| Summary: | The objective of this thesis is to examine the tomboyism of the female characters
in the works of Carson McCullers. This tomboyism is a manifestation to protest the
prescribed gender role and femininity as suggest by Southern tradition. These tomboy
characters are seeking for alternative identity for their given sex and gender role in a
society that strictly separate men and women. Although the Southern tradition of
femininity has faded since the early twentieth century, but they by no means still prevails
during Carson McCullers wrote her novels.
The research is done in the perspective of American Studies. Interdisciplinary
theory, therefore, is applied in order to get a closer understanding of the American culture
and society in the mid of twentieth century especially during the two World Wars in the
United States of America. In this case, historical, sociological and cultural approaches
are, inevitably, used besides literary approach.
Since all the data used in this research are written text, library research
methodology is applied. Books, journals, and many written materials, including internetbased
materials, are treated as secondary data, while three of Carson McCullers works
namely The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding, and The Ballad of
the Sad Café, are considered as the primary ones. There are three steps in this library
research, namely, collecting data, selecting data, and analyzing data. The other method
used in this research is analytical-descriptive method, by which all the data obtained are
analyzed and presented descriptively.
The research shows that in their attempts to break from the conventional Southern
femininity, McCullers�s tomboy characters are finally defeated. They are defeated by not
being allowed to adequately express both sides of the male/female polarity. They are
unable to stand up for their own identity as the society imposed strongly to the rigid
dichotomy of masculinities and femininities. This thesis uncover that during the time, the
Southern society still restrictly set a boundary between men and women and their roles.
Therefore these tomboy characters are tamed by the normalcy and conformity of the
social norms. Analysis of the American culture here includes tomboyism, gender roles,
and the Southern tradition of femininity.
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