Feminism in selected short stories of Jose Garcia Villa

Abstract

This study identified the portrayal of women’s roles in three short stories of Jose Garcia Villa. The stories include The Fence, Given Woman and Footnote to Youth. Content analysis using the feminist approach was used to determine the portrayals of characters in the stories. Findings show that women’s roles were confined to domestic chores like a mother, a wife and a servant. In terms of themes, most of the stories focused on love, vengeance and submissiveness. However, women experiences revealed their different roles portrayed in both home and society as well. This was described fully with the use of the feminist approach in determining women’s plight. Thus, it has been recommended that reading and analyzing of Filipino short stories must be incorporated in the English curriculum of Central Philippine University. Through this, students will be able to appreciate and examine the different roles portrayed by women in literary texts.