A Feminist Stylistic Study of Dehumanization in Emecheta's Second Class Citizen

Abstract

Background: From a very general point of view, dehumanization is the discursive practice of associating groups and individuals with a lack of human traits (Leyens et al., 2000). Discursive practices, including dehumanizing language, include analogies, metaphors, stereotypes, verb choices, and images. Animalistic dehumanization denies individuals human traits that distinguish humanity from animals, such as civility, morality, and sophisticated thinking. An example of animalistic dehumanization is “The protesters behaved as wild animals”. In contrast, mechanistic dehumanization associates groups and individuals with inanimate objects, and the dehumanized groups are usually described as passive, cold, or inert. An example of mechanistic dehumanization is: “The management often referred to the factory workers as “obsolete machinery”.
Aims of The Study: The study aims at exploring the realization of dehumanization in the data chosen, investigating the most dominant kind of dehumanization in the analyzed data , and tracing the ideology that embodies dehumanization through the novel.
Methodology: There are three stages of analysis in feminist stylistics theory. They are the discourse level, the sentence level, and the word level. Based on Feminist stylistic approaches(1995), the researcher indulges two levels of analysis: at the word level, it will be focused on generic nouns, naming and androcentrism ,and endearments and diminutives. While at the discourse level, it will be focused on characterization, fragmentation, and focalization.
Results and Conclusion: Mechanistic Dehumanization is the most dominant type of dehumanization than animalistic dehumanization in the two novels, which indicates that women are treated as a machine or an object to satisfy men's sexual desires, giving birth and fulfill domestic duties. At the word level, the most frequent feminist stylistic strategy is naming and androcenrism , which indicates that men's perspectives are prioritized than women's ones. Following that, generic nouns which indicate that women are dehumanized by using generic nouns which are depressive and oppressive against women. These words seem innocent but they carry passive indication against women, such as mother, and wife are mentioned a lot in the two novels to refer to women by their status not as an individual being. Endearments and diminutives are words seem to carry the sense of endearment but in fact they diminutive and shorten women's value and individuality, such as words like little, damp, poor, and the use of women's nicknames. At the discourse level, Characterization is the most dominant strategy in all extracts as it provides deep knowledge to how characters whether males or females are described in novel. Focalization is not analyzed quantitatively as it is subjective strategy which is analyzed qualitatively. Furthermore, internal focalization dominates the extracts as the writer tried to reveal characters' feelings, emotions, struggles and thoughts.