The Filipino Short Story

Well, I did apologize for being late a while ago in class. But as you have learned I simply must be late. And I say again that I am currently nursing my kids back to full health due to a slight case of pneumonia. And as you are all aware, this is no ordinary cough.

Anyway they'll be fine. Kids these days are sort of mutants, with all that multivitamins and stuff scientists put in their food products. They're slowly becoming... better than us. That's what I am to believe.

Right, so about the last discussion... We... I mean... I (since it appears I am the only one enthusiastic about the subject) was just discussing about how the Americans have influenced our everyday life just by teaching us English. Well, for those who are curious, let me tell you all about it.


The thing is, learning a new language has an overall effect on people. For one thing, a teacher cannot teach a new language without including cultural expressions unique to the language. This is exactly what happened to the Filipino when the Americans came in 1898. Much of the English expressions we have today are actually foreign expressions entirely. They may say what we feel, but not exactly what we mean. It's the same with Filipino Literature in English. The very concepts the Filipinos try to express in their literature are still a bit foreign.

From what we can sumrise, there were three major phases that the Filipinos had gone through to attain the level of English literacy we have today. And they are as follows:

PERIOD OF RE-ORIENTATION
(1998-1910)
While the last remants of resistance were fanning down, most Filipinos were too eager to embrace their new colonizers. This accounts for two reasons. One, because the Spaniards have long oppressed the ordinary "Indio," even their so-called tradition are considered colonialist. The Americans, on the other hand, were not entirerly forceful of their rise to power. In fact, they envisioned themselves as our "Big Brother" who would guide the Filipinos until the latter can be able to govern themselves. Two, the Americans have given what most Filipinos crave for, education.

The second reason has beneficial and equally devastating effect on the present state of the Filipino.

Beneficial for it has given Filipinos the opportunity to expound in many careers such as engineers, architects, accountants, and even the ever-flourishing profession of journalism. Moreover, they became aware of the concepts of democracy and free-choice.

The devastating effect of education from the Americans is on cultural influence. Much so that Filipinos look at their culture as artifacts, spectacles for special ocassions, and not as truly a severe and reverent part of their life. The result is the dying of many Filipino traditions, supplanted by Western culture.

So, as the USS Thomas came to shore, bearing with her a number of volunteer soldiers as teachers for the first-ever public school system, they gave the Filipino more than just education. They gave him a new identity to choose from.

The main root of this can be traced back to the learning of the English
language. As I have said, whenever one learns a new language, learning its culture is not far behind.


And so, in the 1900's, as English became
the medium of intruction in public schools, many had tried to use the language in their everyday communication.

The late Tony Velazques, the creator of the now classic comic strip hero Kenkoy, had much to say on its effect. Throughout Kenkoy's existence, Velazques critiqued some Filipinos who acted like "Little Brown Americans," brandishing the latest fashion and trend the Americans brought with them, including the use of American expressions like "By golly, wow" and "Never worry." This they did while learning that "A is for Apple," that "the concept of Christmas must be about Christmas trees, Santa Claus and white snow," that the names of kids must be "Dick and Jane and their dog is Spot."

Of course, the more serious ones to use English are the writers who took turns in using it as part of their tongue. It is them, actually, who took most of the impact the Americans made upon the Filipino. The writers found it hard to adjust to a newfound freedom from oppression of thought and speech. To a few, the sensation came as a shock, to others, they became doubtful of how long it would last. And then to some, it is a sudden blessing.

These writers have also adjusted to the difference of English as a language from their own vernacular tongue, resulting to stilted writing, imperfect english, and awkward use of American expressions.

In this early stage, not much literature were in fact written, save for a few that resembled Western literary classics.

Then, in 1908, the University of the Philippines was founded.

PERIOD OF IMMITATION
(1910-1924)

The foundation of UP became the stepping stone for some writers to fully appreciate the new language.

In 1919, the first UP College Folio was published, containing the first Filipino writers in English. They can also be called the pioneers of the Filipino short story in English. The only criticism that can be said of these group is that they imitated American and British models, ranging from theme down to the very plot. Of course, one cannot blame this tendency since the adjustment to the new language means an adjustment to literary as well as cultural standards set up by the Western Classics.
Moreover, as reflected by the period of Re-orientation, the writings are still artificial (in our colloquial tongue "pilit"), bears an unnatural style (due to the patterned formula of the West), lacked vitality (because of its artificialness), and lacks spontaneity (since Filipinos are still much preoccupied in perfecting more their grammar than on the art itself).

This became different when Filipinos finally had a feel of the language in the later part of the American reformation.

PERIOD OF SELF-DISCOVERY AND GROWTH
(1925-1941)

By this time, Filipinos have by then acquired mastery over the English language. They can now freely express themselves as well as use them in intellectual debates.

But due to the heavy influence of the past colonizers, the short stories written still left traces of old Spanish style of writing, namely they are florid, exaggerated, bombastic, and quite often didactic.

The Implication of culture in English

So these are the three periods in the flourishing of the English language in the Philippines. Today, English has become the Filipino's second language, if not the suplement (or spice) to the Tagalog. And the introduction of English had also paved way for many Filipinos to read and discover for themselves what it is to be like Sherlock Holmes, Romeo and Juliet, Jean Valjean, Harry Potter, Edward Cullen, and all other Western icons. The understanding of English became the means for names like Elvis Presley to become household names. And the understanding of English had set a new standard on critiquing Tagalog literature as low brow and for the "pang-masa." Well, it's up to you now to react. But this is what is happening.

Now let's proceed to the discussion of the short story.

THE FILIPINO SHORT STORY

Quite arguably, fiction in itself is Western. The first ever fiction can be traced back in the 17th century and the art of writing short stories was perfected only during the 19th century through the efforts of the late Edgar Allan Poe, who can be said to be the father of the modern short story.Since then, the writing of short stories flourished throughout America with the help of a number of other writers such as Samuel Clemens (more famously known in his pen name Mark Twain), and H.P. Lovecraft (Who wrote in gothic horror and eventually influenced a lot of later generation of horror writers).

If the short story is a product of the West, how can one determine for sure if a short story is truly Filipino in nature?

This is a great theoretical challenge. One that is most often debated not exactly by scholars, but by ordinary folks. Both in character and tone, Filipino fiction is distinctive. As it is said, most Filipino writers are bombastic, or have used a forceful tone and voice in their writing. Another thing is that most Filipino short stories talk more about social status and social relationships. Whether it be about the rich or the poor, the mere thought of being poor, or just plainly about social isolation, Filipinos quite often trouble themselves with self-esteem. To fully appreciate any individual view of these short story writers, we must first understand the way we read stories.

Prose is very much different from poetry. While poetry has rhythm and rhyme, prose on the other hand is straighforward and bears no ryhthmic style whatsoever. What it follows, however are logical patterns in wriitng, in terms of argument, retelling of a narrative, or steps in a process.

In fiction, the logical pattern is called a plot structure. The plot structure goes like this:

A. Initial incident - a significant situation happens that opens up the story, usually a problem is about to be handed to a hero, or perhaps he is already faced with a problem.

B. Rising Action - so while the hero handles a problem, he encounters certain difficulties in solving it.

C. Climax - at the peak of action, the hero manages to find a solution to his problem.

D. Deneument - also known as the downlfall action, the story manages to unwind itself. Maybe there will be a reversal of fortune: the good is rewarded, the bad is punished.

E. Ending - eventually, everything falls down to a conclusion, leaving the reader a sensation of justice, if not a sensation of a revelation in life.

All novels have a series of climaxes. These are called an anticlimax. Since a novel is quite long, these anticlimax serve as a number of significant encounters the hero faces.

The short story only has one major climax: the point of illunmination. The point of illumination is very much important for it speaks about the major change in the fortune of the hero. Also, it speaks of a major revelation that will definitely change the hero's point of view.

Knowing the point of illumination in a story can help us determine what the whole story is really all about. Now, how do we interpret what we see?

Well, in literary criticism, we often use five approaches: moral, cultural, historical, archetypal, and psychological.

To fully utilize all these is to follow it by steps.

A. Moral - the first step is to make your own lesson about what you have read. Moral teaches us a kind of value, the lesson tells us of what to make of that value. So if the moral is "Don't do to others what you don't want others do to you," the lesson will be about "Because others will do exactly the same to you." To put it simply, lessons help explain the reason for the given value.

So how do you find the moral value? How do you explain it through the lesson? Look up on the other steps.

So once you already have the moral value, try to figure out what are the elements in the short story that contributes to it. You will need a piece of paper to list these down on each category.

B. Cultural - Every culture has its own set of values, depending on the country's social structure. So what you must do is to find out first where the short story came from. What culture does it try to portray? What brings this culture forth, in terms of actions, location, costumes, etc.?

C. Historical - Not only is culture important, you must also look at the short story's history. When was it written is important since each generation has its own set of values, too.

D. Archetypal - Symbols are a big part of literature. Look at the symbols that contribute to the story and find its representation and meaning. All symbols within a story contribute to the meaning of the moral set by the author. Say dove for peace, a heart for love.

E. Psychological - in the last phase, think of how the actions of each character are fuelled by their motivations. Why do you think they did what they did? Find this out, you find all the other literary approaches in play. Which of course brings us back to the first approach, moral.

Once everything is laid out on your paper. Make a connection as to how you can explain the moral value. Give the lesson, and then react to the entire story in relation to issues such as social, political, spiritual, sexual, or even your own personal issue.

I hope this brief discussion compensates for my lateness and, God hope not, absences. Well, I still have to attend to my kids.

Time for their medication.