Literary

History/
Evolution of the
Philippines
GRADE-11 SILANG
 American Period
American period is one of the turning points which made
our Philippine literary tradition colorful and interesting. This
period saw the addition of a colorful language, the English
language, as an indispensable tool for literature and
communication. Indeed, this period witnessed a dramatic
flowering of the Philippine literature considering the sheer
volume of works produced the ringing of names etched in the
Philippine literary pantheon, as well as the introduction and
development of new literary genres as genuine additions to
the already rich Philippine literary tradition.
 How My Brother Leon Brought
Home A Wife

Written by: Genre:

Manuel Estabilla Arguilla Short Story

Setting:
Nagrebcan, Bauang La Union
Characters:
Leon/ Noel - Maria’s husband, older brother of
Baldo

Maria – Leon’s wife

Baldo – Leon’s younger brother, also the

narrator of this story.
Characters:
Mother and Father of Leon and Baldo

Aurelia – Leon and Baldo’s younger sister

Labang – the family’s carabao

 Baldo was able to meet his
Synopsis: brother’s wife Maria. As Baldo
saw his older brother's wife, he
described her as lovely, tall, and
beautiful.
Upon their journey to Leon's
home, Leon is wondering why
Baldo drove them to the waig
instead of the camino real, Baldo
answered that he drove the waig
because their father told him to
do so.
Synopsis:
The waig route will serve as
test to Maria if she can live in
the province which differs a lot
from the city where she lived in,
but then it seems like Maria likes
Leon’s province, she described this
as beautiful, fresh air, clean, and
free of dust.
Synopsis: During their journey, Maria, was
worried if Leon’s father and
family would like her.
When they arrived home, father
talked to Baldo asking what
happened during their travel, the
father asked Baldo if Maria was
afraid in their place, Baldo
answered that Maria was not
afraid and instead she enjoyed the
journey.
Analysis: "How My Brother Leon Brought
Home a Wife" is the story of a
man introducing his city-born wife
to his more provincial family.
Transpires in Barrio Nagrebcan
in La Union, the birthplace of
Manuel E. Arguilla himself you’ll
immediately realize how the
writer loves his hometown by the
vivid imagery and sensuality that
hefted on the plate.
Analysis:
From the shapes and the sounds
to even the scent of the air,
Arguilla spares no detail to prove
that beauty exists in Nagrebcan.
The place was very provincial in
which there is a peaceful and
simple living.
Analysis:
This in turn, which will serve as a
challenge to Maria, Leon’s wife
that will lead to the main idea
which is Maria being tested with
Leon’s family especially his father,
if she will be able to live a simple
life in province away from their
city.
 Moral Lessons:

• Social status is not

• We should respect
a hindrance if you
and accept one’s
truly love each
life.
other.
 Moral Lessons:

• Meeting your • One may have to

special someone to sacrifice small part
your family is the of his/her life in
right thing to do. order to have a
happy life.
 Footnote to Youth

Written by: Genre:

Manuel Estabilla Arguilla Short Story

Setting:
Rural Setting
Characters:
Dodong - is a farmer’s son who marries at
seventeen and becomes a father shortly
thereafter. By the end of the story he has many
children and is unable to prevent his eldest son
from repeating his mistakes.
Dodong’s father – is a quiet farmer who
unsuccessfully cautions his son against marrying
young.
Characters:
Teang - is Dodong’s sweetheart, then his wife
and the mother of his children. Though she loves
Dodong, she sometimes wishes she had not
married him.
Lucio - a former suitor of Teang who was nine
years older than Dodong.
Blas - Dodong's eldest son.
Tona - The girlfriend of Blas.
Synopsis:
The plot of the story is four-pronged. It has four
parts that sweep through two generations from the
day Dodong decides to get married to the day his
eldest son Blas approaches him to tell him that he
himself wants to get married.
Dodong was seventeen when he married Teang. They
immediately conceived Blas soon after. Blas is eighteen
when he asks his father permission to marry his
sweetheart Tona. That said, the story covers a time
span of 17 years.
Synopsis:
Part I: On a sunny afternoon after a hard day's
work in the fields, Dodong decides to tell his father
that he wants to marry his sweetheart Teang. He's
only seventeen years old.
After a sumptuous dinner, he spills out his plans to
his father. His proposition is met with hesitation and
discouragement. His father tells him that he's too
young to get married. But in the end, his father agrees
to his wishes and grants him the permission to marry
Teang.
Synopsis:
Part II - Nine months after their marriage, Teang
gives birth to her first son. Dodong experiences a
whirlwind of conflicting emotions during the birthing
process - confusion, fear, discomfort, embarrassment,
and guilt. But when he hears the little baby whimper
and cry, he swells with happiness.
Synopsis:
Part III - Blas is followed by six more children.
Dodong didn't want any more children but they came
anyway. This makes him angry at himself sometimes.
The parade of children is also taking its toll on Teang.
She often wishes that she's not married. She
sometimes wonder if her life would've been better had
she married Lucio, a former suitor she rejected for the
reason that he was nine years older than Dodong.
Synopsis:
Part IV - Blas is eighteen years old. One night, he
tells his father that he wants to marry his girlfriend
Tona. Like his father before him, Dodong doesn't want
Blas to marry as he's too young. He knows what's going
to happen if Blas marries too early. He gives him
permission to marry anyway. But he does so with
sadness in him.
 Themes:
• The ignorance of • The phases of life: Villa
youth: The story portrays highlights the cyclical nature
youth as a time of ignorance of life by emphasizing the
and inevitable rash decisions, characters’ ages and drawing
as well as romanticism and attention to the symbolism of
“dreamful sweetness.” the moon.
 Themes:
• Fear and inaction: Dodong • Don't marry young just
and his father both because you are in love:
demonstrate an inability to Youth will triumph, love will
prevent their own or others’ triumph next will be the life.
suffering, largely through fear Never chase love, for the right
and a sense of helplessness. love won’t run.
 May Day Eve

Written by: Genre:

Nick Joaquin Short Story

Setting:
May Day midnight/ Old Mansion
Characters:
Anastasia – old woman, who is so obedient to
her mistress, accused for being a witch and
believes in superstitious beliefs.
Agueda – pretty, young woman who is so
curious, hardheaded, brave and very much willing
to know her future husband.
Badoy – a vain good looking man who will do
everything to get what he wants and
revengeful.
Characters:
Dona Agueda – old lady who has gray hair, full
of sentiments, emotional and resentful.
Dona Agueda’s daughter – a vain curious girl,
who is persistent to know about the past of
her mother.
Don Badoy – a great lover, emotional and full
of sentiment old man, who repents for what he
has done to Agueda.
Characters:
Voltaire – believe in superstitious belief and
was like his grandma who at an early age
wants to know who will he marry.
Synopsis:
          The story started with a flashback. Dona Agueda
was facing the mirror on Monday eve because her sister told
her to do so. Dona Agueda really believed in her sister.
That is when she faced the mirror, her future lover would
appear in the mirror.
          As soon as Don Badoy appeared in the mirror,
they decide to marry each other because they believed in
Anastasia. When they got their married life began it goes
out miserable because of the fact that they do not really
love each other and nothing special happened to them. 
Synopsis:
The plot of the story was that as Don Badoy Montiya
comes home to his old home at Intramuros, Manila late at
night he finds his grandson chanting an old spell in front of
a mirror, memories of his youth came back.
He recalled how he fell in love with Agueda, a young
woman who resisted his advances. Agueda learned that she
would be able to know her future husband by reciting an
incantation in front of a mirror. As she recited the words:
“Mirror, mirror, show to me him whose woman I will be,”
Agueda saw Badoy.  
Synopsis:
Badoy and Agueda got married. However, Don Badoy
learned from his grandson that he was described by Doña
Agueda (through their daughter) as a "devil".
In return, Don Badoy told his grandson that every time
he looks at the mirror, he only sees a "witch" (Agueda).
Don Badoy ponders on love that had dissipated.
Synopsis:
The truth was revealed, Badoy and Agueda had a “bitter
marriage”, which began in the past, during one evening in
the month of May in 1847.
The tragedy of the story is Badoy’s heart forgot how he
loved Agueda in the past. They were not able to mend their
broken marriage because their love was a “raging passion and
nothing more”. 
 Moral Lessons:

• You don’t have to rush

everything especially when • In marriage, we should
it comes to love. You have to always consider love -
wait, you have to be patient because love is the foundation
of all.
and you have to pray for it.
 Moral Lessons:
• Love is not to be played or
to be based with anything • Find the 1 Corinthians 13 :
else - it’s about how and what 4-6 kind of love. Remember
you feel, so that it will turned to give the kind of love you
out beautiful, true and honest want to receive.
and not miserable.
The Republic or Japanese
Colonization
 Isang Dipang
Langit
(Muntinlupa Prison; April 22, 1952):

Written by: Genre:

Amado V. Hernandez Poem

Language:
Tagalog
Style/ Analysis:
Almost all of Hernandez's literary works, including this
poem, used the Filipino language (Tagalog) which became
his niche. Isang Dipang Langit is a beautiful eleven-stanza
poem composed of 4 lines (quatrains) that tells us about
the pains, sufferings, and hope of a prisoner.
The poem follows 12 meters or beats all throughout the
lines from start to finish. Moreover, it has rhymes at
every end of the lines which do not necessarily made use
of words having same letters on the last syllable but
rather, employed words likely similar in sound.
Style/ Analysis:
Since the poem was written by Hernandez when he was
imprisoned in Muntinlupa, the poetic vision talks about the
personas (evidently Hernandez himself) physical,
psychological, and emotional struggles inside his cell. The
speakers internal pain and fear of torture and death rolled
in one is clearly manifested by this line: ang buong
magdamag ay kulambong luksa ng kabaong waring lungga ng
bilanggo (the nights are a blanket of sorrow in the coffin-
like realm of the jail).
Style/ Analysis:
The poem is embedded also with various imageries as
evident in the lines: Ang maghapo'y tila isang tanikala na
kala-kaladkad ng paang madugo (Days pass like a chain
dragged along by bloody feet) and maramot na birang ng
pusong may sugat, watawat ng aking pagkapariwara (a
paltry handkerchief to dress a wounded heart, flag of my
misfortune).Notably, Hernandez, among other modern
writers, wrote this poem in the traditional way making
him more as a structuralist.
Style/ Analysis:
Hernandez's diction or choice of words in this poem was
artistically made choosing the raw and the best words to
come up a pictorial vein. The poems tone streams from
melancholic to fearsome and to oblivion. But the last
stanza would tell us that despite of the anguish and fears,
hope is still at hand!
The poem based on reality like Hernandez's novel Luha ng
Buwaya which he wrote when he was imprisoned in
Muntinlupa, the poem Isang Dipang Langit also was written
inside the jail as discussed in the preceding paragraphs.
Style/ Analysis:
The poem seemed to be the writers imaginative diary
that narrated all that happened around him. Mimetic
theory as defined considers literary works as an imitation,
a copy, or a representation of whatever it copies in nature
or to the world.
The mere fact that Hernandez wrote this poem while he
was inside the jail gives us the idea that he is probably
possessed by a madness and not in control of himself when
he writes (Adams, 1971).
Style/ Analysis:
On the readers or critics point of view, we locate the
meanings of the images portrayed in the poem in the
nature it imitates and copies. We have this collective
consciousness as human beings and this is the reason why
we think similarly with other people regardless of
location, race, affiliations, and other factors.
Style/ Analysis:
Mimetic criticism can be approached by archetypes.
The archetypes present in Hernandez's poems are as
follow: rock, steel, and bullets (can be read on second
stanza) which apparently prevalent in conventional jails
and are symbolizing fierce and violations; the golden sun
(at the last stanza) means hope and aspiration; and sky
which means freedom, a wide space to fly like a bird,
and a solitary.
 Thank You!
H ave a gre at day! Go d bl ess.