In Pr es s *Corresponding Author P-ISSN: 1978-8118 E-ISSN: 2460-710X 49 Lingua Cultura, 17(1), July 2023, 49-57 DOI: 10.21512/lc.v17i1.8574 GENDER STEREOTYPES IN BOYD SMITH’S THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS AND CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH: GREIMAS’ ACTANTIAL MODEL Supiastutik1*; Dyah Purwita Wardani Sri Wahyu Warjati2; Olivia Putri Citra Ramadani3 1-3English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Jember Jl. Kalimantan No. 37, Tegalboto Campus, Jember, Jawa Timur 68121, Indonesia 1supiastutik.sastra@unej.ac.id; 2dyahpw.sastra@unej.ac.id; 3Olivia.putricr@gmail.com Received: 13th June 2022/Revised: 02nd April 2023/Accepted: 10th April 2023 How to Cite: Supiastutik., Warjadi, D. P. W. S. W., & Ramadani, O. P. C. (2023). Gender stereotypes in Boyd Smith’s The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith: Greimas’ actantial model. Lingua Cultura, 17(1), 49-57. https://doi.org/10.21512/lc.v17i1.8574 ABSTRACT The research attempted to examine the contribution and relevance of structuralism as a theory, method, and paradigm, especially in the study of feminist literary criticism in The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith’s novel. Many researchers had scrutinized The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith from various approaches, such as socio-cultural, historical political, and post-colonial studies. However, analysis using actan- tial models had not been conducted and reported in scholarly journals. This qualitative research utilized textual analysis that practiced a narrative semiotic approach proposed by Greimas. This research used the actantial mod- el proposed by Greimas to evaluate the narrative’s deep structure so as to reveal gender stereotypes of male and female characters in Smith’s The Story of Pocahontas and Captain Smith, written in 1906. Although the female character appeared as the main character, she was portrayed as sentimental, emotional, weak, and dependent on the male characters’ help. In contrast, the male characters were shown as dominant figures. They were portrayed as physically strong, rational, thoughtful, and able to prioritize the interests of the wider community and indepen- dently achieve the goals they wanted. It is found that the discussion about gender stereotypes in literary works is still relevant to be carried out, especially in literary works, because several kinds of research showcase that the portrayal of stereotyped characters has an unfavorable impact on children’s cognitive and affective development. Keywords: actantial model, children’s cognitive and affective development, feminist perspective, gender stereotypes INTRODUCTION The story of Pocahontas has always received significant attention from people who are emotionally concerned with multiculturalism (Wood, 2017). Using a cinematographic approach in qualitative research, Aryangga and Nurmaily (2017) have interested in analyzing the animated film Pocahontas produced by Disney. The researchers reveal that Pocahontas is considered a character who opposes female gender stereotypes because the film portrays Pocahontas as having masculine traits. Another researcher, Gorsevski (2018), has reported that President Trump frequently mentioned Pocahontas in his presidential speeches. Through a visual analysis of rhetoric with a political perspective, Gorsevski has asserted that the rhetorical slur against Pocahontas is not propagating multicultural nuances but instead affirming the supremacy of white men, which further limits the power and voice of indigenous women. The aforementioned researchers have focused their analysis on the story of Pocahontas, adapted into a film by Disney corporation, while the latter has concentrated the political study on President Trump’s speeches, recurrently mentioning Pocahontas as a local native woman figure. In this research, the researchers try to operate the actantial model of narrative structure In Pr es s 50 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 17 No. 1, July 2023, 49-57 proposed by Greimas (1987) to reveal the deep structure of the story retold by Boyd Smith in 1906. By analyzing the actantial functions at the narrative level, the researchers can interpret how the female and male characters in the story are depicted. The actantial model proposed by Greimas (1987) is a device that can theoretically be utilized to scrutinize any real or thematized action, particularly those available in literary texts or images. Applying the actantial model allows people to break down an action into six actants. Greimas defines actant as the one who accomplishes or undergoes an act, independently of all other determinations. Actants are human beings or things that participate in any action. In literary semiotics, the concept of actant is similar to the terms of character that Propp also called ‘dramatic personae’ because it applies not only to human beings but also animals, objects, or concepts. In other words, actants can be human beings, animals, ghosts, ideas, desires, and so forth. The actantial model allows breaking an action into six narrative functions called actants. The six actants are divided into three opposite categories: (1) subject versus object; (2) sender versus receiver; (3) helper versus opponent. The visual representation of the six categories of actants shows in Figure 1. Figure 1 Visual Representation of Actants Summarized from Greimas (1987) As it progresses through its narrative trajectory, an actant can be united with a certain number of narrative states, which are called actantial roles or actantial functions. The roles of subject-actants will be continuously endowed with modalities such as those of wanting, knowing how to do, or being able to do (Greimas & Courtes, 1982). Thus, a subject occupies a principal role in the narration. An example of a subject—actant is a prince who wants to marry a princess. Conversely, an object-actant is something or someone the subject seeks to achieve (rescued princess, for example). The sender (for example, the king wants a grandson) is what or who initiates the action, while the receiver is what benefits from it. Lastly, a helper is someone or something (like a sword or horse) that helps to accomplish the action, while an opponent (the witch, the dragon, the prince’s fatigue, or suspicion of terror) hinders it. The actantial roles of subject, object, sender, receiver, helper, and opponent are constantly changing in a narrative. A hero can be a subject in a particular part of the narrative, but he/she may change their role as an object or a helper in other parts of a text. Greimas and Courtés (1982) have elaborated, “As the narrative discourse progresses, the actant may assume a certain number of actantial roles, defined both by the position of the actant in the logical sequence of the narration (its definition) and by its modal investment (its morphological definition). Thus the hero will be the hero only in certain parts of the narrative—he/she is not the hero before, and he /she may well not be the hero afterward.” Some researchers have utilized actantial models to understand the narrative structure and the relationships between the actant components in various fields. Fowler (2020), for example, has used this actantial model to dissect the system of notation in music. In literary studies, other researchers have applied the actant model to analyze the journalistic identity in digital mega stories (Eldridge, 2017) to scrutinize the deep structure of a literary narrative’s stories in The Hunger Games trilogy (Dzikriya, 2019). Interestingly, Webb (2019) has successfully operated an actuarial work system to understand performance in sport management. For the current research, the researchers utilize this actantial model to examine the surface structure of the narrative and to understand the gender portrayal in this Indian-American story entitled The Story of Pocahontas and Captain Smith. This research attempts to examine the contribution and relevance of structuralism, either as a theory, method, or paradigm, especially in the study of feminist literary criticism. METHODS This qualitative research utilizes textual analysis that practices a narrative semiotic approach proposed by Greimas. The object material for the present research is The Story of Pocahontas and Captain Smith, written by Elmer Boyd Smith in 1906 and published by Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston and New York. Greimas (1987) is inspired by Vladimir Propp, a Russian structuralist who provides the syntactic component for the deep structure of semi-narrative grammar. Propp (in Greimas, 1987) has proposed thirty-one functions designating syntagmatic units that remain constant despite the variety of narratives and that the structured sequence makes up the structure of folktales. Greimas (1987) has redefined the functions into a limited number of actants. The examination of the actantial role in the narrative then becomes possible to conceive of the principle of organization underlying whole classes of narrative. The researchers have garnered the data at the textual level by closely reading the text to identify the actantial roles that build the narrative structure. As it is clarified by Greimas and Courtés (1982), the actant roles of subject, object, sender, receiver, helper, and opponent may change in the progress of the plot, so the authors must break down the narrative into several narrative segments. In Pr es s 51Gender Stereotypes in Boyd Smith’s .... (Supiastutik et al.) Greimas (1987) has distinguished the concept of actor and actant in his actant theory. The actor or character in the story may be present and function as a different actant or vice versa. For example, a prince who wants to marry a beautiful princess can act as a subject and receiver. The following excerpt shows the concept. “We have learned that if an actant (A1) can be manifested in discourse by several actors (a1, a2, a3), the converse is equally possible, just one actor (a1) being able to constitute a syncretism of several actants (A1, A2, A3).” (Greimas, 1987: 107) The next unit in Greimas’ system is Function (F), that “involves at least two actants engaged in the action of a verb. Functions then serve as the foundation of a narrative program (NP), which involves all six actants in which the subject either fails or succeeds in achieving the object. A narrative sequence (NS) may contain one or two narrative programs. An entire narrative may consist of one or several narrative sequences. To further examine the gender portrayal in the narrative, this research will focus on human actants. Greimas (1987) has proposed a “semiotic square” that allows exploring the symbolic position of actants within the narratives through mapping their relationship with other actants along oppositional, contradictory, and complementary axes. The researchers argue that semiotic mapping allows us to position the symbolic identity of a human actant and other human actants (including subjects and objects of narratives and sources) concerning one another. To further analyze the gender stereotypes in the narrative, this research will focus on human actants, predominantly female and male actant relations. In principle, Greimas’ actantial model attempts to describe the narrative structure in terms of an established linguistic model derived from Saussure’s concept of an underlying langue or competence that generates specific parole or performance and Saussure’s and Jakobson’s notion of the fundamental signifying role of binary opposition. Binary opposition defines ‘sad’ as the opposition of ‘happy’ and ‘up’ by the sense of opposition to ‘down.’ To further analyze The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith, the researchers will focus on the binary of ‘female’ as the opposition of ‘male’, and the ‘majority’ as the opposition of ‘minority’. The narrative structure analysis technique based on Greimas’ perspective is relevant for analyzing feminist literary studies because the emphasis of the analysis lies in the relations between actants, especially the actant subject and actant object relationships, which are linear with the male-female relationship in the narrative structure. As explained by Greimas, the actant subject has the modalities of wanting, knowing what to do, and the ability to do, which means that as an actant subject, he has more power than other actants. Conversely, if the actant occupies a position as an actant object in the narrative structure, assumptions lead to a condition of less power. Thus, the researchers argue that an in-depth study of the function of the actant in this structural study can be applied in feminist literary studies to compare the actant function of female and male characters in the story’s narrative structure. The patriarchal society stereotypically places men in the position of subject and women in the part of the object. That is why, for the feminist study of a literary work, the focus will be on the actants subject-object for male and female characters in the narrative. The profound analysis will be directed at the development of events surrounding the functions of gender-based actants. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS To start an actantial analysis, the researchers determine narrative segments that build a narrative story where the roles of the actants appear and change in the structured configuration of the whole narrative. In the chronology of events, the narrative divides into nine segments: the first focuses on John Smith’s dreams of adventure; the second examines Gosnold’s ambition to search gold mines; the third scrutinizes John Smith’s ambition to lead the colony; the fourth concentrates on Pocahontas as the protector of Captain John Smith; the fifth shows Powhatan’s effort to plot an attack; the sixth depicts Pocahontas as Argall’s hostage; the seventh illustrates Pocahontas’ marriage; the eighth reveals John Rolfe’s decision to leave for England with the family; the nine segment explicates Pocahontas’ missing home. As Greimas and Courtés (1982) proposed, as the narrative discourses move, each actant serves a different function along with the narrative. In one actantial scheme, an actant may serve as a subject, but in other actantial schemes, he/she may perform as an object, a receiver, a helper, a sender, or an opponent. The following discussion delineates the progress of narrative discourses of The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. The actantial scheme of segment 1 (Figure 3) shows Captain John Smith as the male subject who always dreams of adventure and battlefields to prove his glory. Glory serves as an object. He has encountered misfortunes several times, such as being robbed and driven out by pilgrims. The robbers and pilgrims function as opponents. However, when he is driven from a ship and has to swim, a Breton ship rescues him. The Breton ship serves as a helper in the narrative. This visual representation obviously shows that there are no female actants showing up. The actantial scheme of segment 1 (Figure 2) shows Captain John Smith as a subject who attempts to achieve the glory of battle to reach his dream. Captain Smith, as a male human actant, is stereotypically portrayed as a strong, brave, and independent individual because he can handle all the opponents and overcome all the obstacles along his journey to In Pr es s 52 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 17 No. 1, July 2023, 49-57 achieve victory. Figure 2 Actantial Scheme of Segment 1 The second actantial scheme of the second segment (Figure 3) focuses on Captain Gosnold, who serves as the male actant subject in the narrative. Gosnold, who is described as the leader of English colonists, has the courage and hopes to find a gold mine in Virginia and conquer the native Indians. Gosnold, in this narrative structure, serves as the subject. Gosnold’s arrival to Virginia is by the order of King James. King James, in this narrative, acts as the sender. The gold mine in this narrative functions as an actant object. The following display chart does not show any female actant involved in the action. Figure 3 Actantial Sheme of Segment 2 As a male actant subject, Gosnold is portrayed as a brave character with a male stereotype who has the hope and courage to explore the world and finds sources of wealth in the form of gold mines. He is the leader of the troops discovering a new world for the glory of the King. No different from the characterization of Captain Smith, Gosnold is a depiction of a character in the folktale that shows male stereotypes, a leader who has sailed the world and conquered the land. The following excerpt showcases the male stereotype. “That night the ships dropped anchor in the bay. On the morrow the colonists disembarked, and Captain Gosnold, their leader, claimed the land in the king’s name.” (Smith, 1906: Unit 6) The actantial scheme of segment 3 (Figure 4) identifies the ambitious person Captain John Smith, who serves as a male actantial subject. Captain John Smith, who has a hobby of adventure and is involved in various wars, in this segment is described as having the ambition to win land belonging to native Indians. The land, in this segment, becomes the actant object that the subject wants to achieve. The native Indians are resistant, and they play the role of opponents. Captain John Smith’s courage and hope serve as a helper in the narrative because it helps the subject achieve the object. Figure 4 Actantial Scheme of Segment 3 The actantial scheme of segment 4 (Figure 5) shows the story of the main female character Pocahontas, who is described as a lively little girl who likes to roam through the forest and chat with animals. Pocahontas carries out her duties as a female actant subject in this narrative. In this segment, Pocahontas presents to insist on protecting Captain John Smith from the death sentence imposed on him for killing a member of the tribe. In this scheme, Captain John Smith acts as an object. Pocahontas’ love for Captain Smith is the sender for the subject to achieve the object. King Powhatan, the decision-maker on punishment, has granted Pocahontas’s request to free Captain Smith from punishment. In this segment, King Powhatan serves as a helper. The native American Indians who want to kill Captain Smith are called opponents. Figure 5 Actantial Scheme of Segment 4 This segment is exciting in the story of Pocahontas, which shows the female character’s bravery in expressing what she wants. As a female actant in the narrative program, Pocahontas is endowed with abilities to save Captain John Smith from the death sentence, nearly executed by the Indian tribe. The word ‘shielded’ in the sentence shows Pocahontas’ ability to protect Captain Smith from the death punishment. The following excerpt showcases Pocahontas’ bravery. “With her own body she shielded the captain from harm, for her heart was moved to pity for the stranger, and she could not bear that In Pr es s 53Gender Stereotypes in Boyd Smith’s .... (Supiastutik et al.) he should die. And now aroused, with flashing eyes she waved the executioner back. Then she pleaded with her father that the captives life be spared.” (Smith, 1906: Unit 11-12). This fifth segment (Figure 6) reveals Powhatan as a male subject who wants to protect the Virginia mainland from the new colonies. Powhatan plans a guerrilla attack against the settlement, but once again, Pocahontas gets in the way of the King’s plans. Secretly, Pocahontas sneaks in and tells Captain Smith in case of a sudden attack from King Powhatan, Pocahontas’ father. In this segment, Pocahontas acts as an opponent, not a subject, because Pocahontas is an actant opposing the attack plot. The attack plan is a significant segment of the narrative program (NP). When reading at a glance, Pocahontas seems to have the power to protect John Smith. However, when analyzing more deeply, Powhatan does the more ‘heroic’ dimension because Powhatan intends to protect broader and more rational interests, namely protecting his tribe from colonialism. Meanwhile, Pocahontas’ protection of John Smith is an individual desire that prioritizes her sentimental love for a man. The love of Powhatan is rational, while Pocahontas’ love is emotional. Figure 6 Actantial Scheme of Segment 5 Segment 6 (Figure 7) delineates Argall, who captures Pocahontas as a prisoner of war. Pocahontas’ imprisonment is intended to ensure that the war between the Indians and white settlers does not continue. As a hostage, Pocahontas never returns to see her father again until she grows into a woman. This segment is essential in the narrative story of Pocahontas because this segment determines the storyline to flow into the next narrative program. This segment tells of Pocahontas experiencing deep sorrow because of the rumors about her beloved Captain John Smith. Pocahontas decides to marry John Rolf in this state of grief. The actantial scheme of segment 7 (Figure 8) describes John Rolf as the male actant subject because he acts as an entity with a great desire to win the object, namely Pocahontas. John Rolf is stunned by Pocahontas’ beauty when he sees Pocahontas in the settlers’ camp. Because Pocahontas has given up on her love for Captain John Smith, Pocahontas finally agrees to marry John Rolfe. They married in church without any significant obstacles. Pocahontas, in this segment, acts as a female object, which will be achieved by the male subject, John Rolfe. Jamestown Church is an institution that has blessed their marriage, so this church is a helper in this narrative. Figure 7 Actantial Scheme of Segment 6 Figure 8 Actantial Scheme of Segment 7 In this segment, there are two problematic issues. First, Pocahontas married with consent yet under compulsory conditions due to her position as a hostage. A woman is often portrayed stereotypically as having to accept marriage proposals because of her weak bargaining position. She has no other choice. The following excerpt shows the case. “She was never allowed to go back to her people, though Nantaquaus came often to see her at Jamestown. And here, she grew to be a woman, and learned the ways of the English women, and dressed as they did.” (Smith, 1906: Unit 19) The second issue is the stereotype of women, which is valued based on beauty. Patriarchal society places men as subjects who have the privilege to see and put women’s beauty standards based on men’s standards. In line with the spirit of feminist studies, Kim and Lee (2018) have revealed that social pressure insists women look beautiful to be respected. These researchers suggest that women’s beauty standards are not only based on beauty, which is more inclusive and diverse, such as promoting the value of kindness, intelligence, compassion, and authenticity. The internalization of the concept of beauty can be carried out in various ways, including through non-stereotypes literary works. In Pr es s 54 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 17 No. 1, July 2023, 49-57 “At last, a young Englishman, John Rolfe, captivated by her dark beauty and gentle ways, wooed the Indian maid…” (Smith, 1906: Unit 19) The actantial scheme of segment 7 (Figure 9) delineates the story of John Rolfe, who wants to bring his family to England to introduce Pocahontas to British society. In this segment, John Rolf is a male actant-subject because he is the one who causes the narrative to move into the next narrative program. He is the decision maker. Pocahontas, in this case, is a helper because she supports John Rolfe’s decision, and England is the object that the subject will achieve. This segment has no opponents because John Rolfe does not have any challenges when he decides to sail for England. Figure 9 Actantial Scheme of Segment 7 The actantial scheme of segment 8 (figure 10) demonstrates Pocahontas as a female actant subject in the narrative project. As a subject, Pocahontas describes her longing for her former homeland in Virginia. The land serves as an object that Pocahontas wants to achieve. Pocahontas is an actant subject because she is the one who is endowed by the modalities of wanting, and her husband, John Rolfe, is the helper because he supports what the subject wants to do. Pocahontas also serves as a receiver in this segment. Figure 10 Actantial Scheme of Segment 8 “When Captain John had gone, the thoughts of Pocahontas more than ever turned toward home, and she wearied of the crowded English land, and longed for her native forests again. Daily she gazed from her window toward the west, where lay Virginia, and her early life. And she pined, and thought much of the old days in her native wilds, when into her sunny life came the golden-haired stranger, with his people, and of the great changes that had befallen her and her race through that coming.” (Smith, 1906: Unit 25) As an enthusiastic Native American Indian woman who could find a lot of freedom in her native land, Pocahontas’ living in England separated her from the outside world. After her marriage, Pocahontas is treated like a lady because she is a noblewoman from an Indian tribe who contributes a lot to helping the colonies and marries an Englishman. In the new land, England, wherever Pocahontas goes, there are always bodyguards, and there is no longer the freedom she experienced when she was in her home country. In the new country, Pocahontas experiences domestication. Pocahontas conveys her feeling of being free from the constraint to Captain John Smith, but the captain cannot help much because the King’s order requires everyone to treat Pocahontas as a Lady, “But Captain John excused himself, saying, ‘I durst not now allow of that title, since the King commands that you be treated as a Princess.’” At the end of the narrative, after undergoing an elongated lonesomeness, Pocahontas falls ill and dies in a foreign land. Pocahontas’ death in this segment becomes problematic because it shows a woman’s powerlessness in accepting their fate portrayed in texts on which feminists are always concerned (Delap, 2018). The present study of Pocahontas narrative shows the outnumbered female actants presenting as subjects. The surface structure refers to the outward appearance. In the surface structure, the dualism springing from the deep structure is presented in an integrated way. Integrated way means when discussing the surface structure, it will be simultaneously followed by the discussion of the deep structure analysis. In this way, the readers perceive an image of the simple yet closet complex way in which the relationships between the characters are manifested at this level of analysis. Table 1 displays the summary of actantial schemes involving all actantial functions of human and non-human actants. The human actants playing roles in the narrative are The English King, Pocahontas, Captain John Smith, John Rolfe, and King Powhatan. The non-human actants are gold mines, feelings of love, England, dreams of battle and adventure, homeland, and the feeling of missing home. Table 1 Human Actants based on Gender Actant’s Gender Actant’s Names Total S1 O1 S2 R H O2 Female 2 1 0 2 1 1 7 Male 7 2 1 6 2 0 17 Unidentified 0 5 7 0 0 4 16 In Pr es s 55Gender Stereotypes in Boyd Smith’s .... (Supiastutik et al.) Notes: S1 = subject O1 = object S2 = sender R = receiver H = helper O2 = opponent The surface structure shows the actants taking roles in the narrative: nine human actants represent subjects, three human actant objects, and five non- human actant objects. Eight human actants serve as receivers. The composition of actants in Table 1 showcases a hierarchical power structure. Male actants dominate the function of the subject, which means that in terms of quantity, the narrative portrays the male characters as more important. Meanwhile, Pocahontas, a female actant, presents only twice as the subject actant in the narration. As mentioned in Greimas’ notion, the actant subject always plays the most pivotal role in a narrative because he/she is the one who makes a story develop. He/she is characterized by modalities of wanting to do, knowing to do, and being able to do. A more profound observation of gender-based actants shows that the number of female actants is far behind the male actants, both as subjects and objects. The male actant representing subjects compared to the female actants functioning as subjects indicate 7:2. Table 1 highlights the fact that the total number of human actants emphasizes males as the majority (more than 75%) in the narrative and minor female actants (less than 25%) as the subject. Even though the title implies the pivotal role of Pocahontas as a human actant, the numerical imbalance in favor of male actants showcases gender bias. As the story flows, the male actants appear more frequently and dominate the narrative program. The smaller number of female actants suggests the less importance of female characters in the narrative program. This finding aligns with what Filipović (2018) found from the research results: the underrepresentation of female characters is nearly twice as many males as female title and main characters. Another researcher also reveals gender biases and the underrepresentation of female characters in children’s books under the study (Senjuti, 2022). The current research showcases stereotypical female actant subjects versus heroic male actant subjects in the narrative. As can be seen in Table 1, Pocahontas serves as an actant subject twice. The first role of the subject is in segment 4 when Pocahontas moves to rescue the life of Captain John Smith from the death penalty of an Indian tribe. At first glance, Pocahontas’ courage and persistence seem like a hero to John Smith. However, when examining more closely, Pocahontas’ courage to protect is astoundingly sentimental and self-centered because she protects Captain Smith to satisfy her personal love above the immense interest of saving her tribe from colonialists. Powhatan’s role as a male subject has a broader concern to protect his homeland. The explication of the female actant subject as a sentimental character and the portrayal of Powhatan as a heroic male actant in the narrative are stereotypical. The second role of the female actant subject is available in segment 9. Pocahontas, as a subject, is endowed with modalities of wanting to return to the homeland. Pocahontas’ desire to return to her hometown has built a story movement in the narrative program. Her husband, John Rolfe, helps Pocahontas’ dream of returning to her home country of America come true. Although Pocahontas can be categorized as an actant subject endowed with the modality of desire, she is stereotypically portrayed as less capable of doing outdoor activities. In other words, Pocahontas undergoes domestication. She needs someone else to help her achieve her goal. This stereotypical portrayal of male and female characters aligns with what Braden and Rodriguez (2016) have found in gender stereotypes in the research. Using a content analysis approach and critical race theory, they research 15 Latinx children’s picture books. In conclusion, they argue that there is a prevalence of traditional female-centered roles in the 15 illustrated story books for children. Braden and Rodriguez (2016) have used these findings to contend the importance of making curricular decisions with critical attention to text selections and young children’s engagement in critical literacy in early childhood and elementary classrooms. Feminists believe in the cognitive theory that children’s prevalent exposure to gender stereotypes, especially for reading materials under children’s grasp while forming their gender identity, will influence their perception of gender roles. Gender- specific information influences a child’s interest and willingness to participate in these activities or interact with these objects associated with their gender (Seitz, Lenhart, & Rübsam, 2020). However, in fact, the most recent research conducted by Casey, Novick, and Lourenco (2021) on children’s books published between 1960-2020 shows that the male protagonist is twice as prominent as the female protagonist, with a ratio of 2:1. They also find that children’s story books written by men mostly feature male protagonists. Gender stereotypes in the current research are in line with the results of previous research that stereotypical depictions of characters are still prevalent in literary works, especially those created for children (Fitriani & Muassomah, 2021; Martin, 2017; Rubegni et al., 2019). The stereotypic images continuously expose to children through literary works and textbooks have an unfavorable impact on the cognitive and affective development of children who are searching for identity (Kneeskern & Reeder, 2020; Rahmadewi & Supriyadi, 2021). CONCLUSIONS In the configuration of actantial schemes, which build a whole narrative, the researchers find a relation between actants that oppose each other to form a binary opposition. Greimas argues that this binary opposition is the basic foundation for determining the deep-lying In Pr es s 56 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 17 No. 1, July 2023, 49-57 ‘actantial model’ Male ↔ Female Subject ↔ Object Majority ↔ Minority Heroic ↔ Sentimental At the close of the research, the researchers may sum up the situation in the following terms. Throughout the analysis process utilizing Greimas’ actantial model, the researchers showcase the stereotyped portrayal of gender where the female characters are insufficiently present as subjects in the narrative sequence. Once the female characters appear as subjects, they remain stereotypically characterized as sentimental figures. This research indicates that the theoretical contribution of Greimas’ structuralism theory is still relevant to be used as a tool in literary analysis. The Story of Pocahontas and Captain Smith, written by E. Boyd Smith in 1906, can be said as an attempt to situate the female character as an important character because the female character Pocahontas appears as the title of the story. However, the structural semiotic analysis proposed by Greimas can dissect the deep structure of the narrative. The female character that functions as an actant subject in the narrative is statistically underrepresented. Moreover, it turns out that some of the female and male characters in the narrative are still portrayed in a stereotyped manner. Gender stereotypes in the current research align with previous research results that stereotypical depictions of characters are still prevalent in literary works, especially those created for children. Practically speaking, this research on gender stereotypes provides new insight for writers to be more careful in presenting characters in their narratives and for publishers to be more discerning in publishing a selection. The stereotypic images continuously exposed to children through literary works and textbooks have an unfavorable impact on the cognitive and affective development of children searching for identity. Methodologically, this research provides an alternative tool for analyzing data from a feminist perspective. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to sincerely express our gratitude to University of Jember Institute of Research and Community Engagement for providing us the research grant that makes this research possible. REFERENCES Aryangga, A., & Nurmaily, E. (2017). Women’s power and stereotype denial in Pocahontas movie. Teknosastik, 15(1), 46-60. https://dx.doi.org/10.33365/ ts.v15i1.19. Braden, E. G., & Rodriguez, S. C. (2016). Beyond mirrors and windows: A critical content analysis of Latinx children’s books. Journal of Language & Literacy Education, 12(2), 56-83. Casey, K., Novick, K., & Lourenco, S. F. (2021). 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