Darna and Valentina: Republic Era's Strong Women in Comics

Abstract

In the world of literature, superheroes are viewed as role models for the readers to do something good in everyday situations. In the Philippines, one superhero remains iconic even years after it was first published, and that is Darna. This study investigates the influence of Mars Ravelo’s Darna in the Philippine literature, and how it represents the strong women during the republic era in comic books. As such, this research uses the characters, symbols, and scenarios present in the comic book to show the republic era’s strong women in comics. This study uses discourse analysis method for qualitative data gathering. The data gathered are scrutinized with the use of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Liberal Feminism theory, and Aldous Huxley’s Visual communication theory, supported with Carl Jung’s Archetypal theory. The findings of the study implies that Mars Ravelo’s Darna exposes the representation of strong Filipina women during the Republic era.