Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Day The Dancers Came
The Day The Dancers Came
by BIENVENIDO N. SANTOS
by BIENVENIDO N. SANTOS
Setting / Theme
Setting early November while the snow is still falling at the characters apartment. It can be
assumed that there is a war going on between some sovereign forces.
Theme The story revolves mainly about preserving their origins. It was stated that both time
and memory are villains of preservation. For Fil, time was his enemy. In the beginning, the words
he often heard were: too young, too young; but all of a sudden, too young became too old, too
late. Also, memory was treated as a betrayer evident in the statement He wondered . . .what
took care of the moment if memory didnt. Like time, memory was often a villain, a betrayer.
These are the reason why Fil had his sound mirror, a portable tape recorder.
Plot
Fil was excited to see the Filipino dancers who were about to perform in Chicago
Tony went to his doctor for check-up. Fil went to the airport for the dancers arrival but was
rejected and dumb-founded when he saw the Filipino ladies but still, he went to their
performance and recorded it in his tape recorder
He went home then played his recordings when suddenly Tony shouted.
Tony was in pain and due to the panic, Fil accidentally deleted all significant recordings from his
sound mirror
Fil tried to play back the recordings but heard only meaningless sounds.
Character
Fil 50 y/o U.S. citizen but a Filipino. He experienced many types of work including being a
Corporal in the U.S. army, current job is special policeman in the post office.
Tony retired Pullman porter. He is indifferent in the story because of his suffering from a
wasting disease that frustrates doctors.
Rising Conflict the need to preserve the memories from his hometown caused the rising conflict
of the story. Due to his homesickness and some personal issues, Fil made it a habit to record any
sound that he may find necessary to preserve for they resemble memories that he might not hear
again with the experiences abound therein after a long period. The rising conflict happened when
Fil mistakenly deleted his entire recordings in the pursuit of making Tony hear the performance of
the dancers
Resolution the story however ended not in a good way. With the deletion of the recordings, his
only source of memories was lost. However, it can be also seen as something that may be is for the
good of Fil. Time goes by, so do everything in this world, but not the memories that are stored in
our hearts and minds. These memories will last forever. Though they may not be sometimes
retrievable from our memory, but certainly they do exist in the back of our minds.
Societal Situation
In the short story, the author examined the growing tendencies of Filipinos to enter the
contemporary world. Base on his background as an author, his passion for writing was greatly
induced by his experience as an exile when there is an ongoing war to which the country is
involved. It is depicted in the story that migrating or going out of the country for a long period of
time only results to the death of the dreams of nationalistic Filipinos, that is the dream to preserve
our own culture and our own memories in the country.
by BIENVENIDO N. SANTOS