Midsummer

CHAPTER XV

THE LITERARY WORK AND VALUES EDUCATION: TWO TEXTS AND CONTEXTS

BIENVENIDO LUMBERA

Every literary work bears the mark of t he society that produced it, carrying within it cultural themes t hat owe their presence to: (1) the historical realities in society, (2) the literary tradition incarnate in the language employed, (3) the sensibility and history of the man who authored it, and (4) the audience for which the w ork was originally intended. Depending on w hich of the four categories predominates, the literary work yields evidence of the valuation of particular problems or issues of the times. These ar e viewed from the writer's a ngle of vision, who bears within himself the values contracted of a participant in the history and institutions of his society. This suggests that literature as material for values education has the ability to shed lig ht through situations which illustrate ideas, concepts and insights we the n perceive as values. To be able to benefit from such illustration, however, it is necessary to s ee how history, language, authorship and au dience interact among themselves in molding the context against which values may be interpreted. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate, through the employment of two literary texts, how each of the categories named above functions in bringing to the fore values embodied in t he literary work. For our purposes here, "value" is to be understood as anything perceived as worthwhile and desirable in relation to a s ocial or individual need. Both literary works have a ppeared in separate textbooks for high school students. One is in English, written during the period of American colonialism, and has been accorded honors as a superior literary piece by critics here and abroad. This is "Midsummer" by Manu el E. Arguilla, published in 1933 in the most re putable outlet for English fiction by Filipinos before the Pacific War, and subsequently reprinted in The Best American Short Stories of 1936. MIDSUMMER "Midsummer" is about an encounter between a peasant boy and a peasant girl at an isolated village well. At noontime on a burning day in summer, a young man carrying his cart towards the well sees a y oung woman whose looks an d bearing strike his fancy. At first the gir l makes it seem that she has not noticed him, and he is hesitant to speak to her. Finally, they strike up a conversation. Before they part, the girl asks him to stop by her house. The story closes with the young man following the girl in the direction of her house where there is shade and relief from the oppressive heat of the day. As a story produced in 1933, "Midsummer" is fas hionably "modern" in the spareness of its plot, creating a problem for one wh o would extract values from the text. The story might be read as an illustration of the sim plicity and candor of the lifeways of rural folk. On second thought, when we reflect on the deliberately artful contrast between the youth and vibrancy of the couple and the arid and deathly barrenness of the landscape, we understand that the a uthor is dramatizing the stirring of the life-urge as this is communicated in the frankly sexual tenor of the couple's regard for each other. Anyone who has studied some paintings of Fernando Amorsolo, who was gaining attention and prestige as a local colorist at the time "Midsummer" appeared, cannot fail to observe a parallel between Arguilla's literary rendition of an amorous e ncounter in a rural setting and Amorsolo's favorite image of d alagas alagas and binatas against the sun-splashed country landscapes. Both are evocative of a countryside one has visited but never lived in--the literary situation and the painted scene are both exquisitely evoked, but w hen one dwells on the images one begins to detect a certain amount of counterfeiting. Of course, Arguilla had not intended any profundity by his story, and we are charmed enough by its simple and uncomplicated presentation o f a casual meeting t hat will possibly lead to a wed ding and, eventually, to children who will make the barren earth yield life. Nevertheless, when the story is read in the light of the social and p olitical eruptions in the 1930s, one cannot help but feel cheated that Arguilla's peasants are here made to respond only to sexual titillation instead of to the life-and-death issues the Colorums of Tayug confronted when they revolted in 1931. Also, when we find out that the author came from a poor peasant family in the barrio of Nagrebcan, Bauang, La Union, we are vaguely disappointed that the w riter seemed to have glossed over the dire poverty that drove farmers in many places in Luzon into the folds of a variety of messianic cults which against oppressors co uld only provide promises of a heav enly kingdom on earth and a mulets powerless against bullets. The idyllic world of "Midsummer" blotted out th e struggles of peasants who lived suc h desperate lives that they w ere

willing to entrust their future to the poet B enigno Ramos, who recruited them into the Sakdal movement, which promised deliverance for peasants not in the next life but in this world. Arguilla's version of life among peasants situated lov e and courtship in a timeless s etting of drying streams and oppressive heat until the Filipino-ness of the characters became inconseque ntial and only their universality as lover-figures mattered. In this regard, Arguilla ha d been insulated from the disturbing realities outside Manila by the co nveniences made available to city residents by the booming colonial economy. All around were signs of growing progress and prosperity--elegant new residential areas were bei ng developed, the number of motor vehicles clogging Manila streets was rapidly increasing, more schools were b eing opened, and young and old alike seemed to have ag reed that "modernizing" Filipinos ought to dress more and more like Americans. But it was not the trappings of progress alone that sealed Arguilla's fiction off from the realities of the c ountryside. People were constantly being treated to the spectacle of politicians contending with one another for publicity and power. Tha t year, it was the H are-Hawes-Cutting Law which provided the bone of contention. It had come from Washington and promised independence after a ten-year transition period. But some politicians found it unacceptable for reasons of their own, which started a bitter debate between the "antis" and the "pros". More immediately significant in the production of literature, however, was the language Arguilla was using to write his st ories. When he entered the University of t he Philippines and became part of t he U.P. Writer's Club, Arguilla joined a company that had been cut off  from the literary tradition that had taken shape w hen the filipinos fought Spain in t he closing years of the nineteenth century. That tradition, of  which Rizal, Balagtas, del Pilar and Bonifacio had been the exemplars, was s hut out of the university classroom by the medium of instruction. In its place a link with Western writing had been installed through the agency of literature courses that fed literary minds with id eas and sentiments of writers from England and the U.S. By the time Arguilla had su ccessfully installed himself as a leading figure in ca mpus writing, he had imbibed the essentials of literary theory t hat extolled indirection and ambiguity as desirable virtues in any l iterary work claiming to be artistic. "Midsummer" was to be prime display piece f or the same theory that ha d earned for Jose Garcia Villa's stories and poems their reputation as fine works of art, literary w orks that, in abstaining from direct references to the passing issues of contemporary society, aspired to universality and timelessness. The magazine which published "Midsummer" was the most prestigious outlet that any aspiring writer would wa nt to break into. Edited by A.V. Hartendorp, a discriminating American patron of Philippine writing in English, Philippine Magazine was originally a publication for public schoolteachers started in 1904. In 1929, Hartendorp assu med editorship and by 1930 the magazine had dedicated itself to "full recording of all phases of the present cultural development of the Philippines--to the Philippine Renaissance." Hartendorp was catering to an urban-based audience of educated elites c onsisting of schoolteachers, government employees, professionals and, of course, university intellectuals. This highly literate and articulate minority had only the slightest awareness of a literary tradition outside of that w hich they had absorbed in college, and therefore had no regrets a bout their severance from the tradition operating in the vernacular literatures of the period, convinced as they were that English had put them in touch with a greater and far richer artistic heritage em bodied by such fashionable contemporary masters as Sherwood Anderson, John Steinbeck, Erskine Caldwell, John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway. It was this audience that every young writer hoped to satisfy when he wrote an English piece. For such readers only the most sophisticated treatment could redeem so commonplace a subject as love in the countryside. The silence in t he text of "Midsummer" on particulars of l ove, customs, tradition and history had made the story capa ble, according to the standards of the day, of universality and richness of implication. The foregoing discussion has sought to de monstrate the forces at work o n Arguilla's story and why it can yield at best only the most g eneralized cultural themes about life in the Philippine countryside. By the author's temper and design, "Midsummer" moved away from the historical realities of the early 1930s. In our own time, we may read the dead and barren landscape of the story as the author's unconscious substitute reality for the Filipino peasant's entrapment in a harsh and deprived milieu, in the midst of which the promise of s ex offers itself as a pleasurable safety valve. Significantly enough, a few years later, with the ascendance of an alt ernative literary theory that challenged the dominant theory of "art for art's sake", Manuel E. Arguilla was to produce short stories revealing the Philippine countryside as a battleground where the oppressor and the oppressed are locked in struggle. The local c olorist of "Midsummer" was to vindicate himself in the socially-conscious pieces "The Socialists," "Epilogue to Revolt," and "Rice."

biography Manuel arguilla Midsummer Graphy English Language question: Summary of midsummer by manuel arguilla? Can you answer this question? Bi ography. How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife and Other St ories (Contemporary Philippine Literature Series, Volume 3) by Manuel E, Arguilla and A, V, H, Hartendorp (Hardcover - 1940) Graphy. Manuel E, Arguilla was bor n on June 17, 1911 in Nagrebcan, Bauang, La Union to par ents Crisanto Arguilla, a farmer, and Margarita Estabillo, a potter.Their mediocre living was Biography. PinoyTattoos.com aims to build a community for anything related to Filipino Tattoos, We wish to preserve and e ducate the world about our tattoo hist ory as well as our . Midsummer Here's a quick analysis of  Manuel Arguilla's How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife, The story is told from t he point of view of Baldo, the younger brother of Leon, Biography. Midsummer A Son is Born is a story by Manuel Arguilla, It was published in 1937, Set in a Philippine barrio at Christmastime, it relates the story of the birth of the third son in a p oor Midsummer. Midsummer Ricardo Latcham - Vida de Manuel guez El Guerrillero More from this user Midsummer. ive been searching the web for about 1hr and i end Midsummer. Midsummer Manuel Arguilla was the author of the 1940 book of short stories titled How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife, It took first prize for short stories in the 1940 in the First Commonwealth Literary Contest, People that knew him said Biography . Biography Manuel Arguilla was born in Barrio Naguilian, Bauang, La Union on June 17, 1911, He was the f ourth son of Crisanto Arguilla and Margarita Estabillo, His father was a carpenter and farmer while his mother was an occasional potter, Graphy. Midsummer by Devi Benedicte' I, Paez Loyola Schools Ateneo de Manila University Abstract How can a student of literature in English at a Philippine university, Biography Graphy. Graphy She stepped down from the carretela of Ca Celin with a quick, delicate grace , She was lovely, SHe was tall, She looked up to my br other with a smile, and her forehead was on a level with his mouth, "You are Baldo," she said and placed . Midsummer Manuel E, Arguilla was born on June 17, 1911 in Nagrebcan, Bauang, La Union to parents Crisanto Arguilla, a farmer, and Margarita Estabillo, a potter.Their mediocre living was not a hindrance for Manuel to attain his dreams especially Midsummer . Biography Ammoyo 2010 also served as the venue for the 4th Gawad Manuel Arguilla, CEGP-La Union's annual literary contest for student writers, The Gawad award aims to invok e the nationalist spirit of  the late Arguilla in the students' literary Midsummer .

Litform Discussion Proper: Manuel E. Arguilla Prepared by: Dianne Siriban

Midsummer by

In the past, I have always gone through a close reading and formal textual analysis before introducing the mythological-archetypal literary approach to the class. Of course, the class had appreciated the text more with the application of the critical approach, but resistance to some of the elements of the short story Midsumme r had always been apparent. This time, however, more for experimental purposes than any other reason, the idea of archetypes and mythological symbols found in texts will first be introduced to the class for their own exploration and, later on, application to their reading of the assigned text. After familiarizing themselves with some of  the most predominant archetypal images, themes and symbols they shall engage in preliminary analysis of  texts that they are already familiar with (films, TV programs, novels and stories they have read before, celebrities and other popular public figures, events in history, religion, and their own individual experiences). What are archetypes? How does the mythical/archetypal approach work? The common dictionary defines an arch et yp e as an original pattern or model; ideal, example or prototype (Websters Student Dictionary). The term derives from Greek terms arche meaning first, and typos meaning stamp. But for purposes of discussing the term in light of literary criticism, I think it best to cite an anecdote from Joseph Campbell, an anthropologist and comparative mythologist know to be the first to use animal behavior to explain how archetypes work on the human consciousness. Newly hatched chicks, even without the guidance of a mother hen, will run for cover whena hawk flies overhead [frightened by the predators passing shadow]. When tested with a woodenmodel of a hawk suspended on thin wire and pulled by string to move over the young chicks theywould scramble clumsily looking for a place to hide. But if the same wooden hawk was made toglide backwards, there would be no response from the animals. The shadow of the hawk movingbackwards does not trigger any inherent understanding in them. But the flying hawk, and anythingthat resembles it strikes a deep chord. (Campbell in Guerin, 147) In a strikingly similar way some works of art use images and symbols that strike a d eep chor d  within us. It seems like we are born with an innate understanding of these images and symbols, like they are somehow ingrained or hardwired into our consciousness. This might be the reason why some works of  art become classics (no matter how ancient they are); because of the existence of these wooden hawks in literature and art. The mythological/archetypal approach deals with this occurrence. Psychoanalystand student of  the renowned Sigmund FreudCarl Gustav Jung has propounded in his theories on the human psyche that a group of people, or people from a common culture have a common set of values, beliefs grounded on what he terms collective consciousness formed by centuries upon centuries of common experience. If, for Freud, dreams reflect the unconscious desires and anxieties of the individual then, for Jung, myths are collective dreams or symbolic representations of a certain cultures hopes, values, fears, aspirations and instinctual life. Myths are collective and communal; they bind a tribe or nation together in common psychological and spiritual activities. For example, during the ancient warring periods in Europe, even long before the medieval days, people were brought up on myths that extol the virtues of the warrior, soldier and subject of the king. One is considered a hero when one follows his kings orders and is willing to die in war. In fact, there is no other glorious way to die but in war, so that it is almost shameful when one comes home

alive from a battle that has been lost. Why? Because was has been their way of life, a necessity during those times when tribes in Europe had to fight over land, territory, resources, etc. If myths are the narratives, the archetypes are the elements that make up the narrative. Archetypalpatterns may also be seen as motifs or recurring themes in these myths. Campbell notes that there are a lotof common archetypes and motifs among myths from different cultures meant to evoke or elicit consistentpsychological responses from people of different backgrounds. Here are some of the most common archetypes, symbols and motifs found in art and literature: 1.Water (and bodies of water like the sea, the river, etc.): the mystery of creation; eternity and timelessness; birth-death-resurrection; purification and redemption; fertility and growth. According to Jung, water is also the most common symbol for the unconscious. The river specifically symbolizes death and rebirth as in baptism; incarnation of deities and transitional phases of the life cycle. 2.Sun: (fire and sky are closely related): creative energy; law in nature; consciousness (thinking, enlightenment, wisdom, spiritual vision); father principle (moon and earth are associated with the female principle); passage of time and life (i.e., rising sun = birth, creation, hope; setting sun=death, sorrow). 3. Colors:

a.Red: blood, sacrifice, violent passion, disorder. b.Green: growth, sensation, hope, fertility; in negative contexts may be associated with death and decay. c.Blue: usually positive, associated with truth, religious feeling, security, spiritual purity (the color of the Great Mother or Holy Mother). d.Black (darkness): chaos, mystery, the unknown; death; primal wisdom, the unconscious; evil; melancholy. e.White: highly multivalent, signifying, in its positive aspects, light, purity, innocence, andtimelessness. In its negative aspects, death, terror, the supernatural, and the blinding truthof mystery. 4.Circle (sphere) : wholeness, unity (i.e., the Yin-Yang symbolizes the oneness of opposite forces), the eternal cycle of life and death. 5.Serpent (snake, worm) : symbol of energy, pure force; evil, corruption, sensuality; destruction; mystery, wisdom; the unconscious. 6. Numbers:

a.Three: light, spiritual awareness and unity (i.e., the Holy Trinity); the male principle. b.Four: associated with the circle, life cycle, four seasons; female principle, earth, nature, four elements (earth, air, fire, water). c.Seven: the most potent of all symbolic numberssignifying the union of three and four, the completion of the cycle, perfect order. 7.The Archetypal Woman: (Great Motherthe mysteries of life, death, transformation) a.The Good Mother (positive aspects of the Earth Mother): associated with the life principlebirth, warmth, nourishment, protection, fertility, growth, abundance (for example, Demeter,Ceres).

b.The Terrible Mother (including the negative aspects of the Earth Mother): the witch, sorceress, siren, whore, femme fataleassociated with sensuality, sexual orgies, fear, danger, darkness, dismemberment, emasculation, death; the unconscious in its terrifying aspects. c.The Soul Mate: the Sophia figure, Holy Mother, the princess or beautiful lady incarnation of inspiration and spiritual fulfillment (i.e., Jungian anima). 8.The Wise Old Man (savior, redeemer, guru) : personification of the spiritual principle, representing knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, cleverness, and intuition on the one hand, and on the other, moral qualities such as goodwill and readiness to help, which make his spiritual character sufficiently plain. Also known for his moral qualities, and the way he even tests the moral qualities of others and makes gifts dependent on this test. The old man always appears when the hero is in a hopeless and desperate situation from which only profound reflection or a lucky idea can extricate him (the wise old man sometimes appear in personified thought). 9.Garden: paradise, innocence; unspoiled beauty (especially feminine); fertility. 10.Tree: life of the cosmos, inexhaustible life and even immortality because of its consistence,growth, proliferation, generative and regenerative processes (i.e., the depiction of the cross ofredemption as the tree of life in Christian iconography) 11.Desert: spiritual aridity; death; nihilism, hopelessness. Archetypal Motifs or Patterns 12.Creation: perhaps the most fundamental of all archetypal motifsvirtually every mythology isbuilt on some account of how the cosmos, nature, and humankind were brought into existence bysome supernatural Being or beings. 13.Immortality : another fundamental archetype. Generally taking one of the two basic narrative structures: a.Escape from time: return to paradise, the state of perfect, timeless bliss enjoyed by man and woman before their tragic Fall into corruption and mortality. b.Mystical submersion into cyclical time: the theme of endless death and regeneration human beings achieve a kind of immortality by submitting to the vast, mysterious rhythms or Natures eternal cycle, particularly the cycle of the seasons. 14.Hero Archetypes (archetypes of transformation and redemption): a.The quest: the hero (savior, deliverer) undertakes some long journey during which he orshe must perform impossible tasks, battle with monster, solve unanswerable riddles, andovercome insurmountable obstacles in order to save the kingdom (or an equivalent). b.Initiation: the hero undergoes a series of excruciating ordeals in passing from ignorance and immaturity to social and spiritual adulthood, that is, in achieving maturity and becoming a full-fledged member of his or her social group. The initiation most commonly consists of three distinct phases (1) separation, (2) transformation, and (3) return. Like the quest, this is variation of the death-and-rebirth archetype. c.The sacrificial scapegoat: the hero, with whom the welfare of the tribe or nation is identified, must die to atone for the peoples sins and restore the land to fruitfulness. 15.Archetypes as Genres (archetypes are also found in complex combinations as genres or types of  literature that conform with the major phases of the seasonal cycle). a.The mythos of spring: comedy b.The mythos of summer: romance c.The mythos of fall: tragedy d.The mythos of winter: irony

Mythology as a whole provides a kind of diagram or blueprint of what literature [and art] as whole is about, an imaginative survey of the human situation from the beginning to the end, from the height to the depth, of what is imaginatively conceivable. Northrop Frye (102, 1970). http://www.scribd.com/doc/4633552/Midsummer-Discussion

Manuel Estabillo Arguilla (1911 ± 1944) was an Ilokano writer in English, patriot, and martyr.

He is known for his widely anthologized short story "How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife," the main story in the collection "How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife and Other Short Stories" which won first prize in the Commonwealth Literary Contest in 1940. His stories "Midsummer" and "Heat" was published in the United States by the Prairie Schooner . Most of Arguilla's stories depict scenes in Barrio Nagrebcan, Bauang, La Union where he was born. His bond with his birthplace, forged by his dealings with the peasant folk of Ilocos, remained strong even after he moved to Manila where he studied at the University of the Philippines where he finished BS Education in 1933 and where he became a member and later the president of the U.P. Writer's Club and editor of the university's Literary Apprentice. He married Lydia Villanueva, another talented writer in English, and they lived in Ermita, Manila. Here, F. Sionil José, another seminal Filipino writer in English, recalls often seeing him in the National Library, which was then in the basement of what is now the National Museum. " you couldn't miss him", Jose describes Arguilla, "because he had  this black patch on his cheek, a birthmark or an overgrown mole. He was writing then those famous short stories and  essays which I admired."

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He became a creative writing teacher at the University of Manila and later worked at the Bureau of Public Welfare as managing editor of the bureau's publication Welfare Advocate until 1943. He was later appointed to the Board of  Censors. He secretly organized a guerrilla intelligence unit against the Japanese. In October 1944, he was captured, tortured and executed by the Japanese army at Fort Santiago.