Honasan: Text Analysis

Honasan is a family saga, fantasy, fiction, and short story written by Cesar Miguel Escaño
published on June 25, 2019. This story follows the chronicle of the main character’s bloodline,
Atong, Atoy, and Intoy as they accompany us throughout generations of beauty, despair, and
mystery. Within this narrative, countless forms of cultural practices, linguistic representation,
and beauty within geography are shown and emphasized to deliver an astounding text meant to
lead its readers toward a visualization of the events taking place alongside the narrative’s
simplicity in word choice. All in all the story's premise is short but its complexity and subtleties
give the story its rich meaning.

The story of Honasan takes place in the province of Hinundayan in Leyte and as we read
through the story, we will follow a generational story of, Atong, Atoy, and Intoy as they
accompany us throughout generations of beauty, despair, and mystery. In the first generation,
we are greeted by the character of Atong and his plan to impress and take Sylvia to a baile, he
plans to do this by getting a shell in the ocean, luckily he found a golden cowrie which is a rare
type of seashell. In the second generation, we have Atoy who in the story is hinted to be the
child of Atong and Sylvia, in this part of the story he was the one who will be inheriting the
riches and businesses of but for now he serves as a diver for a seashell business. Lastly the third
part of the story takes a tragic turn as Intoy’s grandfather who is hinted to be Atong lost his
fortune and business and because of this his father is now a drunkard. At the end of the story
we get a glimpse of the mermaid and the story concluded from there.

Before we analyze the text completely we first need to give more context in how is the
text structured and written, with this we shall take an analysis of the biographical, literary,
linguistic, and sociocultural context of the story. The writer Cesar Miguel G. Escaño is a writer
based in Tacloban City, Leyte. Prior to residing in Tacloban, he worked as a newspaper reporter
for BusinessWorld and taught English at Ateneo de Manila. Escaño is a frequent contributor of
feature articles to various newspapers including the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Manila
Bulletin, as well as magazines such as Going Places and Mabuhay Magazine. Escaño's
experience as a former newspaper reporter and English teacher is evident in his writing style,
which is clear and detailed. Throughout the story, he uses various figures of speech, such as
imagery, to immerse readers in the world he has created. These details help readers better
understand the story without getting lost in confusion. More than that the setting of the story is
in Leyte which is also the same province as the author, this gives more realism to the story and
what is it like to live there. With that said we will now analyze the literary and linguistic context
of the story, and as stated earlier the genre of the story is a family saga, fantasy, fiction, and
short story, this makes the story very interesting in that this is one of the few Philippine
literature short stories that features a family saga and even though it is a short story the author
was still able to fit a comprehensive and detailed story of what happened, the family saga
theme of this story also makes the story have different type of genre for each generation of the
story, as we can see in the first generation it exhibits a romance theme while in the second
generation, it features a coming to age story, and in the third it features a tragic and mystical
approach to the story. Another thing about this story is that even though the narrator is written
as a third-person omniscient being the characters are not explicitly stated to be connected with
each other, however, the narrator gives us few hints on how they are connected with each
other connected, and with this the readers are given a sense of mystery and this makes the
readers more invested in the story because of how intriguing the connection of the characters
are. The main way that the author exhibited this type of writing in such a short medium is
through the use of different figures of speech and being clear and detailed when writing the
story, a specific figure of speech that is used throughout the text is imagery as everything in the
story is described in a way that readers can imagine what that specific item will look like, an
example of this is how he described violet sea shells which give readers a vivid image of the
objects being described, this makes the readers more immersed and in turn, understand the
story more clearly without making the story confusing. Lastly is the sociocultural context of the
story, as the story takes place in the Visayas region specifically Leyte, the story is littered with
Visayan culture and general Filipino traditions, one of the more apparent Filipino traditions and
a vital part of the story is the inheritance of wealth and property to the next generations, as we
can see in the story it is the main reason why the plot is continuing by passing the inheritance
and the legacy of the family to the next generations we can see how the next generations are
affected by how the past generations reacted to their challenges in life, another vital culture in
this story that is represented is how in places like the Hinundayan which is rich in underwater
resources people take advantage of it and take diving for resources as there main source of
income. Lastly is the inclusion of the Philippine mermaid mythology in the story, though we just
read a few glimpses of it in the last part we were still able to capture the essence of these kinds
of mythology and how as Filipinos we perceive things in the ocean often as mystical and
mysterious.

As we thoroughly progress through the narrative of Honasan, we imply and acknowledge

the beauty, dread, and mystery that reality withholds, as the events that unfold throughout the
story, bring much clarity and value throughout our world’s structure and cultural beliefs. With
that in hand, let us take an in-depth analysis of the geographic, linguistic, and ethnic dimensions
of our chosen text. Within the story, we can identify that the setting of the narrative takes place
in Hinundayan, a precinct in South Leyte's province. In accordance with that, it is shown that the
people of the town, or mostly among the children, show the great value and admiration
towards the natural resources of the coral reefs located among Hinundayan’s waters as it
provides them with their livelihood by means of selling shells, corals, and all kinds of wonders
accumulated by the sea. Next, as we dive into the analysis of the text's linguistic dimension, we
can clearly observe that it possesses a sense of independency since it shows the practices of
responsibility and freedom within the actions of children which are seen in their performance in
working and exploration. With this, it can be distinguished that the story takes place within the
modern period. With that in mind, we can declare in regard to the setting and timeline, the
language spoken within their region will most likely be Cebuano, Tagalog, and the Boholano
dialect. Lastly, if we observe further the cultural aspects of the text, we can clearly distinguish
its ethnic dimensions. Within the narrative, we can evaluate that the ethnic group within
Honasan heavily practices cultural traditions involving the nurturing of resources from the sea.
From that, we can also conclude that selling products accumulated by the sea such as shells,
corals, and such are surmised and prioritized by certain people of Hinundayan.

Compared to other genres from different periods and cultures this story is quite unique
as it combines family saga, fantasy, fiction, and short story which is not that very much seen in
Philippine literature. As we can see if we compare it to other genres like fiction short stories
that are published from the 20th century we can see that 20th-century short stories sort of
have a formula to them where there is a build-up to a climax and commonly a happy ending,
but in our story the style is quite different as the story is a generational story there is no specific
build up to a certain climax instead when we build up to a certain point in the story we often
skip ahead and the story just tries to explain the state of the present characters based on how
the past characters acted in their own generation, add to that the ending of the story is a bit of
a mystery as it has no definitive answer on how is the mermaid connected to the overarching
story. Other than that if we compare it to other creative writing genres like Poetry, Drama, and
fiction novels this story reflects more on what will really happen in real life if these instances
would happen compared to the more dramatized writing and use of complex words and figures
of speech in genres like poem, drama, and other fiction novels. If we compare it to a specific
novel or story, trythis story is actually quite similar to a famous 20th-century literature titled 100
years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez which features a generational story on the rise and fall of
the Buendia family, this is quite similar since the story Honasan also features the rise and fall of
Atong, Atoy, and Intoy family legacy.

All in all the story of Honasan is a short but very complex masterpiece that is quite
different from other contemporary writings in the present as it features a unique storyline and
structure. With that in mind, we believe that readers would take a liking to its elements,
lessons, and realism. Honasan is a must-read for everyone.