SAINT BENILDE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

Email address: @s.villanueva@saintbenilde.edu.ph

Inc. Brgy. 1, Crossing Calamba City
contact number: 0915-064-5678

Dead Stars
By Paz Marquez Benitez

Introduction
Have you ever been in love with somebody but you were
never meant to be in the end so you kept thnking about the
what ifs of the decisions you made with your life. Thinking
what if you end up with another partner, or in this case, getting
married.
Dead Stars is a story about a man named Alfredo Salazar
who is engaged with his partner Esperanza. They were both
planned by their families to get the both them married. But
things started to shake when Alfredo met a woman named
Julia and felt an affection towards her and felt his feelings
fading to his engaged partner.
It is titled as Dead Stars because his love for his fiancée is
beginning to look like dead stars. It is there but not ever so
shining enough. Will Alfredo ever face humiliatrion and call
the wedding off for Julia or continue to redeem his love for
Esperanza?

Summary
The short story revolves around one man, Alfredo Salazar
and the affairs of his heart. He is a man who believes in true
love and hopes to find bliss in its wake. The first woman he
falls in love with is Esperanza. Their families are acquainted
with each other and they thus they begin a passionate

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 SAINT BENILDE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
Email address: @s.villanueva@saintbenilde.edu.ph
Inc. Brgy. 1, Crossing Calamba City
contact number: 0915-064-5678

relationship. But soon it fades away when Alfredo comes

across another woman, Julia, who becomes the object of his
desire. Esperanza and Alfredo have their engagement after
three years of romance. Alfredo, a lawyer is a man who wants
warmth and compassion but Esperanza is a strong-willed,
impassionate and woman of principles. So when he comes
across Julia Salas, sister-in-law of the Judge who is a friend of
Alfredo’s father. He is strongly attracted to her. Julia is an
enthusiastic and optimistic person. A woman of hope, dreams
and desires. On his visit with his father, he starts engaging in
profound chats with Julia and starts getting attracted to her
charm, wit and passion. In his impassioned state, he does not
even disclose the truth about his engagement to Esperanza.
In order to avoid the scrutiny of his fiancée, he starts
keeping secrets from Esperanza too. One day he learns about
Julia’s return to her hometown. His eyes are doomed with the
fear of losing her and he decides to confess his guilt and true
feelings to Julia.
After the Church’s function, he goes to meet her even
though his fiancée is waiting for him to come to her. However,
reaching to Julia, he realizes that she has already learned about
his lies. She even wishes him best on his marriage to
Esperanza and leaves him. He gets a double blow when he
returns home to Esperanza. She is talking to a friend about
loyalty and faithfulness. Alfredo feels an urge to speak. He
defends the cause of desire and choice over immorality. This
gets under the skin of Esperanza who declares that she knew

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 SAINT BENILDE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
Email address: @s.villanueva@saintbenilde.edu.ph
Inc. Brgy. 1, Crossing Calamba City
contact number: 0915-064-5678

about him and Julia. She encourages him to commit such

immoral infidelity and cancel the wedding, all in pursuit of his
heart’s content and lust. However, Alfredo surrenders to
reason and sanity and the wedding goes ahead as planned.
Analysis (Reader-Response Criticism)
As a reader, This situation is pretty much encountered a
lot everwhere, even if it is in dramas or real life. I was able to
grasp it very accordingly due to how realistic it is. I have had
times where I was so unsure of my feelings that I was able to
create the wrong decisions and hurt the innocent. Because at
times, people would want your aggression even tho you just
want to be vulnerable. Let it be a lesson for me to be more
abstinent of my actions so that I may do right by me and by
somebody else.

Conclusion
As fate would have it, he is sent on some work duty to a
place near Julia’s hometown. He cannot help resist the feeling
of nostalgia and old lust for Julia. He finds an excuse and way
to her place where he met her. She is still single and he is
forced to dream about a life with her instead of Esperanza. But
soon he comes to know that something is not the same after
all. Julia has changed and rather lost something now. Maybe it
is her beauty, wit, charm or even her passion, but she is a
different woman. She is cold and aloof and does not extend
the same warmth and affection to him anymore. He is

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 SAINT BENILDE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
Email address: @s.villanueva@saintbenilde.edu.ph
Inc. Brgy. 1, Crossing Calamba City
contact number: 0915-064-5678

heartbroken and pensive and questions whether he ever loved

her truly. Was it all a futile infatuation or mere affair? Was the
romance they shared, just a figment of his imagination?
Whatever it was, he is no more alive. He accepts the hard
reality that anything that there may have been was there no
more.

The Work above was a collaboration of:

Strawmile A Villanueva
Nicholai Calvin N Morilla

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