Talaue, Antonette P.

Deconstructing the Habit (us) of Wo (Man) in Edith L. Tiempo’s “The Corral”

Before I begin, please allow me to express my gratitude to Dr. Ronald Baytan, whose

support and trust I deeply appreciate. His suggestions were of great help in the improvement of

this paper. I also want to thank Dr. David Bayot for always being a generous mentor. The

theoretical framework of this paper was borne out of his discussions, elucidations, and

interpretations of various critical paradigms. All errors are my own. This afternoon’s lecture

hinges on a construction in the binary terms – habitus and habit. While habit is perceived as

commonsensical, intuitive, and natural – as this is performed repeatedly and without much

thought –, habitus is nature – that which is chaotic and disorderly – perfected by a natural

intellectual disposition. Jacques Maritain, a renowned Thomistic scholar, in Art and

Scholasticism and the Frontiers of Poetry, elucidates the concept of habitus as introduced by the

Medieval Schoolmen:

When, for example, the intellect, at first indifferent to knowing this rather than that, demonstrates a truth to itself, it disposes its own activity in a certain manner, thus giving birth within itself to a quality which proportions it to, and makes it commensurate with, such or such an object of speculation, a quality which elevates it and fixes it as regards this object; it acquires the habitus of a science (1962:11).

Habitus, according to Maritain, is a virtue as it “triumphs over the original indetermination of the

intellectual faculty, at once sharpening and tempering the point of its activity, draws it, with

reference to a definite object” (Maritain, 1962:12). Habitus, then, is the privileged pole in this

binary. On one hand, habit is recognized as culturally formed, a pattern of behavior – in gesture,

speech, and thought – acquired through repetitive practice and constant reinforcement by

academic, political, and social orders. Habitus, on the other hand, is an attitude of the mind that

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filters what is acquired by culture, cultivates it, positing a proper way of thinking. Maritain

holds:

Habitus are, as it were, metaphysical titles of nobility, and as much as innate gifts they make for inequality among men. The man who possesses a habitus has within him a quality which nothing can pay for or replace; others are naked, he is armed with steel: but it is a case of a living and spiritual armor (1962:11).

This opposition is problematic because it exempts habitus from cultural formations that

are always informed by the power relations in a given society. Pierre Bourdieu, a French

sociologist, challenges the privileging of habitus by elevating it to the realm of the natural.

Habitus is as cultural as habit. Bourdieu subscribes to the Marxist concept of ideology and

reasons that ideology, as a system of representations that forms an individual’s way of thinking

about reality, reproduces the distinction and the hierarchy between the dominant class and the

subordinate class as it translates cultural differences into differences in nature. To perpetuate this

way of thinking, ideology invalidates the role of education in cultural acquirement. In a review

of the theory of Bourdieu, Stuart Sim writes:

Although cultural capital is the result of education (formal and informal), this is constantly disavowed by the ‘ideology of the natural taste’, which converts differences of cultural taste into differences of nature…The ideology functions ‘to legitimatize a social privilege by pretending that it is a gift of nature’ (The Field of Cultural Production)…The effect of the ideology is to make culture appear as nature – as cultivated nature. To sustain this myth (culture as a gift of nature) it is necessary to deny the connection between culture and education. A significant consequence of this is symbolically to shift the source of distinction from the economic field to the field of culture, making power and privilege appear to be the result of cultural differences guaranteed by nature rather than by economic power and historical contingency. The effect of such cultural distinction is to produce and reproduce social distinction, social separation and social hierarchy (1995:60).

Education reproduces these inequalities by “making appear natural what is in fact cultural…

What is based on cultural capital inherited as a result of membership of a particular class is

reproduced as a hierarchy supposedly based on merit proved in the field of education” (1995:60)

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Hence, literary criticism, as an academic activity, is as political as literary production as it

either consolidates or challenges oppressive social structures. Sim articulates Bourdieu’s

position:

A work of culture is always produced twice: in its moment of production and in its moment(s) of consumption. Moreover, the discourses which accumulate around the work are ‘not mere accompaniment, intended to assist its perception and appreciation, but a stage in the production of the work, of its meaning and value’ (The Field of Cultural Production). According to this mode of analysis, a work of art can be really appreciated only when it is situated within the social relations which structure its field of production and consumption: the material production of the work and the symbolic production of the work (i.e. the production of its status as an object to be valued). This must entail an examination of the author/artist, her audience, and cultural mediators (academics, critics, publishers, etc.) (1995:61).

Edith L. Tiempo inhabits a habitat of habits of reading her literary texts, critical

perspectives that contribute to the meanings these writings generate. These critiques, as do the

works, themselves, position the reader to think in a certain way.

Indisputably, Tiempo, as a writer as well as a literary critic, is closely associated with

American New Criticism. The publication of her poems in Six Filipino Poets (1954), an

anthology edited by Leonard Casper, who was himself a formalist, ensured Tiempo of a position

in this tradition of thought. Gémino Abad identifies Tiempo as one of the transition poets from

his first volume of Filipino Poetry and Verse from English to its sequel A Native Clearing (1993)

by virtue of her New Critical orientation. Edna Manlapaz, in her recently published Filipino

Women Writers in English Their Story: 1905 – 2002 (2003), describes Tiempo as the most avid

proponent of New Criticism among women writers who pursued graduate studies in the United

States.

It is the receptiveness, one that implies passivity, to this formalist school attributed to

Tiempo’s critical framework that Isagani Cruz addresses in “Edith L. Tiempo as Literary Critic.”

In this essay delivered as part of a professorial lecture in 1998 and published in The Edith

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Tiempo Reader (1999), Cruz holds that Tiempo together with her husband Edilberto adapted

New Criticism to the circumstances of the Filipino writer. He writes:

As a result, the national writers’ workshop that the Tiempos created and nurtured in Dumaguete every summer…introduced to Philippine writers the American New Critical persuasion with a crucial difference. Situating themselves firmly within the dominant tradition of socially conscious and politically subversive Philippine literature established by Francisco Balagtas and Jose Rizal, the Tiempos formulated a distinct literary theory blending both the reading strengths of the American New Critics and the thematic preoccupations of Filipino writers (1999:240).

Tiempo, according to Cruz, antedates the Marxist-Maoist critics of the First Quarter Storm in the

Philippines who advocated socially committed writing as evident in her essays “A Bright

Coherence: The Outlook of the Modern Poet” and “Philippine Poetry in English.” What

distinguishes Tiempo, however, is her craftsmanship:

On the other hand, Tiempo has never lost sight of the importance of craft. Again and again, she has stressed that having the poetically and politically correct content is not enough; one has to follow poetic forms as well (Cruz, 1999:244).

It is Tiempo’s fiction rather than her poetry that invites readings of her works as interventions

into the structures of class, race, and, in particular, gender in the society. Cristina Pantoja-

Hidalgo, in “‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’: A Re-Reading of the Early Edith Tiempo

Novels,” attributes to the neglect of her novels in favor of her poems and the lack of

thoroughness in the studies of these novels the erroneous perceptions of Tiempo as “elitist,

aestheticist, and alienated from reality” (Pantoja-Hidalgo, 1999:87). Pantoja-Hidalgo uses post-

colonial feminism and gynocriticism in her re-reading relative to the past critiques of A Blade of

Fern (1978) and His Native Coast (1979) as works exploring the theme of the search for identity.

Appropriating the Saidian concept of orientalism, Pantoja-Hidalgo contends that the power

relationship between the Occident and the Orient is parallel to the power relationship between

the man and the woman. The West exercises power over the East because of its knowledge of the

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East, presupposing the moral and intellectual inferiority of the dominated race, and this power

allows the West to know more the East, to describe, define, and write about the Orient. This is

analogous to the “representation of women by men, not just to men but to women themselves”

(Pantoja-Hidalgo, 1998:88).

Gynocriticism, the study of the woman as a writer, developed in response to the need for

the woman to speak for herself. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, in The Madwoman in the Attic

(1979), hold that women writers offer resistance by reconstructing stereotypical images and this

act of reconstruction simultaneously submits to and subverts the patriarchal order. Pantoja-

Hidalgo focuses on the female characters in the novels represented mostly through the

perspectives of the male characters. She illustrates the futility of the desire of the men to know

the women, hence, to control them:

Behind the desire to “understand” is the need to “win over,” to control, to dominate. The woman (or women), sensing his good faith, is basically in sympathy with him. But the limitations of a relationship with him soon become apparent. To protect herself, she either withdraws or escapes altogether.

The textual strategy of refusing a definitive explanation of woman’s behavior or motives, of sustaining woman as enigma, is complicit in the post-colonial/feminist strategy of resisting definition or penetration, of refusing to be “understood” and thus contained (1998:113).

Pantoja-Hidalgo pursues this line of thought – in the woman’s submission is an act of

subversion, what she calls A Gentle Subversion (1998) – in her study of Tiempo’s short stories

published in The Edith Tiempo Reader (1999). She concentrates as well on the female characters

in the selected literary texts including “The Corral”:

All of them are familiar figures, people we recognize, people we know but don’t usually think about, because they don’t seem interesting enough. But their plainness, their simplicity is deceptive. There is a complexity and strength in them that is belied by their docility (1999:42).

Pantoja-Hidalgo, then, foregrounds that Tiempo’s fiction poses effective resistance to patriarchy.

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This paper problematizes these readings. Cruz’s critical discussion of Tiempo’s

theoretical framework disputes the habitual perception of the writer as a Formalist, her writings

independent of the contexts of literary production. For Cruz, Tiempo reaffirms “the dominant

Philippine critical principle that writers had to write about social problems” (1999:241). Pantoja-

Hidalgo situates Tiempo as a fictionist within gender politics and argues that the writer advances

this cause in her works.

The choice to study a female writer, although indicative of a commitment to the

promotion of women’s literary tradition, does not necessarily equate to a feminist approach. This

paper offers an alternative reading of Tiempo’s fiction, focusing on the short story “The Corral.”

It aims to deconstruct the Wo (Man) in “The Corral” as it aims to deconstruct how “The Corral”

and the fictionist have been constructed. Through a textual analysis, the paper aims to show that,

in fact, the literary text, and, consequently, the writer, reinforces the patriarchal order. However,

by virtue of the dominance of the reading paradigms forwarded by Cruz and Pantoja-Hidalgo,

the way of thinking that Tiempo occupies a feminist position – committed to the struggle against

patriarchy – easily becomes habituated. Because these critical studies serve to defamiliarize

Tiempo as a New Critic, from habits of reading, these easily translate to habitus, not only the

dominant but also the definitive ways of perceiving the writer and her works as perpetuated in

the academe. Since education is a political field, as Bourdieu theorizes, instead of giving voice to

the Woman, these readings of Tiempo, in the words of David Bayot, perpetuate a habit of

containment, silence the Woman. An alternative reading, then, becomes a significant

undertaking.

Belsey and Moore, in the critical essay Introduction: The Story So Far, argue that a

feminist critic “sets out to assess how the text invites its readers, as members of a specific

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culture, to understand what it means to be a woman or a man, and so encourages them to affirm

or to challenge existing cultural norms” (1989:1). Feminist literary theory, then, situates

literature within a culture and looks at this culture’s construct of a Woman and, consequently, of

a Man. In Feminist, Female, Feminine, Toril Moi elaborates:

‘Femininity’ is a cultural construct: one isn’t born a woman, one becomes one, as Simone de Beauvoir puts it. Seen in this perspective, patriarchal oppression consists of imposing certain social standards of femininity on all biological women, in order precisely to make us believe that the chosen standards for ‘femininity’ are natural (1989:108).

Hence, femininity or Womanhood, as a cultural construct, sustains the patriarchal order. In the

intervention into the gender structure of a society, the feminist critic employs different traditions

of thought. One critical framework that feminist critics, primarily French, have appropriated is

Post-structuralism. While Structuralism analyzes the structure of language, Post-structuralism

studies how this structure positions the mind of the reader in relation to the society and to his/her

reality. Post-structuralism maintains that language does not reflect but actively constructs reality.

The reality language constructs is inseparable from the ideas of a group of people about class,

race, and gender. Language is bound to the ideology of this society. Language is a form of

discourse.

Thus, the Linguistic Revolution during the 1960s de-centered the individual. The writer is

the Subject, the one who uses language, but, at the same time, he/she is subjected to the way of

thinking language secretes, to borrow the phrase of Abad, the one who is used by language.

Furthermore, Post-structuralism celebrates the plurality of the literary text. In Post-

structuralist Deconstruction, what makes a literary text effective is its subversive possibility. For

Jacques Derrida, a foremost proponent of this literary theory, meanings are not fixed or stable

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but constantly differ. The reality that language constructs can always be questioned, subverted,

and deconstructed.

The French feminist critic Hélène Cixous addresses the matter of language, in the words

of Rolando Tinio, in her deconstructive essay Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays.

She argues that thought “has always worked through dual, hierarchical oppositions” (1989:101)

such as Activity/Passivity. Each binary rests on the fundamental pair Man/Woman with the

masculine pole superior to the feminine pole. This system of binary oppositions consolidates the

patriarchal order. There is a space for resistance, however, what Cixous refers to as the ecriture

féminine or feminine writing. She writes and simultaneously exemplifies such discourse as

follows:

A feminine text cannot be more than subversive: if it writes itself it is in volcanic heaving of the old ‘real’ property crust. In ceaseless displacement. She must write herself because, when the time comes for her liberation, it is the invention of a new, insurgent writing that will allow her to put the breaks and indispensable changes into effect in her history. At first, individually, on two inseparable levels: - woman, writing herself, will go back to this body that has been worse than confiscated, a body replaced with a disturbing stranger, sick or dead, who so often is a bad influence, the cause and place of inhibitions. By censuring the body, breath and speech are censored at the same time. To write – the act that will ‘realise’ the un-censored relationship of woman to her sexuality, to her woman-being giving her back access to her own forces; that will return her goods, her pleasures, her organs, her vast bodily territories under seal; that will tear her out of the superegoed, over-Mosesed structure where the same position of guilt is always reserved for her (guilty of everything, every time: of having desires, of not having any; of being frigid, of being ‘too’ hot; of not being both at once; of being too much of a mother and not enough; of nurturing and not nurturing…). Write yourself: your body must make itself heard (1989:102-103).

In the 1991 interview with Marjorie Evasco and Edna Manlapaz, Tiempo attests: “My

whole stance in writing is tied up with being a woman” (Abad et.al., 1999:11). This paper will

read “The Corral” in light of Deconstructive Feminist literary theory. Specifically, the paper will

look at how the text negotiates with the construct of the Woman. What are the images of the

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Woman in this literary text? Does the short story deconstruct binary oppositions? Is there an

alternative space for the Woman within a patriarchal order? Does the text write the Woman and

her body?

“The Corral” tells the story of Pilar, a woman already past her prime, whose only purpose

in her existence is to care for her ageing father. Previously a teacher, she, at the present, stays at

home and prepares the food that she brings, day after day, to her father and Manuel, her brother,

who are building a fish corral at the beach. The protagonist lives a life of monotony and moves

within a limited physical and ontological space. The narrator begins with an illustration of Pilar’s

domesticity:

Pilar fed the fire on the open stove with more wood. The stewed pork must be hot or her father would refuse it again. She’d get the contained look, then the snort, then “Who wants cold stew?”, her father’s own endearing way of saying no. She frowned and screwed up her thin pointed nose and chin until her whole face looked all chucked backward and upward. But the frown did her face good; her cheeks and forehead were stirred out of a wrinkled apathy and a nice flush started throughout her face. She didn’t want to be irritated at her father because there had already been too much politeness between them lately, and it was a strain. For her anyway, it was (edited by Abad, et. al., 1998:233).

Although she plays the traditional role of the Woman, the reader perceives in Pilar a hostile

disposition towards such duty. She has to cook the food exactly to her father’s taste lest it be

rejected and she scorned. The Man imposes a standard, which the Woman strives to meet. The

failure of Pilar in this seemingly banal occurrence creates greater distance between the father and

the daughter, a relationship already characterized by enmity.

The dominance of the father manifests in spite of his physical absence, at this point in the

narrative, in the way he influences Pilar’s behavior. She puts more wood into the stove to ensure

the stewed pork is hot, just the way her father desires it, and Pilar frowns while her thoughts

dwell on him.

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The ironic tone of Pilar, as the narrator writes from the perspective of the protagonist,

does not escape the reader. She scorns her father’s coldness, arrogance as well, by describing his

unreasonable anger at her for not preparing his food properly “endearing” (1998:233). Yet, she

immediately checks herself to avoid further emotional pressure. One notices in Pilar a

resignation to her life defined by her relationship with her father. This attitude courts

indifference such that any display of feeling, even resentment or frustration, is to be welcomed:

“But the frown did her face good; her cheeks and forehead were stirred out of a wrinkled apathy

and a nice flush started throughout her face” (1998:233).

Reinforcing the domestic image of the Woman in this short story is the physical weakness

attributed to Pilar. Even in household chores, which the Woman supposedly is in charge of, Pilar

still needs help:

She slid into it the pot of rice and the bowl of camote tops and squeezed into the remaining space three flasks of drinking water. She lifted the basket, testing its weight. It was all she could carry. That boy Elmo would have to go with her today (1998:233).

Elmo, a young boy, assists Pilar with her daily tasks. He is an ingenious child, able to slip away

from Pilar and evade his responsibilities: “She couldn’t help it, it was exasperating the way he

got around her so easily. Well, she’d have to let him sneak off for a swim when they got to the

beach. He would sneak off, in any case” (1998:234). Pilar needs Elmo not simply for assistance.

Her dependence on him lies in his ability to perform tasks better. Pilar, in feeding the fire in the

wood stove, only produces a “hollow of read heat” (1998:233). Elmo, on the other hand, is able

to heave “the branch ends into a blaze” (1998:234). The Woman is in need of the Man

irrespective of his age.

Pilar learns, while searching for Elmo, that he is with Gregorio, a woodcutter. Another

Man is introduced to this space of the Woman:

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He was a dark big-shouldered fellow in his shirtsleeves. He clucked encouragement to the beast. The man was big but his size was not obtrusive; what called attention to it was the suggestion of strength in the way he held himself. Very quiet and assured. His legs were hitched up in front of him, his hands, held the reins loosely, his elbows resting on his knees. He smiled at Pilar and his teeth were even and white in his face that was dark like burnt clay (1998:233-234).

Such a strong presence the Man possesses! His is a presence that does not intrude but simply

makes its existence felt. The body of Gregorio displays integrity. His legs, his hands, and his

elbows are in harmony revealing his confidence. His repose affirms his strength. He is, as Abad

puts it, a man of earth. The color of his face testifies to his being a Man who engages in physical

labor. This positions him in opposition to the Woman. He provides for the family while she

keeps the home.

Pilar negatively responds to Gregorio’s friendly gesture: “She did not smile back. He was

a stranger” (1998:234). In the background, the words of warning parents so liberally give to their

children, in particular, to their daughters resonate, that is, strangers are to be avoided, one should

not speak to them. Pilar, one can argue, exposes a conservative side.

Upon her return to the kitchen with Elmo, the bleakness of her surroundings reminds Pilar

of her profession, the space of which – a classroom “full of children” (1998:234) and “walls

hung with brightly colored drawings of houses and people and flowers and weird looking

animals” (1998:234) –, is in stark contrast to the room she now inhabits:

…with the streaked smoky layer on the unpainted wood, and the lizards crawling in the black eaves and tapping their bloated bodies, and the bundles of unshucked corn seed dangling from the beams. The table-top crisscrossed by knife scars. Soot. Soap and water. The open stove, her one big responsibility (1998:234).

The images of the “unpainted wood,” “bloated bodies” of lizards, and “unshucked corn seed”

embody unproductiveness. As she is confined to this space, Pilar is also associated with this

attribute: “The open stove, her one big responsibility” (1998:234). It is a negative space the

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Woman occupies. Furthermore, it is a space where men still dominate, namely, her father, Elmo,

Gregorio, and yet another, Mr. Perfecto.

Similar to Gregorio, Mr. Perfecto has a powerful bearing. Yet, unlike the former, his

presence is invasive: “His great bulk seemed to rise out of the four walls and jar her by his

presence” (1998:235). Pilar does not welcome him as well: “…she felt the muscles drawing tight

across her face; and her mouth was stiff as two clam shell valves when she loosened them to

speak” (1998:235). Her reaction has to do with the purpose of Mr. Perfecto’s visit. As the school

principal, he wants to convince Pilar to resume teaching. The true reason, however, as Pilar

knows very well, is that Mr. Perfecto wants to express his desire to marry her. She distrusts his

romantic pursuit, as they never did share a meaningful companionship: “Why the man had

continued to come she didn’t know, for outside of school they had nothing to say to each other,

nothing true, nothing even perishable” (1998:235). One lingers on this reflection of Pilar as the

word “perishable” (1998:235) denotes something that is subject to decay, which necessitates life.

Thus, it is that which is essential and worthwhile. This cannot be said for the relationship of Pilar

and Mr. Perfecto.

Her father also suspects Mr. Perfecto’s proposal but for a different reason:

“Why does he come here, Pilar?”Even from the first, she had felt it was meddling on her father’s part.“He is the school principal.” Because she could not help it, she had smiled grimly and added, “Also, I am not unattractive, Father.”“Nor exactly young” (1998:235).

As a Woman ages, she loses her eligibility for marriage similar to a commodity that loses its

market value the longer it remains unconsumed. To the bewilderment of Pilar, the antipathy

between her father and Mr. Perfecto does not hinder the two men to engage in masculine

activities such as conversing about “politics, cockfighting, fishtraps, women” (1998:236). The

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Woman is just as any other pursuit for the Man, easily hunted and effortlessly rejected. Pilar does

not have any access to this fellowship, she remains in the periphery.

Currently, however, the men are at odds with each other because of Mr. Perfecto’s victory

over Pilar’s father in a game of chess. The reader senses, nevertheless, that the antagonism goes

beyond a mere game:

“I’ve managed to let him win, myself.” Mr. Perfecto heaved his body straight in the chair. “But I can’t go on doing that,” he said significantly. “Besides, the old fellow is getting too smug” (1998:236).

In this light, one can argue that Pilar becomes a site of struggle for power between the two men.

She is a pawn for Mr. Perfecto to proclaim himself, definitively, as the winner. For it is to care

for her father that Pilar refuses to return to school and this is the excuse she gives for denying

Mr. Perfecto’s marriage proposal. However, he does not accept her rejection and reasons that

Pilar’s father “needs no woman” (1998:236). As he cannot induce her with an entreaty, Mr.

Perfecto resorts to an overt attack on Pilar’s weakness:

“You don’t want to be a drudge. You can’t be. I want you to marry me, Pilar.” When she said nothing he said regretfully, “I wish you could be your own self some day. You’ve been thrashing around. Do you have to be so suspicious?”…”If you weren’t such a hypocrite!” His whispered words were venomous. “You won’t admit you have some feelings.”…”You can’t send me away, you don’t want to” (1998:237).

He challenges her to live her own life, away from the impositions of her father. Yet, Pilar’s

acceptance will not be less of a submission. Only, in this case, it will be a surrender to a different

male presence, one with whom she does not share passion. There is, then, no alternative space

for the Woman.

At the beach, Pilar meets with her father, brother, and sister-in-law. A forceful figure

from the beginning of the narrative, her father, like the other males in the short story, owns a

strong presence: “He sat at the door of the shed and his large frame almost filled it” (1998:238).

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He reproaches Pilar for entertaining Mr. Perfecto upon knowing of his visit. Pilar challenges this

display of authority by asserting his need for her:

“You rather enjoy being my reason, Father, don’t you? You rather like it.” She lowered her plate and leaned toward him. “Dutiful daughter! But Mr. Perfecto didn’t seem convinced, Father. He asked me to think it over – to think him over, that is. And maybe,” she said, “maybe I will” (1998:238).

This defiance is futile, then again, for Mr. Perfecto represents just another male-dominated

space.

The story abounds with physical images associated with the Man. He determines as much

as he dominates the space the Woman inhabits.

On their way to the beach to bring food to the family, as they are wont to do, Pilar and

Elmo chance upon Gregorio, who is having lunch, at a coconut grove. Pilar, then, takes the time

to rest. While she simply rubs her sore arm, Gregorio:

…stood up and stretched his body and his arms and threw out his chest. She thought it indelicate the way he stretched and yawned in front of her but she showed no sign. The man’s great fists closed, his shoulders hunched as he drew deep breaths, and with his movements the muscles on his arms stirred and bulged under the dark skin. He had removed his shirt and had on a thin undershirt wet with his perspiration. He stopped stretching. And it came to her that the man did not care what she thought – he cared no more for her little sensibilities than would his carabao (1998:239).

Gregorio’s lack of inhibitions seems impolite to Pilar. He does what he wishes without any

thought for her “little sensibilities” (1998:239). The insignificance accorded to the Woman, to

her being, is given emphasis in this interaction between the two characters:

“Yes, it’s a big ax. A big ax.” He looked straight at her face, his dark glance struck boldly into her eyes. He looked at her arms and her hands, but longest at her face. “You can’t lift it,” he said. “You’re so little, yourself. So little.”

She sat up. His eyes carefully avoided her body, but she was angry, as though the man had actually reached out and explored her littleness (1998:239-240).

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Yet again, the Woman is represented as delicate and unable to do what the Man is able to do.

More importantly, Pilar acknowledges and even claims these weaknesses as her own. She is

enraged because his look “reached out and explored her littleness” (1998:240). This encounter

creates tension between the two and stirs up an annoyance within Gregorio, which he releases

through heavy swings with his ax on the logs. The sight of Gregorio unleashing his anger

transfixes Pilar:

He had his back to her, and she could not stir for looking at the skin that moved underneath its surface like smooth rounded mangoes on his arms and back and underarms (1998:240).

The body of the Man that so engrosses Pilar can also be seen at the beach where Pilar watches

the men set up the fish corral. Once more, she is riveted to them, their “excitement” (1998:240)

and “casual roughness, the way they moved and talked to each other” (1998:240). The sunshine

upon their almost naked bodies “that made them shine like great burnished clay jars” (1998:242)

fascinates her. She sees them in their splendor from the sideline and feels their enthusiasm but

does not identify with it. She watches them working but does not take part in it. The Woman is

simply a passive spectator.

In the midst of this, Pilar gradually drifts into sleep. Thoughts of Mr. Perfecto attempt to

invade this moment of autonomy. However, she, self-assuredly, resists:

She smiled to herself. No, in this place, in the blowing wind and with sleep misting her thoughts, he was only an amorphous image. A neutral image. She was free of him (1998:241).

Only in this state between wakefulness and slumber can the Woman truly find her space where

she is liberated from the Man. Only in this dream-like condition can she be truly free. This, as

well, does not offer a positive space for the Woman for it does not change the way she is

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constructed in reality. In this suspended state between consciousness and unconsciousness, Pilar

dreams:

She was with them as they lifted the net from the bottom of the corral, and she saw the great fish thrashing around in the meshes; their mouths opened and closed in dumb shouts and their eyes were indignant blobs of white in their flat heads. She woke up, trying to grasp the fading bits of the dream, trying to continue it in the far shouts of the men. It was gone and she had not understood its strange outlines, its disturbing rage (1998:241).

 The reader understands the analogy between the Woman trapped in a space dominated and

determined by the Man and the fish, the “great fish” (1998:241), beating the nets, shouting in

vain, and their “indignant” (1998:241) eyes protesting against their imprisonment. But this

rebelliousness, this defiance is foreign to Pilar. She does not comprehend their “disturbing rage”

and so, just as the dream/vision escapes her, so does the liberation from such a space that she

inhabits elude her. She wakes up and continues to see the men finishing their task, glorious in the

way their bodies sparkle. She notices one diver, in particular, who looks like Gregorio, “big and

dark and shining” (1998:242).

Pilar, after the corral has been set up, drops by her brother’s house to pick up a dress that

her sister-in-law made for her. As it is very beautiful, she decides to wear it on her way home.

This new dress sparks radiance within her:

It was so pretty she wore it going home, and all the while she was suppressing a smile as she hurried between the tall coconut trees bordering the dark trail. When she was a hopeless old maid, and that wasn’t too far off either, she knew she would still be fussy about a new dress. More so; she would have to be (1998:242).

Pilar considers spinsterhood as an inevitable stage in her life. A spinster is a pejorative term as it

suggests a Woman who is undesirable, who is no longer marriageable, a Woman who is without

a Man not by choice but by lack of one. To be excited about a new pretty dress, in this position,

becomes necessary as a way to affirm one’s sense of Womanhood. This shows that the value of a

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Woman is related to, even dependent on, the presence of a Man and the affirmation that being

with one brings.

Near her house, Pilar comes across a man driving a cart, who turns out to be Gregorio.

She keeps from him but waits in expectation, “inside herself a bright core glowing” (1998:242).

Her desire for Gregorio, beneath her negative reception of him in the beginning of the narrative

and her disapproving stance towards him, becomes apparent. However, Gregorio passes by,

completely unaware of her presence. Pilar struggles “to cry out but the cry had no voice”

(1998:242) like the “dumb shouts” (1998:241) of the fish in the corral. The physical presence of

the Woman is always faint, barely perceptible, and easily overlooked. The physical presence of

the Man, on the other hand, permeates every area of the Woman’s life:

When a woman had seen Gregorio she would know him anywhere, on a boat, diving into the sea, on a slope cutting wood, on the sand mending nets and building traps. Behind a desk in a schoolhouse. She would know him even in the dark. Having seen Gregorio, she would keep seeing him in all men. But Gregorio had not seen her. No man had ever really seen her, except Mr. Perfecto, and how could they know what she was like? She might wear the prettiest new dress and Gregorio might pass by her and not see her at all. And that was as it should be. With Gregorio the woodcutter it would have been very improper otherwise (1998:243).

The Woman is silent and invisible. Furthermore, the Woman submits to this male-dominated,

male-determined space and the society’s definition of who she is or who she should be. A

Woman is proper and conservative, she takes care of the household, and she is a wife. Perhaps,

this is why Mr. Perfecto is right. Indeed, Pilar does not want him to go away: “She thought, O

how I hate you – you who are so right, so hatefully right, Mr. Perfecto” (1998:243). With him,

she can resume teaching and be productive as an individual, she can escape her father’s hold on

her, she is wanted and seen, but, at the same time, she will surrender other passions, love and

desire, for a less limiting space, but limiting, nonetheless.

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This is where the analysis deviates from Pantoja-Hidalgo’s reading of “The Corral.” It is

important to quote her in full:

Her [Pilar] choices are woefully limited – a lifetime of subordination to either her father or Mr. Perfecto, or spinsterhood. A third option – life with Gregorio – is not even considered. The fourth – an independent existence doing what she enjoys doing, teaching, does not even enter her mind. The reader, in fact, is not told whether she actually enjoyed her job, only that she persisted in it despite her father’s disapproval, and that, one month later, she cannot quite believe that part of her life is over. …

Will she renounce Mr. Perfecto as well? This possibility is left open. Whatever decision she takes, the last impression of Pilar that the reader takes away is a kind of toughness, belied by her apparent submission to her father’s will. It is a toughness that reveals itself in a certain down-to-earth practicality, a lack of sentimentality, a refusal to indulge in either self-pity or self-deception. So that one’s response is admiration as much as compassion (1999:44).

This benevolent approach to the character of Pilar denies her complicity with the society’s

constructs of a Woman. Ideally, she is domestic, dutiful, and conservative. She stays at home and

takes care of the family. In spite of Pilar’s desire to teach, to return to that room full of children

and bright-colored pictures, it is her obligation to watch over her father and make sure his needs

are met. She is especially conservative as manifested in her attitude towards Gregorio. In the end,

her yearning for him becomes evident but she does not act upon it for it would have been

improper of her as a Woman. She censures her own desires.

It is a submission that arises not from practicality but the unwillingness and inability to

defy the limitations imposed on her. Throughout the story, the reader witnesses moments of

resistance – the way she rejects Mr. Perfecto’s romantic pursuit, how she responds to her father

and claims his need for her, and the irony distinct in the voice of the character. But then, she,

once more, surrenders to these conventions in the way she refuses to get irritated at her father

and fight with him, how she closes her door to the possibility of romance with Gregorio, and her

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admission of her need for Mr. Perfecto. Her lack of understanding of the rage displayed by the

fish caught in the meshes signifies such unwillingness.

Pilar represents the Woman who is limited to a space that is both male-dominated and

male-determined. A seemingly alternative space is presented through Mr. Perfecto, the

possibility for Pilar to teach again, to renounce her duties as a daughter, and to be seen, for once,

by a man. Yet, it is, in truth, just another patriarchal space where the Woman becomes a Wife,

subservient to a husband with whom she does not share passion or desire, and confronts the task

of, again, managing the household. A space where she affirms, without considering any other

alternative, society’s conception that to be a Woman is to be, if not a Man’s daughter, a Man’s

wife but always in relation to the Man. The male is the point of reference for what a female is.

These representations strengthen the binary opposition Man/Woman with the former

superior to the latter. In the story, the men work, they dominate, both in the physical and

psychological realms, and they decide. They have the power to not see and to not hear the

Woman. She, on the other hand, simply watches and waits. To be seen and to be heard.

This paper seeks to widen the field, working within the framework of Bourdieu, or the

habitation of Tiempo as a writer, specifically, as a fictionist in the belief that it is in

deconstructing constructs – the deceptive opposition between habitus and habit – and

interrogating ways of thought – Tiempo as a feminist – legitimized by institutions, foremost of

which is the system of education, that advancement of knowledge and politics can take effect.

References:

Belsey, Catherine, and Jane Moore. “Introduction: The Story So Far.” The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. Eds. Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore. London: Macmillan, 1989. Pp. 1-20.

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Cixous, Helene. “Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays.” The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. Eds. Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore. London: Macmillan, 1989. Pp. 91-103.

Cruz, Isagani. “Edith L. Tiempo as Literary Critic.” The Edith Tiempo Reader. Eds. Gémino Abad, et. al. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1999. Pp. 239-252.

Evasco, Marjorie, and Edna Manlapaz. “Edith L. Tiempo: Poetry as the Rhythm of Violets.” The Edith Tiempo Reader. Eds. Gémino Abad, et. al. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1999. Pp. 9-40.

Manlapaz, Edna, and Stella Pagsanghan. “A Feminist Reading of the Poetry of Angela Manalang-Gloria.” Women Reading: Feminist Perspectives on Philippine Literary Texts. Ed. Thelma Kintanar. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1992. Pp. 187-212.

Maritain, Jacques. Art and Scholasticism and the Frontiers of Poetry. U.S.A.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1962.

Moril, Toi. “Helene Cixous: An Imaginary Utopia.” Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. London: Methuen, 1985. Pp. 102-126.

---. “Feminist, Female, Feminine.” The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. Eds. Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore. London: Macmillan, 1989. Pp. 104-116.

Pantoja-Hidalgo, Cristina. “‘Character as Idea’: Edith Tiempo’s Short Stories.” The Edith Tiempo Reader. Eds. Gémino Abad, et. al. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1999. Pp. 41-56.

---. “‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’: A Re-Reading of the Early Edith Tiempo Novels.” A Gentle Subversion: Essays on Philippine Fiction in English. Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1998. Pp. 86-116.

Sim, Stuart, ed. The A – Z Guide to Modern Literary and Cultural Theorists. U.S.A.: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995.

Tiempo, Edith. “The Corral.” The Likhaan Anthology of Philippine Literature in English from 1900 to the Present. Ed. Gémino Abad. Quezon City: U.P. Press Printery, 1998. Pp. 233-243.

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