Subject: Literary Criticism

Critical Analysis Essay

Cavite State University

A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF ANGELA MANALANG'S REVOLT FROM HYMEN: THE

MALE-CONSTRUCTED ROLE OF WOMEN

Over the years, women are receiving degrading views and occupy an inferior

position in a partriarchal society. Women are facing numerous stereotypes, being

oppressed and are expected to conform with male-constructed roles. In this analysis,

one will discover how the poem Revolt from Hymen by Angela Manalang mirrors the

male-constructed role of women and how women revolt against the dominant male

culture.

One of the male-constructed role which is been on going since the very

beginning is the purely sexual and reproductive role that men have assigned to women.

According to Kanyal in the website India Today, when Miss Universe 1994 Sushmita

Sen was given the question, "What is the essence of being a woman?" she answered

the quote "Just being a woman is God’s gift that all of us must appreciate. The origin of

a child is a mother, and is a woman. She shows a man what sharing, caring and loving

is all about. That is the essence of a woman." From that answer, one can already

discern that society has made women believe that their essence or their primary role is

to bear a child, to be a mother.

 Having such male-constructed roles, Angela Manalang then wrote the poem

Revolt from Hymen. This poem is a virulent protest against the solely sexual male-

constructed role of women. According to Dr. Hunt, the hymen is a stretchy collar of

tissue at the entrance to a woman's vagina and as believed by many, it determines a

woman's virginity. In the poem, the hymen becomes a symbol for the society's concept

of femininity. In relation to this, the word hymen also symbolizes the idea that a

woman's role is to be a man's companion in sexual activity and procreation.

For this idea, the speaker in the poem states the following lines:

O to be free at last.... (line 1)

To be alone at last.... (line 7)

These lines echoe the women's cry for freedom from society's oppressive grip

and social constructs. Women want to be free from being hymen-ized and being

depersonalized into a mere sexual organ. She demands to be humanized rather than

hymen-ized. Hymen-ization deprives her of her true identity as a woman and this is

effectively conveyed through the followin lines:

With passion weighted down upon the breast,

To turn the face this way and that and feel

No kisses festering on it like sores (lines 4-6)

The speaker in this line suggests that hymen-ization disfigures her face, distorts

her true essence and undermines her true value as a person. Furthermore, the speaker
is utterly revolted by this type of degrading union with man and thus rejoices in being

alone and free from man's unclean passion. The speaker also states the line:

....to sleep at last, As infants sleep within the womb of rest! (line 2)

This line conveys that the speaker yearns to return to some kind of Earthmother,

the source of the eternal feminine, from whom she may recover her face and essence

from man's distortion.

The poem's final two lines as apparent below, introduces the virgin/whore

dichotomy. The virgin, whose hymen is still intact, is a symbol for all women who have

chosen to conform to femininity's standards. Meanwhile, the whore and her broken

hymen come to represent everything the virgin is not: active, aggressive, and

subversive. The phrase "broken the seal" also conveys that the speaker severs the

chain that binds the feminine role to the female body.

To be alone at last, broken the seal

That marks the flesh no better than a whore's! (lines 7-8)

In conclusion, Revolt from Hymen presents the male-constructed roles of women

and women then revolts and claims her own freedom.

REFERENCES:

Dy, J. (1970, January 1). POETRY CRITIQUE: REVOLT FROM HYMEN.

http://projectbackspace.blogspot.com/2007/03/poetry-critique-revolt-from-

hymen.html?m=1.

Hunt, P. (n.d.). Hymens and virginity: Health Navigator NZ. Health Navigator New

Zealand. https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/health-a-z/h/hymens-and-virginity/.

Kanyal, J. Sushmita Sen's Miss Universe answer that won the world. On

Throwback Thursday no. India Today. (n.d.).

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indiatoday.in/amp/movies/celebrities/story/sushmit

a-sen-s-miss-universe-answer-that-won-the-world-on-throwback-thursday-1742294-

2020-11-19.

Manlapaz, E., & Pagsanghan, S. (1989). A Feminist Reading of the Poetry of

Angela Manalang Gloria. Philippine Studies, 37(4), 389-411. Retrieved June 12, 2021,

from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42633146