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21st Century Literature (World)

Learning Module (Q3)

Through
Reading
MCA Galvez / WWAzucena, 2021
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Module 1/ Wk1- Qtr. 3 of 21st Century Literature (World)

Objectives:

 to know the features of World Literature;

 to understand relevant issues and cultures of the world through literature.
 to create literary analysis on literary works from the world at different time
/period.

Introduction to World Literature

For Dr. Jose Rizal, being a Filipino is important; but it is just as important to
recognize that he is a citizen of the world. As Filipinos, we read literature from different
countries to discover cultures and perspectives present in our world. In the end, what
we may discover in the world might be something that can help improve our nation and
ourselves.

World Literature anthologies and textbooks abound, but many are from foreign
perspectives that may alienate the Filipino reader. The goal of this section is to
introduce these stories to Filipino readers to show them the wonders of the world and to
help them come to terms with these stories on their own ground, so to speak.

David Damrosch answers the question, “What is World Literature?” in an article

in the academic journal World Literature Today (2003). He writes about the features of
world literature:

“A crucial feature of world literature is that it resolves always into a variety of

worlds. These different worlds vary by era, region, and cultural prestige, and the
works that come to us from varied worlds can in turn be read in a variety of ways.
This sort of variability involves constantly competing ideas of literature, and our
contemporary definitional debates can be seen as an episode in the shifting
relations among three general conceptions. Literature in general and world
literature in particular, has often been seen in one or more of three ways: as an
established body of classics, as an evolving canon of masterpieces, or as
multiple windows on the world. The “classics” is a work of transcendent,
even foundational value, often identified particularly with Greek and Roman
literature (still taught today in departments of Classics) and often closely
associated with imperial values, as Frank Kermode has shown in his book The
Classic. The “masterpiece”, on the other hand, can be a recent or even
contemporary work and need not have any foundational cultural force. Goethe,
for example, clearly considered his own best works, and those of his friends, to
be modern masterpieces. The “masterpiece,” indeed, came into prominence in
the nineteenth century as literary studies began to de-emphasize the dominant
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Greco-Roman classics, elevating the modern masterpiece to a level of near

equality with the long established classics. In this literary analog of a liberal
democracy, the (often middle-class) master works could engage in a “great
conversation” with their aristocratic forbears, a conversation in which their
culture and class of origin mattered less than the great ideas they expressed
anew. Finally, Goethe himself also read with interest all sorts of works from
outside the realm of the masterpiece; in his conversations with Johann Peter
Eckermann, he is reading translations of Serbian (historical region in central and
northern Yugoslavia) poetry, and praising them to Eckermann, in the very days in
which he is formulating his term Weltliteratur. Goethe’s fondness for Serbian
poetry shows the nascent interest in works that could serve as “windows” into
foreign worlds, whether or not these works could be construed as masterpieces
and regardless of whether these differing worlds had any visible links to each
other at all.”

Therefore, the three possible features of World Literature are:

1. They are classic;

2. They are masterpieces; and
3. They are the windows to the world

Given the scope of this segment, which is 21 st Century World Literature, the texts
selected can hardly be considered classics, simply because they have been written in
contemporary times and need the test of time to be considered “classics”. However, the
texts that have been chosen are either masterpieces or windows to the world. Just like
the first literary piece attached to this lesson, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad
resumes the “great conversation” with Homer’s The Odyssey.

The discovery of world literature can be delightful or strange, depending on the

way one responds to new and startling points of view. Research tells us that readers
are more empathetic than non-readers. According to psychologist David Comer Kidd,
“the same psychological processes are used to navigate fiction and real relationships.
Fiction is not just a simulator of a social experience, it is a social experience (quoted in
Bury 2013).” Even though they have never left their town or city, because of the stories
that they have read, readers must have felt what it was like to walk the boulevards of
Paris or trudge in the swamps of Vietnam. Even though the settings and characters
might be different and unfamiliar, readers stumble upon the commonalities of the human
experience and find out, in the end, that we are all the same.

I. WORLD HISTORY AND LITERATURE

Although today’s world would insist that history and literature are separate disciplines, in
the ancient world they were once considered as two parts of a whole, a way to interpret
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the world in two different ways. In this section, we see what 21 st century writers have to
say about world history, and how they help in being part of a conversation that stems
from the past and continues into the future. As Filipino proverbs says, “Ang hindi
lumingon sa pinanggalingan, ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan” which literary
means, “One who looks not back at whence he came will never arrive to whence he is
going”. This saying applies to time, as well as space, and that resuming a literary
conversation with history is important to get a grasp in today’s world.

THE FEMALE VOICE

Answer the following questions:

1. Why do you think history is called “history” instead of “herstory”? What does this
reveal about the roots of history?
2. Do you think women’s voices and their perspectives have been heard and
chronicled as faithfully as men’s perspectives?
3. What is the importance of the female perspective?

Research activity for pre-reading:

Search for the summaries of the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer. Then, discuss the
answer to the following questions:

1. How would you describe Odysseus’s character?

2. How would you describe Penelope’s character?
3. If you had a choice, would you want to be Odysseus or Penelope? Explain.

Background Knowledge:

The Odyssey and The Iliad by Homer can be considered as part of Greek oral history.
In Judd Burton’s (2013) article “Issues of Historicity in The Iliad and The Odyssey” he
discusses the Dark Age of Greece and its bardic (ornamental caparison for a horse)
tradition:

“The bards related stories and epic songs about myths to the general populace.
They recited and sang these stories, which were subject to slight changes and
improvisations during the course of their delivery. This device often resulted in
elements being repeated in various places. Certainly the Homeric poems are
fanciful in many ways, as they are works of literature (Bryce, 1998:394).
However, they also contain historical aspects. The myths in the epics comprised
all knowledge about heroes and gods from a previous age: an age both mythical
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and remote (Lang, 1906:84). Homer, in particular, is looking back to a preceding

age (Nilsson, 1968:1).

Persons living at the time of the bards (and Homer as well) believed the myths to
be true. They apportioned them the value of history. These stories were events
that took place in the past.”

In short, one of the oldest epics in the world is considered as both history and literature.
How does this change the way you look at history?

The story you are about to read is part of a retelling of The Odyssey from Penelope’s
perspective, which gives us a different take on the epic and reveals gender stereotypes
found in Homer’s The Odyssey.

A Low Art
(Excerpt from The Penelopiad)
By Margaret Atwood
(Canada)

Now that I’m dead I know everything. This is what I wished would happen, but
like so many of my wishes it failed to come true. I know only a few factoids that I didn’t
know before. Death is much too high a price to pay for the satisfaction of curiosity,
needless to say.

Since being dead – since achieving this state of bonelessness, liplessness,

breastlessness – I’ve learned some things I would rather not know, as one does when
listening at windows or opening other people’s letters. You think you’d like to read
minds? Think again.

Down here everyone arrives with a sack, like the sacks used to keep the winds
in, but each of these sacks is full of words – words you’ve spoken, words you’ve heard,
words that have been said about you. Some sacks are very small, others large; my own
is of a reasonable size, though a lot of the words in it concern my eminent husband.
What a fool he made of me, some say. It was a specialty if his: making fools. He got
away everything, which was another of his specialties: getting away.

He was always so plausible. Many people have believed that his version of
events was the true one, give or take a few murders, a few beautiful seductresses, a
few one-eyed monsters. Even if I believed him, from time to time, I knew he was tricky
and a liar, I just didn’t think he would play his tricks and try out his lies on me. Hadn’t
I’ve been faithful? Hadn’t I waited, and waited, despite the temptation – almost the
compulsion – to do otherwise? And what did I amount to, once the official version
gained ground?, an edifying legend. A stick used to beat other women with. Why
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couldn’t they be as considerate, as trustworthy, and as all-suffering as I had been?

That was the line they took, the singers, the yarn spinners. Don’t follow my example, I
want to scream in your ears – yes, yours! But when I try to scream, I sound like an owl.

Of course I had inklings, about his slipperiness, his wiliness, his foxiness, his –
how can I out this? – His unscrupulousness, but I turned blind eye. I kept my mouth
shut; or if I opened it, I sang his praises. I didn’t contradict; I didn’t ask awkward
questions, I didn’t dig deep. I wanted happy endings in those days, and happy endings
are best achieved by keeping the right doors locked and going to sleep during the
rampages.

But after the main events were over and things had become less legendary, I
realized how many people were laughing at me behind my back – how they were
jeering, making jokes about me, jokes both clean and dirty; how they were turning me
into a story, or into several stories, though not the kind of stories I’d prefer to hear about
myself. What can a woman do when scandalous gossip travels the world? If she
defends herself she sounds guilty. So I waited some more.

Now that all the others have run out of air, it’s my turn to do a little story-making.
I owe it to myself. I’ve had to work myself up to it: it’s a low art, tale-telling. Old women
go in for it, strolling beggars, blind singers, maidservants, and children – folks with time
on their hands. Once, people would have laughed if I’d tried to play the minstrel –
there’s nothing more preposterous than an aristocrat fumbling around with the arts – but
who cares about public opinion now? The opinion of the people down here: the
opinions of shadows, of echoes. So I’ll spin a thread of my own.

Answer the following questions:

1. Why does Penelope consider storytelling “a low art”?

2. How does Penelope’s portrayal differ from the traditional portrayal of Odysseus?
What do you think of Odysseus?
3. Based on Penelope’s perspective, how is she different from how the epic
portrays her? What do you think of Penelope’s character in the preceding story?
4. What does she have to say about the “official version” of what happened? Why
does she point this out?
5. Why does she call herself “a stick used to beat other women with”? Do you agree
with her?
6. Why does Penelope say that she “sounds like an owl” when she tries to warn
other women?
7. How much of ancient history do you think is based on fact, and how much on
gossip or exaggeration?
8. Do you think a story is colored by the biases of the storyteller?
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9. Do you think history is colored by the biases of the historian?

10. Does this story change the way you look at literature and history? Why or why
not?

Post-reading note on the text

This text is an example of historiographic metafiction, which was elaborated on by Linda

Hutcheon (1988) in the article “Historiographic Metafiction: The Pastime of Past
time”. She traces how both history and literature were once considered branches of
the same tree of learning, a tree which sought to “interpret experience, for the
purpose of guiding and elevating man”. Nowadays, with the use of this narrative
strategy, literature has found a way to interrogate history and to reveal marginal voices
to compete with the authoritative versions that come from the history books and what
could be termed official histories.

Historiographic metafiction, as a strategy, tries to shift perspectives that have come

from received ideologies that have been traditionally depicted by history and literature.
It tries to destabilize “received notions of both history and fiction” and “directly confront
the past literature – and of historiography…” (Hutcheon 1988). This is done to make
readers think about the validity of history. It makes you wonder about the different
voices in history that have not been heard, and how to allow these ghostly voices to
speak through literature.

Individual task for enrichment:

Write a story or poem that would be considered a retelling or historiographic metafiction.

Try to approach it from a marginalized character, someone who is not the main
character of the story. You can make a few embellishments or changes to the story.

The rubric in grading is as follows:

 50% understanding of the characters in the story

 50% creativity

II. REAL WORLD ISSUES

What are the problems that people have today? These problems are modern and yet
they have been around for quite some time, social inequalities, misunderstandings, and
even a problematic self-image seen to be at the fore of real-world issues today. How do
we deal with these problems? Sometimes literature and hint at a way…….
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A. The Self

1. At what age do you think a person has a very sure sense of Self? Explain your
answer.
2. Do you think we are surer of ourselves when we were children? Or are we surer
of ourselves as adults? Explain your answer.

Pre-reading:

Discuss the time when people were more confident and sure of their identities – was it
during childhood or during adulthood?

Background Knowledge

The Valley of Amazement

By: Amy Tan

Author Amy Tan is especially known for her best seller The Joy Luck Club which was
also a major film. Tan’s other best-selling novels include The Kitchen God’s Wife, The
Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, and Saving Fish from Drowning.
Her themes usually explore the relationships between mothers and daughters, historical
connections to ancestors, comparisons of Chinese and American cultures, along with
mysterious family secrets. Her latest novel The Valley of Amazement brings the same
elements of historical information and mystery as her previous books. “Family secrets,
life-changing betrayals and the paradox of wondering about the old country while
belonging to the new are at the heart of Amy Tan’s work. She enthralled readers of her
phenomenally successful first novel, The Joy Luck Club (1989), with the interlocking
stories of four Chinese-born mothers and their four California-born daughters…

The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan is a novel about fate, love, identity, and
belonging. These themes are told through the lives of three generations of women. The
challenges they face separate them, but also give them the drive to get back into one
another’s lives. Only then can they begin to heal from the struggles they’ve survived.
Through that healing, they begin to see their lives and suffering in a new light because
they’re able to understand their lives through one another’s eyes. The main relationship
featured in The Valley of Amazement is that between a mother and her daughter.

The Summary

The book opens with Violet Min turn 7. Violet is convinced that she’s one hundred
percent American, but when she learns that her heritage is half-Chinese, her entire
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world is turned upside down. Violet’s struggles also stem from the fact that she never
knew her father. Violet’s mother has a courtesan house, and Violet’s father visits one
day to tell her mother that she is now allowed to meet Teddy. Teddy is their son who
lives in San Francisco. Violet’s mother decides that they will move to San Francisco
from their current home in Shanghai. This upsets Violet because they have roots in
Shanghai. This anger festers, particularly after the betrayal that spawns Violet’s
separation from her mother. Her mother has a friend named Fairweather who sells
Violet to a courtesan house. Fairweather uses the money to pay off a debt to the
Chinese Green Gang.

Consigned to life as a courtesan, Violet becomes acquainted again with Loyalty Fang.
They knew one another years ago, when he visited the courtesan house where Violet’s
mother lived with Violet. Violet had a cat in those days who scratched Loyalty. When
Loyalty buys the rights to Violet’s virginity, she imagines Loyalty will want to marry her.
He doesn’t propose, and tells Violet this is because she nags him too much and is
suspicious. Despite this, Loyalty offers her lifelong friendship. It’s through him that Violet
meets Edward. Together, Edward and Violet have a daughter whom they name Flora.
Unfortunately, Edward and Violet cannot marry. He’s already married to another
woman. Edward’s wife tricked him into marrying her by saying she was pregnant with
his child, even though she wasn’t. After Flora is born, Edward and his wife are able to
legally take her away from Violet. This is because Flora’s birth certificate lists Minerva
Ivory, Edward’s wife, as her mother. Violet swears that she’s going to find a way to get
Flora back from them.

Violet experiences other changes from losing Flora. She soon starts to appreciate and
understand her mother’s actions leading to when they were forced to separate. With this
newfound understanding, Violet contacts her mother. She learns that her mother had
been told that Violet was dead. Both of them are glad for the reunion, and Violet gets
her mother to agree to help her get Flora back. Violet and Loyalty end up marrying, and
Loyalty starts sending Flora gifts. Years pass like this with Flora unaware that Loyalty
and Violet have sent her gifts, but when she discovers them, she’s able to reunite with
Violet in Shanghai. This reunion sparks Flora’s memories, and she is able to recall
Violet before Minerva took her away. By the end of the book, Violet is able to come to
terms with how her life has unfolded. She no longer dreams about what might have
been were she not sold to the courtesan house by Fairweather. She is able to find the
good in her life, despite the cruel circumstances that defined it.

Some important symbols of The Valley of Amazement include the Chinese Green Gang,
Violet’s Valise, and the painting for which the novel is titled. The Green Gang holds a
debt over Fairweather’s head, prompting him to sell Violet to the Hall of Tranquility, a
courtesan house. This is the inciting incident of the story, from which Violet’s other
struggles stem. Her valise is her suitcase, and when she first sees its contents after she
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arrives at the Hall of Tranquility, she notes that her mother’s belongings are inside. This
proves to Violet that her mother knew nothing of her being kidnapped and sold by
Fairweather. The painting titled “The Valley of Amazement” appears more than once
throughout the novel. Violet thinks it is a dangerous omen, but Flora understands that
the painting is just a copy of someone else’s work.

Word Inference

Infer the meanings of the words in bold. Use a dictionary, thesaurus, and Word Chart
by Freeology for assistance.

1. Family secrets and the paradox of wondering about the old country are at the
heart of Amy Tan’s work.
2. She enthralled readers with The Joy Luck Club.
3. Tan followed up with equally enduring portraits of fierce immigrant mothers.
4. Tan focuses her new novel on the elegant “houses of flowers”.
5. By taking a child’s perspective, Tan creates a sense of innocence.
6. Tan sets the stage with sumptuous furnishings.
7. Tan gives us a cast of finely drawn and idiosyncratic minor characters.
8. After a series of wrenching betrayals, Lulu strikes back.
9. Violet and her mother face ominous crossroads.
10. She dallies with a smarmy American.

Guide questions:

1. Amy Tan’s novels revolve around themes such as difficult mother-daughter

relationships, cultural comparisons between America and China, and family
secrets. In your opinion, why are these topics so interesting to people?
2. Which age group do you think read Tan’s novels? Provide reasons why.
3. Which of the themes in Tan’s novels do you find most interesting? Why?
4. If you could write a novel, what topics would you choose and why?

Listening Activity
Video: Amy Tan discusses her new novel “The Valley of Amazement” with “CBS
This Morning”.

“Best-selling author Amy Tan has written “The Valley of Amazement” about the
world of high-class courtesans in Shanghai. Tan joins the “CBS This Morning”
co-hosts to discuss her new book and what she uncovered about her own family
during the research.”
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After or while listening, classify the following statements as True /False/NA-

Statements

Directions: Review the statements before the watching the video. As you listen
to the video if a statement is true, mark it T. If the statement is not applicable,
mark it NA. If the statement is false, mark it F and provide the correct answer.

1. Amy Tan’s books have sold more than 5 million copies world wide
2. Her books have been translated into 35 languages.
3. Tan found a photo of her grandmother which led her to write this novel.
4. Amy Tan’s grandmother was dressed as a courtesan in the photo.
5. A courtesan was a woman who courted men in high-class brothels in
Shanghai.
6. In the novel the protagonist Violet is half American and half Chinese.
7. According to Tan, the courtesan’s life was one of beauty and brutality.
8. During this era, Chinese women were restricted in general.

Post-Listening Activities

Questions for Discussion

1. After listening to the video, has your personal idea of Amy Tan changed in any
way?   If yes, describe in what way.  If no, describe your original opinion.
2. Did you agree with everything Tan said? Discuss which comments you agreed
with and which ones you tended not to agree with. Explain why.
3.  Make up questions that you would probably like to ask the speaker.

The excerpt below is written from the perspective of Lulu, an American woman, who will
eventually own and operate a courtesan house in China, made up of Chinese and
Western courtesans. Given this, what kind of childhood do you think she had to be able
to do this in the future? What kind of personality do you think she had?

The Valley of Amazement

[Excerpt]
by Amy Tan
(U.S.A)

At the age of eight, I was determined to be true to My Self. Of course, that made
it essential to know what My Self consisted of. My manifesto began the day I
discovered I had once possessed an extra finger in each hand, twin to my pinkies. My
grandmother had recommended that the surplus be amputated before leaving the
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hospital, lest people think there was a familiar tendency toward giving birth to
octopuses. Mother and father were Freethinkers, whose opinion was based in reason,
logic, deduction, and their own opinions. Mother, who disagreed with any advice my
grandmother had to give, said: “Should the extra fingers be removed simply to enable
her to wear gloves from a dry goods store?” They took me home with all my fingers in
place. But then an old family friend of my father’s, Mr. Maubert, who was also my piano
teacher, convinced them to turn my unusual hands into ordinary ones. He was a former
concert pianist, who, early in his promising career, lost his right arm during the siege of
Paris by the Prussians. “There are only a few piano compositions for one hand,” he
said to my parents, “and none for six fingers”. If you intend for her to have musical
training, it would be a pity if she had to take up the tambourine due to lack of suitable
instruments.” Mr. Maubert was the one who proudly informed me when I was eight that
he had influenced the decision.

Few can understand the shock of a little girl learning that part of her was
considered undesirable and thus needed to be completely removed. It made me fearful
that people could change parts of me, without my knowledge and permission, and thus
began my quest to know which of my many attributes I needed to protect, the whole of
which I named scientifically “My Pure Self-Being”.

In the beginning, the complete list comprised my preferences and dislikes, my

strong feelings for animals, my animosity toward anyone who laughed at me, my
aversion to stickiness, and several more things I have now forgotten. I also collected
secrets about myself, mostly what had wounded my heart, and the very fact that they
needed to keep private was proof of My Pure Self-Being. I later added to my list my
intelligence, opinions of others, fears and revulsions, and certain nagging discomforts,
which I later knew as worries. A few years later, after I stained my undergarments,
Mother explained to me “the biology that led to your existence” – the gist of which was
my beginning as an egg slipping down a fallopian tube. She made it sound as if I had
been a mindless blob and that upon entry into the world I took on a personality shaped
through my parents’ guidance.

Guide Questions:

1. What was Lulu’s reaction when she found out about the operation? Do you think
her reaction is normal? Why or why not?
2. Do you think the parents made a mistake in operating on Lulu’s fingers? Why or
why not?
3. What is the narrator’s fear?
4. Why did the narrator dislike the way her mother described reproduction?
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5. What do you think is its effect on the narrator?

6. What does it mean that the narrator wanted to be true to her Self?
7. Have you ever felt the same way? Why or why not?
8. Do you think the narrator is elfish? Why or why not?
9. Is the narrator expressing an inherently Asian or American value?
10. Do childhood revelations have lasting impact on one’s life?

Post-reading:

Read up Maslow and is hierarchy of needs. Discuss the need for self-actualization and
what this entails. How would you apply this to your lives? Share this with the rest of the
class.

Evaluation:

What does it mean to be true to oneself?

Answer the question in a 5 paragraphs essay, double spaced, arial-12 font. The essay
should have insights and examples to prove one’s point.

Enrichment:

Three best essays will be chosen

References:

Ang, J.C. (2017). Literatura: 21st Century Philippine and World Literature. Mindshapers
Publishing.
Mata, EL.I., Gabelo, N.C. and Ambon, F. (2017). 21st Century Literature for Senior High
School. Mutya Publishing House, Inc.
Uychoco, M. A. (2016). 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World. Rex
Bookstore Publishing.

www.amytan.net

www.britannica.com

www.ancient-literature.com