Footnote to Youth

Jose Garcia Villa

Summary

Dodong, 17, is impatiently waiting for his father to return home so that he can tell
him of his love for Teang and his desire to marry her. He feels that at 17 he is a
grown man and is ready for the next important step in his life. When he tells his
father that he has asked Teang to marry him and wants his blessing, there is a
long and cruel silence. His father asks if he must marry her because Dodong is
very young. Dodong resents his father's question, and finally his father gives his
consent.

Nine months later, Dodong is waiting outside while Teang gives birth to their first
son, Blas. He feels young and inexperienced, a contrast to how he felt nine
months ago. Dodong did not want any more children, but they came
anyway. For the next six years, Teang gave birth. Seven children in all.

Teang did not complain. However her body was now shapeless and thin from
bearing so many children and from the hard work of caring for them and the
household. Even though she loved Dodong, she cried and wished that she had
not married so young. There had been another suitor, Lucio, who was nine years
older than Dodong. She chose Dudong because he was so much younger.
Lucio had married after she married Dodong, however, he was childless. She
wonders if she had married Lucio, would she be childless. She feels that would
have been a better lot in life. But she loves Dodong, even though life has made
him old and ugly.

One night Dodong goes outside and thinks about his life. He wants to have the
wisdom to know why life does not fulfill Youth's dreams. Why did life forsake you
after love? He never finds the answer.

When Blas turns 18, he comes home and tells Dodong that he wants to marry
Tena. Dodong at this time is only 36 years old, but he is portrayed as a much
older man. Dodong does not want Blas to marry so young. He asks the same
question his father asked him. Does Blas have to marry Tena? He does not want
him to make the same mistake he did. Blas also reacts with resentment. Dodong
realizes that he is dealing with Youth and Love, and they will triumph over this
situation. After that, comes real life. He gives his consent, feeling sad and sorry
for his son.
He called this "Footnote to Youth" because a footnote is an additional comment
or reference on the content of the text. He is telling youth to pay attention to the
lesson of this story.

Interpretation

In Jose Garica Villa's Footnote to Youth, he tackles the responsibilities and

realities that come with marriage and the family life. In it, he narrates the story of
Dodong, wherein we are introduced to Dodong when he is seventeen and
seeking to marry his love Teang. He is problematic over how he intends to talk to
his father about marrying Teang, going over the possible responses his father
would give, and at the same time convincing himself that he is old enough to
handle the responsibility.

On his way home, he makes a stop to relieve himself. The ground was broken up
into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a sweetish, earthy smell. Many slender
soft worms emerged from the furrows and then burrowed again deeper into the
soil. The appearance of the worms and the occurrence of one worm crawling
over Dodong's foot is of great importance to the story, as it serves as a revealing
of Dodong's character and future. A short colorless worm marched blindly
towards Dodong's foot and crawled clammily over it. Dodong got tickled and
jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Several characteristics attributed to
the worm can also be reflected back onto Dodong's story, particularly the fact
that the short worm was crawling blindly.

It would be interesting to note, as well, the connection this worm crawling over
Dodong's foot has with Jose Garcia Villa's title. A footnote is simply defined as a
note at the foot of the page. It is often used to give additional information to the
reader regarding certain words or phrases in the text. And yet the author
includes no actual footnotes in the story. As such, Jose Garcia Villa is obviously
trying to put forth certain themes and messages regarding youth and life
through the use of a short story. The message that comes forth to the reader
through the reading of the story, then, is what we may refer to as his footnote.

However, an interesting alternative suggestion may lie within the story itself,
particularly with the worm depicted in the story. The worm is described as blindly
marching towards Dodong's foot, which is exactly how we could also describe
Dodong and his choices in this story. Dodong blindly marched into marriage,
expecting his life to become better. However, that is not what happened.
Instead, after nine months Teang was pregnant with his child, and he felt
incredibly unprepared:
In a few moments he would be a father. 'Father, Father,' he whispered the
wordwith awe, with strangeness. He was young, he realized now, contradicting
himself nine months ago. He was very young... He felt queer, troubled,
uncomfortable....

In addition to that, for six successive years, Dodong and Teang kept having
children. At this point, Teang began to feel unhappy in their marriage. She cried
sometimes, wishing she had not married. She did not tell Dodong this, not
wishing him to dislike her. Yet she wished she had not married. Not even Dodong
whom she loved. It is interesting to note here that Teang still claims to love
Dodong despite the hardships they have gone through. It should also be noted
that Yet she wished she had not married, is a sentence that is separated
from Not even Dodong whom she loved, meaning it is the act of marrying at a
young age that she regrets, not the fact that it is Dodong whom she married.
Not marrying Dodong was only an after-thought.

The story goes on, however, to describe another suitor Teang had, Lucio, who
was older than Dodong by nine years. Lucio had married another after her
marriage to Dodong, but he and his wife were childless until now. If she had
married Lucion, she wondered, would she have borne him children? Maybe not,
either. That was a better lot. But she loved Dodong.... Here we are given a
clearer picture about her unhappiness and disappointment.

It is particularly regarding child-bearing at a young age that Teang is unhappy

with. ...would she have borne him children? Maybe not, either. That was a better
lot. The regret she feels about the marriage, then, is regarding the fact that they
had children very early on in their lives. Just as Dodong's thoughts raced when
his first child was born: He was young, he realized now... He was very young. The
responsibility of having children was something they could not bear at such a
young age, and yet it was a responsibility that they were left with and had to
deal with.

This, particularly, is why Dodong's father was reluctant to give Dodong his
blessing to marry. Must you marry, Dodong? his father asked. You are very
young, Dodong.Despite his father's effort to dissuade him into marrying, Dodong
persisted and went through with it, much to his father's dismay.

In this, we can safely conclude, then, that Dodong is just like the worm that
blindly crawled onto his foot. The worm is a note that is intended for Dodong,
and for readers as well, not to go charging blindly into the fray. For what
happened to the worm? Dodong got tickled and jerked his foot, flinging the
worm into the air. To stress this blindness even further we can look at Dodong's
reaction right after flinging the worm: Dodong did not bother to look where it
fell, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not young
anymore. From the very beginning Dodong's character is revealed as someone
self-obsessed to the point that he doesn't bother to look at the consequences of
his actions. This is the footnote to youth: not to charge blindly into adulthood.

And so, just like his father before him, Dodong was suddenly faced with the
dilemma when his eighteen-year-old son comes up to him and asks to
marry. 'You want to marry Tona,' Dodong said. He did not want Blas to marry
yet. Blas was very young. The life that would follow marriage would be
hard.... And yet, like his father before him, Dodong did not prevent his son from
experiencing those hardships as well. In this, the story's theme becomes more
universal in the sense that it is a footnote not only to the youth, but to parents as
well. The theme, then, is clear in the sense that the quality of one's life is likened
to that of a worm when marriage and adulthood is rushed into at a very young
age.

Moral Lesson

Here, it is expressed that after the stage of love (marriage), one's dreams would
have to be forsaken. It is expressed that only the youth get to dream about how
grand life could be, and that come a certain age, life becomes difficult, full of
hardships, impossible even. To that thought, however, I would have to disagree.
As is said in the narration, Dodong was denied a little wisdom, therefore
suggesting that this train of thought is something that should be changed.

Jose Garcia Villa's story is meant as a warning, as the title itself suggests. A
footnote is usually found at the bottom of the page, somewhat suggesting that
it is of little importance as compared to the body itself, or the text. A footnote, in
that sense, becomes more of an after-thought, than a primary concern.
However, the fact that the title itself is proclaimed a footnote is purposefully
putting forth that the subtext is what is vitally important in this story. The title
being Footnote to Youth immediately suggests that the whole of the story may
be the actual footnote. What most readers often miss or take for granted (the
footnote) becomes the main object.

Footnotes also often suggest additional readings, references, and suggest

that the word or phrase is of vital importance as compared to the rest of the
text. In this sense alone, we have to acknowledge the urgency of the themes
being put forth in this story.

First would be the fact that the parents in this story, Dodong's father and
Dodong himself, did little to shape and mold the lives of their sons. Rather than
offering guidance and wisdom based on their own personal experiences, they
both decided to give in to their son's desires. The role of the parent is crucial in
the molding of a child's future, and these parents neglected that responsibility
by deciding to hold their tongues. As a result, their children suffer, and go
through a terrible experience of marriage life.

And because they married early, they lack the experience and the know-how
with regards to raising children: hence the fact that they were unable to fulfill
their responsibility as parents in guiding their kids down a wiser path. In turn, it
becomes an endless cycle of mishandling. Even Dodong, in his attempt to gain
a little wisdom when he steps outside to reflect, is denied that wisdom. This is
particularly due to the fact that his father never had that wisdom either. Such
wisdom can only be passed on by those people who greatly influence our lives -
which in most cases are our parents. So when dealing with his son Blas, Dodong
could only do what he knew (what his father did with him) allow Blas to marry
early, when he should have, instead, discouraged it.