“Desire” - Formalist Criticism Example of the Story

This certain essay is formalist criticism example. Here we will be examining the traits and emotions of the people in the story. Because of the beautiful figure of the woman, it could relate to why some traits are instituted in the society.

The short story “Desire” by Paz Latorena is about how a woman just wants to find real and true love. The story started with the writer describing only the woman’s face in the first paragraph.

“She was homely. A very broad forehead gave her face an unpleasant, masculine look. Her eyes, which were small, slanted at the corners and made many of her acquaintances wonder if perchance she had a few drops of celestial blood in her veins. Her nose was broad and flat, and its nostrils were always dilated, as if breathing were an effort. Her mouth, with thick lips, was a long, straight; gash across her face made angular by her unusually big jaws.” And in the next two to three paragraphs the writer describes the woman’s body, how good or so called “godly” her body was, how perfect her waist are and how men easily fall for her body.

The plot is slowly introducing the female character and slowly showing the readers that someone accepted her despite what she looks. While the girl is still hiding her body, she continued to cover her body until it was time that she trusts him.

The woman is a Filipina and the guys who fell for her was a foreigner. Normally there was a social idea in the Philippines that woman from the country marries a foreigner in order to get out of poverty. But this story is different where the foreigner fell in love, and the woman despised the foreigner for loving her body or once he told her, “I love.... Your body.” This woman had problems on why she didn’t like her body and when he said those words she was deeply hurt. So then she left.

The short story was created like the narrator was just telling us a story of the woman who wanted love. There are some words that was redundant such as the words, race, love, beauty, these terms are being used over and over again because they represent meanings in the story. Race has its own issue of love and war. Love, is the center of the story, the reason why this story was created, in order to find true love. Beauty, because we all know that real beauty resides from within. The beginning of the story in relation to the end is somewhat related, because it first described the beauty of the woman’s body. In the end the man who fell in love with her ended up complimenting the body instead of her face. The story is created to let the woman express how real beauty is from within, and not just the outside. This is kind of like ranting in a form of a story. That the woman is only loved for her body.

The Feminist approach shown in the story is displayed as the homely girl depicts or represents the entire mass of women, as being constantly perverted by the eyes of men. A lot of men either shame or adore the body parts of women, from their faces down to their toes. They judge and fantasize women’s body parts regarding their weight, body shape, and their curves. It is always the women, that is most commonly being cat-called than men, because women have more charismatic appeal and is being glared and admired most of the time. Men view the outside piece of women more rather than what’s inside of them that really portrays them overally. Men are more hungry for lust and sexual desires because that’s what makes them men. Women can become insecure and doubtful of themselves given that some men criticize women’s physical appearance causing them to despise themselves and feel redundant.

‘’Men looked at her face and turned their eyes away; they looked at her body and were enslaved. They forget the broad masculine forehead, the small eyes that slanted at the corners, the unpleasant mouth, the aggressive jaws. All they had eyes for was that body, those hips that has stolen the curve of the crescent moon.’’

‘’She was disgusted. And hurt.’’

‘’Deliberately she set out to hide from the eyes of men the beautiful body that to her was a curse rather than a blessing. She started wearing long, wide dresses that completely disfigured her.’’

Being criticized can lower ones self-esteem, many women have anxiety or fear of walking in the streets, because they are scared of being sexually harassed and began to hate and dislike their own bodies to not be peeped or eyeballed. The phrase ‘’he forgot that he was a white man, that she was a brown maiden ‘’ disdains Filipinas because not all Filipinas are maidens, just because many OFW’s work outside the country it does not mean that all ‘’brown’’ Filipinas are servants and domestic to foreginers. It also stated that Filipinas who encounters with the white Americans are trying to escape poverty, it resembles that Filipinas are dependent on white Americans for the sake of them to be in the higher class food chain.

“If I didn’t nobody would notice me with my face and my … my figure,” she hated herself for stammering the last words. This phrase illustrates that women are not noticed by the public if they are not appealing or pleasing to the eyes of men, they would’t be able to be observed or recognized if it weren’t for their delightful looking bodies.

To summarize, the essay is a formalist criticism example story were the homely girl used as being hurt and distressed at the end of the story because of how simple it is to uncover what the actual desire, hunger or thirst the guy really crave for. It revealed the kind of intention the white guy really wants and was exposed immediately after saying he love her…body instead of her face. “For what?” she asked in a tired voice. “You have just been yourself… like other men.”

Bibliography

• Rheynely Follow. (2015, July 08). Formalism ppt. 
• A Brief Guide to Formalist Criticism: How to Go About It - A Research Guide. (2018, August 21).
• Crossman, A. (2018, December 07). What is Feminist Theory?