessing's short story entitled "No Witchcraft for Sale" and Ajidarma's short story entitled "Clara", which is based on Spivak's theory of othering. Specific dialogues and utterances related to instances of discrimination were analyzed to uncover the othering of individuals, in this case, the main characters of the stories Lessing's short story captures the struggles encountered by the main character named Gideon, who belongs to the majority group, while Ajidarma's short story provides the portrayal of a young native Indonesian-Chinese descent who is a member of a minority group. The study found that Gideon faced racial discrimination and on the other hand, Clara faces racial and gender discrimination. By comparing two different literary works coming from two different cultures, nationalities, and historical backgrounds focusing on the issues of othering from a postcolonial perspective, this article can serve as a means for its readers to learn more about how the discrimination stemmed from different histories and how cultural background can create similar outcomes.
Environmental issues are on-going crises that have yet found sufficient solutions. Children, as the next generation, must be given the trust to be able to get in touch with environmental issues as form of children’s empowerment and preservation act. This study aims to describe the views of elementary school students and teachers related to children’s ecology-themed storybooks. This research is qualitative, the data collection uses a list and guided interview questions, observation sheets, questionnaire sheets, and expert validation sheets. The results of the study are as follows. First, there is a lack of ecological books in major bookstore in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The existing children books containing environmental theme only included it as a supporting theme. This may result in most children participant to be not interested in such books. Second, teachers are mostly in agreement as to how children ecological storybook should appear ideally. This includes realism as the story’s genre, explicit theme, forest settings, picture book form, human characters nature vs human conflict, and happy closed ending for the story. All of these are believed to be able to educate children on the on-going environmental crisis and to encourage the children to face them.Keywords: children’s storybooks, ecology, children’s empowerment, environment, children’s literature
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