The Comparison of the Gender Role between the Mother and the Father on the Little House on the

Prairie

A Paper by: Sylvia Witanoko 08.80.0008

Faculty of Letter Soegijapranata Catholic University Semarang 2011

Summary of Little House on the Prairie: Little House on the Prairie told a story about life of Charles Ingallss family. Charles had a wife named Caroline Ingalls, and 3 daughters named Laura, Mary, and Carrie. Charles and his family moved from his village with his family to look for a better future that he cannot find by living in the village. He brought all of his family members including horse and dog through hills and crossed the river to find a place to live. His dog, Jack drowned when trying to cross the river by himself but finally Jack could come back to Charless family although Charles had gone so far. There were some conflicts between Charles and his daughter Laura because Laura felt disappointed by Jacks lost. After almost 4 days journey across Kansas, Charles finally found a great place to live and build house for the family. When Charles built the house, Caroline trying to help but when she picked up a log, she cannot lift it. Charles asks Caroline to take a rest because it is not a woman job. Charless family working together to build the house, and while they are working to build their cabin Charles met Mr. Edwards. Mr. Edwards is willing to help Charles to finish his cabin. On the other hand, Caroline feels annoyed by Mr. Edwardss bad habit toward his daughter, Laura. Charles did not agree with his wife in this case, due to the help that Mr. Edward offers to his family. Their life in this prairie going well for a while, until someday Charles decides to hunt for rabbit in the wood. When Charles was going to go home, he noticed some wolves following him and his horse. Afraid of the threat of

wolves to his family, he decides to avoid the wolves by distract them with rabbit that he got. After he arrived at his home, he did not tell his family about the wolves. In the middle of the night, Laura awaken because she cannot found Jack beside her bed and then trying to find Jack outside. Laura surprise when she saw his father was outside the house while holding his gun with Jack on his side, and she can see there were so many wolves surround her house. Charles told Laura to be quite, and also told Laura that maybe the wolves have followed him to his house. Charles also asks Laura not to tell her Mom, because he did not want her to be worried. The next day, Charles tight Jack on the stable but when Laura said that Jack did not like to be tight, Charles just gave order to Laura not to untie jack whatever happens. Just right after Charles leaves, there are 2 Indians come and get in the house. Worried about her Mom, she trying to untie Jack but his sister forbids her because of her fathers order. Luckily, the Indians left without hurting anybody, but when Charles came home Mary told him that Laura trying to untie Jack and did not obey his order. Hearing Laura disobey him, Charles get angry and shout at her. This conflict can be solves after an eye to eye conversation between Charles and Laura. Someday Charles got a job which was hard, but it worth because he can get a cow and a calf. The some other day after that Charles has to go for about a week to look for a job to, mean while Caroline has to look after and protect the family. In the afternoon she saw 2 Indians on the top of the hill, feeling that she has to take care of

her family she decide to stay up all night in case the Indians would break up into the house like in the other day. When she heard the sound of the house approaching her house, she put on the trigger on her gun but when she found out that it is Charles whose got home she feels relieved. The day after that, 2 Indians came to their house in peace and just checking their family, one of the Indians also gave a necklace to Laura for a good fortune. When Christmas is coming at that winter, Charless family has prepared all the best. While they were gathering in that warm Christmas, suddenly Mr. Edwards came with a frozen body. Mr. Edwards has been through a snow storm just to get to Charless house for Christmas. Children were very happy because Mr. Edwards told them a story about Christmas, and also give them beautiful red mittens and candies. Caroline also feels thankful to Mr. Edward for giving her some cassava, and from that moment Caroline feeling about Mr. Edwards has change. The other problem happens in the spring, when Charles was in his land preparing the lot to be planted, he saw fire burns some field near his lot. Unfortunately, his house is burning too. As soon as possible after knowing that, he and all his familys members helping each other to extinguish fire, right before they lose their hope the rain falls and extinguish the fire. Their life feels so perfect at that time, they can harvest their crops and everything was going well. One day they got a bad news from the government, they have built their house at the land that will be built for government importance, and therefore they

have to leave their house. This part of story ended by Charless another journey because he has to leave his house at the prairie. A. INTRODUCTION Now a day, there are a lot of differences from many aspects of life that can be found. Some of the aspects are cultures, religions, races, gender, and many more, and some of the aspects have been through a lot of changes and also struggled. For example, one of the aspects that have been through a lot of changes in some decades is the gender issue, there are so many controversies about the gender role in society. There are some different descriptions of gender role according to some experts, for Anthropologist the meaning of gender roles can be interpreted as the position of men and women are expected to occupy in the social system. Different description comes from Sociologist, according to sociologist gender roles are described as sex-linked expectations about how women and men behave toward each other. While Psychologists interpreted that gender roles are more to the characteristics that are differentiate women and men in behavior, personality, preferences, intellect, and abilities (Dukut, E. M. 2011. p.2). According to Keiter, gender itself can be define as a part of gender or can be said as sex system, which refers to the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed needs are satisfied as cited in (Dukut, E. M. 2011. p.2). Gender can be divided into 2 kinds, that are male and female, the way to

determined gender can be refer not only on biological aspect, but also can be determined by cultural.
Gender is also the description of differences between women and men within the same house hold and within and/between cultures that are socially and culturally constructed and change over time. These differences are reflected in: roles, responsibilities, access to resources, constraints, opportunities, needs, perception, views, etc. that are held by both women and men.(Dukut, E. M. 2011. p.4)

There are other aspects in gender issue that aspects are included masculinity and feminity, and the last one is androgyny. As (Dukut, E. M. 2011. p.6) said, the construction between these three kinds of aspects can be determined biologically, physically, and appearance components. For example petite, broad shoulder, and high heels, and for role behavior such as taking care of the house, and occupation, as well as personality characteristics, like expressive and instrumental. According to Parson, feminine role tends to be and expressive one, whereas masculine role seems to be more instrumental in his point of view, as cited in (Dukut, E. M. 2011. p.6). For example, women are usually fulfilling the internal function in a family, such as tighten the bond between the family members, and men are usually perform the external function in a family, such as working to fulfill their family needs. The differences of gender roles between men and women can be vary, from education view, profession, housework, decision making, child care and education, and etc. Although the gender role always developed from time to time, the struggle is still the same. The feminist still striving to get women has the equality with men in gender role aspect. The differences of gender role between male and female can be seen through some kind of Medias, and also some art works. There are some feminist that

shown their protest by using a novel, writing a diary, and there are also some film that show the role of male and female seen from some aspects of life. In order to analyze the gender role between male and female in household, a film titled Little House in the Prairie can be a good example from art work that show the gender role clearly between men and women. Some of the scenes are reflected the differences of role between these two gender in their everyday life. The role of these two genders has many differences in many aspects, from how they treat their family to how they facing their problem. The writer will try to analyze the daily live of Ingalls family in Little House in the Prairie, and make a correlation between the film to the gender roles and all the studies about gender to make clear the gender issue that reflected in the film. This film is based on a diary that written by Laura Ingalls, the second daughter in Ingalls family. The setting of this film is during the late 19th century, so this film reflected the gender roles that are happening in that time. The writer will relate and compare all aspects in gender roles to the activity that reflected in the film Little House on the Prairie by showing some scene that can be seen. Especially, the roles of the mother and the father in their daily life. B. ANALYZISE The writer will compare the gender role between the mother and the father characters in the household of Ingalls family in Little House on the Prairie, and

then analyze it with gender studies. The first aspect that can be seen in this movie is how the mother doing her daily activity. Her daily activity shows her role in the family. While according to (Dukut, E. M. 2011. p.8), gender role is actually can be change anytime, but it is constantly negotiated between individuals.

Picture 1

Picture 2

As we can see on the picture above, the mother in this movie is doing what usually household mother does. We can see on the picture one that the mother is sweeping the floor to prepare the house to be settled and on the picture 2 we can see that the mother is washing the dishes, and from this context we can conclude that during late 19th century women still act as a household mother in their role in their family. The roles of the mother in this movie still include the taking care of the house and the family. Almost all the activity that related to the housework in this movie is done by the mother, it is shows that the construct of feminity is clearly portray in this movie

by the daily activity of the mother. This could be happened because the struggled to the feminism has not been started yet during the late 19th century. The other activity that is done by the mother is taking care of the children. She is the one who is always at the house to take care and also protecting the children from anything that can be dangerous for them. Mother seems to be a very loving character and understand the children more than the father.

Picture 3

Picture 4

In these two scenes from the movie, on the picture 3 the mother is taking care of the children, while the father is preparing the carriage to continue their journey. Still we can see that the role of the mother in this context still not having any further development, because the differences of the mother and the father responsibilities is still clearly mention in this scene but this scene fit correctly with the claimed of the western communities that women are naturally more suitable to look after children. In the picture 4 is the scene when all the family members are waiting the father to come

home from hunting, it has been late at night and the mother looks worry, but she still trying to take care of the children and makes them feels safe. We can obviously see in this scene that mother is really close to the children, it is perfectly match to the study of Parson that women is usually fulfill the internal function in the family by tighten the bond between each family members, as cited in (Dukut, E. M. 2011. p.6). The role of the father in this movie clearly showed the other side or maybe the opposite of the role of the mother. There are some responsibilities and daily activities of the father that showed the function of the father in the family and how the characteristic of the father itself.

Picture 5

Picture 6

The father is preparing the carriage and the horses to continue their journey, while the mother is taking care of the children, we can see that scene on the picture 5. The journey itself was actually decided by the father because the father thinks that they have no future in their previous village, and all the family members including the

mother decided to agree with the decision of the father although the mother actually do not really can see the future that means by the father. There are conversation between the father and the mother when the father doubted his decision of going out of the village, and the answer of the mother is My home is where you are. You and the children are my family from this conversation we can see that the mother really know how to make the family member feels that they are appreciated. Once again it is shown how the mother can strengthen the ties between the family members. Also we can conclude that by deciding the journey and followed by all the family members, we can see that the father has the ability to decide where should they live and what should they do, and it is match to the table that Parson made about the decision making as cited in (Dukut, E. M. 2011. p.6-7). While on the picture 6, we can see that the father is went for hunting, to hunt animals for the family needs. In this film, it is clearly showed that the father has the responsibilities to fulfill and providing the monetary support. The other scene that show this kind of function is when the father has to go to watch livestock, and then he come back at noon bringing a cow and a calf. There is also one other scene that show how the father provide that monetary support by going to town for couples of days to work, and decided to leave his family in the prairie. Surprisingly, the role between the mother and the father in this movie is developing when there a corporation between them in doing some works together. For example, when they finally find a prairie to build their home, the mother and the

father at the first time doing a team work to build the house together. The father do not predicted that building the house can be so hard without some helps from men too, while the mother although she is able to help but the power of a women cannot be compare to the power of men. Here are some scenes that show how they done their teamwork to build the house.

Picture 7

Picture 8

In the pictures 7 and 8, we can see how the father works to build the house from the log of a tree. In this scene, it shows how he wants to finish the house properly to make the house able to be called as a home. The father in this movie failed to predict that he will get obstacle in building the house without some help from men. Fortunately, he met Mr. Edward who is willing to help him to build the house until finished.

Picture 9

Picture 10

In these two pictures we can see how the mother is trying to help her husband to build the house, by cutting the log and also move the love from the carriage. This can be a prove that although women are good at doing housework, such as taking care of the children and also the house, women are actually able to do some work that usually doing by men. Women have the strength to do men responsibilities, although women are not as tough as men but by trying women are actually able to do everything.

Picture 11 In this picture we can see that the mother failed to raise the log when building house.

There are others scenes that show the cooperation between the father and the mother for the family, and it is showed that there are some cases that can be done together by both of them or all the members of the family.

Picture 12

Picture 13

The first picture show their struggled when they have to cross a river using a carriage and pulling by horses. In the middle of the river there was an obstacle because their horses are seems stuck and cannot pull the carriage. The father finally decided to pull the horses and went down to the water, while the mother takes control of the horses in the carriage. While on the second picture, we can see how all the family members are joining together to put the fire out of their house, and finally the rain comes and save their house. Although this family was lived during the late 19th century, which patriarchy are usually very dominant in every family but in this family there are also some works that can be done together, and all the works does not have to be decided by the men first.

The gender role of the mother in the family is also showed by her concern toward her family. How she feels about living in the prairie without a neighbor to socialize, she worry about her children very much.

Picture 14

Picture 15

Picture 14 shows when the mother feels worry about the children, because they have been on a journey for almost 4 days through Kansas and they have not yet settled. She worries that the children will feel tired. It shows how she concerns her children the most although she also supports her husband decision to go out from their previous village. The picture number 15 is the scene when the mother do not very sure to live in a prairie, in the middle of nowhere and without any neighbor. She wondered how the children will grow without socializing, and also she cannot imagine how the children should grow up with going to church. She wants her children to grow up properly, but fortunately her husband can make sure that it is just fine to let the children grow in the prairie with their guidance.

The mother in Ingalls family actually very concern to every behavior that her children have and also she is concern about the children health and every detail that is importance for her.

Picture 16

Picture 17

As we can see in the picture number 16, it is when Laura feels disappointed with her father that cannot find Jack, her lovely dog that drown in the river. She then decided not to continue the journey by carriage, and she decided to just walk beside the carriage. In this scene the father does not say anything to Laura, while the mother try to persuade Laura to go inside the carriage, because she was worry about the heat outside, but Laura refused. It obviously reflected how the father cannot organize how to make up with his daughter and decided to just stay silent. The picture number 17 shows the scene when they have their lunch in the middle of the prairie, and all the members of the family eat together. When Laura is start eating her lunch, she uses her hand to put the lunch in her mouth instead of using the spoon. The mother warn Laura about her behavior, because that kind of behavior is just for uncivilized people

and the mother does not want her children to act that way. It shows how the mother really concern about all her children doing, in order to make sure they grow up properly. Here are the others scenes that show the mother concern to the children that we can found in the movie.

Picture 18

Picture 19

When Laura saw the way Mr. Edward spits, she feels interested and tries to do just like what Mr. Edward done. When the mother finds out what Laura was doing, she forbid her to do that because that is very rude and should not be done by women. After that, at night when she is with her husband, she said to her husband that she worries to have Mr. Edward near the children, because she is afraid that will not good for them, but her husband cannot do that, he needs Mr. Edward to finished the house. This scene also showed that the mother concern about the children stage of learning is very strong, until she has to put aside all the matters.

Compared with the relationship between the father and his children, maybe the relationship between the mother and her children is so much better. In some scenes in the movie it really clear that there are a problem of the relationship between the father and his children, especially Laura.

Picture 20

Picture 21

Picture 22

Picture 23

The picture number 20 until 23 is the scenes when there was some tragedy between the father and Laura. First is when the father cannot found Jack that was drown in the river, and the second problem is when the father do not tell the real reason why he decide to tied jack in the stable. These two problems can be solve after there are some kind of eye to eye conversation between them, and also some role of the mother. These scenes show how the father cannot really manage a good relation to his children. The strength of the mother to protect her family is also showed in some parts of the movie, for example when there was a bad Indian come to the house and try to take something. The mother then gives them a knife and bread, and that can make them go (Picture 24). The other scene that show the strength of the mother to protect her family is when the father has to work outside for couples of days, and at the afternoon she saw some Indians watching her house from distant, then she decided to stay awake at night and holding a gun to make sure that the Indians will not harm her family. (Picture 25)

Picture 24

Picture 25

According to their age characteristic, their roles in the family are suitable at their age. At their age, they can show their existence in society by doing an appropriate work in community and also their behavior that deciding which is proper and improper for them and also the children. According to Riegel, there are 3 interdependent dimensions in individual progresses in become an adolescent, that are inner-biological level, individual-psychologist, and the cultural-sociological, as cited in (Dukut, E. M. 2011. p.68). The first dimension is about the changes of biological characteristic when someone reach adolescent, and the second one has already mention above that is deciding which is proper and improper. The third one is what the parents teach to their children, like what the mother teach to Laura how to behave, is usually influence the children development of become adolescent. The adolescent sexuality also showed in this movie when the father kisses the mother after they argue about the children future.

Picture 26

If the film is related to the feminism approach, and then analyzed with the Marxist feminism which is under the umbrella of feminism approach, there will be some results. According to the year where this occurrence actually happened, which is during the late 19th century, the striving for the equality is still in proceed. While the other feminist thinks that the equality in the society can change the position of women in community, the Marxist feminist has different interpretation. According to (Dukut, E. M. 2011. p.117) Marxist Feminism attacks the prevailing capitalistic system of the West, which they view sexually as well as economically exploitive. The capitalistic system in this case makes the women cannot individually work to reach the powerful position in the society, they have to depend on the position of men in society. As we can see in the film that the mother have to always go where her husband decided to go, after the reason of the family, maybe the reason of economic also comes on the mother mind. It can be seen in the scene, when the government decided to take the land that the father has already built, it is obviously can be seen that the mother cannot do nothing and just followed whatever her husband decision. According to Marxist feminism, there should be equality in the economy system to make the equality between men and women. The family life that shows in the film reflected the Marxist theory correctly, where the women should always under the family or husband monetary providing, because without it the position of the women will be lower.

C. CONCLUSION In the film Little house on the Prairie there are a lot of different roles between the mother and the father. The differences come from their point of view of life, way of life, responsibilities, housework, behavior, relationship with the children, and also how the facing a problem. Both the father and the mother have differences, but in the family they can use their differences to fulfill their needs and they can work together as a family. Their different way to take care of the children make them can fulfill their need of love and everyday need properly. As a family, they have done a very well job by doing their own duty and they can get their right properly, each member of the family have their own duty that is important for the family. And from this study, the writer also can see how woman during the late 19th century is really depended to man. In Ingallss family case, eventhough the mother still depends with the father but it is not only because her husband is the priority in the family, but also because she love her family so much. She wants to stay and takes care of her family because she loves her family and wanted to be wherever her family belongs. Eventhough, Marxist feminism is so strong during the late 19th century, this family did not see the differences between woman and man.

REFERENCES Dukut, E. M. (2011). Gender Studies Module. Semarang: English Department Faculty of Letters Soegijapranata Catholic University.