Women’s Abandonment in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s Short Stories “Sabrina & Corina" and “Ghost Sickness”

Abstract

This study investigates the representation of and responses to women's abandonment in Kali Fajardo-Anstine's short stories Sabrina & Corina and Ghost Sickness. Rather than defining abandonment solely as an act of physical separation, this research approaches it from two interconnected perspectives: as a socio-economic condition resulting from the breakdown of family structures and as a form of psychological trauma rooted in early childhood "father hunger." Using a qualitative descriptive method and Simone de Beauvoir's concept of "the Other" as its theoretical framework, the study analyzes how the female protagonists, Sabrina and Ana, negotiate their marginalized identities. The findings demonstrate that abandonment extends beyond the experience of loss, functioning instead as a process of existential erasure in which women are reduced to objectified and subordinate positions within a patriarchal social order.