Talaue, Antonette P. Deconstructing the Habit (us) of Wo (Man) in Edith L.

Tiempos 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 afternoons 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

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 individuals 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 natureThe 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)

Hence, literary criticism, as an academic activity, is as political as literary production as it either consolidates or challenges oppressive social structures. Sim articulates Bourdieus 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. Gmino 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 Tiempos 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

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 summerintroduced 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 Tiempos 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 PantojaHidalgo, 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 postcolonial 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

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. PantojaHidalgo 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 womans behavior or motives, of sustaining woman as enigma, is complicit in the postcolonial/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 womans submission is an act of subversion, what she calls A Gentle Subversion (1998) in her study of Tiempos 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 dont usually think about, because they dont 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 Tiempos fiction poses effective resistance to patriarchy.

This paper problematizes these readings. Cruzs critical discussion of Tiempos 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). PantojaHidalgo 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 womens literary tradition, does not necessarily equate to a feminist approach. This paper offers an alternative reading of Tiempos 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

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 cultures construct of a Woman and, consequently, of a Man. In Feminist, Female, Feminine, Toril Moi elaborates: Femininity is a cultural construct: one isnt 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 Poststructuralist 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

but constantly differ. The reality that language constructs can always be questioned, subverted, and deconstructed. The French feminist critic Hlne 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 fminine 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

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 Pilars 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. Shed get the contained look, then the snort, then Who wants cold stew?, her fathers 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 didnt 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 fathers 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 Pilars 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.

The ironic tone of Pilar, as the narrator writes from the perspective of the protagonist, does not escape the reader. She scorns her fathers 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 couldnt help it, it was exasperating the way he got around her so easily. Well, shed 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 Gregorios 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. Perfectos 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 didnt 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. Perfectos proposal but for a different reason: Why does he come here, Pilar? Even from the first, she had felt it was meddling on her fathers 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. Perfectos victory over Pilars father in a game of chess. The reader senses, nevertheless, that the antagonism goes beyond a mere game: Ive managed to let him win, myself. Mr. Perfecto heaved his body straight in the chair. But I cant 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. Perfectos marriage proposal. However, he does not accept her rejection and reasons that Pilars father needs no woman (1998:236). As he cannot induce her with an entreaty, Mr. Perfecto resorts to an overt attack on Pilars weakness: You dont want to be a drudge. You cant 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. Youve been thrashing around. Do you have to be so suspicious?If you werent such a hypocrite! His whispered words were venomous. You wont admit you have some feelings.You cant send me away, you dont want to (1998:237). He challenges her to live her own life, away from the impositions of her father. Yet, Pilars 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, dont you? You rather like it. She lowered her plate and leaned toward him. Dutiful daughter! But Mr. Perfecto didnt 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 mans 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). Gregorios 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, its 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 cant lift it, he said. Youre 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 (1998:239240).

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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 brothers 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 wasnt 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 ones 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 Womans 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 societys 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 fathers 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-Hidalgos 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 fathers 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 fathers 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 ones response is admiration as much as compassion (1999:44). This benevolent approach to the character of Pilar denies her complicity with the societys constructs of a Woman. Ideally, she is domestic, dutiful, and conservative. She stays at home and takes care of the family. In spite of Pilars 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. Perfectos 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, societys conception that to be a Woman is to be, if not a Mans daughter, a Mans 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. Gmino 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. Gmino 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. 187212. Maritain, Jacques. Art and Scholasticism and the Frontiers of Poetry. U.S.A.: Charles Scribners 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 Tiempos Short Stories. The Edith Tiempo Reader. Eds. Gmino 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. Gmino Abad. Quezon City: U.P. Press Printery, 1998. Pp. 233243.

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