Dominic Santiago N.

Lee
B.S. in Accountancy 3
November 13, 2017

The Day the Dancers Came and Summer Solstice are two treasures of the literary trove,
each respectively juxtaposing the dying feats of the Filipino identity. The former expounds on
the need to revive ones national identity while the latter focuses on demonizing the woman, as it
reveals is its true motive of women empowerment.

The Day the Dancers Came possesses an eager title, as if it is celebrating the arrival of
something grandiose as if one had ordered this and was satisfied with its prompt delivery.
However, as the story drags on, you will come to realize that the eagerness of the title is false;
that the story is actually an embodiment of the dying sense of Filipino identity of both its
protagonists, Fil and Tony.

The story tells of Fil and Tony being part of the Filipino diaspora. Both of them have
perhaps maintained a poor connection with articles that reminded them of the Philippines that is
why the arrival of the Filipino dancers seemed like a perfect drink to satisfy Fils thirst for any
semblance of the Filipino culture. Tony, on another hand, thinks Fil is a little too excited for this
as perceived in Ever since you heard of those dancers from the Philippines, youve been
acting nuts. Loco. As if theyre coming here just for you.

In addition to this, Fil also readied his tape recorder, to which he called it his magic
sound mirror. Apart from his magic sound mirror, he has nothing to rely on but his memory as a
way of preserving moments. what took care of that moment if memory didnt. Like time,
memory was often a villain, a betrayer. In between these lines, it is evident that as we age,
memory starts to fail us, and the things we swore were too obvious to forget, we forget.
Moreover, how ironic is it to have named something that is to record pieces of the past after
something that can only display the present (i.e. a mirror)? Perhaps this is a literary technique by
Bienvenido Santos in which he brings into a spectrum, things that mean the opposite of each
other in order to form one coherent thought. Perhaps, this means that Fil was trying his best to
live in the past, regardless of him being in the present as in the lines For Fil, time was the
villain. In the beginning, the words he often heard were: too young, too young; but all of the
sudden, too young became too old, too late. What happened in between, a mist covering all
thingssuddenly old, grown useless for a lot of things and too late for all the dreams you had
wrapped up well against a day of need. He was trying his best to preserve his glory days his
best moments spent as a pure Filipino, the memories which made him the Filemon Acayan he is
today.

However, towards the end of the story, his attempts of symbolically reliving the past
comes to a halt when he accidentally erases all of the sounds he recorded from the performance
only leaving behind the end part to which he describes as a senseless kind of finale detached
from the body of a song in the background which I assume are his remaining days, sans his
memory of the Philippines (body of a song), before he and death meet at their rendezvous.

In the second story, Summer Solstice, the search for identity leans on a rather cultural
side. It tells about a story that highlights the clash of principles between Paganism and
Catholicism, between the civilized and the uncivilized, and more importantly, male subjugation
and radical feminism.

The narrative of the Summer Solstice begins on St. Johns Day in the year 1850, a time
earmarked by patriarchy: erect and godly virile above the prone and female earth. (In
reference to St. John, which is the figure of manliness, as described in the text). This was a time
where the identity of women were reduced to mere housewives, not much as proactive members
of society. This was a time where women were restricted; where they had to follow a standard, as
backed by Lupengs disapproval of Amadas actions And in such a posture! Come, get up at
once. You should be ashamed! After which, Lupeng and Guido had an encounter and Lupeng
was displeased by such display of action.

However, this may be the part of the story where you might think that the woman is
going to fight back and prohibit male supremacy, but no. In my viewpoint, this story discredits
the woman in such a way that the woman has to succumb to a Pagan and an uncivilized ritual in
order to fight male supremacy. The story does not empower women, it ridicules them and
portrays them as a vehemence of lewd behavior, Girls broke away from their parents and wives
from their husbands to join in the orgy. It, too, provides a bad reputation of an all-girls club and
terrorizes their image in solid walls of flesh that crushed upon him and pinned his arms
helpless, while unseen hands struck and struck his face when Paeng accidentally finds
himself in the chapel of an all-girls festival.
 Towards the end of the story, despite the mumbo jumbo of Paeng finally heeding the
demands of his wife, there are certain context clues that actually prove of the demonization of
women. In the lines of Say it! she cried, pounding her clenched fists together. Why suffer
and suffer? And in the end you would only submit and I adore you, Lupe, he said tonelessly.
Paeng did not say it out of passion, not out of adoration, but merely in compliance to a response.

Both of the stories emphasized itself in identity, the difference is that the former
embodied a broader sense of identity, while the latter focused on a more specific man and
woman sort of a comparison.