Love in the cornhusks is a story about a servant, Tinang who recently got pregnant and moved to her Bagobo husband’s house. She visited her old senora’s house and on her way home she found out that her lover, Amado is still in love with her through a letter and the reason he has been gone is that his mother had fallen ill. This greatly saddened Tinang because we could infer that Tinang only married the Bagobo so that her child would not grow up fatherless or to have someone with her.
The corral shows the life of Pilar, a woman who gave up teaching to take care of her father and to stay away from Mr. Perfecto, her UGLY UGLY suitor who says that in the end, Pilar will love him as well. Pilar also shows a physical attraction for Gregorio, a guy who is extremely hot yet someone who does not notice her. She shows a feeling of being trapped, trapped from Mr Perfecto, her father and her lust for Gregorio. It seems that she feels like she is in a point of her life were she needs something to happen fast, to change her and if nothing does happen she may just settle to what’s in front of her or within her reach.
The two stories show how women before rely on someone to make them whole and at the end dedicate their lives to a man well in fact, it should be the other way around because it is the woman who does all the work for the man. It is the man who should have felt incomplete. (Sexist ba?) Tinang settled for the Bagobo and Pilar is contemplating to settle for whatever because she feels she really has no choice because she feels once again traped. As a woman, I am really happy that this is not evident in our culture anymore. We have a sense of empowerment and freedom to live equally with men and to be self sufficient individuals
Monday, February 18, 2008
Bread of Salt and Summer Solstice
Bread of salt basically gives us the story of a young boy who has feelings for a rich classmate. The story emphasizes how the boy really wanted to tell the girl, Aida how he feels. Unfortunately, he was not able to go through his little tactics. The boy excelled in music and one night, their band was going to play for the family gathering of Aida. The boy finally thought that this was going to be his chance to finally let out his feelings. During the break, he went over to the table filled with a lot of food. He decided to take some of the egg yolk dessert and hide it under his shirt then suddenly, a voice from behind him said “if you wait a bit after the party, I can have them give you the leftovers.” This remark really affected the boy. After the party, even if he just ate he decided to buy pandesal. Pandesal was also emphasizes in the story as something he and his family usually ate. He was also assigned the job to buy and he really took it seriously. We can infer that that the pandesal acted as a symbol to the young boy, it woke him up from his dream of wanting things above and greater then him. In the end, despite being full from the feast he had he knew that nothing tastes better then pandesal.
Summer Solstice gives us a view of the “tadtarin” or St. John’s feast. It explains to the readers how the feast usually takes place and how the people usually react. The major character, Dona Lupeng is shown as a woman who looks down on other people, she believes she is higher then most people as we saw in the first scene in the feast. She also believes that she should act a certain way. In the end, she realized through the remark of her husbands nephew the she should be adored and not just respected. She wanted the feeling of being wanted by her husband.
Both stories show how at the end the major characters went back to what they truly feel. Dona Lupeng wanted to act how she thought is supposed to be distinguished yet she voiced out her concerns about how she believes her husband should look at her and the boy who wanted to act differently for Aida but he went back to the pandesal he truly loves and gives him a sense of similarity.
Summer Solstice gives us a view of the “tadtarin” or St. John’s feast. It explains to the readers how the feast usually takes place and how the people usually react. The major character, Dona Lupeng is shown as a woman who looks down on other people, she believes she is higher then most people as we saw in the first scene in the feast. She also believes that she should act a certain way. In the end, she realized through the remark of her husbands nephew the she should be adored and not just respected. She wanted the feeling of being wanted by her husband.
Both stories show how at the end the major characters went back to what they truly feel. Dona Lupeng wanted to act how she thought is supposed to be distinguished yet she voiced out her concerns about how she believes her husband should look at her and the boy who wanted to act differently for Aida but he went back to the pandesal he truly loves and gives him a sense of similarity.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
2nd blog
The mats and divide by two
The mats show a story of Mr Angeles’ family excitedly awaiting his return because of the personalized mats he will be giving to his children and wife. He is finally able to come home and give his gifts yet what surprises the whole family is that he still had mats made for his deceased children. This greatly affected his wife who said that “he didn’t have to” yet he reasoned out saying that just because they were dead it didn’t mean that they should be forgotten.
Divide by two shows a story of a couple living in a house beside another couple. In the story the wife gets mad at the fact that the other neighbour decided to put a wall between them. She nags her husband to do something about it because she believes that his action is not a neighbourly thing to do. In the end he wrote them a letter which made the husband come over and talk about it with him. This turned out into a heated fight. One can assume from the story that the wife is or was having an affair with the husband who built the wall between them and this could be a sign of letting go for the mans feelings.
I believe that the common theme in both stories is the issue of letting go. In the first story, there is a loss for the lives of their children yet the wife seems to not get caught up with this pain opposed to her husband who continues to hold on. The story divide by two shows how the husband who built the wall used this to show how he let go of their relationship while the other wife showed that she affected by this loss because she chose to make a big deal out of something as simple as a wall and space.
The mats show a story of Mr Angeles’ family excitedly awaiting his return because of the personalized mats he will be giving to his children and wife. He is finally able to come home and give his gifts yet what surprises the whole family is that he still had mats made for his deceased children. This greatly affected his wife who said that “he didn’t have to” yet he reasoned out saying that just because they were dead it didn’t mean that they should be forgotten.
Divide by two shows a story of a couple living in a house beside another couple. In the story the wife gets mad at the fact that the other neighbour decided to put a wall between them. She nags her husband to do something about it because she believes that his action is not a neighbourly thing to do. In the end he wrote them a letter which made the husband come over and talk about it with him. This turned out into a heated fight. One can assume from the story that the wife is or was having an affair with the husband who built the wall between them and this could be a sign of letting go for the mans feelings.
I believe that the common theme in both stories is the issue of letting go. In the first story, there is a loss for the lives of their children yet the wife seems to not get caught up with this pain opposed to her husband who continues to hold on. The story divide by two shows how the husband who built the wall used this to show how he let go of their relationship while the other wife showed that she affected by this loss because she chose to make a big deal out of something as simple as a wall and space.
Monday, February 11, 2008
1st blog
My father goes to court is really a beautiful story because it shows how Filipinos despite the financial struggle they face continue to have a very positive outlook in life. This perhaps is something very timely for us because we our currently plundering down to this poverty problem. Reports about how the Filipinos are one of the happiest groups of people in the world give out a truly rewarding feeling because we know that as a culture, we don’t let problems like that ruin or dictate our lives.
How my brother brought home a wife shows how close knit a typical Filipino family set up would be. It emphasizes the closeness and importance of acceptance when a new person is added in the family. We live in a society that treasures and respects the decisions of its members yet approval within the family is needed as well.
Both stories exemplify the Filipino family, how much joy they can bring to each other and how important their approval is to them and how they look after each other. These stories make us realize, that in the end it will always be your family.
How my brother brought home a wife shows how close knit a typical Filipino family set up would be. It emphasizes the closeness and importance of acceptance when a new person is added in the family. We live in a society that treasures and respects the decisions of its members yet approval within the family is needed as well.
Both stories exemplify the Filipino family, how much joy they can bring to each other and how important their approval is to them and how they look after each other. These stories make us realize, that in the end it will always be your family.
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