Women’s Resistance in Serat Candrarini through a Jacques Derrida Deconstructive Reading

Evi Iryani; Maman Suryaman; Ahmad Taufiq

doi:10.63924/jsid.v8i1.373

Authors

Evi Iryani Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta https://orcid.org/0009-0001-3050-5603
Maman Suryaman Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta
Ahmad Taufiq Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63924/jsid.v8i1.373

Keywords:

Serat Candrarini, Deconstruction, Women’s Resistance, Jacques Derrida, Compliance as Strategy

Abstract

Serat Candrarini (SCR), a 19th-century Javanese didactic text by R. Ng. Ranggawarsita commissioned by Pakubuwana IX, is conventionally read as a manual of wifely obedience within the palace polygamous household. Previous deconstructive work on SCR (Iryani & Suryaman, 2025) remained confined to the aspect of binary opposition. This study extends that reading by applying five aspects of Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction; binary opposition, différance, trace, supplement, and undecidability to the five pupuh of SCR (Sinom, Dhandhanggula, Asmarandana, Mijil, and Kinanthi), addressing two questions: (1) how the five deconstructive aspects manifest in the macapat verses of SCR; and (2) what forms of women’s resistance such a reading reveals. Employing a qualitative-deconstructive approach to the digital manuscript of SCR held by the Perpustakaan Reksa Pustaka, Pura Mangkunegaran, data were gathered through document study and close reading, then analysed following the data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing and verification model (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2019). The findings show the five aspects to be interlinked: the seemingly hierarchical and stable binary opposition depends on the subordinated element as its supplement; this dependence leaves a trace that displaces meaning through différance, culminating in undecidability. From these fissures of meaning emerge four forms of women’s resistance: passive, symbolic, discursive, and cultural. Women’s compliance in SCR is therefore not always identical with submission; it can be read as strategy a negotiation conducted from within the patriarchal structure. These findings enrich the study of wulang literature and the deconstruction of Nusantara literature while offering material for critical-deconstructive literacy in classical Javanese literature pedagogy.

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