Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This qualitative-critical study analyzes six selected usípons (short stories) of a Filipino fictionist, Socorro Federis-Tate (SFT) written in 1950s to 1980s compiled and published in 2014 in Bikol, Philippines in a short story collection Midnight and Other Stories using postcolonial perspective. Through Fanon’s three-phase narrative of a native writer and Realubit’s Bikol Literary History, the study shows that SFT is a minabúlos writer who lets the voice and heart of her people flow through her writings. She explored the themes of loneliness, solitude, and loss in her works that reflect the postcolonial struggles being experienced by the native Agtas. This study also reveals how SFT’s usípons, as part of Philippine minor literature, function as specimen of postcolonial Bikol literature. Her works are written in English, yet she used the language of the ‘center’ fully adapted to Bikol discourse. Her utilization of the colonizer’s language is merely not mimicry but rather a political act. Further, the characters she peopled her fiction with reflect Bikol’s úragon personality. They are enduring, persevering, and strong. They may have their weaknesses and flaws, but their love for their people and ‘home’ persists. Hence, this study concludes that SFT’s stories contain postcolonial discourses that express the hybridity of Bikol identities and ideologies which show the power of Filipino postcolonial culture, language, and literature. From these analyses, several recommendations and research implications are presented.