“Sebuah Pertanyaan untuk Cinta” punya Seno Gumira

“Sebuah Pertanyaan Untuk Cinta”, a short story which is written by Seno Gumira Ajidarma, is actually a reflection of his patriarchal mind set. Most feminists believe that the common culture in the world is patriarchal which can be defined as a condition when one organized in favor of the interest of men. Therefore, feminist literary criticism is not only concerned with the marginalization of women in which they are relegated to a secondary position, but also with phenomenon of power imbalances due to gender in a given culture. Both are usually reflected in or challenged by literary texts.
The beginning of contemporary women’s movement with Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millet, and Betty Friedan leads the development of feminist literary criticism. They examine the female “self” as a cultural ideal promulgated by male authors, and their analyses of literature and culture concentrated on how male fears and anxieties were portrayed through female characters. According to Kate Millet’s critique of ideology, this analysis will examine the patriarchal premises reflected in the short story which shows that the writer has patriarchal construct.
In patriarchal society, men simply have a place above women in the traditional socioeconomic hierarchy. Men benefit more from the injustices of Patriarchy than women do. In modern society, the implication of patriarchal values is not as densely seen as it was in traditional society where there is a certain portray of an ideal women, that they have to be submissive, calm, be a good housewife. In modern society, patriarchal hierarchy is more invincible somehow since it more moves in terms of ideology and mind. Man is put in the “right” position which deals with positive impression as if they are embedded by adjectives like strong, logic, ordinate, powerful, being the subject, etc. On the other hand, women is put in the “left” position which is embedded by adjectives that has negative impression like emotional, irrational, weak, subordinate, and being the object.
In the short story “Sebuah Pertanyaan untuk Cinta”, there is no proper noun used to refer to a certain character. Seno uses “seorang wanita” (a woman), “orang yang mengantre” (people stand in line), “pria di seberang kabel” (man across the phone wire), “istrimu” ( the man’s wife). It gives emphasis on “woman” as a general creature which has such characteristics as it is portrayed in the short story. When a proper noun is used, the characteristics is only referred to the female character in the very literary work. Not woman generally. Whereas, every single person has different characteristics, no matter if the person is a male or female. Yet, the short story seems to refer to general female and male which is strongly differed in terms of ideology.
The word “emotional” which is embedded to a female figure is strongly shown in the short story. The woman keeps asking the man whether he loves her or not. It happens during an hour telephone call. The story begins with an utterance from the woman “Katakanlah sekali lagi, kamu cinta padaku.”, means that the man have said that he loved her but the woman wants to hear it again. On the next pages, she asks “Satu koin lagi ya? Ngomong cinta lagi, dong.”, which means that after the man said it again, she wants more. It shows her emotion in terms of passion. She is also said to be very annoyed when the call was hunng up because she run out of coin and put the phone back rudely in page 5. “Koinnya habis. Hubungan pun putus. Ia banting gagang telepon itu dengan kesal”. In order to show that being emotional is bad nature of woman Seno complete his work with the impact of the emotional condition experienced by the woman. On page 5 after the woman demands the man to confess that he still have intercourse with his wife, the woman becomes mad and the impact of her emotion hits other people in which they have to wait for a longer time. “Seseorang pura-pura batuk, mengingatkan, tapi wanita itu sudah tidak peduli. Ia meluncurkan satu koin lagi.” Here, the woman’s emotion is shown to become a damage for others.
Subordination of the “self” of woman also reflected clearly as well. Woman is put in the second position where man is in the top of social hierarchy. Man is the one that can do more things that woman cannot and what woman can do is just accept it. Seno suggest such patriarchal premise when he makes the woman says on page 2 “Aku cuma salah satu di antara mereka, aku cuma salah satu di antara wanita-wanita itu, aku tidak ada artinya bagimu”. The woman’s passion and big expectation upon the man show that she loves him very much and he is the one and only. On the other hand, the man have fun with many woman which is suggested by the words of the woman above, that she is nothing, she is just like the other woman and the man does not really love her. The irony here is that the woman expects him although when she actually knows that the man is a player. On the next page, Seno reveals to the reader that the man is married by having the woman says “Masih cintakah kamu pada istrimu?”. It makes the position of women worse because men really can be in a higher hierarchical position because they can have many women while women can do nothing.
Women subordination is also seen when Seno puts the female character in his short story as an object. On the third paragraph in page 3 he writes “ Apakah yang dikatakan lelaki di telepon sebelah sana? ... mengubah wajah seorang wanita yang gelisah menjadi bahagia. Menjadi cantik, dan menyegarkan, meski di siang panas terik yang melelehkan aspal jalan.” On the next paragraph he says “Pemandangan ini agak melegakan para pengantre”, which refers to the woman. On page 5 he also writes “Ia seorang wanita yang cantik, menarik, dan indah. Wajahnya gelisah dan sendu tapi ini justru membuatnya semakin menarik dan indah.” Seno’s word suggest the position of woman as an object of beauty that can meet man’s desire of spiritual needs of beauty itself.
Thereby, seeing such details in the short story, “Sebuah Pertanyaan untuk Cinta” seems to be Seno Gumira’s representation of patriarchal construct. His work suggests that he is one of male writers that conspire with patriarchs and whether or not he aware, he has reflected it in the way he writes the story and the way he gives characterization on his each characters.