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The spinster’s bad faith and misdirection strategies in Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret

Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret (1987) features Sylvie Ponniah as a spinster during The Graduate Woman phenomenon in Singapore during the mid 1980s. While unaffected by the government’s matchmaking efforts and the excitement of the people around her, the story revealed Sylvie’s...

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Main Authors: Mohd Nor, Nabilah, Talif, Rosli, Mani, Manimangai
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universiti Putra Malaysia Press 2017
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/54074/1/The%20spinster%E2%80%99s%20bad%20faith%20and%20misdirection%20strategies%20in%20Catherine%20Lim%E2%80%99s%20The%20English%20Language%20Teacher%E2%80%99s%20Secret.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/54074/
http://journalfbmk.upm.edu.my/index.php/jlc/article/view/62
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spelling my.upm.eprints.540742019-10-21T08:50:13Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/54074/ The spinster’s bad faith and misdirection strategies in Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret Mohd Nor, Nabilah Talif, Rosli Mani, Manimangai Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret (1987) features Sylvie Ponniah as a spinster during The Graduate Woman phenomenon in Singapore during the mid 1980s. While unaffected by the government’s matchmaking efforts and the excitement of the people around her, the story revealed Sylvie’s secret love story and how she had faithfully held onto the memory for twenty years without having her feelings actually reciprocated at the present time. Lim brilliantly projects the issue of feminism, freedom and individual choice within her spinster narrative, opening up possibilities for Sylvie to be read under an existentialist point of view. By using the conceptual framework that highlights the construction of Sartre’s bad faith, this paper aims to dissect Sylvie’s use of misdirection strategies to evade her freedom. The construction of Sylvie’s bad faith is unrevelled by exploring her secret devotion towards Dr. Chellam, her past lover that she could not marry due to her father’s disapproval. The paper hopes to generate a balanced view upon the spinster, so that her individuality and existential freedom receives equivalent attention; as received by many efforts to record the traits of spinsterhood in fiction. Universiti Putra Malaysia Press 2017-09 Article PeerReviewed text en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/54074/1/The%20spinster%E2%80%99s%20bad%20faith%20and%20misdirection%20strategies%20in%20Catherine%20Lim%E2%80%99s%20The%20English%20Language%20Teacher%E2%80%99s%20Secret.pdf Mohd Nor, Nabilah and Talif, Rosli and Mani, Manimangai (2017) The spinster’s bad faith and misdirection strategies in Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret. Journal of Language and Communication, 4 (2). pp. 248-257. ISSN 2289-649X; ESSN: 2637-0875 http://journalfbmk.upm.edu.my/index.php/jlc/article/view/62
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
language English
description Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret (1987) features Sylvie Ponniah as a spinster during The Graduate Woman phenomenon in Singapore during the mid 1980s. While unaffected by the government’s matchmaking efforts and the excitement of the people around her, the story revealed Sylvie’s secret love story and how she had faithfully held onto the memory for twenty years without having her feelings actually reciprocated at the present time. Lim brilliantly projects the issue of feminism, freedom and individual choice within her spinster narrative, opening up possibilities for Sylvie to be read under an existentialist point of view. By using the conceptual framework that highlights the construction of Sartre’s bad faith, this paper aims to dissect Sylvie’s use of misdirection strategies to evade her freedom. The construction of Sylvie’s bad faith is unrevelled by exploring her secret devotion towards Dr. Chellam, her past lover that she could not marry due to her father’s disapproval. The paper hopes to generate a balanced view upon the spinster, so that her individuality and existential freedom receives equivalent attention; as received by many efforts to record the traits of spinsterhood in fiction.
format Article
author Mohd Nor, Nabilah
Talif, Rosli
Mani, Manimangai
spellingShingle Mohd Nor, Nabilah
Talif, Rosli
Mani, Manimangai
The spinster’s bad faith and misdirection strategies in Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret
author_facet Mohd Nor, Nabilah
Talif, Rosli
Mani, Manimangai
author_sort Mohd Nor, Nabilah
title The spinster’s bad faith and misdirection strategies in Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret
title_short The spinster’s bad faith and misdirection strategies in Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret
title_full The spinster’s bad faith and misdirection strategies in Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret
title_fullStr The spinster’s bad faith and misdirection strategies in Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret
title_full_unstemmed The spinster’s bad faith and misdirection strategies in Catherine Lim’s The English Language Teacher’s Secret
title_sort spinster’s bad faith and misdirection strategies in catherine lim’s the english language teacher’s secret
publisher Universiti Putra Malaysia Press
publishDate 2017
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/54074/1/The%20spinster%E2%80%99s%20bad%20faith%20and%20misdirection%20strategies%20in%20Catherine%20Lim%E2%80%99s%20The%20English%20Language%20Teacher%E2%80%99s%20Secret.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/54074/
http://journalfbmk.upm.edu.my/index.php/jlc/article/view/62
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score 13.211869

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