Balanza, Jayrome Emmanuelle J.

OPTO1D
THREE GENERATIONS
By: Nick Joaquin
Three Generations talks about a Celo Monzon, whose unhappy childhood still haunts him
even if he is already a father. At the beginning of the story, his wife tells him about their son's
plan to enter priesthood. He is also told about the call his sister has made because she no
longer knows what to do with their sick father. At this point, readers are already given the
impression that during this time, women's role caters only to men's needs and their children.
It will be known later in the story that the sick father has been wild since he, Celo, has driven
his latest woman away. So, in the setting of this story, it seems that having concubines is but
normal. Sofia, Celo's wife, has even been convincing him to allow the old man to have his
girl back. She tells him, "Your father could never live without women and now you have
driven that one away. It is death by torture." This speaks about downright oppression of
women as men are accepted in the society to have number twos, threes or fours while women
are not. This is an obvious discrimination in the society, as women do not have the
opportunities that men do. This is somewhat like Shirley Chisholm's "Equal Rights for
Women" in which she says that, " Women that do not conform to the system, who try to
break with the accepted patterns, are stigmatized as "odd" and "unfeminine." Just like in the
case of Celo's calling his wife as vulgar when she tries to convince him that he allow his
father to have what he wants. As the story continues, he then remembers how his father has
whipped him in his childhood. He adds that his own youth had been so unhappy because he
lives in those times that "gave the head of the family absolute dominion over his women and
children. . . They bowed to the paternal whip as long as they had to; then broke away to
marry and breed and establish families over whom they had in turn set themselves up as lords
almighty." He also recalls the women in his father's life that he "was never without two or
three concubines whom he had whipped as regularly as he did his sons; but none of them,
once fallen into his power, had bothered to strive for a more honorable status. If they went
away, it was because the old man wearied of them; though at his bidding, they would return
as meekly, to work in his house or in his fields, to cook his food, to wash his clothes, to
attend to his children, and to bare their flesh to the blows of his anger or to the blows of his
love." His mother, on the other hand, had been "too thankful, worn out as she was with toil
and child-bearing, for the company and assistance of these other women." As a boy, Celo had
wept for his mother for all his father's misdoing. He has since then detested him and, that
afternoon, he goes to his father with his son, Chitong. They find the old man very ill. And it
is right then seen how the two sons differ in treating their progenitor. Celo forcibly feeds the
old man while Chitong has felt sorry for him that he has wanted to knock the tray from his
father's hands. Thus, Chitong realizes later that he must find the girl at whatever expense
there is with his father. It is said in the story that the poor woman has been whipped by
Chitong's father when she has insisted to stay beside the old man. When Chitong has found
her again, she unhesitatingly goes with the young man to go to her old lover. This is quite
telling of women's stupidity and shallowness. The young woman has already received the
greatest embarrassment in her life, by being whipped and chased by someone who has no
right at all to it to her. And yet, she returns to the old man when she knows very well that the
man who has demeaned her will be there. Yes, it may be courage for her to show up herself
in the same house, but what for? To be someone's sex slave again? True enough, when she
and Chitong have arrived, Celo is there. With the latter's wrath at his son's defiance, he has
lain hands on him for the first time. He then realizes how he has become the father he has
hated for so long and there realizes further that the slap has been his. At this, "the girl slipped
swiftly away from them and into the old man's room, locking the door behind."