E-PORTFOLIO

IN
TEACHING LITERATURE

Submitted by:

CRITIQUE PAPER
 Midsummer

By: MANUEL E. ARGUILLA

Introduction:

Literature is a book of life in which a person reveals things related to his inexplicable color of life and
in his world (Arrogante, 2008). It makes a person visualize through an original, creative and artistic
methods. Philippine literature is literature associated with the Philippines from prehistory, through its
colonial legacies, and on to the present. Pre-Hispanic Philippine literature was actually epics passed on
from generation to generation, originally through an oral tradition. On the other hand, wealthy families
especially in Mindanao, were able to keep transcribed copies of these epics as family heirloom. One
such was the Darangen, an epic of the Maranaos.

It is a unique human experience unique to mankind, He added it was a powerful tool that could free
one of the rushing ideas to escape (Salazar, 1998). Literature is a force that motivated society. An
explanation of the literature of social truths and fictional imaginations. It caresses the senses of man:
sight, auditory, smell, taste, and the touch through the evocative power of words. Literature has its
own existence because it has its own throbbing and hot blood flowing into the arteries and nena of
every creature and a whole society (Villafuerte, 2000). It is like blood with its life-giving words
flowing into the human body in this case, the Filipinos and their society.

With more literary works being accessible now to a greater readership in the digital platform
literary criticism has become fashionable among English and non-English majors. One of the popular
literary approaches in literary criticism is archetypal
or mythical approach. Oxford dictionary (1988) defines an archetype as “an original pattern or model;
ideal, example or prototype” (Oxford Dictionary). The term derives from Greek terms “arche”
meaning “first,” and “typos” meaning “stamp.” It argues that archetypes determine the form and
function of literary works that a text's meaning is shaped by cultural and psychological myths.
Joseph Campbell, an anthropologist and comparative mythologist in his book, A Hero with a
Thousand Faces (1973) known to be the first to use animal behavior to explain how archetypes work
on the human consciousness.
In a strikingly similar way some works of art use images and symbols that strike a deep chord
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.
The journey motif has been used for a very long time in literature beginning with the Greeks. A journey,
in a work of literature, is a quest or trek towards a goal, destination, or understanding that serves the
progression of the plot. A motif, in a work of literature, is a recurring theme, object, or idea that is
notable and distinctive. The journey itself serves as a symbol and is used to represent an epic hero’s
adventure which ultimately leads to an epiphany, or some self-realization, or self- discovery that
solidifies the work as a whole. The journey motif is one of many common motifs among short stories of
Philippine Literature. One good example is Manuel Arguilla’s in “Midsummer” and epics such as
Hinilawod of Panay and Lam-ag of the Ilocos region were both epics describe “man” as homo viator-- a
traveller who pursues a path of marriage and happiness.

The method considered in this paper was literary criticism, the study of interpreting literature.
Specifically, Archetypal Criticism was used to explore the literary motifs in Manuel Arguilla’s
Midsummer.

Analyses and Interpretations:

Motifs in Fiction

Manuel Arguilla employs a number of motifs in his short story. Significant images and
symbols that recur and have become prominent in the text will be investigated in this present study. In
fiction, these repetitive patterns of images and symbols is called motif. In Arguilla’s Midsummer the
motifs include:desert-like setting, water, serpent, quest, midsummer, and the woman archetype.
How are these motifs dramatized in Arguilla’s narrative? Most of Arguilla’s stories are set in
Negrebcan, which is in La Union, his home province. The setting in which the story unfolds is
“midsummer” as the title suggests. An unnamed male farmer, together with his bull was on their
way to the well to have their noon day meal. Unnoticed by the man, the “woman” passed by their
side of the road to get water from the well. The woman returned to the well for the second time and
invited the man to come to her house, informing him that she already told her mother about him.
The elements of setting and characters in the narrative are pregnant with a number of
archetypes and motifs. According to an online masterclass on creative writing, a motif is a literary
technique that consists of a repeated element that has symbolic significance to a literary work.
Sometimes, a motif is a recurring image. Other times, it’s a repeated word, phrase, or topic expressed
in language. A motif can be a recurring situation or action. It can be a sound or smell, a temperature,
even a color.(2019)

The key aspect is that a motif repeats, and through this repetition helps to illuminate the
 dominant ideas, central themes, and deeper meaning of a story.

Just one of the many motifs that could be gleaned in the story include: the sun and sky as a
symbol and motif for creative energy; law in nature; consciousness (thinking, enlightenment, wisdom,
spiritual vision); father principle; passage of time and life. The imagery of the oppressive heat in the
narrative becomes a symbol of the precursor of the creative energy that is about to be born-- the
meeting between man and woman--and their ultimate union.

Desert-like Setting as Motif

For Jung,(1973) the desert represents death; nihilism, hopelessness. This allusion to the “death”
as prefigured by the aridity of the land is shown in the following lines:

Indeed, this aridity will be supplanted by the expectant joy waiting for the man as he claims his
“victory” at the end of the narrative as he follows the path where the girl lives.

Water as Motif
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.
Arguilla’s meeting at the well scene between two characters in the middle of summer
foreshadows a “greater understanding” albeit, a harbinger of new life to be borne.

The motif of the water and the act of pouring water into her jar prefigures a Freudian sexual
act. From the aridity of Nagrebcan -- a setting of lifelessness and death to the meeting at the well -- a
new creation, a new life will spring.
Water is akin to life and for Jungian critics, it is a symbolic reference to this “transitional phase” in the
life of the characters --from their arid existence, bereft of “life” to a life pulsing with vitality as
foreshadowed in the succeeding lines:
 A Word on the “Serpent”

For archetypal critics and Jungian enthusiast, one innocouos word appears in the Arguilla’s
first paragraph.

The archetype of the “snake/serpent” a symbol of energy, pure force; evil, corruption,
sensuality; destruction; mystery, wisdom; the unconscious becomes doubly significant. First, the
“fleeing serpent” represents the sensuality that the man and woman felt for each other. The awareness
of each other’s physique and the unspoken sexual attraction held by the man on the woman is a fertile
ground for seduction. In fact, this muted seduction is seen in the following lines:.

The Quest Motif.

For Joseph Campbell(1973) one of the common hero archetypes found in literature is the
quest motif. We have the hero (savior, deliverer) who undertakes some long journey during which he
or she must perform impossible tasks, battle with monster, solve unanswerable riddles, and overcome
insurmountable obstacles in order to save the kingdom (or an equivalent), This same pattern is also
observed in Midsummer but with a different twist. The unnamed man journeys not because of some
impossible task to solve or a monster to kill but a journey precipitated by an invitation by the
“woman” in the narrative. The female character does the first act of “inviting” the man to come to her
house.

In Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces,(1973) the hero undergoes this “initiation”.
For Campbell (1973) 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.
In Arguilla’s Midsummer, the man as the “initiated hero” leaves his familiar world
(phase 1: separation) beset by routinary activities of minding his land(farming) . This
allegorical separation from his mundane and the “arid” life has been transformed (phase 2:
transformation) by the coming of the woman at the well. His return is the implied “union”
between him and the woman.This last phase : the return is now a journey of both man and
woman into family life.A sense of cockiness and bravado is felt by the man after this implied
“victory” of seduction. In the words of Arguilla:

The Woman as the Archetype of a Good Mother. For Jung, (1968) the archetype of Good
Mother is associated with the life principle of birth, warmth, nourishment, protection, fertility,
growth, and abundance (for example, Demeter, Ceres).

The Woman in Arguilla’ story embodies this archetype of the Earth mother--the good
Earth, the nourisher, the protector, the carrier of life and growth. Her coming at the well (water
archetype) is symptomatic of her invitation for this life giving principle of “birthing life.” Her
seduction of the man is seen as her form of sexual invitation to the coming of a new life, a
subtle reversal of the traditional gender identity and role. But more importantly --the woman’s
invitation at the same time is viewed as a form of “growth”--an awareness of the male
character’s masculinity.
Conclusion:
Literature is a book of life. It mirrors some aspects of the human experience captured in
beautiful language. (Arrogante, 2008)

Manuel Arguilla, a noted writer in English during the American colonial period in the
Philippines has given us a glimpse of rural and bucolic life as dramatized in his fiction. But
more than this slice of life that Arguilla’s fiction has given the reader, the rendering of the
human experience was further enhanced by using fictive devices such as the literary motifs
that littered his short story.

His work of art helps the readers to appreciate more the beauty of our literature in the
Philippines.

He used the archetypal criticism as an interpretive approach and borrowing from the
ideas of Carl Jung, Northrop Frye and Joseph Campbell this study uncovered the following
motifs: desert- like setting, water, serpent, quest, midsummer, and the woman archetype.

These motifs have been used to unravel the story of man in fiction. More than this
motifs, Arguilla’s narrative also dramatizes for the reader this “quest” of man for
companionship and love. His characters and setting foreground the motifs which speak of man
as homo viator or traveller but at the same time Arguilla’s opus can also be read as an arena or
locus of how literature can reverse the order of things including traditional roles of gender.#rb