• ISSN: 2382-6282 (Print); 2972-3108 (Online)
    • Abbreviated Title: Int. J. Lang. Lit. Linguist.
    • Frequency: Bimonthly
    • DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL
    • Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Jason Miin-Hwa Lim
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HOME > Archives > 2017 > Volume 3 Number 4 (Dec. 2017) >
IJLLL 2017 Vol.3(4): 167-713 ISSN: 2382-6282
DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL.2017.3.4.128

Women’s Sexuality in Merlinda Bobis’ Banana Heart Summer: An Intersection of Foucault’s Transgressions and Punishment

Orchidia Cabatuando

Abstract—Foucault maintains that power does not repress sexuality but rather amplifies it through discourses. This paper, however, attempts to present how Foucault’s mechanisms of power: prohibition, censorship, and denial are, the very ideas, exercised from the individual to the community level to punish women’s transgressions of sexuality and thereby disadvantage the full measure of her agency. Transgressions are maintained in line with his notion that such happen via the recognition of the boundaries and the crossing of the limits. A close reading of Banana Heart Summer reveals that the women characters can only safely explore and actualize the full measure of their sexuality within the limiting scope of an approved, legitimized union that is unfortunately anchored in an ideal age and within a prescribed social class. Acts outside of this terrain of control are considered transgressions and are met with prohibition, censorship, or denial that come at a great cost to women’s full agency as experienced by Viring, Maring, and VV.

Index Terms—Foucault, punishment, transgressions, women’s sexuality.

Orchidia Cabatuando is with the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. (e-mail: orchid.cabatuando@benilde.edu.p

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Cite:Orchidia Cabatuando, "Women’s Sexuality in Merlinda Bobis’ Banana Heart Summer: An Intersection of Foucault’s Transgressions and Punishment," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 167-713, 2017.

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