The sweet and the sour: A Kristevan analysis of Marivi Soliven's The Mango Bride as melodrama

• Main Author: Allarde, Therese Anne R.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Subjects: Philippine literature > History and criticism; Comparative Literature
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/2916
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study examines Marivi Soliven's novel, entitled The mango bride, by tracing its melodramatic elements and reading them along the novel's female protagonists using Julia Kristeva's concept of the semiotic and the symbolic. This will be done by taking into account The mango bride's features including the set-up and the characters, and its approach which is reminiscent of a soap opera/telenovela. In positing the novel's structure as melodrama, this study will also argue whether its feminsit motivation is successful through Kristeva's notion. Marivi Soliven's The mango bride is the winner of the Palanca Award for the Novel category in 2011 under the title of In the service of secrets. It tells the story of two women who both travelled to Oakland, California because of personal reasons, hopeful that they will find a better and happier life abroad. Under certain circumstances, they cross paths, and soon, a major secret about their past begins to unfold.