The Representation of Female's Ideal Body in Sarai Walker's Dietland

Abstract

This research analyzes the representation of a woman's ideal body in Sarai Walker's Dietland. In this novel the main character Plum is obsessed with getting the ideal skinny body. This is because Plum lives in a society based on the male gaze perspective. Therefore, the focus of this thesis is the ideal body standard that occurs because of the male gaze perspective. So, there are two problems that will be discussed in this research. The first is how the representation of the ideal female body in Dietland.The second is the position of the author in representing the discourse of the ideal body in the novel.This research uses the theory of representation by Stuart Hall and then supported by the theory of male gaze by Laura Mulvey. In addition, the discussion will continue using the theory of encoding decoding by Stuart Hall’s encoding-decodingto analyze the position of the main character in consuming a media text. This thesis is a qualitative research that uses a close reading method to collect data both from primary data in the form of quotes in novels, and secondary data in the form of informationon the internet. The results of this analysis indicate that the discourse of female's ideal bodies in Dietlandis represented through the male gazes. Women innovel are gazed using male gaze value so that women inevitably have to follow these standards to satisfy men's views. In this novel the body that is considered attractive is a thin body. So that some women in the novel want to be thin and avoid being fat. However, there is a change of the valuesexperienced by the main character, Plum. At first, she followed the ideal body standard that was considered attractive by men. However, in the end, Plum negotiated in interpreting the concept of a female's ideal body. This negotiating position refers to one of the hypothetical positions in Hall's concept of decoding-encoding. The fact that Plum in negotiating viiposition also shows the position of the author in representing the discourse of the ideal body in the novel.