Date of Publication

8-5-2026

Document Type

Bachelor's Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in Literature major in Literary and Cultural Studies

Subject Categories

Arts and Humanities

College

College of Liberal Arts

Department/Unit

Literature, Department of

Thesis Advisor

Genevieve L. Asenjo

Defense Panel Member

Juan Miguel Leandro L. Quizon
Mary Jessel B. Duque

Abstract (English)

This study examines Kate Osias' Heroes, Villains, and Other Women (2018) through the lens of existential feminism and Philippine feminist literary criticism. Drawing on Simone de Beauvoir's concepts of immanence, transcendence, and ethical ambiguity from The Second Sex (1949) and The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), localized through Delia D. Aguilar's nationalist feminist critique, Grace Chang's material feminist scholarship, and Kimberlé Crenshaw's intersectionality theory, this study makes a close textual analysis of all thirteen stories in the collection. This study argues that Heroes, Villains, and Other Women constructs female agency not as uncomplicated empowerment but as an ethically ambiguous process of "becoming," in which women's acts of transcendence generate psychological, relational, moral, and material consequences that are always inseparable from the colonial, class, and patriarchal conditions that produced them. It further reveals that the collection's speculative form is integral to this argument rather than incidental to it: by externalizing and materializing the conditions of becoming, the genre makes the costs of women's agency uniquely visible and inescapable in ways that realist fiction cannot. Becoming thus, this study insists, is never free. Freedom and harm are often co-produced in the same act, and what women are required to carry in the aftermath of their own agency is not simply a side effect of their stories but is central to them.

Abstract Format

html

Abstract (Filipino)

Sinusuri ng pag-aaral na ito ang Heroes, Villains, and Other Women (2018) ni Kate Osias sa pamamagitan ng peminismong eksistensyal at kritikang pampanitikang peminista sa Pilipinas. Gamit ang mga konsepto ni Simone de Beauvoir na immanence, transcendence, at ethical ambiguity mula sa The Second Sex (1949) at The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), na pinalalalim sa pamamagitan ng nasyonalistang kritikang peminista ni Delia D. Aguilar, materyalistang peminismo ni Grace Chang, at teorya ng interseksyonalidad ni Kimberlé Crenshaw, nagsasagawa ang pag-aaral ng masusing tekstuwal na pagsusuri sa labintatlong kuwento sa koleksiyon. Iginigiit ng pag-aaral na ito na ang Heroes, Villains, and Other Women ay naglalarawan ng agency ng kababaihan hindi bilang isang payak na anyo ng empowerment kundi bilang isang proseso ng becoming o patuloy na paghubog ng sarili na may ethical ambiguity,, na kung saan ang mga pagkilos ng mga kababaihan tungo sa transcendence ay nagbubunga ng mga sikolohikal, relasyonal, moral at materyal na mga konsekwensyang hindi maaaring mahiwalay sa mga kolonyal at patriyarkal na kondisyong humuhubog sa mga ito. Ipinapakita rin nito na ang ispekulatibong anyo ng koleksyon ay hindi lamang isang estilistikong pagpili ng uri ng kwento kundi mahalagang bahagi ng pangunahing argumento nito. Sa pamamagitan ng pagbibigay ng konkretong anyo sa mga kondisyon ng becoming, lantarang ipinapakita ng genre na ito ang mga kapalit ng agency ng kababaihan sa paraang hindi kayang ipakita ng realistikong piksyon. Sa huli ay iginigiit ng pag-aaral na ang becoming ay hindi kailanman magiging isang malayang aksyon. Ang kalayaan at pinsala ay sabay na nililikha ng iisang pagkilos, at ang mga pasaning kinakailangang harapin ng mga kababaihan matapos isakatuparan ang kanilang sariling agency ay hindi lamang bunga ng kanilang mga kwento kundi ay mahalagang bahagi ng mga ito.

Abstract Format

html

Language

English

Format

Electronic

Keywords

Women in literature

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Embargo Period

8-14-2028

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Available for download on Monday, August 14, 2028

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