HYSTERICAL FEMININITY IN NICK JOAQUIN’S THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS

Abstract

In this essay, I read Nick Joaquin’s The Woman Who Had Two Navels through the lens of feminist scholarship on the history and social construction of female hysteria. I argue that a critical intertextual reading of this sort affirms the heteropatriarchal foundations of popular ideations of the Philippine nation. I use Sara Mills’ Feminist Stylistics to draw attention to Joaquin’s discourse on women, specifically, hysterical women such as Connie Escobar. I argue that the discourse of the novel—its reliance on the stereotype of the hysterical feminine woman, its focalization through a male gaze, and its employment of the schemata of “women asking for it”—explains why readers find Connie Escobar’s inconsistent behavior and characterization not only plausible, but even subversive. However, reading the novel from the lens of feminist stylistics also reveals instances where the novel reinscribes patriarchal ideology. Any reading that views Connie as a metaphor for the Philippine nation must therefore confront the patriarchal ideology that informs this vision of the nation.