How I No Longer Believe in Pious Women vs. Aswang
whore-red lipstick
G-stringed putas
gold-toothed criminals
sticky night clubs
dirt
mushrooms
dark-hued bitch
shaper of death masks
Spectrums!!!
Also, the juxtaposition of the female figures that come from different histories: Eve and Aswang.
I became enraptured in the idea of Reyes' ending with a poem titled: Aswang
An Aswang is a female creature in Filipino folklore, often stories of Aswangs are told by the mother to their children so they stay home at night. The Aswang is oddly fierce and gothic in nature, feeding off fetuses and being this amorphous female figure that served as a scape goat for inexplicable miscarriages and maladies. Similar to how Eve fulfills the time old archetype of the female role being a readily available scapegoat.
May be it's because Reyes ends Diwata with "Upend me, bend my body, cleave me beyond function. Blame me."
I think all of us are caught up on the same lines! Upend me, bend my body, cleave me beyond function- I truly believe this is a line that means a couple different things but your scape goat theme is true as well.
ReplyDeleteI've heard this said "the anxieties of man have been written on the bodies of women throughout history" i believe that Blame me is alluding to the same thought.
it means so much to end the collection with "aswang," too, because of the way it connects back to the first few eve-creation poems where eve talks about being "cleaved." in these retellings, we're seeing the evidence of dualisms that are so frequently imposed on female figures in religious and mythological stories. the virgin/whore dichotomy is eluded to with the juxtapositions of eve and aswang, but also there's a blending of these two women as hinted at through "cleaved." women are either pure or impure, good or evil, saint or sinner, and are often scapegoated in these tales (mary magdalene, eve, aswang, sirens, etc).
ReplyDeleteHow many people were raised up around the bible? ho! anyway, JoAnn I always want more.
ReplyDelete