Actualization of Women's Roles in Domestic and Public Spaces in Leila S. Chudori's Novel Laut Bercerita: A Feminist Discourse Analysis by Sara Mills

This study aims to analyze the actualization of women's roles in the domestic and public spheres in Leila S. Chudori's novel Laut Bercerita using Sara Mills' Feminist Discourse Analysis. This novel depicts women not only as victims of political violence during the end of the New Order era, but also as subjects who actively produce meaning, preserve collective memory, and challenge the dominance of state narratives and patriarchal structures. This study uses a descriptive qualitative approach with data collection techniques through intensive reading of the novel text. Data in the form of words, phrases, sentences, and narrative units representing the roles and positions of female characters were analyzed based on subject-object positions and reader positions. The findings reveal that female figures, such as Asmara Jati, mothers of forced disappearance victims and women in activist, advocacy and journalistic networks gain realization on their position as activists, intellectuals, guardians of humanity and symbols of life power. This study argues that Laut Bercerita reclaims and redefines our understanding of public space by centralizing women’s morality, empathy, and humanitarian resistance to violence. And it is not only a special study on feminist literary studies in Indonesia.