Situating the Philippines in the postcolonial landscape: narrative strategies of Filipino novels in English (1946-1980)

Abstract

The Philippines’ double-colonization at the hands of Spain (1565-1898) then America (1898-1946) has produced a distinctive type of postcolonial writing in English. Despite this unique postcolonial situation, there is a lack of substantial and sustained critical work assessing Philippine literature in postcolonial studies. In order to address this neglect, this thesis shows how a culturally specific formalist approach provides new opportunities to interrogate the distinctive postcolonial themes and issues raised in six Filipino novels: Bienvenido Santos' You Lovely People (1955), N.V.M. Gonzalez's The Bamboo Dancers (1960), N.V.M. Gonzalez's A Season of Grace (1956), Nick Joaquin's The Woman Who Had Two Navels (1961), Kerima Polotan's The Hand of the Enemy (1962), and Edith Tiempo's His Native Coast (1979).

The period in which these novels were published (between the 1950s and the 1970s) has usually been considered by scholars such as Soledad Reyes (1994) and Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo (2008) as the turning point of Philippine writing in English because of the authors’ innovative use of narrative techniques. However, despite all these observations, there is a lack of substantial and sustained critical work assessing the implications of these technical strategies, specifically in postcolonial studies. This thesis argues that the thematic concerns of the novels need to be related more productively to their formal innovations. It suggests that a contextual examination of the various narrative strategies and techniques deployed in the novels can help shed light on the authors’ respective projects of engaging with the consequences of both the American-endorsed narrative of Philippine modernity and development and the nationalists’ quest for the authentic Filipino. This thesis, thus, demonstrates the relationship between narrative structure and the modes of interrogation (or resistance, such as the case of Joaquin's novel) of postcolonial issues in the Filipino novels in English.