Sherill Asis-Gilbas

Filipino Satire Sherill Asis-Gilbas

This book is another compilation of five research articles. The literary materials used are novels of a transnational writer, Merlinda Bobis. Each article employed different approaches, but all focused on identifying the satirical aspects that unravel Filipino culture, beliefs, practices, and traditions. The first article intended to present the Filipino Satire used as an aesthetic expression of needs relative to socio-cultural and political issues and concerns from the Early Philippine Novel in English to the contemporary works of expatriate writers. Defamiliarization and Humor theories, including Social Criticism, are used as the main frameworks of this paper, which are descriptive, analytical, and qualitative. The second article employed Freud and Lacan's Psychoanalyzes particularly on the pleasure and reality principles. Likewise, the cultural and gender studies and semiotics were applied in the treatment of material. This descriptive-qualitative type of analysis employed on the novel highlights how cultural-domestic issues and socio-political problems brought along by poverty. Furthermore, the material used in the third article is Banana Heart Summer. The article sought to describe the novel's theme, tone, structure, and style, as well as the socio-political and cultural aspects using food as primary trope. It also aimed to present the reality frame of the depicted societal problems of the Filipinos in general and those of Bicolanos in particular. The formalist theory was applied in the treatment of material, which is a satire. The defamiliarization theory was employed through devices such as tropes and social realism. The fourth article used formalistic approach in the literary analysis of the elements of fiction, contextual representation of star as the novel's trope, and the societal problems depicted in the novel. It aimed to introduce a paper that may be used in a teaching-learning scenario that evaluates and criticizes, anchored on the philosophical theory of Lacan on psychoanalysis. Finally, the last article asserts that a piece of literature reflects the worldview of its writer, which is the result of personal experiences, basically rooted from culture. Bobis sees her country's need for liberation and search for cultural strength. Her being transnational motivates her to write from her perspective of Philippine culture associated with her personal experiences in another country.