Gilda Cordero-Fernando's memoir, The last full moon and the problematique of female self-representation

• Main Author: Lim, Beatriz Pilar Iturralde
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2007
• Subjects: Autobiography in literature; Philippine literature > Women authors; Comparative Literature
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/2267
• Institution: De La Salle University

Autobiography is a concept that is not given much emphasis in Philippine literature. There have been very few studies conducted to explore this genre as a whole, more so narratives written by women. Female representation is another problematic arena which is not delved into due to certain issues like policing the truth, determining the context of the autobiographical I in context of its culture and society, and seeing how language constructs representations for the autobiographies. In 2005, Gilda Corder-Fernando, renowned writer and publisher, came out with an autobiographical narrative - a great opportunity for literature students to contribute to the area of autobiography in the study of our nation's literature. This study explores Cordero-Fernando's memoir and how she creates, through her empowering language, representations of her multiple selves in the context of others who have played integral roles in her life. Furthermore, this study also aims to unearth silenced aspects of the writer's life imposed by patriarchial society. These objectives will be achieved through a deconstructive of the text using autobiographics, a theory on female self-representationpioneered by Leigh Gilmore, which focuses on uncovering the contradictions, interruptuions, resistance and erupttions in the text as strategies of self-representations. Cordero-Fernando constructs many different selves heard in the different voices that articulate in her memoir the different aspects of her life. Using her distinct writing style, she empowers herself by creating representations for her multiple selves, as well as voicing openly, the silenced aspects of her life. Her self-construct as a writer is her narrator, the self that sees through the social impositions of patriarchy and the boundaries set for women by Philippine culture.