THE VIRGIN

BY: KERIMA POLOTAN TUVERA

KERIMA POLOTAN-TUVERA
1925-2011

She was born in Jolo, Sulu on December 16, 1925. Her

father was an army colonel, and her mother taught home economics.
Because of her father's frequent transfers in assignment, she lived in
various places and studied in the public schools of Pangasinan,
Tarlac, Laguna, Nueva Ecija and Rizal.
She graduated from the Far Eastern University Girls' High
School. In 1944 she enrolled in the University of the Philippines
School of Nursing. In 1945 she shifted to Arellano University where
she attended the writing classes of Teodoro M. Locsin and edited the
first number of the Arellano Literary Review.
KERIMA POLOTAN-TUVERA
1925-2011

Some of her stories have been published under the

pseudonym of "Patricia S. Torres". Mrs. Tuvera has taught in Albay
High School and at Arellano University. She has also worked with
Your Magazine, This Week and the Junior Red Cross Magazine.
Recently she went to the United States on a Department of
State Specialist Grant. In 1952 her short story "The Virgin" won two
first prizes the Free Press short story prize of Php1,000 and the
Palanca Memorial Award. In 1957 she edited the Carlos Palanca
Memorial Awards for Literature, a book containing English and
Tagalog prize winning short stories from 1950 to 1955.
 Her novel The Hand of the Enemy (1962) won the Stonehill Award of Php10,000 for the Filipino
novel in English. Some of her famous short stories are : "A Place to Live In" , "Gate" , "The Keeper"
and "The Sounds of Sunday". "Adventures in a Forgotten Country is her latest collection of essays.
She is the editor of Focus Philippines, the Orient News and the Evening Post.
 KERIMA POLOTAN-TUVERA
1925-2011

• Awardee: Philippine Free Press for Literature, Palanca Awards

• Editor of Arellano Literary Review, FOCUS Magazine, Evening Post,

• Writer of Imelda Romualdez Marcos: A Biography of the First Lady of

the Philippines (1969)
A FEMINIST APPROACH IN LITERARY ANALYSIS
 Feminist Criticism

 Language

Recognize the role of language in making what is social and constructed seem transparent and ‘natural’

 Symbols (representations of women)

Recognize emblems of the construction of gender identity

 Patriarchy

Study whether men and women are ‘essentially’ different because of biology. Or are socially constructed as
different.
 STUDY HOW THE AUTHOR USED LANGUAGE IN BUILDING THE CHARACTERS OF MISS
MIJARES AND THE MAN

[1a] He went to where Miss Mijares sat, a tall, big man, walking with an
economy of movement, graceful and light, a man who knew his body and
used it well. He sat in the low chair worn decrepit by countless other
interviewers and laid all ten fingerprints carefully on the edge of her desk.

Let us study the chunking of sentences. The first sentence is comma splice. But one of the characteristics of feminist
writing is the looseness of sentences and lack of firmness in chunking sentences and phrases, rather than carefully
balanced and patterned as in male prose [ Beginning Theory, Peter Barry].(all commas)
[4] Where she sat alone at one of the cafeteria tables, Miss Mijares did not look 34. She was slight, almost bony, but
she had learned early how to dress herself to achieve an illusion of hips and bosom. She liked poufs and shirrings
and little girlish pastel colors. On her bodice, astride or lengthwise, there sat an inevitable row of thick
camouflaging ruffles that made her look almost as though she had a bosom, if she bent her shoulders slightly and
inconspicuously drew her neckline open to puff some air into her bodice.
[5] Her brow was smooth and clear and she was always pushing off it the hair she kept in tight curls at night. She had
thin cheeks, small and angular, falling down to what would have been a nondescript, receding chin, but Nature’s
hand had erred and given her a jaw instead. When displeased, she had a lippy, almost sensual pout, surprising on
such a small face.
[6] So while not exactly an ugly woman, she was no beauty. She teetered precariously on the border line to which
belonged countless others who you found, if they were not working at some job, in the kitchen of some married
sister’s house shushing a brood of devilish little nephews.
 [13a] In his hands, he held her paperweight, an old gift from long ago, a heavy wooden block on which stood, as
though poised for flight, an undistinguished, badly done bird. It had come apart recently. The screws beneath the
block loosened so that lately it had stood upon her desk with one wing tilted unevenly, a miniature eagle or
swallow?
[14] He had turned it and with a penknife tightened the screws and dusted it. In this man’s hands, cupped like that, it
looked suddenly like a dove.
[15] She took it away from him and put it down on her table. Then she picked up his paper and read it.
[16] He was a high school graduate. He was also a carpenter.
LET US STUDY PARAGRAPH 3. NOTICE HOW THE CHARACTER OF MISS
MIJARES IS PORTRAYED IN TERMS OF HER RELATIONS TO INTERVIEWEES.

 [3] When she talked with the jobless across her desk, asking them the damning questions that completed their
humiliation, watching pale tongues run over dry lips, dirt crusted handkerchiefs flutter in trembling hands, she was
filled with an impatience she could not understand. Sign here, she had said thousands of times, pushing the
familiar form across, her finger held to a line, feeling the impatience grow at sight of the man or woman tracing a
wavering “X” or laying the impress of a thumb. Invariably, Miss Mijares would turn away to tough the delicate
edge of the handkerchief she wore on her breast.
NOW, LET US SEE HOW THE MAN [CARPENTER] BEHAVES IN
TERMS OF HIS SPEECH AND DEMEANOR IN MISS MIJARES’S
POINT OF VIEW.

 [18] “I heard about this place,” he said, ‘from a friend you got a job at the pier.” Seated, he towered over her, “I’m
not starving yet,” he said with a quick smile. “I still got some money from that last job, but my team broke up
after that and you got too many jobs if you’re working alone. You know carpentering,” he continued, “you can’t
finish a job quickly enough if you got to do the planing and sawing and nailing all by your lone self. You got to be
on a team.”
[19] Perhaps he was not meaning to be impolite? But for a jobseeker, Miss Mijares thought, he talked too much and
without call. He was bursting all over with an obtruding insolence that at once disarmed and annoyed her.

Notice the social gap between the two highlighted in this exchange. Miss Mijares – the one in-charge, college
grad, educated; and the man – coarse, inferior, high school grad and jobless
NOW, LET US SEE THE EXCHANGE BETWEEN MISS MIJARES AND THE MAN.
THIS WAS AFTER ATO, THE FOREMAN, AGREED TO GIVE THE NEW WORKER
HALF A PESO, THROUGH MISS MIJARES’S NEGOTIATION.

[27] “Ato says I have you to thank,” he said, stopping Miss Mijares along a pathway in the compound.

[28] It was noon, that unhappy hour of the day when she was oldest, tiredest, when it seemed the sun put forth cruel
fingers to search out the signs of age on her thin, pinched face. The crow’s feet showed unmistakably beneath her
eyes and she smiled widely to cover them up and acquainting a little, said, “Only a half peso – Ato would have
given it to you eventually.”
[29] “Yes, but you spoke for me,” he said, his big body heaving before her. “Thank you, though I don’t need it as
badly as the rest, for to look at me, you would knew I have no wife --- yet.”

[30] She looked at him sharply, feeling the malice in his voice. “I’d do it for any one,” she said and turned away,
angry and also ashamed, as though he had found out suddenly that the ruffles on her dress rested on a flat chest.

The man is increasingly becoming confident that Miss Mijares is giving him attention, importance and preference.
 • slight
• almost bony
• smooth and clear brow
• thin cheeks

Miss Mijares • small and angular

• receding chin
• thin, pinched face
• crow’s feet
• lippy, almost sensual pout
• illusion of hips and bosom
• poufs, shirring, ruffles
• college graduate, HR officer

• tall
• big
• graceful
• light
Man (carpenter) •
•
big, strong wrists
old, pressed clothes
• heaving body
• unmarried, but has a son
• high school graduate
• carpenter
Let usUS
LET study the symbols
STUDY which strongly
THE SYMBOLS suggest
WHICH eroticism in the
STRONGLY
SUGGEST
theme of theEROTICISM
story. IN THE THEME OF THE STORY.

The wooden bird paperweight

In English romanticism and poetry, birds symbolize sacrifice, change of fortune, or purity and
innocence.
In The Virgin, the “undistinguished, badly done bird” could convey several meanings between Miss
Mijares and the man. For Miss Mijares, it could pertain to her life as an unfulfilled woman, being virgin and
unmarried at the age of 34. “It suddenly looked like a dove” conveys the hope, love, promise that Miss
Mijares might expect from the man.
For the man, it could mean that he has finally come to take Miss Mijares’s purity and realize her
“secret, short-lived thoughts” about love, as shown when he “tightened the screws and dusted it”.
 Jeepney’s detour
The jeepney’s detour on several occasions as Miss Mijares heads home suggests a diversion of route.
According to an online dream interpreter, to see a detour in one’s dream suggests that one has encountered an
obstacle in some aspect of his/her life. He/She may not want to confront something directly, and thus is trying to
find a way around it.
Miss Mijares could not admit openly (or maybe even to herself) that her physical need in “secret, short-
lived thoughts” on love is burning her within, and so she masks it with an aloof, superior attitude.
 The dream of being lost

To dream that you are lost suggests that you have lost your direction in life or that
you have lost sight of your goals. You may be feeling worried and insecure about the path
you are taking in life. (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/l3.html)

In this symbol, Miss Mijares is shown as someone who, because of other priorities
in life, have lost sight of her dream of becoming a mother and a wife.
 The rainstorm
Rain is a symbol that holds varied meanings. Emotionally, rain symbolizes tears, sadness, frustration. On
the other hand, it could also mean cleansing, washing away of sadness and rebirth, since rain nourishes humans,
crops and animals. It's a symbol of taking away the dark and the old to make way for new things. This is also seen
as a symbol of change in some circumstances.
When, during a rainy afternoon that both of them were stranded in an unfamiliar, dark street, Miss
Mijares, driven by her feelings and emotion, finally gave in to the man’s invitation.
SEE HOW THE AUTHOR PORTRAYED THE CHARACTERS
IN CONTRASTING NATURE. WE WILL ALSO POINT OUT
WHETHER SOCIALISATION OR THE ACCPTABLE
VERSIONS OF MEN AND WOMEN ROLES ARE PRESENT.

 The virginal state of Miss Mijares

In the Filipino cultural context, virginity (or chastity) for unmarried woman is virtuous. It is an
acceptable norm. However, the author portrays Miss Mijares as a “victim” and not as someone who is
happy in such a virtuous state. This is shown as she reflects on her virginal state “with a mixture of shame
and bitterness and guilt”.
Women as dutiful daughters
In almost all cultures, both sons and daughters are expected to be dutiful to their
parents. However, women are expected to be “extra” dutiful in terms of personal sacrifice, often
bearing it in silence and solitude.
Miss Mijares sacrificed her youth in order to put her niece into college and take care
of an ailing, dying mother. In the end, she was left with no mother and no lover.
[last] In her secret heart, Miss Mijares’ young dreams fluttered faintly to life, seeming monstrous
in the rain, near this man --- seeming monstrous but sweet overwhelming. I must get away, she
thought wildly, but he had moved and brushed against her, and where his touch had fallen, her
flesh leaped, and she recalled how his hands had looked that first day, lain tenderly on the edge of
her desk and about the wooden bird (that had looked like a moving, shining dove) and she turned
to him with her ruffles wet and wilted, in the dark she turned to him.

Is Miss Mijares triumphant in subversing the prevailing value system of socialisation? Is

she sympathetic to the value system or to its overturning?
 …and she turned to him with her ruffles wet and wilted, in the dark she turned to him.
Introduction
Feminist approach defines the revelation of woman's real desires and struggles in the society. It aims to expose the
patriarchal premises resulting to the prejudices and discovery of the story or any kind of literary piece using character
analysis.
Author's background and encapsulation of the story
Kerima Polotan Tuvera was a renowned Filipino author. Her works earned some of the highest literary recognitions in
the Philippines, with her short story 'The Virgin' being one of her most notable literary pieces. The word "virgin" that
she mentioned in her story implies somebody who is pure and unstained. As dictated by the society, in order to gain
respect and dignity, a woman must be pure and virgin because it is said that a woman's virginity is equated to her
dignity. The society dictates that woman must preserve her virginity until she gets married, like what Miss Mijares did
to herself. She wasn't able to state her feelings to men because she had to protect her virginity/dignity. Hence, the
story presents Miss Mijares' struggles caused by the social dictates on her individuality that hindered her to find her
own identity as a person and as a woman throughthe feminist type of perspective.
THE VIRGIN

This story is about Miss Mijares — the stereotypical uptight, conventional, old fashioned and
strict spinster. She also lives in a dull life and behaves with stiffness and aloofness.
For a long time, she’s been living in a routine life. When she met the guy, she’s attracted to him
because he doesn’t “fear” her.
“He was bursting all over with an obtruding insolence that at once disarmed and annoyed her.”
She loses herself when she’s with him, but not completely. The symbolism of her getting lost literally is the way she
feels with the guy. She is trudging on to a wholly different and new experience. She finds herself caring for the man –
a subordinate – but she didn’t care.
When she found out that he has a son, she felt betrayed – her feelings betrayed. This is what she is getting into – not
all of the things are in her control.
In the end, she let’s go of all her inhibitions.
A woman like Miss Mijares would find it hard to love. She’s uncomfortable, unsure, and afraid. No one doesn’t just
jump into love. Everyone is cautious and guarded. In the Philippines [at that time], they are more “careful” because
we are conservative people.
THEME

 Love is an unselfish feeling in which everything is shared and sacrificed

 Love= sacrifice
RESOURCES

 http://ezinearticles.com/?Kerima-Polotan-Tuveras-The-Virgin:-
The-Feminist-Approach-The-Quest-of-Being-a-Woman&id=8416683
 https://prezi.com/8casgulejwha/the-virgin-by-keima-polotan-tuvera/