Introduction

The Bread of Salt is a coming of age story by Filipino national artist Nestor
Vicente Madali Gonzalez. It is about a fourteen-year-old male narrator who
falls for Aida, the niece of a Spaniard plantation owner, and who realizes that
this girl is out of his league. It begins with the narrator informing us of
his daily task of buying the staple breakfast food pan de sal every 5 A.M. Pan
de sal in English is bread of salt. The narrator describes it in detail in the
second paragraph; he waits for pan de sal to be finished baking at the end.

The themes of race and class divisions are clearly set up early in the story.
The mere mention of the coconut plantation owner who is Spanish is enough
of a hint. It feels like it’s going to be a post-colonial literature through the
eyes of a juvenile dreamer, but it eddies back to a boy’s romantic fantasies.
The narrator regales us with hi head-in-the-cloud stories, mostly concerning
him becoming Aida’s beloved one. She becomes his inspiration. He plays well
at school games to become physically admirable and perseveres on
improving his violin-playing to become artistically pleasing. He joins a band
to earn money so that he could buy her a brooch. He improvises plans for her
to read a letter filled with his feelings for her.

I find the violin part problematic because this instrument is a status symbol
in this country. It weakens characterization and shades a fantasy element on
the part of the author. But putting this aside and considering instead the
narrator’s tales colored by his youthful tone, one cannot easily trust the
narrator. Reading further, one can conclude that the narrator is full of
himself. He thinks he can easily conquer the world, a classic teenage notion
that is shredded as soon one gets a solid footing on reality. Disillusionment
for him comes when his band is invited to perform at an alta sociedad party,
where Aida is among the guests.

The narrator’s aunt rightfully observed that musicians at parties always eat
last. After the narrator and his bandmates ate the food that they cannot
name, he wraps more of “those egg-yolk things” and slips them under his
jacket. Aida sees him do it and asks if he was able to eat. She further offers
to give him a package of food if he could wait until the other guests have
left.

The narrator’s and Aida’s habits and mannerisms come from distinct
backgrounds, therefore introducing a preliminary hurdle in the two’s
nonexistent love story. The former doesn’t know how to behave accordingly
in a party where only high profile personas are invited. The latter seems to
be either concerned or condescending, depending on how one looks at it. It
is implied though that it is more of condescension since right after their
conversation, the narrator’s admiration for Aida immediately evaporates,
fueled further by his embarrassment.

He walked with me part of the way home. We stopped at the baker’s when I
told him that I wanted to buy with my own money some bread to eat on the
way to Grandmother’s house at the edge of the sea wall. He laughed,
thinking it strange that I should be hungry. We found ourselves alone at the
counter; and we watched the bakery assistants at work until our bodies grew
warm from the oven across the door. It was not quite five, and the bread was
not yet ready.

The story revolves around a young man, an ambitious, aspiring violinist. He

dreams of becoming famous and performing in the world’s music centers. He
is infatuated with a plantation owner’s niece, Aida, a mestiza beauty. The
young man gets a chance to impress her by playing at a party at her house.
He is embarrassed, however, at the dinner table. The young man was caught
filching and gorging on pastries by Aida. Realizing he will never be her equal,
he resigns to an average life, his life.

The central element of the story is the pan de sal, or bread of salt. Sending
young men every morning to the local bakery to buy the bread is a long-
standing tradition among Filipinos.

A coming-of-age story, it is about coming to grips with the realities of life;

awakening from a fantasy. The young man was trapped in a bubble of
delusion and when it burst, he resigned to a down-to-earth life. His reluctant
acceptance is symbolized in his partaking of the bread at the end of the
story. He dreamt of things that could simply not come true.

Analysis
Have you ever read “Bread of Salt” written by NVM Gonzalez? If you have, the it might have
confused you as much it confused me.
I read the story several times, trying to analyze it. Now, I can say that I understand the message
the author is trying to convey through this story. I hope my summary will help you too in
understanding “Bread of Salt”.

The story is all about a teenage boy who buys pan de sal or ‘bread of salt’ because of its
wonderful flavor. Everyday, he walks by the house of the old Spaniard’s niece, Aida, whom the
boy liked.

He would follow her everyday to school. He would also think about how he would confess his
feelings for her during classes. He joins Pete Saez’s private band, Minviluz Orchestra. One of the
reasons he joined was to save money to buy a brooch for Aida. Also, it was his dream to be a
violinist, though his grandmother did not want him to pursue his passion.

One night, when the band was performing, the boy did something embarrassing that Aida saw.
Embarrassed, he walked out in shame. He was probably thinking that because of what he had
done, there is no chance for Aida to like him back. Pete led him home and passed by baker’s on
the way. They ordered pan de sal, but the bread was still not ready.

For me, the story has a very meaningful ending, even though not everyone can see it. The author
said “the bread was not yet ready. The bread symbolizes the boy. He was not yet ready to face the
real world; he was still young to understand life’s challenges. For example, his dream of being
together with Aida didn’t happen, but was not ready to accept this. He didn’t realize that God has
a better plan for him, because he was still young.

If there was a continuation to the ending, I hope the boy will have a better future than what he
had imagined. Always remember that when God does not let your dreams come true, it means He
has a better plan for you–much better than what you had imagined it to be.

Other analysis
The Bread of Salt by NVM Gonzalez is Filipino to its very core. One only needs
to look at the apparent elements of the short story to see that it was written
by a Filipino for Filipinos. The tradition, the thinking and other cultural
elements of the story reflect the way people live in a particular period. The
pan de sal being one of the staple food of the masses and the title of the
story is one of the many manifestations of the story’s local color. The story
opened and ended with it; the life of the protagonist daily revolved around
the task of buying it and with his own money he decided to purchase some,
though this time it was only for himself. One will also notice how art, and in
this case, music, was viewed by the majority then. Musicians were regarded
not as talented individuals but as employees and a low class one at that.
According the young boy’s aunt, musicians eat last in parties. The
protagonist cannot be therefore blamed if he dreams of becoming an
honored artist in Europe, where art and artists are regarded in a rather more
dignified standard.

One of the most stunning, yet true things about the short story is the
Filipinos’ pride in almost everything especially in the way they make their
class known in parties usually, where one always tries to exceed whatever
others can display. Not that it’s horribly negative in its entirety nor is it a
racial brand. Some of the attitudes presented in the story also exist in other
cultures. However, a Filipino can understand how things or attitudes like
these take place in the environment in which they exist. And the writer,
whose ingenuity is remarkable, was able to depict the sad facets of the
tradition of his people with the aim of providing a reason to contemplate.

Just like other “coming of age” literature, The Bread of Salt shows how
society or situations open the gate of realization to a young soul whose
innocence was guarded by purity and naïveté. Hard as it may seem, life, in
its purest and most significant form should be regarded as an experience of
waking up from one’s untold, internal realities to face what lies ahead – what
really lies ahead. Social, intellectual, and physical differences may be bitter
setbacks against an individual’s ambition or dreams yet reality has always
been this harsh.

References
https://moriahreymorey.wordpress.com/2013/06/30/my-understanding-of-
bread-of-salt/

http://bibliophilicnightowl.blogspot.com/2011/02/analysis-of-bread-of-salt-by-
nvm.html

http://tiufujikawa.weebly.com/bread-of-salt-report.html

https://shortstorystation.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/story-review-the-bread-
of-salt-by-n-v-m-gonzalez/
 Term Paper

In

Philippine Literature
 Submitted to:
Ms. Befe Grace Largueza

Submitted by:
Sharlene M. Molo