THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS

A NOVEL BY NICK JOAQUIN

 QUICK REVIEW

 Being one of the most admired writers in Philippine literature, Nick

Joaquin was recognized as National Artist of the Philippines for
Literature in 1976. In his historical novel entitled The Woman Who Had
Two Navels, Joaquin examines the effects and influence of the past
towards the post-war events in the Philippines. Lead female character
Connie Escobar thinks she has two navels, and thus requests her doctor
to remove one – which symbolically means that she wants to shun
away from a traumatic past. She later finds out that her husband,
Macho Escobar, was the lover of her mother. Hoping to escape after
being betrayed, she flees, only to discover more truths.
 FUN FACT

 This book is a fictional story of a Filipina woman

who believes she has two navels. It is widely
considered as a classic in Philippine literature. It is
divided into 5 chapters: Paco, Macho, La Vidal, The
Chinese Moon, and Doctor Monson.
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
 Nick Joaquin is widely considered one of the greatest
Filipino writers, but he has remained little-known
outside his home country despite writing in English.
Set amid the ruins of Manila devastated by World War
II, his stories are steeped in the post-colonial anguish
and hopes of his era and resonate with the ironic
perspectives on colonial history of Gabriel García
Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa. His work meditates
on the questions and challenges of the Filipino
individual’s new freedom after a long history of
colonialism, exploring folklore, centuries-old Catholic
rites, the Spanish colonial past, magical realism, and
baroque splendor and excess.
 MAIN CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
 Paula and Candida Marasigan  Connie Escobar

 These two sisters are loving and caring. The two maintain  She is described to be selfish. Connie Escobar who is the female
their family home where they live, despite their father lead character has been described as a female who suffers from
being unwell. These sisters are deeply bonded by their her mother’s worldly estrangement and males violate women by
taking advantage of them. Connie Escobar has been used by
father’s morals. The sisters have suffered great
Joaquin to build the themes of colonialism abuse of the female
humiliations although they are devoted to their father.
gender.
 Don Lorenzo Marasigan  Manolo Vidal
 He is described as secretive since he was once a famous  He is described as a traitor and acts as the embodiment of the
painter and does not accept to either show or sell his Filipino nationalistic bourgeois, who later transformed to serve
galleries. He decides to leave these to Paula and Candida. these colonialists.
 Doctor Monson  Paco Texeira

 He is rebellious and intelligent. The doctor decides to  Being a survivor of the behaviors between the families of
leave his native country and moves to Hong Kong. He uses Monson and Vidal has been used by Joaquin to act as his observer
Hong Kong as his hiding place to avoid postwar trials. and penetrates the existing customs and rituals. He could break
the barrier in terms of social classes that existed all through the
novel, but he fails to do so.
A SUMMARY OF
THE STORY
“The Woman Who Had Two Navels” (Nick Joaquin) Summary

The story begins with Connie Escobar, daughter of a politician and a famous beauty, visiting Pepe Monson, a horse
doctor, in Hong Kong for a consultation because she has TWO NAVELS. She wanted him to remove her other navel
through a surgical operation because if she will be going to give birth, where would the other umbilical cord be
connected? In addition, she does not want to become a freak when she has to undress for her husband. She said she is
30 years old and has just been married hours ago. Then, she told Pepe about a story from her childhood. When she was
a child, she thought that everybody has two navels but when she discovered her doll, Minnie, has only one, she threw
it into the pond. 
Then she told Pepe that her mother is also in Hong Kong. Pepe talked to Senora Concha Vidal and discovered from
her that Connie was lying that she is not 30 years old, only18; that she was not married a morning just before she came
to consult him, but a year ago; that she has only ONE navel. Senora de Vidal also told Pepe that she forced Connie to
marry Macho Escobar because Connie was upset about the rumor that her father, Manolo Vidal, spends the public
fund to send his children to school.
Because Connie was just forced to marry to a man she really does not love, Senora Concha told Pepe that Connie was chasing a
bandleader named Paco Texeira, that’s why she is now in Hong Kong. She and Macho followed Connie in Hong Kong they can
bring her back to the Philippines. Macho’s reason in taking her back is to avoid humiliation for her politician father by creating a
scandal because it is election times in the Philippines. Pepe told Senora de Vidal that Paco is married to Mary and that he and Paco
are grade school friends. After talking to Senora de Vidal, Pepe went to the Texeira’s.

Pepe learned from his conversation with the Texeiras that Paco had been to Manila playing with his band. From Manila, Paco had
sent letters to Mary about Senora de Vidal. Senora de Vidal and Paco had a good time together and they were interested in each
other’s countries Hong Kong and Philippines. One day, when Paco was waiting for Senora Concha in her house, he found Connie
and from that moment on he started wanting Connie. Connie had watched Paco perform in the clubs until one night, there were
people fighting and someone had gotshot. Because Connie was shocked, Paco comforted her. Until some weeks, Paco drove Connie
to his hotel, knowing that Connie also liked him.
He was about to rape Connie, not knowing her background. They only had savage fight like wild beasts. After 2 days,
Paco went back to Hong Kong. Pepe states that both Connie and Senorade Vidal have an evil hold on him and he knows
that he will go running to them when they call him. But he does not call it love. Pepe also realized both his father and
Paco have a similar traumatized look after they came back from the Philippines. Pepe’s father could not answer most of
Paco’s questions since he came back to Hong Kong from Manila. All he said while he is in his room was “Dust and
crabs.. dust and crabs.. dust and crabs..”. 
Meanwhile, in the art shop of Rita Lopez and Helen Silva, Rita received a call from Pepe. Rita is Pepe’s wife and Helen
is a friend. Pepe called Rita to invite her for dinner with Paco and Mary to a club in Tovarich. In Tovarich, they met Pete
Alfonso, a band leader who is seeking a pianist and a singer. Paco applied and got hired. The next important thing that
happened was that Pepe found Connie Escobar naked inside the club and talked to her for he know Connie needs him,
with a promise to Rita he would only do it for a couple of minutes. After a short talk with Connie, Pepe went back to
Rita and told the rest of the group to go home without him so he can help Connie with her problem, which made Rita
angry.
Connie had driven her car so fast that made Pepe to cry “stop!” Then Connie told Pepe why she was driving so fast because she feels
like she’s running away. She related it to a story where she ran away from school, not because of her father whipping her – a lie told
by Concha to Pepe, but because she was ashamed that her father was an abortionist. Then Pepe advised Connie to ask advise to her
brother, Tony, at the convent, but Connie instead wanted to go in her hotel. However, when Connie went to her room in the hotel, she
rushed back to Pepe telling him that Macho, her husband, is inside and she does not want to see him. She told Pepe that Macho has
other girls and one of them is her mother, Concha de Vidal. Paco learned from her that she found out the love letters of Macho and
her mother. Because of this, Pepe helped Connie to go away from her hotel by letting her sleep in Rita’s place, which made Rita even
angrier. Connie asked Pepe to tell Macho that she was sick and does not want to see him, which Pepe agreed to do.

Macho, however, stopped Pepe when he was leaving his room and told Pepe the story of their marriage and that he knew Connie
knew of his past affair with her mother because of the letters, but he insisted it was over and done with. Macho also mentioned that
his father died and he has to take care of their hacienda. When Pepe went home, just before daylight when Rita awoke, they did not
find Connie in the sofa. She was gone.
It was a Chinese New Year in Hong Kong and Paco Monson and his band were performing in Tovarich. In the
convent of St. Andrew, Connie, as per Pepe’s advice, sought help from Father Tony Monson about the explanation of
her two navels. She says she is grateful and horrified at the same time of her state. Father Tony did not believe her and
advised her to see an older priest instead so she would realize that she’s only delusional. However, she went away
without consulting Father Prior. Meanwhile, Senora de Vidal, visited St. Rita’s Shop and fortunately saw Father Tony
there. She told him that all Connie was saying are lies, but Father Tony, when asked if he finds the problem silly,
replied that it was serious.
Finally, she told him about the reason why she married Macho off to Connie. It was because she hated Connie for
preventing her from running off with Macho for she has a responsibility to Connie who was still a child. Moreover,
she told Father Tony that Connie really thinks that all the time Connie still loved her, she was already planning to
destroy her daughter, but this was urgently stopped by Father Monson.
Later that night, Concha was remembering the time when she was fifteen, when she first met her first husband, Esteban
Borromeo – a handsome boy, a good painter, an activist. She married him but was widowed by his death. And then she met the
abortionist, Dr. Manolo Vidal, after seeking help because she got pregnant by an effete writer and does not want to embarrass
her father. After the abortion, she turned to religion with equal passion she displayed with earlier love affairs. But before she
committed herself to God, Manolo Vidal came back into her life to court her, and later married her. On the other hand, The
Monson brothers found Connie in their apartment and relayed the information that Macho wants to start from scratch with
Connie wherever she might want to go as long as they are together.
She insists that the knowledge of her two navels will scare him away. The Monson brothers think that she is using the delusion
of having two navels in order to feel unique and disengage from her problematic life including an excuse for not confronting
Macho about being her mother's former lover. She wants to be safe so she retreats from a fully lived life. The Monson brothers
want her to reengage in her life in order to live a full, free, responsible life of her own choosing. Then, she wants the Monson
brothers to confirm or refute her two navel delusion once and for all by stripping and letting them see for themselves whether
or not she has two navels. Father Tony left Pepe to refute her two navel delusion which Pepe hesitantly complied to.
When Pepe discovered that Connie really had only one navel, her delusional world broke apart. Connie proceeded to do
what he wanted to do – TO RUN AWAY – first toward the monastery. On her way, she remembered her bitter past and saw
hallucinations of her family’s destruction. The flashbacks started when Connie was 5 years old. She went to a carnival and
wanted her doll, Minnie, to see Biliken, the carnival god. Because the young Connie is such a spoiled brat, she wanted to
have Biliken at home even going to the extent that she threw Minnie away and have to lie that it was stolen from her just
to convince her mother to get Biliken for her. When she was 11, Connie was able to possess Biliken since Mr. Vidal
considers Biliken to represent happy memories during the beginning of WWII before the war destroyed this joyous past.
This was also the time when her mother had become so cold to her after returning home from Hong Kong. Her mother had
left Manila without an explanation, the same with Macho Escobar, her mother’s friend. With her mother’s coldness,
Connie converted her attention to Biliken idol which was kept in the orchard so that she can have a friend to be together
with. When she became 14 years old, Connie was evacuated because the war was coming to Manila. At 15 years old, after
the war, Connie and her family returned to their ruined house.
She found Biliken in the orchard and was horrified seeing Biliken having two black holes at her stomach, making it
look like two navels. Seeing the horrifying Biliken, Connie realized that her childhood was nothing as she thought it
was – that it never was happy. She sees her past as horrible when she associated it with the love affair of Macho and
her mother in the past that made her to be like that horrible monster. After her honeymoon with Macho, Connie
discovered the love letters, which made her to seek Biliken, though she did not know how she had got there when she
came.
In the final chapter, Kikay Valero, since she knows all the Filipinos in town, had the obligation to report to Concha
about Connie’s death and to comfort Tony for his father’s sudden demise. Macho, showing his love for Connie,
looked for her body during a storm. Concha, on the other hand, hides in the shadows of her room but did not mourn
for her daughter for she does not consider herself guilty of her death. The Monson brothers think the real reason that
Concha refuses to feel guilt is because she wants to continue to live with a semblance of normality by continuing to
dress up as though nothing has happened. Meanwhile, Tony felt guilty over Connie’s death because he had pushed her
to seek the truth. He quitted his priesthood so he could not destroy other Connie’s. Rita, on the contrary, grew mad at
Father Tony’s decision of quitting as a priest just because of Connie’s death. She even grew angrier when she found
out that Connie is not dead and has eloped with Paco because she knows Mary will be suffering too if she knows
about it. This revelation was written by Connie in her letter to Pepe before she went off with Paco.
In the final moments before her car flew off the cliff, Connie was able to escape and this escape made her desire of a
life well-lived. By throwing her mother's handbag, she also threw the influence her mother has over her. Instead of
going to the monastery, as advised by Father Tony himself, Connie went to celebratethe living in the city, and when
she did not know where she would go, Connie ended up in the Monson’s apartment. There, she met Dr. Monson and
asked forgiveness for betraying the past. Dr. Monson also asked forgiveness for not living in the present. After this
reconciliation of the past, Connie felt saved and free, while Dr. Monson died in this encounter with a smile on his face
because he has already reconciled with the present.
After her visit with Dr. Monson, Connie bumped into Paco and fell to his embrace. He recognized that Connie was
the haunted girl he feared and had fought with but now he sees Connie’s face as Mary’s and remembers Mary’s face
as the one haunted. They decided to go to Macao and then leave their partners behind. While Rita objected to this,
Father Tony believes Connie did the right thing. Another soul must sacrifice for one soul to be free. She chose Paco to
leave her delusion caused by Macho and Concha’s love affair. She needs to do the wrong thing to save herself. She
can find redemption through sinning, for "without sin there can be no repentance---and, therefore, no upheaval for
transfiguration or growth of the spirit." Pepe told Tony that they helped Connie have a courage to live though they do
not yet know the outcome of her new found freedom will be the key to her salvation or damnation.
At the end, Macho shot Concha then himself and they both died.
 WHAT I THINK ABOUT THIS
STORY
I think the Character of Connie signifies the
Filipinos. Having two navels, meaning having two
mothers, personifies the two nations that colonized
the Philippines. The culture, politics and other
influences of these two nations have led the
Filipinos in a state of being confused or mixed up
on their identity, similar to the character of Connie,
the lead character. What interests me the most is
how Joaquin pictured the old manila. The story was
brilliantly written, as I expect from a great Filipino
Writer. Overall, Joaquin's work is worth the pride of
the Filipinos. This book, along with other works of
Filipino authors, is truly a masterpiece.