Abstract

This essay examines the novels ​Ben Singkol and ​Vibora of F. Sionil Jose for the

role of memory in understanding the postcolonial experience. The novels’ common

central character and narrator Benjamin Singkol lived through the Second World War,

the Japanese Occupation, and the Marcos regime. Upon his memories of these periods in

Philippine history, an analysis of the interrelationship of memory, history, and the

concepts of nation and identity is undertaken. The aim is to explore how the postcolonial

experience emerges out of the convergence of the aforementioned subjects. This paper

acknowledges the relevance of memories, may be it individual, collective, or literary, in

the discourse of postcolonialism.