Feminist Analysis on The Virgin

Feminist Analysis on The Virgin

The story revolves around the main character Miss Mijares, a writer who has all the metaphors and symbols in her side coming handy to unveil his emotions. A dependable daughter also wishing love from others, especially a man to become her companion in life. However, being the eldest daughter in the family, she is expected to fulfill her duties to the family before anything else, especially tying the knot. Her extreme desire to have a man to live with was revealed in this segment of the story: "But neither love nor glory stood behind her, only the lurking, empty shadows, and nine years gone, nine years. In the room of her unburied dead, she held up her hands to the light, noting the thick, durable fingers, thinking in a mixture of shame and bitterness and guilt that they had never touched a man."

As shown in the short story, Miss Mijares was spent a considerable of her existence in achieving the burden put on her shoulders: obtaining a college diploma, sending her niece to school, and taking care of her mother. This is the role of the eldest daughter of the Filipino family as dictated by the society.

Going back to Miss Mijares’ man hunt, a certain scenario in the story shows her romantic feelings when she became angered upon knowing that the carpenter she is targeting has a family but felt relieved all of the sudden when the latter admitted he is not wed with his son’s mother. Evidently, it reveals Miss Mijares’ flare-up of hidden regard towards the carpenter who once offered something to Miss Mijares which she liked as suggested by her laughing as she received it. By and through this, it was confirmed that she really was attracted to the carpenter as implied by her reaction.

In addition, the inner struggle of Miss Mijares was shown in the story. Striving real hard to fit in the society as how women should be, she shelled her real self but was later uncovered (not literally hough). It might be so un-you in her case but she has to do so just to adhere to the societal norms for women.

Like almost all other women, Miss Mijares’ protests are implicit, growling inside her but too afraid to go out. Torn between her socially dictated self and the real she, this symbolic protest actually created confusion within her. However, the main character should not be caged by the society forever. As the story unfolds, she learned to be a woman, the one ready to stand for what she believes in, not what the society does. She was untethered from all the societal stuffs as implied in this paragraph:

"In her secret heart, Miss Mijares' young dreams fluttered faintly to life, seeming monstrous in the rain, near this man - seeming monstrous but also sweet and 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 at 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."

In the conclusion of the short story, Miss Mijares has shooed out of captivity the Miss Mijares she has to be, not the one who is muffled and meddled by social expectations to a woman like her. It was further shown as she is already ready to surrender her virginity, an emblem of his self-respect and respect for the man it deserved.