Literary Motifs in Manuel E.

Arguilla’s Midsummer

Rolyni A. Barbas

Abstract

The study explores the literary motifs in Manuel Arguilla’s Midsummer. Using archetypal criticism as an approach in
literary criticism and informed by the ideas of Joseph Campbell, Northrop Frye and Carl Jung on the concept of the
archetypes, the study sought to identify the literary motifs in Arguilla’s, Midsummer and how the journey motif is
dramatized in the chosen text. Arguilla employs the following motifs in his fiction:desert-like setting, water, serpent,
quest, midsummer, and the woman archetype. More than this uncovering of the motifs in his short story, Arguilla also
underscores to the reader this “quest” of man for companionship and love. The motifs speak of man as homo viator or
traveller but at the same time the text can be read as an arena or locus of how literature can reverse the order of things
including traditional roles of gender.

Keywords: archetypes, archetypal criticsim, gender roles, Jungian literary criticism, motifs, literature.

Introduction

Literature is a book of life in which a person reveals things related to his inexplicable color of life and in his
world (Arrogante, 2008). It makes a person visualize through an original, creative and artistic methods.
Philippine literature is literature associated with the Philippines from prehistory, through its colonial legacies,
and on to the present. Pre-Hispanic Philippine literature was actually epics passed on from generation to
generation, originally through an oral tradition. On the other hand, wealthy families especially in Mindanao,
were able to keep transcribed copies of these epics as family heirloom. One such was the Darangen, an epic of
the Maranaos.
It is a unique human experience unique to mankind, He added it was a powerful tool that could free one of
the rushing ideas to escape (Salazar, 1998). Literature is a force that motivated society. An explanation of the
literature of social truths and fictional imaginations. It caresses the senses of man: sight, auditory, smell,
taste, and the touch through the evocative power of words. Literature has its own existence because it has its
own throbbing and hot blood flowing into the arteries and nena of every creature and a whole society
(Villafuerte, 2000). It is like blood with its life-giving words flowing into the human body in this case, the
Filipinos and their society. When literature is read, it pulses with life which stirs powerful emotions in a
person or group of people, . Currently,the propagation, spread and cultivation of literature has become
accessible and convenient in the Philippines with the advent of modern technology
i.e internet and technological developments like the availability of software applications which are
downloadable. This innovation allows more Filipino readers to read, download and even publicize themselves
with the advent of new techonologies..

With more literary works being accessible now to a greater readership in the digital platform literary
criticism has become fashionable among English and non-English majors. One of the popular literary
approaches in literary criticism is archetypal
or mythical approach. Oxford dictionary (1988) defines an archetype as “an original pattern or model; ideal,
example or prototype” (Oxford Dictionary). The term derives from Greek terms “arche” meaning “first,” and
“typos” meaning “stamp.” It argues that archetypes determine the form and function of literary works that a
text's meaning is shaped by cultural and psychological myths.
Joseph Campbell, an anthropologist and comparative mythologist in his book, A Hero with a Thousand
Faces (1973) known to be the first to use animal behavior to explain how archetypes work on the human
consciousness.

Newly hatched chicks, even without the guidance of a mother hen, will run for cover when a
hawk flies overhead [frightened by the predator’s passing shadow]. When tested with a wooden model
of a hawk suspended on thin wire and pulled by string to move over the young chicks they would
scramble clumsily looking for a place to hide.
But if the same wooden hawk was made to glide backwards, there would be no response from the
animals. The shadow of the hawk moving backwards does not trigger any inherent understanding in
them. But the flying hawk, and anything that resembles it strikes a deep chord. (Campbell in Guerin,
147)

In a strikingly similar way some works of art use images and symbols that strike a deep chord within us.
It seems like we are born with an innate understanding of these images and symbols, like they are somehow
ingrained or hardwired into our consciousness. This might be the reason why some works of art become
classics (no matter how ancient they are); because of the existence of
these “wooden hawks” in literature and art.
The mythological/archetypal approach deals with this occurrence. Psychoanalyst—and student of the
renowned Sigmund Freud—Carl
Gustav Jung has propounded in his theories on the human psyche that a group of people, or people
from a common culture have a common set of values, beliefs grounded on what he terms “collective
consciousness” formed by centuries upon centuries of common experience. If, for Freud, dreams reflect the
unconscious desires and anxieties of the individual then, for Jung, myths are “collective dreams” or symbolic
representations of a certain culture’s hopes, values, fears, aspirations and instinctual life.
Myths are collective and communal; they bind a tribe or nation together in common psychological
and spiritual activities.
Archetypes are the unknowable basic forms personified or concretized in recurring images, symbols,
or patterns which may include motifs such as the quest or the heavenly ascent, recognizable character types
such as the trickster or the hero, symbols such as the apple or snake, or images such as crucifixion, all laden
with meaning already when employed in a particular work. Archetypal criticism gets its motivation from
psychologist Carl Jung, who postulated that humankind has a "collective unconscious," a kind of universal
psyche, which is manifested in dreams and myths and which harbors themes and images that we all inherit.
Literature, therefore, imitates not the world but rather the "total dream of humankind." Jung called
mythology "the textbook of the archetypes" (qtd. in Walker 17).
 The journey motif has been used for a very long time in literature beginning with the Greeks. A
journey, in a work of literature, is a quest or trek towards a goal, destination, or understanding that serves the
progression of the plot. A motif, in a work of literature, is a recurring theme, object, or idea that is notable and
distinctive. The journey itself serves as a symbol and is used to represent an epic hero’s adventure which
ultimately leads to an epiphany, or some self-realization, or self- discovery that solidifies the work as a whole.
The journey motif is one of many common motifs among short stories of Philippine Literature. One good
example is Manuel Arguilla’s in “Midsummer” and epics such as Hinilawod of Panay and Lam-ag of the Ilocos
region were both epics describe “man” as homo viator-- a traveller who pursues a path of marriage and
happiness.

The method considered in this paper was literary criticism, the study of interpreting literature.
Specifically, Archetypal Criticism was used to explore the literary motifs in Manuel Arguilla’s Midsummer

Critical Questions

The present study investigates the use of literary motifs in Manuel Arguilla’s “The Midsummer”
Analysis of the setting and characters is central in this study to draw out the literary motifs which is the main
purpose of the study.

Specifically, it sought to answer the following

critical questions:
1. What are the literary motifs in Manuel E. Arguilla’s Midsummer?
2. How did Arguilla dramatize the journey motif in Midsummer?

Literary Theory Framework

This study is anchored on the works propounded by Northrop Frye. For Frye, literary archetypes "play
an essential role in refashioning the material universe into an alternative verbal universe that is humanly
intelligible and viable, because it is adapted to essential human needs and concerns" (Abrams 224-225).
Frye's framework on plot includes, the comedic and the tragic. Each category is further subdivided into two
categories: comedy and romance for the comedic; tragedy and satire for the tragic. Frye uses the seasons in
his archetypal schema. Each season is aligned with a literary genre: comedy with spring, romance with
summer, tragedy with autumn, and satire with winter. It has been argued that Frye's version of archetypal
criticism strictly categorizes works based on their genres, which determines how an archetype is to be
interpreted in a text.

Collorary to archetypal criticism used in this paper is Jungian analytical psychology which
distinguishes between the personal and collective unconscious, the latter being particularly relevant to
archetypal criticism. The collective unconscious, or the objective psyche as it is less frequently known, has a
number of innate thoughts, feelings, instincts, and memories that reside in the unconsciousness of
all people. Jung's definition of the term is inconsistent in his many writings. At one time he calls the collective
unconscious the "a priori, inborn forms of intuition" (Lietch 998). In Jungian psychology, the archetypes
represent universal patterns and images that are part of the collective unconscious. Jung believed that we
inherit these archetypes much in the way we inherit instinctive patterns of behavior. The four major Jungian
Archetypes are; the persona, the shadow, the anima or animus and the self for character analysis.

Analyses and Interpretations

Motifs in Fiction
Manuel Arguilla employs a number of motifs in his short story. Significant images and symbols that
recur and have become prominent in the text will be investigated in this present study. In fiction, these
repetitive patterns of images and symbols is called motif. In Arguilla’s Midsummer the motifs include:desert-
like setting, water, serpent, quest, midsummer, and the woman archetype.
How are these motifs dramatized in Arguilla’s narrative? Most of Arguilla’s stories are set in
Negrebcan, which is in La Union, his home province. The setting in which the story unfolds is “midsummer”
as the title suggests. An unnamed male farmer, together with his bull was on their way to the well to have
their noon day meal. Unnoticed by the man, the “woman” passed by their side of the road to get water
from the well. The woman returned to the well for the second time and invited the man to come
 to her house, informing him that she already told her mother about him.
The elements of setting and characters in the narrative are pregnant with a number of archetypes
and motifs. According to an online masterclass on creative writing, a motif is a literary technique that consists
of a repeated element that has symbolic significance to a literary work. Sometimes, a motif is a recurring
image. Other times, it’s a repeated word, phrase, or topic expressed in language. A motif can be a recurring
situation or action. It can be a sound or smell, a temperature, even a color.(2019)

The key aspect is that a motif repeats, and through this repetition helps to illuminate the dominant
ideas, central themes, and deeper meaning of a story.

Just one of the many motifs that could be gleaned in the story include: the sun and sky as a symbol
and motif for creative energy; law in nature; consciousness (thinking, enlightenment, wisdom, spiritual
vision); father principle; passage of time and life. The imagery of the oppressive heat in the narrative
becomes a symbol of the precursor of the creative energy that is about to be born-- the meeting between
man and woman--and their ultimate union.
“The road seemed to writhe under the lash of the noon-day heat; it swum from side to side, humped and bent itself like
a feeling serpent, and disappeared behind the spur of a low hill on which grew a scrawny thicket of bamboo.

There was not a house in sight. Along the left side of the road ran the deep, dry gorge of a
stream, the banks sparsely covered by sun- burned cogon grass. In places, the rocky, waterless bed showed aridly.
Farther, beyond the
shimmer of quivering heat waves rose ancient hills not less blue than the cloud-palisaded sky. Onthe right stretched a land
waste of low rolling
 dunes. Scattered clumps of hardy ledda relieved the otherwise barren monotony of the landscape. Far away he could discern
a thin indigo line that
was the sea.

Desert-like Setting as Motif

For Jung,(1973) the desert represents death; nihilism, hopelessness. This allusion to the “death” as
prefigured by the aridity of the land is shown in the following lines:
The road seemed to writhe under the lash of the noon-day heat; it swum from side to side, humped and bent itself like a
feeling serpent, and
disappeared behind the spur of a low hill on which grew a scrawny thicket of bamboo.

There was not a house in sight. Along the left side of the road ran the deep, dry gorge of a stream, the banks sparsely
covered by sun-burned cogon grass.
In places, the rocky, waterless bed showed aridly.

The sense of isolation -- not a house in sight -- speaks of a setting bereft of life .The absence of human
activity in site speaks of this form of hopelessness, conjuring the image of abandonment and seclusion from
the life giving presence of nature. This metaphor of death is also subtly alluded by --’dry gorge of stream, the
banks sparsely covered with sun-burned cogon grass. In places, the rocky , waterless bed…-- symptomatic of
this want for life waiting for a miracle to happen.

Indeed, this aridity will be supplanted by the expectant joy waiting for the man as he claims his
“victory” at the end of the narrative as he follows the path where the girl lives.

Water as Motif
According to Jung, water is also the most common symbol for the unconscious. The river specifically
symbolizes death and rebirth as in baptism; incarnation of deities and transitional
phases of the life cycle.In Midsummer, we see how water is a carrier and precursor of life. The meeting at the
well in Midsummer for both characters is the birth of a new life. Such meeting, metonymically becomes the
site where “openness and truth” is revealed. The biblical allusion of the story of the Samaritan woman at
the well is a figure from the Gospel of John, in John 4:4–26 reminds us of this symbolic reference-- the act
where openness paves the way for greater understanding and love.
Arguilla’s meeting at the well scene between two characters in the middle of summer foreshadows a
“greater understanding” albeit, a harbinger of new life to be borne.
“I will draw you another bucketful," he said. "I am stronger than you."

"No, you must let me do it."

But when he caught hold of the bucket and stretched forth a brawny arm for the coil of rope in her hands, she
surrendered both to him quickly and drew back a step as though shy of his touch. He lowered the bucket with his back
to her, and she had time to take in the tallness of him, the breadth of his
shoulders, the sinewy strength of his legs. Down below in the small of his back, two parallel ridges of rope-like muscle stuck
out against the wet shirt. As he hauled up the bucket, muscles rippled all over his body. His hair, which was wavy, cut short
behind but long in fronts fell in a cluster over his forehead.

"Let me hold the bucket while you drink," she offered.

He flashed her a smile over his shoulders as he poured the water into her jar, and again lowered the bucket.

The motif of the water and the act of pouring water into her jar prefigures a Freudian sexual act.
From the aridity of Nagrebcan -- a setting of lifelessness and death to the meeting at the well -- a new
creation, a new life will spring.
Water is akin to life and for Jungian critics, it is a symbolic reference to this “transitional phase”
in the life of the characters --from their arid existence, bereft of “life” to a life pulsing with vitality as
foreshadowed in the succeeding lines:
The jar was filled, with plenty to drink as she tilted the half-filled can until the water lapped the rim. He gulped a mouthful,
gargled noisily, spewed it out, then commenced to drink in earnest. He took long, deep droughts of the sweetish water, for he
was more thirsty than he had thought. A chuckling sound persisted in forming inside his throat at every swallow. It made him
self-conscious. He was breathless when through, and red in the face.

"I don't know why it makes that sound," he said, fingering his throat and laughing shamefacedly.

"Father also makes that sound when he drinks, and mother always laughs at him," she said. She untied the headkerchief
over her hair and started to roll it.

A Word on the “Serpent”

For archetypal critics and Jungian enthusiast, one innocouos word appears in the Arguilla’s first
paragraph.

“The road seemed to writhe under the lash of the noon-day heat; it swum from side to side, humped and bent itself like a
feeling serpent, and disappeared behind the spur of a low hill on which grew a scrawny thicket of bamboo.”

The archetype of the “snake/serpent” a symbol of energy, pure force; evil, corruption, sensuality;
destruction; mystery, wisdom; the unconscious becomes doubly significant. First, the “fleeing serpent”
represents the sensuality that the man and woman felt for each other. The awareness of each other’s physique
and the unspoken sexual attraction held by the man on the woman is a fertile ground for seduction . In fact,
this muted seduction is seen in the following lines:
Without glancing at him, where he had stopped some distance off, she sat down of her heels, gathering the fold of her skirt
between her wide- spread knees. She tilted the brimful jar to remove part of the water. One hand on the rim, the other
supporting the bottom, she began to raise it to her head. She knelt on one kneeresting, for a moment, the jar onto
her head, getting to her feet at the
 same time. But she staggered a little and water splashed down on her breast. The single bodice instantly clung to her
bosom molding the twin hillocks of her breasts warmly brown through the wet cloth. One arm remained uplifted, holding
the jar, while the other shook the clinging cloth free of her drenched flesh. Then not once having raised her eyes, she
passed by the young man, who stood mutely gazing beside his bull. The animal had found some grass along the path and
was industriously grazing.

The Quest Motif.

For Joseph Campbell(1973) one of the common hero archetypes found in literature is the quest motif.
We have the hero (savior, deliverer) who undertakes some long journey during which he or she must perform
impossible tasks, battle with monster, solve unanswerable riddles, and overcome insurmountable obstacles in
order to save the kingdom (or an equivalent), This same pattern is also observed in Midsummer but with a
different twist. The unnamed man journeys not because of some impossible task to solve or a monster to kill
but a journey precipitated by an invitation by the “woman” in the narrative. The female character does the
first act of “inviting” the man to come to her house.
"Manong, why don't you come to our house and bring your animal with you? There is shade and you can sleep, though our
house is very poor."

She had already placed the jar on her head and stood, half-turned to him, waiting for his answer.

"I would be troubling you, Ading."

"No. You come. I have told mother about you." She turned and went down the path.

He sent the bull after her with smart slap on its side. Then he quickly gathered the remains of his meal, put them inside the
jute sack which had almost dried, and himself followed.

In Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces,(1973) the hero undergoes this “initiation”.
For Campbell (1973) the hero undergoes a
series of excruciating ordeals in passing from ignorance and immaturity to social and spiritual adulthood, that
is, in achieving maturity and becoming a full-fledged member of his or her social group. The initiation most
commonly consists of three distinct phases (1) separation, (2) transformation, and (3) return. Like the quest,
this is variation of the death-and-rebirth archetype.
In Arguilla’s Midsummer, the man as the “initiated hero” leaves his familiar world (phase 1: separation)
beset by routinary activities of minding his land(farming) . This allegorical separation from his mundane and
the “arid” life has been transformed (phase 2: transformation) by the coming of the woman at the well. His
return is the implied “union” between him and the woman.This last phase : the return is now a journey of both
man and woman into family life.A sense of cockiness and bravado is felt by the man after this implied “victory”
of seduction. In the words of Arguilla:

He felt very strong. He felt that he could follow the slender, lithe figure to the end of the world.

Midsummer as Archetype
For Northrop Frye, he divided the plot into four distinct types. Archetypes are also found in complex
combinations as genres or types of literature that conform with the major phases of the seasonal cycle. These
are:
A. The mythos of spring: comedy
B. The mythos of summer: romance
C. The mythos of fall: tragedy
D. The mythos of winter: irony
Clearly, Arguilla’s Midsummer speaks of
the time of the year in the Philippines that describes a a year characterized by a respite from the drudgery of
school work, the backbreaking work in the field during the wet season (June-November) and a time for
romance- where boy meets girl. Frye calls this “summer” narrative “romance.” From its literal denotation--
romantic literature is a type of plot that centers around individuals falling in love and struggling to make the
relationship work.But Arguilla’s work can also be called a modern romance literature--a type of narrative
characterized by its treatment of chivalry, that came into being in France around the 12 century.
The “man” is the chivalric knight, who rescues metaphorically the heroine in distress not from an
ogre but from the evils of poverty.The narrative advances the idea of man as the archetype of a “savior” or
“redeemer” who saves the woman from her economic “distress”. The foregoing lines depict the disparity of
their economic lot.
"Won't you join me, Ading?" he said simply. He remained seated.

Her lips parted in a half smile and a little dimple appeared high upon her right cheek. She shook her head and said: "God
reward you, Manong."

"Perhaps the poor food I have is not fit for you?"

"No, no. It isn't that. How can you think of it? I should be ashamed. It is that I have must eaten myself. That is why I came to
get water in the middle of the day-- we ran out of it. I see you have eggs and shrimps and sugar. Why, we had nothing but
rice and salt."

"Salt? Surely you joke." "I would be ashamed..."

"But what is the matter with salt?"

Surprisingly too, the reader is also made aware that a farmer usually has his beast of burden -- his carabao/his bull-- which
implicitly would convey to the reader the economic
status of the man. He has a carabao and it goes without saying that he owns an agricultural land -- his source of livelihood and income.

This disparity in their economic lot gives the woman a leverage to size-up the man and his capacity to raise a family of his
own in the future. Hence, an implied form of sexual seduction to orchestrate the unspoken “desires” of the woman.

The Woman as the Archetype of a Good Mother. For Jung, (1968) the archetype of Good
Mother is associated with the life principle of birth, warmth, nourishment, protection, fertility, growth, and
abundance (for example, Demeter, Ceres).

The Woman in Arguilla’ story embodies this archetype of the Earth mother--the good Earth, the
nourisher, the protector, the carrier of life and growth. Her coming at the well (water archetype) is
symptomatic of her invitation for this life giving principle of “birthing life.” Her seduction of the man is seen as
her form of sexual invitation to the coming of a new life, a subtle reversal of the traditional gender identity
and role. But more importantly --the woman’s invitation at the same time is viewed as a form of “growth”--an
awareness of the male character’s masculinity.

“ There was a flourish in the way he flicked the rump of the bull with the rope in his hand. He felt strong. He felt very
strong. He felt that he could follow the slender, lithe figure to the end of the world.”

Conclusion
Literature is a book of life. It mirrors some aspects of the human experience captured in
beautiful language. (Arrogante, 2008)
Manuel Arguilla, a noted writer in English during the American colonial period in the Philippines has
given us a glimpse of rural and bucolic life as dramatized in his fiction. But more than this slice of life that
Arguilla’s fiction has given the reader, the rendering of the human experience was further enhanced by using
fictive devices such as the literary motifs that littered his short story.
Using the archetypal criticism as an interpretive approach and borrowing from the ideas of Carl Jung,
Northrop Frye and Joseph Campbell this study uncovered the following motifs: desert- like setting, water,
serpent, quest, midsummer, and the woman archetype.

These motifs have been used to unravel the story of man in fiction. More than this motifs, Arguilla’s
narrative also dramatizes for the reader this “quest” of man for companionship and love. His characters and
setting foreground the motifs which speak of man as homo viator or traveller but at the same time Arguilla’s
opus can also be read as an arena or locus of how literature can reverse the order of things including
traditional roles of gender.#rb

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