The Mestiza beauty problematizing the beauty=power equation in the characterization of Carmen Villa in F. Fionil Jose's The Pretenders

• Main Author: Banzon, Giselle Audry B.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Subjects: Fiction
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/2574
• Institution: De La Salle University

This thesis uses Gramsci's theory of hegemony to analyze the characterization of Carmen Villa in F. Sionil Jose's The Pretenders in order to recognize beauty as a construct of the manufactured Weltanschauung perpetuated by the ruling class in order to maintain their position of power. The Pretenders depicts the class struggles and socio-political failings of the Philippine society. The analysis of it begins by recognizing the myth of Carmen Villa-which depicts the mutable nature of the social hierarchy and how the ruling class is able to use the superstructure for power maintenance and acquisition despite that mutability. It will continue on to show how and why the ruling class is able to manipulate the civil and political state apparatuses within the superstructure to create boundaries that limit not only subjugated groups but themselves as well.