Entanglements:
Journal of Posthumanities
E-ISSN: 3107-488X

(Article)
Postcolonial Philippine Nonhuman Animals in Jessica Zafra's The Age of Umbrage and Irene Sarmiento's Stray Cats
Authored By — Alexandra A. Bichara

Abstract

While postcolonial studies often foreground the human "other," they have often overlooked nonhuman animals, whose marginalization persists even within narratives that are attentive to structural inequities. Drawing on Peter Singer's critique of speciesism and John Berger's reflections on the visibility of nonhuman animals, this article investigates the representation of nonhuman animals in Jessica Zafra's The Age of Umbrage (2020) and Irene Sarmiento's Stray Cats (2023), situating both novels within the context of Philippine postcolonial literature. Both texts position nonhuman animals in highly constrained roles: either as consumable bodies embedded in human food systems or as symbolic messengers deployed to articulate human emotions and cultural anxieties. Through the figures of Guadalupe "Guada" de Leon and Elisa Paz, two young female protagonists whose lives are shaped by their relationships with nonhuman animals on and off the page, the novels draw from Philippine folklore while simultaneously reinforcing the subordination of nonhuman life. Scenes of slaughter and pet keeping reflect the routine commodification of nonhuman animals, while the incorporation of mythical creatures reveals the link between nonhuman animals and symbolic meaning. This dual positioning emphasizes how nonhuman animals in these novels are consistently framed through utilitarian or representational lenses, with little space for recognizing their subjectivity outside human-centered narratives. Both novels highlight the spatial marginalization of nonhuman animals through controlled environments such as zoos and urban landscapes, where they appear as spectacles rather than autonomous beings. Despite these narrative limitations, both The Age of Umbrage and Stray Cats suggest subtle sites of interspecies connection. The enduring presence of feline companions offers moments of intimacy and mutual recognition that complicate the dominant anthropocentric framing, pointing to the potential for more ethical modes of relationality. This article analyzes these tensions to contribute to emerging discussions in postcolonial ecocriticism and human-animal studies, foregrounding the complex ways nonhuman animals are rendered both visible and invisible in contemporary Philippine fiction.

Keywords

Philippine literature, Postcolonial Studies, nonhuman animals, Critical Animal Studies, folklore

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