patayin ang lalaki

Anu-anong mga makabaklang subersiyon laban sa patriyarkal na sistema ng lipunan ang mapupuna sa maikling kuwentong “Lalaki” (Nasa Ladlad 2: Anthology of Phlippine Gay Writing. Pasig: Anvil, 1996) ni Honorio Bartolome De Dios?
Sa pamamagitan ng tekstuwal na pagsusuri ng “Lalaki,” isisiwalat ang samu’t saring manipestasyon ng pambaklang pag-aaklas kontra mga panlipunang inhustisyang iniaanak ng kulturang macho at homophobia. Ang mga subersibong kaisipang ito ang ipinapahiwatig ng may-akda na mahalagang susi para mapaalpas sa pagkakakulong—mapalaya—ang mga baklang biktima ng iba’t ibang diskriminasyong patriyarkal.
Tubong Marilao, Bulacan si Honorio Bartolome De Dios na kakapanalo lamang ng unang gantimpala sa katatapos na Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature 2004 para sa maikling kuwento niyang “Etong Bayad, ‘Sang Kalayaan Lang.” Ang ngayon ay nakabase sa Meycauayan na si De Dios ay naipagpalimbag na ng University of the Philippines Press noong 1998 ng antolohiya ng mga maikling kuwentong may paksa ng kabaklaan, ang Sa Labas ng Parlor, kung saan kabilang ang akdang “Lalaki.” Giniya ng iba’t ibang karanasan mula sa seminaryo, sa mga pinagtrabahuang non-government organization, at sa State University kung saan nakapag-workshop siya bilang fellow sa Institute of Creative Writing, marubdob na tinalakay ni De Dios ang sensitibong tema ng pambaklang subersiyon sa harap ng represibong ideyolohiya ng patriyarka at ang kaakibat nitong homophobia.
Nabuo ang akda sa panahong umaatikabo ang rebolusyong sekswal at ginigiba na ng postmodernong homosekswal ang pasaway na pader ng tradisyunal na machismo at modernong heteroseksismo. Dito sa Pilipinas, nakapaglabas na ng erotika ang mga Filipina sa pamamagitan ng Forbidden Fruit, at sumunod na rin ang panitikan ng mga bading sa pagkakaimprenta ng Ladlad 1 at 2 (at ang papalabas na Ladlad 3), mga pangyayaring hindi inaasahan kalahating siglo na ang nakararaan matapos makasuhan si Estrella Alfon sa paglathala ng umano ay pornograpikong Fairy Tale for the City.[1]
Masasabi ngang buong tapang na ang paglaladlad ng mga bakla upang bawiin ang inagaw na karapatang lugar sa lipunan, at isang testamento ang akdang “Lalaki” sa katapangan ng bading na baliktarin ang lamesa upang wasakin ang mga kumbensyonal na paratang sa mga badaf[2] bilang duwag, ‘di makapananakit, malalandi, sex pervert at iba pa. Sintomas ang akda bilang patunay na gaya ng sinumang inaping biktima ay kaya nitong maghiganti at panahon na para kitlin ang mga isteryutipo sa kabaklaan[3]upang mabawi ang lugar na pinamamayanihan ng mga lalaki gayong para ito sa lahat.
Walang pangalan ang lalaki na siyang sentro ng atensyon ni Arnold, ang pangunahing tauhan. Tama lang na hindi siya pangalanan, dahil isa na itong paraan ng rebelyon sa patriyarka kung saan ang babae, ayon kay Maxine Hingston, ay “no name woman” kung paanong nakasunod sa second sex ni Simoun de Beauvoir ang mga bakla bilang third sex. Samantalang maaaring ang lalaki ang tinutukoy sa pamagat ng akda, tugma rin ito sa mga bakla dahil higit sa anumang machong paniniil ay lalaki rin ang mga bading. Sa umpisa, sinabing “kaupisina [ni Arnold] ang lalaki…[at] naramdaman [niyang] ganito ang kahihinatnan ng mga pangyayari” (p. 221) na ang lalaki ay kakapit sa kanya na isang bakla. Gayunpaman, “umasa pa rin” siya dahil “wala naman[g] pagpipiliiang masyado” (p. 221) lalo kung tutuusin ang konteksto ng bakla sa Pilipinas na ang hanap ay tunay na lalaki, iba sa Kanluraning homosekswal na puwedeng magmahalan ang kapwa bakla. Sa pagngiti ng lalaki kay Arnold, gumanti siya ng isa ring ngiti dahil “wala naming masama” (p. 222) kahit pa ang pagngiti sa kapwa lalaki ay nagbubukas ng posibilidad na mapagkamalang bakla. Kinaibigan nga siya ng lalaki, kaya bilang kabayaran sa pagkakasama niya sa homososyal na institusyon ng kanyang barkada ay kinailangan niyang “mag-blow-out” (p. 222). “Sanay…[a]t hindi [niya] ito first time” (p.223), ang mapagsamantalahan ng mga lalaki. Sa iba’t ibang mukha ng lipunan, naiisahan ng mga lalaki ang mga bakla: nagagatasan ng pera, naiinsulto nang walang katwiran at dahilan, naaagawan ng mga pribilehiyo dahil lamang straight ang oryentasyon nila at hindi maluwag ang restriksyon sa mga bakla.
Naging serye ang paglibre-libre ni Arnold sa lalaki at kabarkada nito, kaya sinuklian naman nito ng mabuting pakikitungo, isang pagkakalapit na pagbibintangang abnormal, imoral, o simpleng sekswal kung sa konteksto ng lipunang umaayaw sa homososyal na ugnayang hindi naman sa militar, pulisya o seminaryo. Minsang yayain nitong makitulog na siya sa bahay nito sa Recto, sa taxi ay naging “close na close” (p. 224) sila sapat para maidantay ni Arnold ang braso sa hita ng natutulog na lalaki at, sa pag-aakalang magiging kahalayan ang simpleng dantay, pabastos na binantaan ng taxi driver si Arnold ng “Day, huwag dito sa taxi” (p. 225) gawin ang lampungan sunod ang makahulugang pag-iling na nagpapahiwatig na ang mga bakla ay hindi makapagpigil sa kalibugan kaya ‘di karapat-dapat igalang. Sa pagtawag lamang nito ng “Day” kay Arnold ay iniinsulto na ito dahil ang Inday ay pambabaeng pantawag at hindi naman kinakailangang ang isang bakla ay magnanais na maging babae.
Sa kuwarto ng lalaki kung saan nagkalat ang mga tanda ng tipikal sa patriyarkang komodipikasyon at obhetipikasyon ng mga babae (Playboy magazines, mga puta sa Quezon Avenue), lumitaw na may homophobia pala ang lalaki dahil minura nito ang kapatid na baklang “hanggang panaginip, ayaw [siyang] tantanan“ (p. 226). Kasalanan para sa macho ang kabaklaan kaya turing ng lalaki ay “nagbiro pa ang tadhana” (p. 226) nang maging binabae ang nag-iisang kapatid. Gayunpaman, hindi kumbensyonal para sa kapatid nitong bakla ang drug pushing, isang napakapeligrosong trabaho na maiuugnay lamang sa mga tunay na lalaki at hindi sa mga binabae. Ang paggamit nito ng kanyang parlor bilang front ng pagtutulak ng shabu ay pahiwatig na matapang din ang mga bakla, dangan nga lamang at hindi paborable ang ganitong trabaho, bakla man o hindi. Hindi nadadalaw ng lalaki ang kanyang kapatid, bagkus ay mga pinsan nilang bakla lamang, patunay na sila-silang mga bakla ang aasahang magdadamayan. Higit sa “bangungot na ‘yon” (p. 227) ng lalaki ay bangungot din para kay Arnold ang ironiya ng pagkahulog ng kanyang baklang loob sa isang homophobic na lalaki. Ilang beses ding lumitaw na homoerotiko ang ilang bahagi ng akda sa pagpapakita ng lalaki bilang senswal na kaakit-akit—tugon ng awtor sa obhetipikasyon naman ng lalaki sa perspektibo ng bakla.
Minsang napasakay pauwi ng Monumento si Arnold ay nakatabi niya ang isang mamang “ni hindi tuminag” (p. 227) sa pagkakaupo upang sakupin ang pandalawahang upuan sa bus. Kung hindi pa siya nakiusap na umusod ito, hindi pa siya makakaupo. Simboliko ang pangyayaring ito sa kasalukuyang sitwasyon sa lipunan ng lehitimong lalaki sa patriyarka at sa mga ‘di-tunay na lalaki. Ang mundo ay dinodominahan ng mga macho at inietsa-puwera ang mga bading. Dahil ang sitwasyong ito ay hindi nag-aanyaya ng katarungang panlipunan, may mga katulad ni Arnold na isasaboses ang kanilang hinaing at hangaring bawiin ang puwestong nararapat sa kanila. Ang hindi kumibo, may implikasyon ng pagpayag na magulangan. Pagkaraang magkomento hinggil sa pangit na patakarang ito ng pananakop at pagsasantabi, nabuo sa isip ni Arnold ang dalawin ang kapatid ng lalaki, ang baklang si Archie. Madali siyang dalawin dahil may kakilala siya sa Kampo Crame, ngunit kung bakit niya “dadalawin ang isang taong nakakulong dahil sa drugs, hindi…naman kaano-ano, ni hindi…pa nakikita sa tanangbuhay” (p. 227) ay ang pagkakapareho ng kapalaran nila sa mukha ng panlalamang ng mga may pribilehiyo kaysa kanilang nagkataong alanganin ang oryentasyon.
Nonlinear ang kuwento kaya nagbalik-nakaraan din sa panahong hayskul si Arnold at ang kagustuhang makapag-uwi ng karangalang Kadete ng Taon ay hindi natupad. Manapa, nahuli siya sa isang entrapment kung saan ang company commander niya ay inakit siyang hawakan ang pagkalalaki nito at nang mailawan sila ay idineklara nang “nanggapang ng commander si Arnold” (p. 229), bagay na nagdulot ng malaking kahihiyan sa pamilya. Samantalang siya ang biktima, gumana na naman ang dobleng patakaran ng lipunan dahil siya umano ang gumawa ng unang hakbang para gahasain ang commander. Nabaligtad ang sitwasyon dahil kung mailalagay siya sa balag ng kahihiyan gaya ng panggagapang ay hindi nga naman siya karapat-dapat bigyan ng medalya. Nabugbog pa siya ng kanyang tatay at ipinaalaalang siya ay lalaki at hindi babae. Sinagot naman ng nakatali at hinahagupt na si Arnold na hindi nito kailanman inilusyong maging babae, kung paanong lahat ng naliwanagang bakla ay nangangarap na maging tootoo lang sila sa kanilang baklang sarili at hindi ang umasang maging ganap na babae o maging tunay na lalaki. Kahit pa phallogocentric ang paghawak ng tatay ni Arnold sa kanyang pagkalalaki bilang paalala na “hindi [ito] kepyas” (p. 234) at “ang gamit nito ay sa babae lamang” (p. 235), hindi rin naman pinagkatandaan ni Arnold iyon dahil nagpatuloy siya sa pagiging bakla hanggang magkatrabaho—isang pagtayo laban sa mga lalaking may delusyong mapapahuma nila ang kabaklaan ng mga bakla kung gugulpihing mabuti para iwaksi ang endensyang maging binabae.
Minsang nagkausap sina Arnold at ang kaupisinang si Edna, naitanong ng babae kung bakla ba si Arnold. Sa sagot nitong mawawalan siya ng trabaho kung aamining ang totoo, masasalamin ang diskriminasyon sa mga bakla sa propesyonal na industriya dahil lamang sa oryentasyon. Samantalang dapat na protektahan ng batas ang karapatang pantao ng mga bakla sa kahit anumang uri ng diskriminasyon, nagbibigay-komento ang may akda hinggil sa kahungkagan ng awtoridad dahil maraming bakla ang nakararanas ng panlilibak, pang-iinit at pagkawala sa trabaho kung matunugang kumukulot ang boses o pumipilantik ang mga daliri nila. Sa huli ay sarili rin ng mga bakla ang tangi nilang maasahan. Pinapapag-ingat nang doble ni Edna si Arnold sa pakikitungo nito sa lalaki dahil hindi malayong isailalim din siya nito sa diskriminasyon. Sa puntong “parang walang nangyari[ng]” (p. 231) sigawan at komprontasyon sa pagitan nila ng lalaki nang nagdaang araw, pinalampas na lang basta ni Arnold ang pang-aabusong patriyarkal dahil gumagana ang palsong kamalayang dapat magpailalim sa lalaki dahil “isang simpleng bagay lang ang nangyari at hindi…na kailangang palakihin pa.” (p. 231) Sa mga mata ng mga taga-opisina, ang bakla ang gumagawa ng gulo kahit pa ang lalaki ang gumawa ng eskandalosong pagsigaw-sigaw.
Sa pagdalaw ni Arnold kay Archie, nakita ni Arnold kung gaano kalaki ang pagmamahal at pagmamalasakit ni Archie para sa kuya nito, nagpapahiwatig na ang mga bakla ay may kapasidad na magmahal kahit pa ano ang lagay ng kanilang oryentasyon, isang pagbaliktad sa kaisipang wala silang alam sa pag-ibigmalban sa pakikipagtaliksakung sinu-sinong lalaki. Dito rin mapapansin kung gaano katalas ang tinatawag na gaydar sa pagitan ng mga bading: alam agad ni Archie na bading si Arnold dahil sa pagdikit-dikit nito sa lalaki. Totoo kung gayon ang “it takes one to know one.” Gayunpaman, pinapapag-ingat din siya ni Archie dahil “kahit sinong bakla, dapat nag-iingat sa pakikitungo sa kahit nasinong lalaki,” kahit pa sa kuya nitong maaaring kilalang-kilala niya. Ang paulit-ulit na babalang ito ay parunggit sa abusong ginagawa ng kulturang macho na mananagasa kahit sino upang manatili sa posisyon ng kapangyarihan sa lipunan. Nang tanungin ni Arnold ang binatilyong nagsuplong sa kanya sa mga awtoridad, nalaman nitong “ginawa siyang kabit nu’ng arresting officer na lumusob sa parlor” (p. 232) ni Archie, patunay na ilusyon lamang ng mga tunay na lalaki ang kadalisayan ng mga homososyal na institusyong gaya ng pulisya o militar. Ang pulis na kinabitan ng binatilyong shabu user ay isang baklang nakontamina ang sinasabing purung-purong panlalaking institusyon. Hindi kapani-paniwala ngunit may balintuna ng katotohanan na may mga baklang pulis, pari, sundalo at iba pa, at kaya ng mga bakla na pumalaot sa mga propesyong inaakalang pang-macho lang. Sa pag-alis ni Arnold sa kulungan ay lalo niyang naramdamang “pareho [silang] nagulangan ni Archie [at] pareho lang [silang] biktima” (p. 232) ng patriyarkal na opresyong patuloy na nagkakait na pantay-pantay na pribilehiyo sa lahat ng kasarian. Hindi tuloy maiwasan ng iba na maging eskapista (gaya ng pagtira ng cough syrup at damo noong hayskul bilang pagrerebelde nilang mga bakla sa lipunang ayaw silang intindihin at tanggapin) dahil ito ang nakikita nilang paraan para mag-alsa sa sistema ng paniniil na tanging machismo lang ang makagagawa laban sa mga ‘di-macho gaya ng mga bakla at babae.
Noong magdiwang ng kaarawan si Arnold, nadarang ang dalawa sa kanilang pagkalasing at may namagitang sekswal sa kanila. Nang muling gumawa ng pasigaw-sigaw na eksena sa opisina ang lalaki hinggil sa paglalagay umano ni Arnold sa kanya sa kahihiyan, iginigiit nito kay Arnold na lasing siya at wala sa tamang huwisyo kaya niya nagawang pumatol, gayong alam ng bakla na gnusto nila pareho ang nangyari. Dahil ang anumang sekswal na kaugnayan ng isang lalaki sa bakla ay magdudulot ng insulto sa pagkatao, nagkakaroon ng homophobia ang lalaki at ikakatwirang “libog lang ang lahat sa kanya at wala namang kahulugan…Lalaki siya at hindi…dapat umasa” (p. 235) ang baklang maitutumbalik ang nararamdaman niyang pag-ibig para rito. Umabot pa sa puntong naipahamak ang karera ni Arnold matapos na mabigyan siyang misconduct warning ng kumpare ng lalaki na nagpipilit sabihing nilasing lang ni Arnold ang lalaki at nalibugan lang ito kaya pumatol. Sa ganito ay iniipon ng mga lalaki ang lahat nilang maikakatwiran para huwag ituring ng iba ang homosekswal nilang ugnayan sa bakla bilang manipestasyon na rin ng kabaklaan sa kanilang machong-machong sarili. Hanggang sex lang umano ang lahat at ang ginagawa niya ay parte ng pagiging “barako” (p. 237). Lamang,alam ng mga bakla na may mga lalaking nasisiyahan talaga sa relasyong homosekswal at sa kasiyahang ito, dumadausdos na sila sa kontinuum ng kabaklaan taliwas sa ideyang hindi mababahiran ng dungis ang tunay na lalaki.
Nagkaroon ng kabuuang subersiyon ang kabaklaan laban sa patriyarka sa pagtatapos ng kuwento kung saan sa pagbibigay ng tulong ni Arnold sa lalaki ay nagawa nila uling magsiping. Sa unang yugto ng sex trip nila ay nagpapakumbaba lang si Arnold sa lahat ng gusto ng lalaki ngunit nang ipinagpilitan nito ang inaayawan ni Arnold na anal sex, pinuwersa niya ang bakla upang magawa ang gusto. Naging artikulado man ang bakla sa paggiit ng pag-ayaw niya, pinilit siya ng lalaki at sinadista. Dito na nanlaban si Arnold dahil nasaktan siya, at sapat ang pananakit na iyon ng lalaki upang humulagpos ang pagrerebelde ng bakla at wakasan na ang tahimik ngunit nagdurusang pagsunod sa lalaki. Sa puntong ito ay nagawa pa ng lalaking murahin at insultuhin ang sangkabaklaan sa pagsasabing “aayaw-ayaw…pa, [pero] ang galing…namang tsumupa” sabay yaya na “[i]tuloy na” ang pagniniig at “’wag nang magkunwari” (p. 239). Namamali ang lalaki sa pag-akusa sa bakla na kapag ginagahasa ang bakla, hiniling nilang mangyari sa kanya iyon, na atas ng kutob-machismo na gusto rin ng bakla ang pamumuwersa kaya wala siyang karapatang tumanggi. Pagdating sa sukdulan kung saan itinuloy ni Arnold ang pagpapaligaya sa lalaki, hindi na matatapos magsalita ang lalaki dahil ang bakla na ang dodomina sa huling pananalita, pakita na lumamang na ang bakla sa lalaki at papatayin na niya ang lahat ng mga istiryutipo at makalumang pagtuturing sa mga bakla. Sa pinal na aksyon ng panananaksak sa lalaki, pinapatay ng bakla hindi lamang ang lalaking naghahawak ng mali-maling kaisipan kontra mga bakla kundi ang lahat ng mga negatibong imahen ng bakla sa utak ng lalaki, ng mga barkada nito sa opisina, ng taxi driver, ng eskuwelahang nilayasan niya matapos ang entrapment sa camping, ng kanyang ama, at ng lipunan sa kabuuan. Ngayong “patay na ang lalaki” (p. 240), naisakatuparan ng biktimang bakla ang isang makatarungang paghihiganti laban sa patriyarkal na opresyon at namumuo na ang unos na magliligalig sa normalisadong ideyolohiya ng machismo sa lipunan.
[1]Dalisay, Jose. The Filipino Short Story in English: An Update for the 90’s. Nasa Filipiniana Reader. Legasto, Priscelina P., Ed. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Open University, 1998.
[2]Garcia, Neil. Philippine Gay Literature. Nasa Performing the Self: Occasional Prose. Quezon City: UP Press, 2003.
[3]Remoto, Danton. Introduksiyon ng Ladlad 2: Anthology of Philippine Gay Writing. Garcia, Neil at Danton Remoto, mga Editor. Pasig: Anvil, 1996.

flawed, no less: on pygmalion

Only to a certain extent can a woman approximate perfection in a man’s gaze. In a macho society where we live and where literary production get perpetually contaminated with certain ideologies such as patriarchy, characters such as Pygmalion, Marguerite and Gwen in John Updike’s Pygmalion come fully-bodied and conspire in order to promote gender bashing.
Pygmalion, the male character in whose scrutiny the wives were assessed, reminds us of the mythical Pygmalion who, in spite of women, created the perfect woman in the form of an ivory statue. Like the misogynist of the ancient Greek myth, Pygmalion was shown to have “dislike about his first wife (Marguerite),” even as “he liked…her gift of mimicry.” This dislike was set side by side with his delight about the “liveliness in bed” of his secret mistress and would-be second wife (Gwen). In essence, Pygmalion found his wife to have fallen short of his expectation, his delusional craving for a perfect woman, which condition motivated him into remarrying in the hope that Gwen would be it. This anticipative nature of man existent in Pygmalion’s character complements the false consciousness that women are almost always flawed, and will never quite achieve fullness of person if only for the fact that they are descended from the erring Eve.
Margeurite’s sense of humor was not enough to cover for the implied bed boredom she affected her husband with. She was masterful in her mimicry-infused description, but her husband was apparently looking for more, hence his retraction of marriage vows of living together till death do they part. Margeurite was blissfully unaware that she was being cheated by her husband and the very woman she mimicked in the text’s exposition, as she was equally unknowing that she lost Pygmalion increasingly when she “would ask to have her her back rubbed and then…night after night, fall asleep.” This characterization of a woman as imperfect even as she is the wife of the man perceiving this imperfection presents the harsh reality that women can never attain the patriachal standard of the true, the good, and the beautiful.
Gwen’s “liveliness in bed” seems to realize Pygmalion’s pursuit of a perfect wife, but her lack of imagination (something that her predecessor, thankfully, did not have) ironically rendered Pygmalion to look for the first wife’s talent in his new one. Pygmalion’s twice pronunciation of “nothing” was itself a haunting of this anticipation which he tried so hard to exile. Gwen “heard…an unvoiced demand” for her to go beyond the mastery in bed, and soon had this motivation to consummate what she was expected, hence her “first imitation…of Margeurite’s second husband, Ed.” Gwen had “arrive[d] at what [Pygmalion] conceived to be proper womanliness,” a wife that was both good-humored and bed-lively. Her character “had become perfect for him” now that she willfully had herself subjugated in the measures of man’s model woman. She delighted her husband so much that Pygmalion was only too willing to rub Gwen’s back, an activity which was what wedged Pygmalion from Marguerite, in the first place. Considering the symbiosis of the expectant getting his wish granted and of the prospect fulfilling this very wish, it is no wonder.
Updike’s characters become pumped with flesh and blood in order to give justice to their presentation of the ever-anticipative men attempting to make perfect the women species, which state the women sometimes collude to. While arguably, men can never be perfect themselves, they compensate for their own flaw by fashioning a mold that women should fit in. We see this around the society, and the characterization in Updike’s text is symptomatic of this truism.

returning classical: an overview of early and high renaissance music

Renaissance, or the rebirth of awareness in ancient Greek and Roman cultures, started in Italy before sweeping the whole of Europe, with 15th- and 16th-century artists and scholars attempting to revive the knowledge and principles of the classical, pre-Christian Greek and Roman civilizations. Hence, the concept of rebirth had to do with the rekindling of human—as against spiritual—virtues. It became a desirable mission to achieve fulfillment in life, and no one looked down upon the enjoyment of the sensual pleasures and expression of human feelings. Both writers and artists had the secular and the religious for their subject matters and aspired to produce masterpieces that were appealing and understandable to humans as well as satisfactory to the Supreme Being. The Renaissance flowering in music spanned for a century and a half—from 1450 up to 1600, although its rather slow crystallization harked back to the Middle Ages, when the grandest artistic style ever attained had been in this art form.
The abovementioned revolution in perspective changed the way music was perceived as well as the manner music was composed, experienced, conferred, and distributed. The Europeans could witness statues, sculptures, dramas, and literature being restored, but ancient music was nowhere to be heard. However, there were available translations of texts by classical philosophers, poets, essayists and music theorists.
As it is, the musical rebirth is more a comprehensive cultural revolution and mindset than a particular standard of musical method. The musical alteration was so quick during the period—although at varying rates from country to country—that a singular definition of Renaissance style cannot be possible. The first noticeable intricate progress in music was during the twelfth century, when Parisian leading composers like Leonidus and Perotinus employed a metrical rhythm that imitated the stress rhythm of contemporary Latin and vernacular poems: triple time-based, using three beats each unit. This rather less euphonic music was further enriched in northern Italy about 1300, when ars nova, which used the duple time with two beats each unit, dividing long notes into shorter notes and minimally using melodies typical of troubadours of the medieval period, showed better flexibility and variety than did plain songs. The onset of fourteenth century had secular music influencing church music in more marked terms. Toward the close of the 1400’s, an international European style had blossomed from the array of compositional practice that was widespread in England and in Continental Europe. The influence of the Burgundian court caused this style to emerge primarily from the Low Countries or the regions of Netherlands, Belgium and northeastern France to the rest of Western Europe. The first century or so of the Renaissance saw the northern composers and their music ruling the chapels and courts of Italy, France, and the Holy Roman Empire comprised by Bohemia, Austria, Spain, and Germany. They started to maximize the use of canon wherein the same melody is voiced recurrently although at various times, such as the English composition “Sumer Is Icumen In.” Chords were then composed while a range of new systems of notations was devised and more instruments and secular part songs like the madrigals were invented. The novel stylistic methods created in the fourteenth century by the ars nova masters were developed further in the fifteenth century. Every subsequent generation improved the musical achievements of its predecessor, and contemporary composers rivaled each other in producing Masses, chansons and motets. The dominance of Netherlands music in the middle and later sixteenth century shifted to Mannerism, shown saliently in both secular and the predominantly performed church music. Also, it standardized much of the music of High Renaissance, showing calm temperament, ethereal characteristics and the noteworthy embodiment of the harmony present in the universe.
While the Renaissance was not able to come up with a unifying and definite musical style, the period affected many facets of European art music. Composers allowed textual structure to specify musical structure. The early Renaissance composers neglected the linkage between text and music, best exemplified by a tenor singing a French aria whereas the bass, a Latin text. Polyphonic portions were composed to be sung even as they got played in the long run and became second-ranked in importance. The composers’ search for full harmonies, melodies and associations among the voices shaped the texture of both secular and sacred works. Both sacred and secular melodies were still utilized to make single, large pieces, yet the borrowed article was spread among the voices instead of being assigned solely to the tenor. Whereas the tenor still had the dominant voice in the structure, the bass had the key role in harmony. Cadences remained to suit perfect consonances, but composers asserted for full triadic sonorities in between them. Rhythmic standardization and simplification leaned toward duple measure set by the breve (alla breve) value. The favored sacred types included the motet and the cyclical Mass. The chanson was remodeled until its texture was slowly contaminated by duplication. Mensuration and isorhythm canon, examples of concealed and esoteric structural mechanism, paved the path to transparent textures, mainly extending fugal and imitative segments and sometimes relieved by homophonic sections. Owing to such trends, composers were given further flexibility than ever before and, supported by the advent of music printing, more chances to reach out to an expansive audience. Most of these trends pervaded until the 16th century, when the musical style of the High Renaissance ushered in with a grandiosity that was not unlike the exquisite styles of the period’s arts and letters.
The 1500’s saw the emergence of native musical idioms or national styles. Advances during the period composed of developing the sacred polyphony made by composers who resided in Italy and the rise of new secular genres like lied, chanson and madrigal as the refined international style wove into the native traditions in France, Germany and Italy. Italians Arcadelt and Willaert were ispired by the humanist spirit to find a binding tie between music and text. Willaert molded music to suit the rhythms and syntax of the Italian and Latin tongues in his sacred and secular works. He even went beyond this to embody musically the significance of the textual message in his secular compositions. The changes notwithstanding, he stayed faithful to the inherited concept of modal, equality and independence of voices, diatonic counterpoint, full harmony, structural clarity and regulated dissonance. This closer association of words and music became the hallmark of the growth of fifteenth century schools of music. The fourteenth century alterations in musical style, only promising improvement from the harsh sounds of earlier centuries, became the springboard of speedy advances in the fifteenth century such that music, the last of the arts to make its presence felt during the Renaissance, achieved a major attention as an art form.
An even better relation between music and text was pursued by Vicentino, Rore, and Lasso, although they shifted the balance at least with regard to the madrigal, toward the expression of a poem’s imagery and passions, compromising a particular homogeneity and cohesion of style. Concurrently, the madrigal turned more declamatory and dramatic as composers tried to drive the point of the text to a bigger audience. During the 16th century’s latter decades, composers sought for novel means to express climactic emotions and witty conceits of modern poems: Monteverdi tried out with dissonance and new rhythms and textures whereas Gesualdo experimented with chromaticism. Meanwhile, Parisian chanson composers shied away from serious motet-like polyphony to have focus on light, tuneful, treble-dominated songs. Not a few English composers picked up from prevailing Italian trends with great enthusiasm, yet the most dominating genre to come out of the sporadic blossoming of vocal chamber music in England was the air and consort song. As the literate of the period grew interest in music, the art form became a staple in occasions such as coronations, games, baptisms, weddings, burials and fiestas.
Still on the same period, instrumental music leaped out of the overshadowing vocal music and improvisation. Music that used to be mainly vocal was now written in the accompaniment of solo instruments and instrumental ensembles. Far from the roughness of Early Renaissance music, that of the High Renaissance manifested clarity of form, dignified solemnity and tranquil emotion, and Flemish music became customized in the country adopting it, i.e. Netherlands music was modified to become German music in Germany. Dance music still reigned the scene just like in previous times, but toward the end of the 14th century, other independent genres of instrumental music compositions could be identified by their methods and operations. Originally distinguished with a specific instrument, many of these genres jumped to other instruments and to ensembles the likes of toccata, canzona, ricercare, sonata, prelude, fantasia and variations. While music with words remained the most popular to both composers and patrons, the emergence of instrumental music in the 16th century became the trailblazer of a process that will complete its rule in the centuries to come. This era was characterized by the improvement of instrumental music in terms of quantity and importance and was marked by the influential diaspora of musicians as well as the revolutionizing trait of vocal music. Classifications of instrumental music grew more distinctly. The 1600’s was characterized by keyboard composers and English lute taking the cue in instrumental writing until in the 17th century, Italian composers got attracted to instrumental music.
In retrospect, the fourteenth and fifteenth century musical style was shaped both by the appreciation for musicians and by musicology methods. What used to be a fan base of churchmen grew to include princes, nobilities, the aristocrats and government officials, accounting for the popularity of secular music during the early part of the Renaissance. Music teaching used to be centered in choir schools of main churches and cathedrals but the 1400s saw private music teachers earning a living by tutoring princes and elites. Music reached a greater effect when the fifteenth century marked the strong training in music amongst secondary schools and, to a much lesser extent, universities. The early Renaissance musical style was learned.
The absence in music of classical models seen in architecture, sculpture and literature had early Renaissance writers theorizing ancient Greco-Roman music via their ideas drawn from classical texts. This development resulted to the Platonic integration of music and words, practical examples of which were visible in fifteenth century compositions. The subject matter of musical composers, who expanded the range of harmony and of musical manifestation, can be seen through the tones, with the extrinsic world of nature and the intrinsic world of man depicted in music. The outstanding musical style progress of the period brought the Flemish composers’ inspiring influence in France, Germany, Italy, England and Spain in the same pace as other artistic styles sprang from Italy and swirled across Europe.
The success of musical experimentation during the Early Renaissance was gradual, rough and indeterminate for the most part. The Flemish countries had to give Italy its time to shine during this birthing of a radical age, subsequently having music give way to a greater flowering in other arts like painting, sculpture and literature. Music achieved equal footing with these early-mastered arts with the climactic musical expressiveness of the 1500’s, when the tedious attempts with new harmony and rhythm patterns and with developed instruments finally paid off. This particular music influenced later music in northern Europe more than did other art forms in post-1500 arts and literature. While during this age the northern Europe arts and letters were still trapped in the medieval trends, only music truly fitted Renaissance in its essential definition.
Meanwhile, parallel with the other art forms, the music of the High Renaissance led by figures like the Netherlands and Italy expressed the confidence of the period’s great flowering and the belief in universal harmony. The strain and intrinsic tension apparent in Mannerist and Baroque music were admirably untraceable in Renaissance music. All the arts, music included, had achieved enough during this rebirth to take pride in being able to rank at par with, if not surpass, the Greco-Roman classics on which they were inspired.

hulagpos tungo sa kalayaan

Sa pagtalakay ng akdang “What Shall We Do When We All Go Out?” ni Gregorio Brillantes, paano mauuri ang kuwento bilang tagasaad ng pagbibinyag sa karanasan?
Gamit ang estratehiyang testuwal na pagsusuri, maipapalagay na isa itong kuwento ng inisasyon dahil sa pagdaan ng pangunahing tauhan sa serye ng mga bagong karanasang malulusong at malulusong din niya sa kaagahan o kalaunan, ayaw man niya itong danasin o gusto.
Marami ang nagtuturing kay Gregorio Brillantes bilang isang Katolikong manunulat dahil sa kanyang mga antolohiyang may tauhang napasasaklolo sa Iglesia tuwing magkakaroon ng komprontasyon laban sa mga kondisyong eksistensyal. Isinilang sa Camiling, Tarlac, produkto si Brillantes ng Pamantasang Ateneo De Manila, isang Katolikong institusyon na siyang sinasabing malaking salik sa paggamit ng diskursong relihiyoso sa kanyang mga maikling kuwento. Bukod sa madalas niyang gamiting tagpuan ang kanyang lupang tinubuan sa Tarlac, kalimitang ginagamit ni Gregorio ang mga tema ng kahalagahan ng pananampalataya sa buhay ng tao, at ng pagbibinyag sa karanasan na sentro sa susuriing teksto, ang “What Shall We Do When We All Go Out?” (Nasa The Distance to Andromeda and Other Stories.)
Ang paggalugad sa paksa ng binyag sa kamuwangan ay bahagi ng panghabambuhay na paghahanap sa pagkakakilanlan. Sapagkat ang karanasan ng tao ang pumapanday sa kanyang karakter, ang mga unang karanasan ay nagiging mahalagang salik para mabuo ang pagkatao kung paanong ito rin ay nagiging memorable para sa taong nakadama nito. Habang marami sa mga likhang panitik ni Brillantes ang tumatalakay ng ganitong pagkapukaw ng kamalayan gaya ng binatilyong tauhan sa “The Distance to Andromeda,” hindi maikakaila na ang ganitong gawi ay pinag-eeksperimentuhan din ng iba pang manunulat bunsod ng malawakang epekto ng modernismo at, sa kasalukuyan, ng postmodernismo at ng postkolonyalismo sa bisa ng kaisipang kaakuhan, indibidwalismo o pormasyon ng identidad. Mababanaag sa teksto ang pagkilala sa mga limitasyon gaya ng ‘di-maiiwasang kamatayan o ng pagkamulat sa mabalasik na kapaligiran, at masasagot sa pamamagitan ng pagkuwestiyon kung ano ang halaga ng tao sa mundo.
May pagmumungkahi na ang identidad na binubuo ay mapupunan ng pagkakasali sa isang institusyon, isang modernong ideyolohiya. Ang pagkakaroon ng isang pagkakakilanlan kahit pa sabihing kolektibo man ay isang rasyunal na tugon sa eksistensyal na interogasyon hinggil sa pantaong kahalagahan.
Ang daloy ng kamalayan sa unang limang talata ng teksto ay nagsasaad sa ‘di-malalim na pagtaya sa buhay ng isang siyam na taong batang nasa ikatlong baitang. Magaang-magaan ang pakiramdam ng bata sa bagong bayang nilipatan nila “higit pa sa nagdaang mga bayang pinagtirhan nila [more than the previous ones they lived in]” (p. 270) sapat para “hilingin niyang mataimtim na huwag nang madestinong magtrabaho ang tatay niya sa ibang lugar [he wished fervently that his father would not be assigned to work elsewhere” (p. 271). Sentral sa buhay niya ang mag-eskuwela, maglaro, magmasid sa kapaligiran at sa dako pa roon, at sa kawalang-kumplikasyong ito sa pananaw niya, “tila baga ang buong mundo ay naging kabisado at malapit [it seemed then that all of the world became familiar and near]” (p. 272). Wala siyang napakalalim na intindihin, maliban sa foreshadowing ng mga lugar na hndi niya maaabot, nagpapatungkol sa kalayuan ng ideya ng perpeksyon dahil paparating na ang mga karanasang babago sa kanyang kapayakan. Nakatakda ngang magbago ang lahat nang isang araw, italastas ni Miss Castillo ang pagkamatay ng kaklaseng si Jaime.
Ang katotohanang ang kamatayan ay hangganan ng lahat ng kasimplehang naghahatid-kasiglahan sa kanya ay “nagdulot ng kinig ng katatakutan sa kanyang puso [brought a thrill of terror to his heart]” (p. 272). Noong unang araw lamang ng klase niya naramdaman ang pangangapa sa dayuhang karanasan, at sa kamatayan ng kaklase niya “muli niyang napagdaanan…ang damdamin ng mga bundok na ‘di-mararating kailanman [he experienced again…a sense of mountains unreachable forever” (p. 272). Hindi handa rito ang murang isip niyang nakauunawa lang ng mga karanasang nauugnay sa buhay, kaya ang unang pagkakasalubong niya sa kakambal ng buhay, ang kamatayan, ay naglatay ng “isang nagtatakang pagkagulat na nanunuyo sa kanyang lalamunan [a bewildered shock dry in his throat]” (p. 273). Ang kamatayan, sa representasyon ni Jaime, ay “dayuhan ngayon, isang kumpletong estranghero [alien now, a complete stranger]” (p. 273) kaya sa nadarama niyang paniniil ng madilim na karanasan sa lamayan ay “tumakbo siyang parang tinutugis, humihingal sa mas pamilyar na bahagi ng bayan [ran as if pursued, panting into the more familiar quarter of town]” (p. 273). Dahil bata lamang siya at malayo pa sa mga kapangitan ng buhay na maitatambis sa nakikita niya ngayong kagandahan, hindi niya lubos na nauunawaan, kaya siya tumatakbo palayo, kung bakit ang napakagandang bagay gaya ng buhay ay may kaakibat na kamatayan.
Para bang hindi pa sapat ang karanasang ito, nabinyagan naman siya sa karahasan nang madamay siya sa basag-ulo, kung saan “natikman niya sa unang pagkakataon ang alat ng dugo [tasting for the first time the salt of blood]” (p. 274). Pinalala nito ang maling pagtaya niya sa buhay bilang hardin ng rosas at dahil naramdaman niyang mauulit at mauulit pa ang inisasyon niya sa dahas, “wala nang atrasan. Makakapaghintay lamang siya, at lalaban, matindi, ngunit labag sa kanyang kalooban, kung muli siyang aatakihin [there was no returning. He could only wait, and fight back, hard, but against his will, when he was struck again]” (p. 274). Sa mukha ng kamatayan at panganib, nagsimula nang tumimo sa kanya na ang buhay ay hindi singsimple nang dapat niyang inasahan kaya “what shall we do when we all go out?” Kailangan niyang maging handa, dahil siya ay walang kakayanang pigilan ang mga bagay na ‘di-matatakasan. May pagtutol man sa puso niya ang makaranas ng kapangitan, kailangang siyang hindi maigupo ng mga dayuhang karanasang ito sa kanyang paglabas—paglabas mula sa kanyang personal na kabibe paharap sa mapaghamon at ‘di-perpektong mundo.
Ang paghahandang ito ay pinasukan ng paanyaya ng isang batang nasa ikaanim na baitang na maging kasapi ang bida sa kanilang grupo, upang makabilang dahil “kailangan mo ako bilang kaibigan [you need me for a friend]” (p. 276). Ang batang ito na siyang naging dahilan ng kanyang pagkadamay sa suntukan ay hindi katiwa-tiwala, at “isang siguradong kutob ang nagbabala sa kanya, ngunit…alam niya ang ibubunga ng kanyang pagtanggi [a certain instinct warned him, but…he knew the consequences ofhis rejection]” (p. 275). Samantalang hindi siya lubusang makapaghahanda para sa kamatayan dahil sa biglaang pagsipot nito, makapaghahanda naman siya sa panganib (na dulot ng batang nakasapakan niya, pati mga alalay nito) kung makakasali siya sa grupo ng bata at maprotektahan laban sa ‘di-patas na pagkagulpi, ngunit may karampatang presyo ang pagpasok niya rito: “limampung sentimo para sa bayad ng kasapi [fifty centavos (for the) membership fee]” (p. 276). Kahit “ang pagkalito at pagkatakot ay nagbuhol sa kanyang dibdib [the confusion and the fear knotted in his chest]” (p. 276), nagawa niyang kunin ang kanyang alkansya lingid sa kaalaman ng kanyang mga magulang upang makalikom ng pantustos, dahil ang institusyong ito ang magsasalba sa kanya at, lalong posible, ang mapagkukuhanan niya ng pagkakakilanlan. Kilala na siya ngayong ingat-yaman ng grupo gaya ng pinag-umitang amang nagtratrabaho rin sa tanggapan ng ingat-yaman ng munisipyo, at sa pagpasok niya sa loob ng lungga ng barkada ng bata, pumalaot na siya nang tuluyan sa ‘di-kaaya-ayang bahagi ng buhay: ang mapabilang sa isang ‘di-huwarang institusyong bubuo ng kanyang identidad, “walang kakayanang tumutol, bihag ng daluyong ng lakas [powerless to resist, captured by some tide of force]” (p. 277). Ang magbabarkada ay mga batang sa tingin niya ay mala-demonyo sa ilalim ng lupa at nakatatanda lang ng ilang taon sa kanya ngunit nagbibisyo na ng alak at sigarilyo, samakatuwid ay masamang impluwensiya. Gusto niyang kumawala mula sa potensyal na pagkakatulad sa kanila ngunit hindi siya papawalan hanggang hindi sinasabi ng grupo. Kahit humikbi na siya, tinampal lang ang kanyang bibig para siilin ang kanyang pag-alpas. Napatahimik na siya ng dominanteng kapangyarihan, at gaya ng kaklaseng namatay na hindi makapagsalita sa kanyang panaginip ay hindi niya maisaboses ang kagustuhang makaalis alinsunod sa pangakong hindi ipagsasabi ang lugar. Naranasan niya ngayon ang makipag-ugnayan sa mga taong masasama sa turing, at pilit siyang tumatakas dahil dayuhan sa kanya ang ganitong kondisyon. Lamang, dumating nang mas maaga kaysa inaasahan ang mga pangit na karanasang ito, sa panahong ikinasisiya pa lang niya ang mga payak na mga penomena sa kanyang paligid.
Sa karakteristikong moda ni Brillantes, nagtapos ang akda sa pagkakaroon ng “nag-iisang natitirang pag-asa [one hope left]“ (p. 278), na hindi man siya makahulagpos sa kulungang sitwasyon niya ngayon ay hindi naman siya mapansing nawala nang tuluyan ng mga kaklase, ni Miss Castillo, ng mga magulang niya, ng buong daigdig na ginagalugad pa lamang niya sa angkin nitong kagandahan. Ang pag-asang ito ang mapanghahawakan niya para huwag lalong malubog sa kumunoy ng pangit na mga karanasan. Ang pag-asang ito rin ang mag-aadya sa kanya kahit kapiling pa niya ang mga demonyo sa ilalim ng lupa. Pinakamahalaga, ang pag-asang ito ang magpapalaya sa kanya sabay sa kanyang pagsubok na lumabas mula sa kung saan siya nakabilanggo.

Hidalgo, Cristina P. Filipino Fiction in English. Nasa draft ng isang librong ilalathala ng University of the Philippines Open University, isinulat noong 2003.
Gonzales, NVM. Introduction. Nasa unang paglilimbag ng The Distance to Andromeda and Other Stories. Manila: Benipayo, 1960.

of mice and men literary criticism

Tragedy, the root of which was proposed by ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle on his treatise Poetics, is a mimesis (imitation) of the praxis (action) lush in human interest, not of human beings (who are needed to perform the acting). With action, one refers to logically-, meaningfully-, and causally-ordered sequence of events, the imitation of which functions on faculties culminated by heightened emotion, fear (self-regarding) and pity (other-regarding) in particular. This mimesis, which springs naturally in human beings from childhood, is the vehicle to produce catharsis, which aims to generate pleasure or purgation of emotion effecting from fear and pity. With muthos (plot) to lend life-likeness in tragedy, the mimesis is best acted when peripeteia (reversal), recognition (change from ignorance to knowledge) and pathos (act involving destruction or pain) are present in it. Meanwhile, the muthos is a perfect one if it has a single issue; that is, the alteration in the hero’s fortunes goes from happiness to misery, the reason for which must be found in some hamartia (great error) on the hero’s part.
The tragedy that is Of Mice and Men is a mimesis of the praxis of George Milton and Lennie Small, two migrant laborers who are proceeding to a loading barley work at a California ranch. They agree to sleep along the Salinas riverbanks before reporting to their job the morning after.
While the two men start planning, their contrasts become obvious: George is small and quick and assumes the brain and the mouth for the pair, whereas Lennie is humongous and scatter-brained. Lennie obeys what George says and acts like a kid brother or a subservient canine.
The pair has been on the go for quite a time, and Lennie seems to trap them constantly into trouble. Lennie has a fetish for soft things, from the dead mouse George takes away from Lennie to the soft dresses of young ladies, and Lennie’s misconstrued touching of a girl’s dress leaves them no option but run away from their previous job in the town of Weed .
As they eat their supper, George lectures Lennie on their prospective jobs and enumerates rules that Lennie must follow: Lennie must not speak about anything, must prevent trouble, and must return to the riverbank, hide and anticipate for George if anything goes wrong. Then, Lennie asks George to reiterate his discussion of the reason for their difference from other migrant workers and the means by which they will acquire a farm of their own on which Lennie will take care of rabbits someday. George re-explains monotonously, yet gradually gets affected by Lennie’s enthusiasm. They go to sleep happily within a tranquil natural setting.
The next morning, the pair makes an appearance at the ranch where they are greeted by Candy and his similarly aged dog. The old man informs them about the ranch and the personalities in it. Their boss then arrives at the bunkhouse, angry because George and Lennie were not early for the morning work shift. George makes an alibi that they got lost as a result of a bus driver’s incorrect directions. He proceeds to answer all questions posed by the boss, even those asked of Lennie, making the boss grow suspicious. When Lennie imitates one of George’s comments in his moronic way, George glares at him and later gives him a scolding.
The boss’ son Curley, a mercurial bully, appears in the bunkhouse searching for his father. Curley interrogates the new men and attempts to pick trouble with Lennie. George grows nervous about the potential perils posed by Curley and forebodes Lennie to steer clear from him. He instructs him again to keep to himself in the brush along the riverbank should there be any problem.
Curley’s wife steps in, presumably looking for her partner yet really intending to greet the new men and display her beauty. George and Candy let her down, but Lennie comes to her defense. George warns Lennie to avoid her downright. Lennie likewise seems reluctant now and wishes to flee at once due to the place’s meanness. George assures him they will take a flight as soon as they earn enough to buy their own farm.
Slim, the bunkhouse’s authority man, walks in next. He takes interest in the fact that George and Lennie travel together, an unusual situation among ranch hands. Slim informs everyone that his dog has had a litter of puppies. Slim and Carlson, another ranch hand, deem the idea of slaying Candy’s old dog and offering him a new puppy. George is amenable in requesting Slim if Lennie can own one of the puppies.
As George talks to Slim in the bunkhouse later that day, he pictures his relationship with Lennie. He confesses that Lennie is not clever, but he is a good guy. Lennie gives companionship and makes George feel superior alongside him. When Lennie enters into the bunkhouse with his puppy kept under his shirt, George forebodes that Lennie’s over-prodding the pup might kill it.
While all the men converge in the bunkhouse, Carlson starts persuading Candy to let him put his dog out of its plight. He elaborates that he will shoot the dog in the back of the head so it will suffer no misery. When Slim joins in the straining, Candy ultimately concedes. Later, Candy eavesdrops on George‘s recount on Lennie about the farm and the rabbits. He pleads to partake in the venture and provides half of the money necessary to purchase the farm. In a moment, the impossible dream seems nigh. Candy reveals to George his regret over letting a stranger kill his dog, a task that he should have done himself.
Curley enters the bunkhouse, searching for his straying wife. When he sees Lennie still all smiles from his rabbits’ memory, Curley thinks that he is being ridiculed by the big man. He starts pushing Lennie around, and his taunting and hitting are never retaliated by Lennie until George urges him to do so. Then Lennie clasps Curley’s hand and eventually crushes it.
Later that night, while George and some others spend time in the town’s whorehouse, Lennie enters the room of Crooks, the Negro stable worker. Crooks initially shuns this intrusion in his privacy, but Lennie’s naïve humor gets the better of him. Crooks depicts the hardships of being a black man on the ranch, and Lennie tells of the future farm. When Candy comes in and divulges that he has offered to raise some of the money, Crooks wants to be taken in, too. Curley’s wife, searching for company, also invades Crooks’ place. Crooks and Candy debate with her, but she starts flirting Lennie. She escapes when George arrives. George is vexed to know that Lennie and Candy have shared the dream with somebody else.
The afternoon the next day, all of the trouble that George forewarned starts to arise. Lennie has toyed with his puppy too much and has its neck broken. As he skitters away to bury the animal, Curley’s wife enters the barn. She confides her life to Lennie and appears to be seducing him. When she notices that Lennie likes to pet soft things, she lures him into touching her hair. He gives in, but, as always, grabs on too tight. The woman commences to struggle and shriek, and Lennie panics, breaking her neck just as he had done to the puppy. After Lennie escapes, Candy discovers the dead woman’s body. He turns to George and begs for reassurance that the two of them can realize their dream farm, even in Lennie’s absence. However, George has already given up the vision. He requests Candy to allow him a few minutes’ headstart before divulging the incident to others. In that time, George seizes Carlson’s Luger, the similar gun that was used to put Candy’s dog out of misery. George reenters the barn with the others to come upon the body, and he attempts to persuade the men that Lennie should only be put away because he meant no danger. But Curley prevails on a lynching, and they set forth searching for Lennie.
The ultimate scene happens on the very same riverbank where the novel commenced. Lennie has remembered to return there after he got involved in trouble. Two visions assail Lennie as he ponders that he has committed something very bad this time. George finds him there. Lennie asks him to lay guilt upon him, but George chews him out only half-heartedly. They discuss the farm and rabbits one final time. George commands Lennie to look across the river and envision the farm. Then he guns down Lennie in the back of the head using Carlson’s Luger. The other men arrive and George nods to their version of a struggle between the pair that culminated to shooting. All of the men return to the ranch, some offering George sympathy, others crippled in deciding what George was so frustrated about.
For better understanding of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, it is essentially helpful to analyze the muthos-presented mimesis of important tragedy-laden characters’ praxis in the light of Aristotle’s Poetics. It is equally enlightening to arrive at the intended catharsis by virtue of zeroing in on the characters’ experience of peripeteia, recognition, and pathos and the ensuing pity and fear for these characters.
Even though Lennie is among the lead characters in the novel, he is probably the least dynamic. He comes in passing without any meaningful changes, progress or growth all through the novel and stays the same as the reader come upon him at the onset. In a nutshell, he fetishizes soft stuff, is blindly attentive to George and their envisioned farm, and possesses formidable albeit unselfconscious physical strength. Almost every scene in which Lennie is a part of attests to these and only these characteristics.
Since the tragedy depends upon the result appearing to be beyond control, the reader must know from the start that Lennie is doomed, and must feel pity for him. The author creates a protagonist who earns the reader’s sympathy due to his abject helplessness in the grip of events that unfurl. Lennie is outright defenseless against the hazards posed by Curley, Curley’s wife or the world in general. His naïveté lifts him to an echelon of untainted goodness that is more poetic and literary than realistic. His enthusiasm for their wished-for farm proves infectious as he makes George, Candy, Crooks and the reader that such an American Dream might be attainable. Nonetheless, the reader feels fear because this character is set up for destruction, a character whose innocence only seems to seal his inevitable disaster.
When Lennie accidentally renders dead his puppy and eventually, Curley’s wife, there is a reversal because only wants to handle their softness, but he pets too much them and kills them anyway. Only when he breaks the neck of the woman does he recognize that he had done a hamartia that is too bad this time, and he undergoes in a relative state of pathos for his wrongdoing, enough to make him flee to the brush as constantly reminded by George.
Like Lennie, George can be described by a few recognizable characteristics. He is quick-tempered but a doting friend whose habitual complaints against life with Lennie never untangle his duty of safeguarding his friend. George’s initial words, a severe warning to Lennie not to guzzle so much for fear that he falls ill, define the tone of their friendship. George may be terse and impatient every so often, but he never wanders away from his foremost commitment of protecting Lennie.
Unlike Lennie, however, George undergoes change while the story moves along. The reader learns that he has capability to grow during his conversation with Slim, during which he confesses that he once abused Lennie to amuse himself. From this instance, George recognizes the moral that it is wrong to take advantage of the weak. Of Mice and Men follows toward a sympathy-eliciting realization that the universe is designed to prey on the weak. In spite of his hardened, sometimes harsh exterior, he has conviction about their future farm that he counts and recounts to Lennie. He yearns for the moment when he can relish the freedom to dismiss work and enjoy a baseball match. More significant, than a baseball game, however, is the idea of getting by in security and comfort with Lennie, devoid of people like Curley and his wife, who seem to exist only to spawn trouble for them. Lennie is greatly accountable for George’s belief in this safe haven, but, fearfully and pitifully for the characters, the predatory nature of the world eventually surfaces until George has but to let go of that belief in the midst of reversal of fortune. By gunning down Lennie, George salvages his friend from the ruthless death that would be committed by Curley’s lynch party, but he also recognizes the pathetic evaporation of his dream of a perfect, fraternal world.
Candy, the old handyman, aging and left with a single hand as the outcome of a freak occurrence, worries that the boss will soon proclaim him useless and declare that he desert the ranch. Life on the ranch, especially Candy’s dog—previously a fantastic sheep herder but now toothless, stinking and brittle in decrepit condition—aggravates Candy’s fright. Former achievements and present emotional bonds matter minimally, as Carlson points out when he insists that Candy permit him to slay the dog to render it out of its misery. In such a world, Candy’s dog symbolizes a cruel recognition of the fate that befalls anyone who outlives his utility.
For a short time, nevertheless, the dream of exhausting his days with George and Lennie on their dream farm preoccupies Candy out of this harsh reminder. He considers the few acres of land they depict deserving of his hard-earned life’s savings, which proves his desperate need to imagine a world kinder than the one he actually lives in, only to be reversed by overpowering turn of events. Like George, Candy clings tenaciously albeit pathetically to the idea of having the liberty to perform work or leisure as he pleases. So incredible is his devotion to the idea that, even after he finds out that Lennie has killed Curley’s wife, he summons for himself and George to purchase the farm as planned.
Curley’s wife, whose name is not even mentioned, walks the ranch as a temptress out to bring ruin on man and drive them crazy. She seems to illustrate a contemptibly-treated troublemaker tendency—Curley’s already bad temper has only worsened when he married her.
Although purposed as the “tramp,” “tart” and “bitch” that threatens to destroy male happiness and long life, Curley’s wife recognizes to sensing a kind of shameless wanting with her life the time she confronts Lennie, Candy and Crooks in the stable. Her vulnerability at this juncture and later upon confessing to Lennie her pathos-evoking illusion of celebrity fame, makes her consummately human and much more fascinating than the boxed-up vamp in fancy red shoes. In her moment of ultimate vulnerability, Curley’s wife reinforces the novel’s grim worldview by seeking out greater weaknesses in others, attacking Lennie’s mental handicap, Candy’s debilitating age, and the tone of Crook’s skin in order to shield herself from harm. Finally, she committed a hamartia when her touch-my-soft-hair flirtation on Lennie reversed to her eventual demise.
Crooks is an animated, smart, black stable hand whose name is derived from his humped back. Like most characters, he concedes that he is terribly sad. When Lennie makes a visit as his room, his reaction manifests this: In the beginning, he shoos him away, hoping to stress that if he, a Negro, is not permitted in white men’s houses, then whites are not allowed in his, yet his want of company finally wins out and invites Lennie to sit next to him. Like Curley’s wife, Crooks is an impotent character who turns his weakness into a tool to attack on the weaker. He toys with Lennie, implying to him that George is gone permanently. Only when Lennie threatens him with physical violence does he stop. Crooks shows the corrosive outcome that loneliness wields for a person; his character evokes sympathy as the cause of his stern behavior is exhibited. Crooks probably wants belongingness more than anything else; he wishes to enjoy simple pleasures such as an access into the bunkhouse or to play cards with the other men. This wish would expound why, even though he is skeptical at George and Lennie’s dream farm, he asks if he may have a room for him to join and a patch of garden to hoe.
Man’s predatory nature. Fraternity. Impossible American Dream. Imbalanced social power structures. All these themes are central to this acclaimed novel by John Steinbeck. The story of George and Lennie’s friendship provides insights into life regarding the natural law of the strong disposing of the weak, the sense of belonging in brotherhood, the unrealistic fulfillment of a utopian world, and the ruinous tendencies of the oppression made by a weakling against a weaker fellow.
In the current world where everything is fast-paced and made artificial, it is somewhat difficult to find a room where fundamental human needs like dreaming for relatively “better” life and keeping a true friendship can be satisfied. Although in Of Mice and Men, the tragic ending of Lennie leaves his American Dream unattained and his fraternity with George interrupted for good, the ever-kindling human desire for betterment lives on, prompting the renewed faith in persisting until the dream is made true and real friendship asserts amidst impermanence and disenchantment. Of Mice and Men is an enchanting read for those who do not give up the fight, for those who are determined to win at their own expense and pursuit.
As mentioned above, there are four universal concerns present in the novel, namely man’s predatory nature, fraternity, impossible American Dream, and imbalanced social power structures. Man’s predatory nature is prevalent throughout the novel, wherein almost all the characters have felt loneliness and isolation, which makes them helpless but, despite their weakest state, they plot to annihilate people weaker than they are. Also, brotherhood prevails in the novel by virtue of the belongingness need characteristic of human nature, which need draws the men together in such a manner that they act brothers to each other, bearing in mind the friend’s best interest, protection and concern. Similarly, the novel looms with the impossibility of the American Dream, that the wish for unceasing happiness and freedom to do one’s will shall remain elusive and unfulfilled. Lastly, the damaging imbalance of social power structures wherein oppression is not only in the hands of the mighty or the influential but also in those of the weak toward the weaker can be seen in Of Mice and Men. Holistically, the novel presents the values of the inequality among men (therefore, the uniqueness), the aspiration of only the attainable, and the sense of oneness with fellow human being.
The world is thought of to be cruel to the existing creatures dwelling on it, so unkind that one tends to deem life as purposeless, what with the unfulfilled justice, dream, friendship and equality. Seen in a brighter perspective, the world just acts as instrument of destiny by hurling challenges such as predation of the weak, impossible dream, unappreciated friendship and social power imbalance so that these challenges, when overwhelmed, will make these creatures stronger and wiser. Regardless of this world’s cruelty and gift of disillusionment, the creatures remain hopeful and unfazed until they succeed.
In spite of the setbacks suffered in the pursuit of justice, dream, friendship and equality, one needs to assert himself until he gets the sense of achievement. If things are only learned to be assessed in proper perspective, everything is beautiful and is deserving of hoped-for betterment, despite life’s disenchantment and injustice, even in the world of mice and men.




Bibliography:
Adams, Hazard, ed. Critical Theory Since Plato. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1992.
________, The interests of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1969.
Else, Gerald. Aristotle’s Poetics: The Argument. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963.
Jones, John. On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy. London: Chatto and Windus, 1962.
Kiernan, Thomas, ed. Aristotle Dictionary. London: Peter Owen, 1962.
Russel, Donald Andrew and Winterbottom, M. Ancient Literary Criticism. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1972.
Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin Books USA, Inc., 1993.
Townsend, Dabney. Aesthetics: Classic Readings form the Western Tradition. Boston : Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1996.

filipinos’ inscrutability in rosario cruz lucero’s the death of fray salvador montano, conquistador of negros

Interpretative insights abound in "The Death of Fray Salvador Montano, Conquistador of Negros," but the inscrutability of the Filipinos stand out the most. While the craftsmanship and gift of language are already laudable, the 2001 Palanca Award-winning story under study deserves more praises for its empowerment of the marginalized by their writing back into the mainstream.
The story opens with Fray Salvador Montano’s mulling over the plagues that beset Pueblo Buyonan, and he decided that this horde of locusts and the previous pestilence of frog were caused by his mission village people’s having made love unconventionally like the abovementioned creatures. He summoned the natives that “there was only one position that God intended human beings to do it in,”(p.1) and so the people would confess to him about their sexual acrobatics in order to stop the plagues. Early on, Montano surmised that these people got the better of his predecessor, Fray Duertas, who “asked to be assigned elsewhere” (p.2) in order to escape the nightmare of such bizarre mating dance.
Fray Montano’s initial moments at the island rendered him “frightened to see all the indios…lining the riverbank to welcome him.” (p.2) These 31,000-strong islanders must have overwhelmed him less because of their epic chanting but more because of the fact that these were the very people he was supposed to conquer. He was told that Spanish encantos already substituted their resident divinities and that their babaylan was proven fake, so he was just left to decimating the native’s laziness, drunkenness, and lust. Believing he was destined to live up to his name, Salvador Montano was all out to civilize the savage island.
But the succeeding developments in the story proved that Montano’s first name and the illusory conquest of Negros were ironical. As a matter of fact, he failed to approximate his savior name, and it was he who was conquered by the natives, as was evident in the following turn of events:
It happened that Montano and a native, the bamboo-walking Pedro Latay, had to consult their church’s whole design in Fray Duertas’ forbidden manuscript, a violation of the sixth commandment in order to find the source of bird droppings which kept the natives from fulfilling the third commandment. Their exposure to the obscene design of the church’s bedrock—“a tightly clenched fist [gripping] a quill (p.6)”—had Montano repeatedly warning Latay that the latter would burn to hell should he divulge what was called to mind as a masturbation scene. Plied by his fellow indios with tuba, Latay would have the drunken courage to belt out a composo (ballad) replete with phallic images until all of the island would sing sexually graphic songs in the long run. This served as Montano’s first setback, as he sought the advise of the convert babaylan Estrella about what to make of the bastos songs. She admonished the friar to “[l]et [the natives] sing their epics again” (p.9), to which he reluctantly acquiesced. The night saw the shaman “commenc[ing] her magical incantation” (p.10) of the epic of Labaw Donggon—an initial triumph of the native.
Montano’s apparent lack of control of the natives had him half-heartedly agree to Estrella’s teaching of the epic chanting. The fact that he even consulted a rival in the people’s faith points to the shaman’s gaining of the upper hand over the priest. The baylan’s “smile of triumph” (p.9) was essentially that over the foiled universalizing tactic by Montano, as he, “sigh[ing] and conced[ing] defeat,” (p.9), realized the natives had to be taught their epic, their heritage. This case shows that the Filipinos are impenetrable despite the Spanish’ teaching of Gregorian and other sort of Western chants, for the natives will always return to their songs; they will always embrace their own as a way of reclaiming the identity the conquerors are trying to erase and swap their very culture with.
The next setback for Montano did not take long; he followed his superior’s advice of writing a Hiligaina-Spanish dictionary for his flock to “know its catechism, the commandments, the teachings of the church…the seven deadly sins.” (p.4) The friar just continued his predecessor’s unfinished dictionary, “insert[ing] the words he needed to add to Fray Duertas’ work.” (p.12) However, one word led to another that Montano felt “the indios’ world [beginning] to manifest itself, and what had been its daunting unpredictability became simply a matter of singular inevitability.” (p.12) His list of words, which conjured what might be deemed offensive to the bishop’s taste, had him staying all fat and alone and inattentive of his church’s handful of spiritual needs that he grew so absorbed he had to masturbate in order to forget the natives’ sensuous words. In effect, he would forget the words listed the previous day that he just repeated them, “adding old words to even older words, so that there was no end to his lexicographic task.” (p.15) Toward the last days of his life, Montano realized that his writings faded away because of the evanescent ink he used and “all that would remain…were hundreds of blank sheets of paper.” (p.20)
The very fact that Montano could not seem to complete the Hiligaina-Spanish dictionary because of words spawning into many other words tells the impossible task of straitjacketing the Filipinos, because there will always be something that escapes. The words resist enslavement within the pages of the dictionary; in the same manner, the Filipinos resist getting fitted into the disparaging cage of the conquerors. While the foreigners attempt to expunge the Filipinos’ legacy from the pages of history in order to have the people identify with the foreigners’ legacy, the empty pages symbolize the Filipinos’ readiness to rewrite history more than the people’s marginalization in it.
The ultimate blow to the conquistador came moments before his death, when he, weeping, had Estrella come for the last of his breath. The unpunctuated long final sentence gave away everything, for Fray Salvador Montano succumbed to the consummated conquest of him by the natives, symbolized by the shaman’s application of the tranquilizing herbal concoction.
“She lay beside him and cradled his head on her shoulder and he breathed in the sweet tangy scent of her hair oloroso agridulce and sampaguita these were the only words in his dictionary that he had tried desperately to efface from his memory because he knew they were the one the only true occasion fro sin but these were the only words that had clung to him as tenaciously as Fray Duertas’ goat breath and the servants’ briny smell and finally he gave in to the terror of Yawa the Consummator squatting on his chest pouring water into his nose and mouth but he could not struggle free because he could not move with Yahweh’s weight on his chest pouring water into his nose until at last he could no longer smell anything.” (p. 21)
The eventual conquest of the supposed salvador of Negros manifests the ultimate inscrutability of the Filipinos. The natives had been pacified, taught foreign cultures, reduced to subservience and credulity, generally insulted, branded inferior and barbaric, shackled into varying degrees of bondage, etc, but the endurance of the Filipinos supersedes the overbearing attitude of the foreigners. The conquerors are brought to the realization that they can never foist to the natives what they consider is best or ideal, which is necessarily their very culture and not the Filipinos’ own—a chauvinistic and false consciousness. They are minimized into helpless subjects of the Filipinos’ concoction of own unpunctuated civilization, and will never win over an identity that has come to assert itself as unmistakably, unadulteratedly Filipino.

[1]In Feast and Famine: Stories of Negros. Rosario Cruz Lucero. Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 2003.

is love all that one needs?

I Am Sam is a good drama created to try to inspire and induce change in its audience. This movie exhibits fatherly love eliciting human compassion to a love that is sustaining an indestructible spirit. This movie illustrates different-looking people and the situations they encounter in their modern day struggles we can all adapt and apply in our daily lives. Even though people usually view dramas as sad stories aimed to make us cry, the true goal of such movies does not usually finish when tears start flooding the audience’s eyes. Rather, it is something with a much deeper sense: to touch people’s lives enough for them to empathize with the characters. Ultimately, the producers of the movie are aimed at trying to make the audience better persons in their own little way by making them address sympathy concerns for certain individuals. This movie, for one, appeals to viewers that love is everything we humans need. In the case of Sam, it is sympathetic love, which he needs for people to see him in a different light—that handicapped persons like him are capable of love despite or precisely because of their imperfection.
This movie is truly gives justice to those who are sympathetic of differently-abled people because good actors were chosen to play the different characters in the movie, a condition necessary for incredulous audience to be persuaded that while others may be different for their (lack of) intelligence, they deserve recognition for their capacity to love. These actors gave their respective roles the justice needed to bring the message across to the audience without that grim and determined effort. The three main actors embodied the characters by actually “being” and not just acting intertwined lives amid a non-empathic society. Sean Penn was luminous as Sam Dawson, the father whose imbecility causes him to lose custody of his daughter but proves the court that he can assume parental responsibility. For her part, Dakota Fanning was convincing as Lucy Dawson, the daughter who would be given to another family because her father, according to the court, is unfit to take care of her. Finally, Michelle Pfeiffer was brilliant as Rita Harrison, the hard-hitting lawyer of Sam with a divided family and a marriage on the rocks. It is amazing how each of them were able to make their respective characters become them during the film.
But the best thing about this story is its fountainhead of life-altering lessons, most important of which is our necessity to feed on love. It shows us how seemingly inutile people like Sam encounter a lot of difficulties caused by our own judgments and stereotypes, without realizing that like anyone of us, he is capable of giving and receiving love. In the movie, Sam was separated from his 7-year-old daughter because discriminative people thought that differently-abled families are doomed to fail. While this is sometimes true, there are still some exceptions that prove us wrong, as is manifested in the movie. For example, Although Sam has an IQ only as high as that of his daughter, this did not stop him from loving her daughter wholeheartedly. Nothing stopped him from becoming the best father he can be. He strove to be the best—from earning from a more compensatory job to providing a bigger home for Lucy to sending his daughter to a better school—in order to provide everything that the court insists in order to get her daughter back. He kept on pushing the limits of his own self and his own approximations. As a result, he was able to show and convince his unsympathetic community of his capability as a loving father, something people around his social sphere are skeptical about only because his insufficient intellect does not warrant it.
At the end of this film, the movie has completed its attempt to inspire sympathetic love in its viewers by showing that they only need a little care to understand that even handicaps can love like the rest of humankind. The question “Is love really all that matters?” can now be answered in relation to the situations presented in the movie. In the case of Sam, we can say that love is all that one needs to become a good parent. If the court became cognizant (that is, sympathetic, a characteristic rarely displayed by an impersonal institution such as the judiciary) of Sam’s potential for parental love, then it would discover that indeed, this father is capable of loving his daughter, however idiotic he may be. It is Sam’s society’s love that shall serve as his driving force for his fatherly love to reach its full momentum by winning custody of Lucy.
I Am Sam is, indeed, a good drama movie not only because of its artistic and technical aspects but also because it succeeded in carrying across the inspirational message about an ever-loving father who is willing to beat himself to the extreme to keep his daughter to his side. This movie teaches us a lot about being human through compassion for a father and about the true meaning of love: intense, catalytic, sacrificing.

critiquing contracting colonialism

Vicente L. Rafael’s Contracting Colonialism (Quezon City: Ateneo De Manila University Press, 2000) showcases conversion and translation of language and the whole Tagalog cultural systems during the early years of Hispanic conquest, around 1565 to 1760’s. Spain has conversion of the natives for the foremost project, but this unfurled into a full colonial system. Spanish did not bloom into a legitimate Philippine vernacular, so that communication between the colonizer and the colonial was based on Spanish-Tagalog translation. Through the book, Rafael shows the interrelationship among conversion, colonialism, and translation in the country and these concepts’ relevance during the historical location in question. He points out that translation delineates the bound of conversion to a significant proportion but in the process, the transmission of meaning provided a leeway for natives’ own interpretation.
Rafael reads Hispanic missionary texts to assert that a successful conversation in Tagalog, according to the Spanish, necessitated the Tagalog language’s organization by developing a grammar and locating it in God’s hierarchy of languages, and using Spanish at the expense of baybayin, the native writing system supposed to be ambiguous. In translating, the ordering between Castillan and Tagalog was recognized but not fulfilling the missionaries’ holistic attempt at authority, since natives respond to “fished” Spanish words without them actually knowing what these meant.
Rafael argues that colonial hierarchy and conversion were spawned by translation’s misreading by both parties. For instance, the “untranslatable” Espiritu Santo gets freely interpreted as pleased the natives, and when an inevitable error in Tagalog translation happened, the natives gets the probable upsetting of the colonizing missionaries’ agenda. The following chapters saw Rafael’s continued explication of many bizarre facets of Tagalog-Spanish ties employing mutually misread facts by means of translation overview of texts in both cultures’ language. In effect, the colonial hierarchy becomes set when Tagalog translation necessities occur.
Contracting Colonialism depicts an order based on language issuing out of a colonial administration, relative to other colonial hierarchies from culture to politics. The role language assumes in a colonial mission is indispensable since the conquerors and the conquered must voice out their responses and aims, thus is translation’s necessity. Communication is tied up with language, so even as translation is defined in the book as something parallel to all culturally-assigned paradigms, linguistic translation is very important, hence tremendously stressed. The Spanish customized Tagalog to various proportions through grammar codification and promotion of its practice in order to foreground and regulate communication, but to no avail.
The linguistic order stabilizes with translation and appropriation springing from the need for communication between the Spanish and the natives. Colonial power may be gleaned from this hierarchy and its formative nature is tantamount to the colonized people’s ability to circumvent this power with the utility of their original, non-stratified native tongue and its semantics. This linguistic order is an effect of and is used to disseminate the colonial system. The translation and language appropriation spawning the hierarchy are realized through various social forces—political, cultural, and religious—that push colonialism. The repetitive translation was needed in order to accomplish the colonial directive of Tagalogs’ conversion.
To explain the bonds between colonialism, conversion and translation in the early colonial Philippines, Rafael browses through Christian text, language manuals, and secular letters authored by both Tagalogs and Spanish. His fundamental means of analysis is comprehensive, citing relatively scarce sources. In fairness to the examiner, texts from early colonial Philippine era are few, and while the author must have chosen to be silent about it, the heavy interpretation serves as an implication that the author decided rather than needed to do so.
The author is greatly concerned with how texts function–a Tagalog grammar of Spanish is read primarily for its say on native Tagalog ideas about language for evidences to the means Tagalogs triumphantly disabled the havoc wrought by colonial signifiers, and analysis of the subjects integrated in the language manual are utilized to share points why Tagalogs received such grammar as an instrument of struggle.
Rafael makes use of his analyses to exemplify a conclusion regarding the perception of Tagalogs and Spanish Christians on different cultural objects and their interaction via erroneous translation. Afterwards, he employs it as an explanation of some riddles in early colonial religious history and consequently sweeps to elaborate a portion of how the whole Spanish colonial apparatus in the archipelago gained notorious ground. This kind of method wants some belief on the part of the audience, but this proves to be full of incentive, nonetheless. The author’s analyses are riveting—to illustrate: he proceeds that unending Spaniards’ complaints of half-baked conversions by Tagalogs could be attributed to the natives’ notion of utang na loob, accepted by the Spaniards to be the translation of indebtedness to God, that in truth motivates scattered and incomplete debt repayment. These analyses, meanwhile, are somewhat unbelievable, since his interpretations seem fictionalized, without the persuasion that they are somehow operating within truth. While Contracting Colonialism is clever and possibly innovative and poignant, the book seems self-contained. Rafael seems to create the impression that the textual sources were heavily analyzed to be customized in a presupposed hypothesis than could be related or not at all with truth. Notwithstanding, the book is incandescent in its countering a narrative of universalizing by virtue of showing how the natives disarmed colonial apparatuses from boxing them up within the foreign norm and setting them in an unequal footing against the colonizers. While there are prevailing binaries that bring about religious and linguistic deformations wrought by colonial encounters, colonialism did not completely paralyzed the natives and could not be said to succeed in greatly permeating the native consciousness as to transmogrify the natives’ identity. The civilizing mission is not successful, but the colonial subjects are still humans, after all. The epistemic violence endured by colonials did not fully intrude to establish paradigmatic norms, as shown in the text at hand.
Contracting colonialism is a brilliant illustration of socio-history of language in a context where parameters of language are inherently significant and fascinating and constructs an insight into the operations of colonialism at large. Likewise, it exhibits how linguistic origins, which often persist in the structure of living languages, can be effectively harnessed for historical interpretation. This review hopes to have shown that language is a matter to reckon with along with better known ones such as race and gender, and that its qualification as a historical artifact becomes an avenue to a fertile and progressive work. In some extent, the natives might have contracted colonialism, but not without showing to the colonizer, through language, the inscrutable people that they are.

the epic hero as a symbol of national identity

The epic Iliad is replete with the exploits of mythical heroes whose deeds helped mold the Greek worldview and character. Homer’s long narrative poem on the Trojan War in Greece’s neighboring Asia Minor told not only the courage and dexterity of Greek and Trojan warriors but also their nobility and pride. These insights into the way of life, outlook and virtues of the ancient Greeks spoke of the social role heroes play as a symbol of national identity.
The Homeric epic hero manifests three requisites in order to live up to one’s title, regardless of one’s superhuman and other physical qualities. First, one should resolve that warriors must stand together in battle. Whether winning or losing, the army should not appear divided, and each member as a hero must pursue that social alliance. Second, one must be concerned with one’s comrades. Before one thinks of oneself, one thinks more of the welfare of one’s people. Finally, one must avoid extreme brutality. The last requirement is deemed crucial for one to be a real epic hero, for a true one disapproves acts of ruthlessness, denigration and injustice. An epic hero understands that slaying an enemy must be enacted fast and that any mutilation reflects the savageness of the hero and the whole community. A hero, being practically spotless, becomes a national symbol for the society to emulate. This immaculate leader is the very epitome of how members of the society imagine themselves to be.
More than his Greek counterpart Achilles, the Trojan Prince Hector is the embodiment of a true hero of the Iliad. Even as his hometown severely suffers as a consequence of the ongoing war between the Mycenaean Greeks and the citizens of Troy, Hector stands by his men in battles. Hector is fully aware of his accountabilities as his hometown’s great warrior. He understands that despite Troy’s destiny of falling into the hands of the invading Greeks, he will sustain the fight up to the bitter end. He recognizes that women and children abound behind the walls of his city, so he battles it out not only for his personal gain but also for his community’s glory. Likewise, defying his wife Andromache’s plea for him not to leave for the battle, Hector demonstrates the spirit of the Homeric hero with his justification. He said that while his family is his concern, he cannot just hide like a coward and resist fighting. That would give him shame toward facing the Trojans, and that would go against his nature of having trained to be in the frontline, hoping to reap glory.
Also, the hero in Hector shows concern for his people. When Hector runs away from Achilles, he seems to have lost his pride and bravery. However, this defining moment concretizes the true epic hero that he is. Hector is aware that he is outmatched, so he flees in an attempt to attract Achilles into the territory of the Trojan army. He is being rational in that his fall in the hands of the enemy spells the fall of Troy. Instead of foolish pride, Hector chooses logic and runs not because he is a coward but because he cared more of his city, his people and his family. He cannot be dead, for a dead hero cannot help defend his nation.
Finally, Hector did not show mercilessness or unfairness on the battlefield. Even as the idea of death for the opponents is a major concern for a nation at war, Hector articulates to Achilles his wish of being returned to Troy for proper burial in the event that he will emerge in the fight as a cold corpse. This implies that Hector himself will not find in his heart any reason to deny the same condition to Achilles should the latter gets killed. Hector must not demonstrate cruelty or injustice on the battleground because every fighter like himself deserves honor when he wins as well as when he loses.

the conscious: reflexivity in four american films

Several films call attention to themselves and defy the purpose of simulating an illusion. Instead of consummately riveting the audience in the film, the audience becomes aware of the film, its work and its technology that are supposed to be concealed. These unconventional films, which employ methods that are associated with the reflexive style, include Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich, Gary Ross’ Pleasantville, and Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr.
One reflexive method that is prevalent in all films is the use of camera as one of the characters.In Rear Window, the invalid Jeff (James Stewart) plays a professional photographer who gets to use his camera as a way for the audience to see what goes on in the rear windows of the apartment opposite his. Also, the director’s camera plays a voyeur, much like the character Jeff and the audience peeking through the daily lives of a woman who practices alone for a date, a lady who dances all day long and who dates men simultaneously, a newly-wed couple on an all-day honeymoon, a couple who sleeps by the balcony owing to the hot weather, and a couple who splits on a murderous note. In Being John Malkovich, a magical portal accidentally discovered by Craig Schwartz becomes a camera through which the vision of John Malkovich (John Malkovich), a real-life actor, may be projected. The director’s camera makes the audience see what goes on in John Malkovich’s mind as well as his vision. In Pleasantville, the television powered by a strange remote control shows the life of the people of fictional Pleasantville, to which the twins David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) are transported and ultimately introduce a rainbow of emotions to the otherwise black-and-white boring community. The director’s camera takes the audience as witness of the chromatic transformation of Pleasantville. Lastly, the camera in Sherlock Jr. intersperses the silent film’s facts and fictions in such a manner that comedian Buster Keaton jumps onto the screen to become a legitimate part of the projected action. Keaton dreams of the case of his beloved’s missing watch, and follows it to reality onscreen.
Another reflexive method used in all four films is the disregard for the plausible, with characters becoming part of the screen of the film within the film. In Rear Window, the voyeur Jeff becomes part of the “screen” he watches his neighbors through when the murderous husband confronts him inside his home and throws him out of the window. The place he just looks outside from—his screen—takes him in as one of the characters. In Being John Malkovich, the Schwartz couple (John Cusack and Cameron Diaz), some curious people baited by the enterprising puppeteer and John Malkovich himself all get to see the outside world from the screen of John Malkovich’ mind. The characters become John Malkovich for fifteen minutes, seeing the very things the actor does, from his naked body to a dinner date to a play dialogue he memorizes a dialogue from. In Pleasantville, the twins get trapped inside the black-and-white television, where they play the characters of the kids of the TV shows’ protagonist parents. They become black-and-white as well, until such time their liberated feeling of emotions colors the world of Pleasantville. In Sherlock Jr., a sleeping Keaton disgorges his spirit and, dreaming of the kidnapped beloved and the lost pearl necklace, leaps into the screen and turns into a film-inside-the-film character. Keaton experiences an ever changing backdrop from the ocean to the lion’s den to the desert until he becomes integral to the screen, purposed at saving his lady in distress.
Being reflexive, all four films are not without references to other pieces of work. This only shows to what extent the film is conscious of itself as a work in relation to other masterpieces. For one, Rear Window is based on the short story of Cornell Woolrich entitled It Had to Be Murder. The murder the invalid believes has occurred in the film and which he would have the audience believe too is the referred murder in the short story. Meanwhile, Being John Malkovich, while a largely original work by the genius director, makes references to such works as Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard whose dialogue John Malkovich is recording when the fan who would be his girlfriend calls, and William Shakespeare’s Richard III which John Malkovich is rehearsing with other stage actors. Likewise, the puppet show Craig is performing onstreet where a furious father jabs at him alludes to the letters of Abelard and Heloise, a pre-medieval English tragic romance. On the other hand, Pleasantville is actually a black-and-white sitcom back in the 1950’s, which is itself based on works such as Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver. Parts of the film like the court scene divided by colors and the destruction of nonconforming signs by the town mayor’s allies call to mind the racially-segregated court scene in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird and Bonfire of the Vanities, respectively. Finally, Sherlock Jr. is no doubt an allusion to the fictional Sherlock Holmes, the famous English detective. This is made more vivid by the film fact that Keaton, while working as a projectionist in the movie house, aspires to become a detective whose first case is the missing watch.
There are many other intertextual proofs in the films which designate them as “conscious” films. They are meant to make us, the audience, aware that we are not mere spectators but characters too of the film by way of making us think, feel and see the way all the reflexive film characters do, be them the persons or the camera.

insignificant others: a reading of "people of consequence"

Not a few stories have characters whose acquisition of possessions generates changes in their personalities, often for the worse. Such is Ines Taccad Camayyo’s award-winning “People of Consequence,” which features the lives of a couple who, as they ascend up the social strata, manifests aggravation of characters.
Both Camus and Meding are people of consequence: they pick up after their respective dealmakers. Camus worked first as a houseboy for a German landlord then as a street sweeper after an appointment by a town councilor. Meanwhile, his wife Meding served as a maid for the town mayor’s family. These connections to significant persons provide their juxtaposition as insignificant others—what wealth, power, connections and social position the German haciendero, the municipal councilor and the town mayor have, Camus and Meding lack.
However, this poverty does not stop the couple from desiring to climb a notch higher up the social hierarchy. In fact, their impoverished condition becomes their driving force to rise out of obscurity and be their rural area’s most prominent citizens. In their barrio, Camus and Meding are “the only ones who had really known and lived with people of consequence” (p. 435); a quarter-century of intense industry and perseverance has them “becoming people of consequence” (p.435) themselves.
Like the mythical Sisyphus written about by the existentialist writer from whom Camus’ name was inspired, he pushes his strength out to reach atop the mountain of social recognition (it is no accident that in his village at the foot of a tall cliff he and other men originally made a clearing out of, Camus turns out to “[own] the best house” (p. 435)—the highest-accorded, the highest-flying).
Camus works hard not only as a chicken raiser but also as a fisherman like his father before him, only better positioned since he is touted to be intelligent and, therefore, meant for big things, as he claims his German landlord envisions of him whenever told to “aspire to go to Manila to study,…because he would then cultivate further the inclination and aptitude” (p. 439).
He boasts of being the German’s confidante, and grows wistful each time the thought of being educated descends upon him—an inclination that remained over time despite the faded resolutions (p. 439). He feels he is “very much needed [by] and…useful (p. 438)” to people of relative importance, as when he dresses the chickens he has brought to the party-throwing Inspector as well as his German employer, notwithstanding an old crone’s ordering that dismays him (p. 438) and the aleman’s “punishments…for his own good” (p. 435). All these Camus has assimilated on his way to the top, to such ruinous proportion that “his stories of intimacy with the German master grew” (p. 439) and his lies await about “how pleased the good lady had been, how truly fine a gentleman the Superintendent was” (p. 442).
The events may be conspiring to imply what Camus thinks of himself, but the illusion of self-importance is one symptom of the person of consequence Camus is turning to be.
Camus’ wife Meding has the more excessive change in personality. She is the fiercer laborer of the couple: she works nonstop after having “learned the hard-driving manners of townsfolk” (p. 436), a suggestion that she should not stop short of getting to the privileged status of being a person of consequence. She crochets, peddles carabao milk, occasional fruits from the backyard and her husband’s catch, and doubles as a hard-hearted usurer. Her “determined self-denial” (p. 437) as a miser makes him “[know] her less and less” (p. 437). Also, she forces her husband to tap the necessary links for them to consummate their desire to improve their social position. For instance, she urges him to visit the superintendent, through whose influence the couple may be helped to gain more opportunity to leap away from the lower rung of the social ladder. He shows unspoken objections, but Meding “listened to him indifferently; already in her mind, she was counting the chickens which she must catch, tie up and cage in stripped baskets” (p. 441). Meding’s dream house they built for themselves is somewhat a dislocation in their barrio, for it seems built opposite the false modesty Camus tries to effect when the capacious residence becomes the center of talk. To him, Meding is “an ardent example of what hard work and frugality could bring” (p. 440). The radical changes in the wife show to what disastrous extent the necessity to enter a higher social level can get.
An upward social mobility like that sought after by Camus and Meding is admirable to a point, but not to an excess. Their transmogrified personalities as they amass the necessary possessions to become people of consequence are a reminder that they strive way too hard to be accepted in a higher social status. They may absorb the lifestyle of their bosses in the long run, but it cannot be erased that Camus and his wife, being people of consequence, have at their own cost toiled as providers of the needs of a breed of people they can never truly belong to.

the procession

Pagkahaba-haba man ng prusisyon, sa simbahan rin ang tuloy.” I repeatedly murmured that Filipino proverb on my way to Plaza San Ignacio where the play my class was required to watch and to base a reflective essay on would be staged. It was my first time in Intramuros, and while the twilight was rapidly giving in to the dark carpet of night time, I was hoping I would find the venue in no sooner moment without having to feel like a lost kid inside the mall. A few friendly exchanges with the Walled City’s modern-day guardia civiles led my church-going personal procession to an open air where men, women and children in Philippine national costumes walked unhurriedly while a choir serenaded them. Afterwards, three videos about the Philippines, the composite of Filipino people and the history of Intramuros were projected on a decaying wall. A little while and what proved to be a reenactment of the Spanish arrival in the archipelago transported everyone, including the audience, inside the Plaza ruins for “A Walk Back in Time.”
I was thinking that with an interactive audience like that, the play would have us take part in such a historic, figurative walk. After all, the audience is comprised mostly by Filipinos, and students like me at that. It was not far from me that the experience would surely be a learning experience for all of us, so I kept in mind the basis for my meditation: cultural context in time. It helped that a young native boy acted as a story teller, who was quick to point out that he, along with other natives, was not a Filipino. The label referred to the second-class Spanish nationals born in the Islands, not unlike the well-heeled peninsulares born in mother Spain. Having known that, I thought of one of the titles given to Philippine National Hero Jose Rizal, who was alluded to as The First Filipino. He must have become the first one only when he was able to awaken the mass’ consciousness into fighting for colonial independence. It took The First Filipino three centuries to get the rightful title—that’s indeed a long procession.
One cultural part of the play peeled after another like layers of a delicate flower, and as a Chinese, I took special interest in the portrayed development of the Chinese culture in the country. Tracing their humble beginnings literally from the streets where they sold their siopaos, pancits and chiongsams, they are now the Sys, the Gokongweis, the Tans, the Lims and other corporate giants. It was rather ironic that in their former historical location, the Chinese were sent compulsorily to the peripheral Parian, only to soar to the height of power when they amassed vast money through hard work and prudence. With the influence, we Chinese have become Filipinos too because not a few of us have found ourselves in many aspects of Philippine life from politics to religion to the academe. Like a procession ultimately leading to the church, we Chinese have arrived too.
When the play showed the intermarriage of the natives and of the non-natives like the Chinese and the Spanish, it came to me that the mestizo culture answers why only the isolated Filipino minorities like the Aeta brothers can claim to being pure-blooded Filipinos. Our varying shades of brown and contaminated language betray us, for even then, one Pinoy may be darker or fairer in his brownness than another, and his Tagalog-based mother tongue has Spanish for ingredients. Three hundred years of colonization created an ever-mixed Filipino identity that has gotten this far, and the procession will still take a long way to go.
Later in the play, the social divide between the educated class of the ilustrados and the popular class of the Katipuneros was blurred when the culture of the Filipinohood was born during the first nationwide Philippine Revolution. Both the ilustrados and the Katipuneros became aware of the need to be liberated from colonial oppression and sought for independence from Spain through diplomatic and armed means. The time was ripe for the Filipino culture to grow on its own, brutally interrupted by the arrival of the colonizers. The Filipino identity wills to assert itself however wounded it is.
The way things are going now tell that the church sought after by the Filipino identity is still remote from sight, for the presence of colonization is invisible but felt like the wind. What is good is that the Filipino is still moving in order to gather, desperate as it seems, the identity that is lost in time. This walk back in time shows the length to which the Filipino has traveled thus far, hoping that however distant the Filipino procession gets, it will finally reach the church.

ang postmoderno sa zsa zsa zaturnnah zee moveeh

Dalawang araw makaraan ang Pasko, nanood ako ng "Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah Zee Moveeh" na idinirehe ni Joel Lamangan at pinagbibidahan nina Zsa Zsa Padilla bilang mala-Darnang superheroine na si Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah, Rustom Padilla bilang baklang si Ada na alter-ego ng superheroine, at Pops Fernandez bilang Ingleserang Queen Femina Stellabaroux mula sa ibang daigdig. Tipikal ang banghay ng pelikula sa mga kauri nitong kuwentong Pinoy superhero: isang api-apihang tao ang makakadiskubre ng kanyang kapangyarihan at gagamitin niya ito upang ipagtanggol ang marami laban sa lupon ng kasamaan. Sa "Zsa Zsa," mapapasakamay ng binabaeng si Ada ang isang agimat na nagmula sa kalawakan at sa tulong nito, magbabagong-anyo siya upang maging tunay na babaeng superhero at ipagtatanggol ang kanyang maliit na bayan laban sa isang dambuhalang palaka, sa mga binuhay na bangkay at panghuli, sa isang grupo ng mga fashionistang babaeng dayuhang siyang dahilan ng naunang dalawang sumalakay sa bayan ni Ada.
Paghahalintulad at pagtatambis ang pangunahing dahilan kung bakit ko pinanood ang pelikula. Gusto kong makita ang pagkakahawig at kaibahan nito sa aklat na siyang pinagbasehan ng direktor ng kanyang pelikula: ang grapikong nobela ng dibuhistang si Carlo Vergara na "Ang Mga Kagila-gilalas na Pakikipagsapalaran ni Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah." Gusto ko ring maikumpara ito sa teatrong halaw pa rin sa librong nagkamit ng National Book Award.
Ilan sa masasabi ko hinggil sa pelikula ang mga sumusunod: maraming elementong postmoderno rito. Halimbawa, may konsepto ng queer dito, dahil sa bakla ang bidang alter-ego at campy ang pagiging mala-bakla rin ng superheroine. Isa pang halimbawa ang konsepto ng simulacrum, dahil nga kopya si Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah ng konseptong Darna, ang pinakapopular na Pinoy superheroine. Napansin ko rin ang konseptong non-linear, dahil napuputol ang pagtutuluy-tuloy ng banghay kapag sumisingit ang choreographed na sayawan at kantahan pati na flashback sa buhay ni Ada noong “dalaginding” pa siya at inilulublob ng ama sa dram ng tubig para gawing tunay na lalaki. Sangkap rin sa pelikula ang pemenismo dahil bukod sa pagiging fashionista ng mga dayuhan, layunin din nilang durugin ang machismo sa daigdig matapos magtagumpay sa sarili nilang planeta. Hindi rin mapapalampas ang kulturang popular dahil binudburan ng pantasya ang kuwento upang makapagbagong-anyo ang bida, makalipad ang mga dayuhan, magkaroon ng zombies, at iba pa.
Nakaaaliw man ang pelikula, hindi ito singganda ng theater adaptation nito at milya-milya pa rin ang agwat sa ganda ng libro kaysa sa pelikulang halaw dito.