What is the theme and point of view in "The Scent of Apples"?

The theme of the short story, "The Scent of Apples" is about how first generation immigrants experience a
sense of loss and seek connection to their past life even if they had created a life for them in the new world.
The story revolves around Santos and a Filipino farmer from Indiana called Celestino Fabia. Santos tells the
story from his point of view. The plot is fairly direct. Santos is delivering a lecture on life in the Philippines
when Fabia, excited by the notion of someone, anyone from his native Philippines speaking, attends the lecture
and interrupts his speaking about how Filipino women have changed from 20 years ago the present time. The
two men strike up a conversation and Fabia invites Santos to his farm for dinner the next day. Santos meets his
family, eats dinner, experiences "the scent of apples" that comes from his orchard and the kitchen. The ending
of the story emerges when Santos is dropped off at his hotel and Fabia states that this will be the last time they
see one another. The characters of the story are Fabia, an immigrant from the Philippines who has lived in a
farm in the midwest for the last 20 or so years. His wife, Ruth, who is devoted to her husband, as her name
suggests. Their son, and Santos. The main idea of the story is to stress that the immigrant experience,
particularly the Filipino one, is a unique experience within the lexicon of American thought. It stresses and
explains different elements which range from isolation, alienation, joy, happiness, reverie, and recollection. To
be an immigrant is to live amongst "the scent of apples," something not as present in the homeland, yet
strangely reminding of it.

The Scent of Apples by Bienvenido Santos: An Analysis

(In which I am somehow nostalgic, too.)
***
In my recent lurking on websites that feature blog posts about writing and reading
fiction, I have come across an article created by a freelance writer. In her post, she
explained the manner in which she writes. At first I thought I was in for a very
discombobulating read, considering that her writing style was actually not average
and that her method may involve serious reference to classical didactic writers found
on literature textbooks. But her style was surprisingly simple. She said that before
she can write anything, she needs to come up with a single word from which all
thoughts and ideas in the article would be derived.
The Scent of Apples by Bienvenido Santos reminds me of this writing style. Of
course, that statement wasnt intended to pose a comparison but was just an effect
of a serious and curious rumination of an amateur reader a sudden gush of ideas
stemming from a glimpse of literary schema. Nostalgia, as it seems, is the word from
which the entire short story emanates. Whats more wonderful about the literary
work was that the author doesnt have to be blunt to elucidate. In fact, the work is
simple yet it can rival the literary audacities of other short stories.

It is an established rule in writing that one needs to carefully think of a title that
makes a literary work worth reading. Santos choice of title is an effortless
adherence to this rule for it runs from the literal to the metaphorical and back,
suggesting that various interpretations of readers from all ranges of literary exposure
are appropriate. The story itself is a display of artistic versatility - a confirmation that
however one interprets the title, the story wont lose its meaning. For this, The Scent
of Apples is more than just a story of an immigrant Filipino.
The story opened with a brief introduction of where the author was. The imagery
was vivid albeit the absence of several sentences teeming with adjectives, an
introduction which writers like Sarah Dunant and J.R.R. Tolkien may consider a
literary Scrooge.
When I arrived in Kalamazoo it was October and the war was still on. Gold and silver
stars hung on pennants above silent windows of white and brick-red cottages . .
To compensate, however, the writer brings up a scene which everyone could relate
to. And why would the physical environment matter when loneliness is already
palpable in the mere look of a strangers face, enough to see and feel how longing
creeps in their whole being.
. . . an old man burned leaves and twigs while a gray-haired woman sat on the
porch, her red hands quiet on her lap, watching the smoke rising above the elms,
both of them thinking the same thought perhaps, about a tall, grinning boy with his
blue eyes and flying hair, who went out to war . . .
The historical period in which the literary work was written also contribute to the
creation of an almost tangible environment despite the sparseness of descriptive
text. One thing that unites humans into an unwritten bond of brotherhood is the war,
along with the bitterness of living during its span and surviving its cruelty. Everything
seems to be reminiscent of souls sent to a battle falsely thought of as great; for what
is great in something when it takes lives, tears hearts and ends happiness?
. . . where could he be now this month when leaves were turning into gold and the
fragrance of gathered apples was in the wind? . . . Under the lampposts the leaves
shone like bronze. And they rolled on the pavements like the ghost feet of a
thousand autumns long dead, long before the boys left for faraway lands without
great icy winds and promise of winter early in the air, lands without apple trees, the
singing and the gold!
Amidst the gloominess of the location, the author was expected to speak before an
audience regarding the culture of the Philippines, which was now becoming a lost
country. It is when a Filipino farmer, Celestino Fabia, asked about the difference
between Filipinas then and now, to which the author responded that though their
physical appearance changed, they remain the pure-hearted and nice women like

their past counterparts. The farmer was pleased with the answer and he invited the
author over to his house so he could meet his family.
During their trip to Celestinos house the next day, the author discovered what his life
in the Philippines was. And when he met his family, he was struck by their simplicity
and contentedness. Celestinos life stories hit him with the realization that women, or
people, regardless of whatever culture, possess a charitable and kind heart. That
hospitality is not a racial trademark but an innate human quality.
Ruth got busy with the drinks. She kept coming in and out of a rear room that must
have been the kitchen and soon the table was heavy with food, fried chicken legs
and rice, and green peas and corn on the ear. Even as we ate, Ruth kept standing,
and going to the kitchen for more food. Roger ate like a little gentleman.
Along with this, the farmers relationship with his wife manifested that theirs was a
relationship beyond the notion that companionship is a commodity. They stayed with
each other through thick and thin. Women, even miles beyond the Pacific, are
loving, loyal and warm-hearted the same characteristics Celestino used to
describe Filipinas he was acquainted with. His wife Ruth, at some extent, went way
beyond the adjectives.
Ruth stayed in the hospital with Fabia. She slept in a corridor outside the patients'
ward and in the day time helped in scrubbing the floor and washing the dishes and
cleaning the men's things. They didn't have enough money and Ruth was willing to
work like a slave.
Celestinos life seemed to hit a sensitive cord within the author for he offered to send
news to his family back home. But the farmer declined. This scene creates the peak
of the climactic revelations of the life of an immigrant Filipino in times of war. No
matter how strong the nostalgia is, or dire the desire to be home, an exile cant leave
the place to where he was banished. It may be because of fear of being long
forgotten, or the consolation one gets from people who tried to complete them no
matter if the attempt can only get them somewhere still far from nirvana. Whatever
that is, the pain of an individual whose heart stretches to both ends of the world has
no measure. And Bienvenido Santos clearly, albeit succinctly, showed all those
truths. Thus,The Scent of Apples was an expected masterpiece. Besides, who else
can understand things peculiar to the exile other than an exile himself?
The characters are:

1.
2.
3.
4.

Filipino Young man - who went to Kalamazoo, America for a conference

Ruth - the wife of the man who invited this Filipino Young to visit their House.
Roger - the child of Ruth and Celestino Fabia.
Celestino Fabia - who inviited the filipino young man

Realism in Scent of Apples serves as the tool of the author to depict the lives of Filipinos in abroad. In this short story there are
series of themes that are presented either in an implicit or explicit way that brings the reader to read on.
In one of the character who captured my undivided attention is in the sense that the character put a trademark in himself just a
Filipino farmer which is a common trait of a Filipino who sees himself as a Filipino only. This is an often response of Filipino
wherever and whenever is asking him/her about such. . We tend to be ashamed and make it inferior, racial discrimination per se;
however there is also a lot of prejudice that has absolutely no ties with race that the character in the story portrays. This is what the
author implies in his first part of the story.
The story focuses on the real score of Filipinos who cannot come back to the Philippines due to poverty. It mirrors the immigrantcharacter longing to come back to his own land. And when he sees a fellow Filipino he was very delighted to introduce him to his
family living in a small house having an apple orchard. It is meant to show that not all Filipinos are lucky to go abroad and it is
indeed possible the lives of Filipinos to be miserable and suffer from poverty even in abroad.
Santos shows that even we are in a foreign land we still carry the manners that we Filipinos have, his character shows how
hospitable Filipinos are. If were going to take a look at the settings of the story particularly the scenario of the narrator were he is
with his fellow Filipino going to his familys place, the author described the place as the beauty of the afternoon seemed in the
distance, on the hills, in a dull soft sky. When they got into the house of Fabia, his description of the house was repulsive so as his
impression for his wife, mean words per se. But when twilight came and Fabia took him outside he was amused of the view.

best Answer: Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. It's the story of a Filipino farmer who comes to hear the author, Bienvenido N. Santos,
speak. The opening paragraph reads:
When I arrived in Kalamazoo it was October and the war was still on. Gold and silver stars hung on pennants above silent windows
of white and brick-red cottages. In a backyard an old man burned leaves and twigs while a gray-haired woman sat on the porch, her
red hands quiet on her lap, watching the smoke rising above the elms, both of them thinking the same thought perhaps, about a tall,
grinning boy with his blue eyes and flying hair, who went out to war: where could he be now this month when leaves were turning
into gold and the fragrance of gathered apples was in the wind?

"Scent of Apples" by Bienvenido N. Santos is a collection of 16 short stories. The literary conflict in these stories are
the struggles of those who leave their home country and try to make a new life far from home. The conflict not only
lies with outward struggles in a new land, but also with a struggle within the individuals as they try to preserve their
dream of returning home someday.

"Those trees are beautiful on the hills," I said.

"Autumn's a lovely season. The trees are getting ready to die, and they show their colors, proud-like."
"No such thing in our own country," I said.
That remark seemed unkind, I realized later. It touched him off on a long deserted tangent, but ever
there perhaps. How many times did lonely mind take unpleasant detours away from the familiar winding
lanes towards home for fear of this, the remembered hurt, the long lost youth, the grim shadows of the
years; how many times indeed, only the exile knows.
The excerpt above represents that Fabio feels that he is living in exile, even though he may have lived
in America for many years. He had to create an identity for himself that could bridge the gap between his cultural

and racial heritage as Filipino and his new status as Filipino American, living in a culture very different from his
own.
Each time Fabio smell the scent of the apples, he always remember our country, our country that has no
apples. He has the feeling of loneliness everyday because he smells the scent of the apple every time.
Looking at the bright side, Fabio has a good wife which is worthy of her namesake, the biblical Ruth. He
has a good-looking son and an apple orchard which gives him more apples than he can sell. His wife, his son, and
the apple orchard are abundance enough, but his excessive nostalgia for home, where nobody remembers him,
makes him blind to all these blessings. He wastes his abundance, like the apples he gives to the pigs.
Fabio should rethink the idea of home as not a place where he were born and grew up, but where he is at present,
where his new family is.
Thus, the feeling of loneliness, exile and isolation are the common feelings of immigrant Filipinos, it comes with the
fear of no longer belonging to a culture which itself seems at times to be wasting away, and finds expression in the
rhythm of arrangement provided by the selections in Scent of Apples.

The story titled Scent of Apple was written by Bienvenido. The moral of the story is that a person should be grateful
for any job he or she can get. The story revolved around imigrants who came to the U.S. and could only get jobs
picking apples.

PLOT

INTRODUCTION

RISING ACTIONS

CLIMAX

The story opened with a brief introduction

of where the author was.
The author, Mr. Santos, was asked to
speak before an audience. He met
Celestino Fabia ("just a Filipino farmer"
as he called himself) the night Mr. Santos
left his hotel.
In the course of the Mr Santos discussion,
Mr. Fabia, asked how the Filipino women
of today were different from the stereotype
he was familiar with.
After the lecture, Mr. Fabia told Mr. Santos
about his farm and his family and invited
him over to his house
They finally arrived in the farm, the

FALLING ACTIONS

CONCLUSION

fragrance of apples diffusing all over the

place.
Mr. Santos finally met the wife of Mr Fabia
and his son Roger.
They invited Mr. Santos to their humble
home and catered him with food.
The author found a picture of an
anonymous Filipina wearing a traditional
costume another manifestation of how
dire Mr. Fabias nostalgia is.
He bade farewell to the family and Mr.
Fabia took him back to the hotel.
He offered to send news to his family
when he got back to the Philippines but
Mr. Fabia refused, saying that they might
have already forgotten him.
They shook each others hand and said
goodbye.