Central Luzon State University

University Science High School

Science City of Muñoz, N. E.

Jean Arriane C. Medina Philippine Literature

10-Achievers October 11, 2016 (Tuesday)

A Story of “Hatred and Betrayal“ in Jose Garcia Villa’s “The Fence”

I. Context

A. Moral/Philosophical Approach
A moral or philosophical approach usually describes or evaluates a work in terms
of the ideas and values it contains. This often means examining a work’s ideas and
values—both those expressed directly by the narrator or character and those implied by
the overall design and content—in relation to a particular ethical, philosophical, or
religious system (rationalism, existentialism, Christianity, etc.).

The philosophical approach analyzes the morals and the idea of the work, which
some deem too difficult to interpret fairly. Opposers to the philosophical approach
believed that books should be based purely on its artistic content, not your morals.

Some critics would say that this approach is very judgemental. Most believe
when it comes to literature it should be judged based on the art of a work and not its
moral and philosophical content. Some will also evaluate the quality of a work’s ideas
and values by determining how well these fit certain criteria (such as truth, usefulness,
clarity, consistency, or complexity). Besides looking at ideas, critics may also examine
the moral effect or value of a work in a more general way, considering how the images,
events, characters, and even style in a work affect its readers as moral beings.

The philosophical approach in literature becomes much more than a novelty, it

becomes something human. It is something concerned with love and wisdom as well as
hatred and innocence. This philosophical approach just doesn't think of literature as an
art; it recognizes that literature can influence the lives of others in a significant way.

II. Background
The Author

Jose Garcia Villa was a Filipino poet, literary critic, short story writer, and painter.
He was awarded the National Artist of the Philippines title for literature in 1973, as well
as the Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing by Conrad Aiken. He is known to have
introduced the "reversed consonance rhyme scheme" in writing poetry, as well as the
extensive use of punctuation marks—especially commas, which made him known as
the Comma Poet. He used the penname Doveglion which was derived from
"Dove, Eagle, Lion" that was based on the characters he derived from himself. These
animals were also explored by another poet E. E. Cummings in Doveglion, Adventures
in Value, a poem dedicated to Villa.

Villa's tart poetic style was considered too aggressive at that time. In 1929 he
published Man Songs, a series of erotic poems, which the administrators in UP found
too bold and was even fined Philippine peso for obscenity by the Manila Court of First
Instance. In that same year, Villa won Best Story of the Year from Philippine Free Press
magazine for Mir-I-Nisa. He also received P1,000 prize money, which he used to
migrate to the United States.

He enrolled at the University of New Mexico, wherein he was one of the founders
of Clay, a mimeograph literary magazine. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree,
and pursued post-graduate work at Columbia University. Villa had gradually caught the
attention of the country's literary circles, one of the few Asians to do so at that time.

After the publication of Footnote to Youth in 1933, Villa switched from writing
prose to poetry, and published only a handful of works until 1942. During the release
of Have Come, Am Here in 1942, he introduced a new rhyming scheme called
"reversed consonance" wherein, according to Villa: "The last sounded consonants of the
last syllable, or the last principal consonant of a word, are reversed for the
corresponding rhyme. Thus, a rhyme for near would be run; or rain, green, reign."

In 1949, Villa presented a poetic style he called "comma poems", wherein

commas are placed after every word. In the preface of Volume Two, he wrote: "The
commas are an integral and essential part of the medium: regulating the poem's verbal
density and time movement: enabling each word to attain a fuller tonal value, and the
line movement to become more measured."

Villa worked as an associate editor for New Directions Publishing in New York
City from 1949-51, and then became director of poetry workshop at City College of New
York from 1952 to 1960. He then left the literary scene and concentrated on teaching,
first lecturing in The New School|The New School for Social Research from 1964 to
1973, as well as conducting poetry workshops in his apartment. Villa was also a cultural
attaché to the Philippine Mission to the United Nations from 1952 to 1963, and an
adviser on cultural affairs to the President of the Philippines beginning 1968.

On February 5, 1997, at the age of 88, Jose was found in a coma in his New
York apartment and was rushed to St. Vincent Hospital in the Greenwich Village area.
His death two days later, February 7, was attributed to "cerebral stroke and multilobar
pneumonia". He was buried on February 10 in St. John's Cemetery in New York,
wearing a Barong Tagalog.

III. The Story

Characters

Aling Biang – unforgiving woman who was betrayed by her husband with her neighbor

Aling Sebia – a widow/ Aling Biang's neighbor who has not seen a feeling of remorse
having caught with her neighbor's husband

Iking – Aling Biang's son who wanted his mom to reconcile with their neighbor

Aling Sebia's Daughter – a healthy, ugly girl who is good in playing guitar that made
Iking to fall in love

Aling Biang's husband - a man who left unsettled with his wife

Synopsis

The setting is reflective of the kind of characters and the situation they would be
in. The nipa huts look desolate and empty, reflective of how their occupants behave and
feel for each other.

They have no neighbors and yet the need for each other seems remote and
distant. Hatred overrules. They are most afraid one of them would give way. The
building of the fence seems necessary to protect themselves from each other.

Hatred comes from a betrayal – when Aling Biang caught her husband with Aling
Sebia, the childless widow. Aling Biang could not forgive. Aling Sebia seems not
remorseful as she matches the anger and hatred of Aling Biang. The husband left
without a word and never came back. He is part of the mess, but left it unsettled.
 The vegetable rows that used to separate the nipa huts are slowly dying. The
owners are afraid that if they watered the vegetables, they would also nurture the plants
of the other. This seems reflective of their unwillingness to forgive and live again.

Aling Sebia is going to deliver a child. Aling Biang is the only person who could
help her. This could have been an opportunity for reconciliation, but after Aling Biang
helps her there is complete silence.

The hatred goes on like a curse. The children of the two women grow unhealthy
and ugly. Aling Biang implants hatred inIking's heart, although Iking feels otherwise. It is
the very first music in his life. Although the notes are not complete, Iking likes to hear it.

When he reaches fifteen, he stops sleeping beside his mother. He wants to sleep
by the door where he could hear the guitar being played. He is beginning to show signs
of protest, but he is physically weak.

This time he knows it is the girl who plays the guitar. He wants to destroy the
fence that is starting to decay. But his mother reinforces the decaying stakes which had
been weathered by time.

The guitar stops playing. It is Christmas. They pray and yet Iking doubts if his
mother could really pray. Again, Iking wants the girl to play the guitar -- and he tells her
this as he whispers through the bamboo fence. He is happy when the girl appears to
have heard and understood him. Iking waits, but he is afraid the fence has reached her
heart. Nevertheless, he waits because there is no fence in his heart. Then he died. The
guitar plays a few minutes after Iking died. Now, the musical notes are completed. Aling
Biang, on the other hand, finds the playing of the guitar a mockery. His death does not
soften her heart. The fence remains strengthened.

Setting

Roadside – It is the place where Aling Sebia and Aling Biang stood alone, neighborless
but for themselves, and they were like two stealthy shadows, each avid to betray
the other. The boy Iking was not allowed to play by the roadside; for if he did, he
would not know were on the other side of the fence

Nipa house of Aling Biang – It is the place where Iking was born. It is also the place
where Iking keeps on listening to the daughter of Aling Sebia while playing guitar.

Nipa house of Aling Sebia – It is the place where the daughter of Aling Sebia plays
guitar.
Theme

The short story “The Fence” by Jose Garcia Villa is conveying the theme that
pertains to hatred. Aling Biang and Aling Sebia are most afraid one of them would give
away. The building of the fence seems necessary to protect theirselves from seeing
each other.

IV. Analysis

* Point of View: Third Person

The author tells the story in third person (using pronouns they, she, he, her, his,
it, etc.). The narrator is not part of the story and can give feedback and comments from
different character.

Evidences:

And one by one that hot afternoon she shouldered the canes to her home.
She was tired, very tired, yet that night she could not sleep.

When husband asked her what she was doing, she answered, “I am
building a fence.”

“What for?” he asked.

When his mother caught him peeping, she would scold him, and he would
turn quickly about, his convex back pressed painfully against the fence.

*Approach: Moral/Philosophical Approach

Evidences:

The vegetables that were so green began to turn pale, then paler and
yellow and brown.

The flat-nosed girl intoxicated him, his loose architecture of a body, so that
it pulsed, vibrated cruelly with the leap in his blood. The least sound of the wind
against the nipa wall of their house would startle him, as though he had been
caught, surprised, in his clandestine passion; a wave of frigid coldness would
start in his chest and expand, expand, expand until he was all cold and
shivering.
*Conflict: Man vs. Man

Evidences:

Two women had built that fence. Two tanned country-women. One of
them had caught her husband with the other one night, and the next morning she
had gone to the bamboo clumps near the river Pasig and felled canes with her
woman strength.

V. References

http://www.slideshare.net/ilovemelo/the-fence-by-jose-garcia-villa

https://khevinstinct.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/the-fence-by-jose-garcia-villa/

https://www.scribd.com/doc/89370513/THE-FENCE