A gynocritic reading of five stories by Marianne Villanueva in Ginseng and Other Tales from Manila

• Main Author: Osias, Portia A. A.
• Format: text
• Language: Others
• Published: Animo Repository 1999
• Subjects: English Language and Literature
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/1701
• Institution: De La Salle University

This thesis is an analysis of five short stories by Marianne Villanueva namely Overseas , Ginseng , Opportunity , Grandmother , and Siko taken from the anthology Ginseng and Other Tales From Manila. Using Elaine Showalter's Theory of Gynocritics that is concerned in studying specifically women writers and women readers, this research was able to show how the author portrayed her women characters in each story in relation with the kind of environment or society they have. By following the objectives stated in the first part of this paper, it was possible to make several generalizations regarding Villanueva's perception of women's roles and status in the five short stories. Villanueva revealed her feminist side by justifying the muted-culture of women seen in their weakness and passiveness as the central female characters' way of exhibiting inner strength of character before a male-dominated society. Though she portrayed her female characters in a way that one may call traditional because of certain stereotypical traits, she still achieved the final effect of portraying women as the stronger and more emotionally stable gender that men through the female characters' ideas, thoughts and actions.