Generations

Ninotchka Rosca

Summary
Selo is an old man who mumbles all the
time
His two grandsons got used to listening his
mumblings
Their grandmother said that Selo also has a
bad humor and it began when his hands
started withering
Their grandmother died because of severe
chest pains, leaving the two grandsons
memories of her as guilt

 But Selo didnt remembered how his

wife died
Selo saw sacks piled in a nearby
shed, and he remembers his past life
as a peasant
He was a member of a society for
peasants and they embedded
insignia on their skin
The members of the society gathered
on a schoolhouse to talk about their
future
But there was a time when the

 Before reaching in their village,

Selos wife heated a coin and
dropped it into Selos tattoo
Meanwhile, his grandsons still
playing in the yard encountered a
vehicle with four men
The men asked the whereabouts of
his father, but the boy didnt answer
The men found the piled rice and
they started to load them on the
vehicle
Selo started attacking the man with a

 One of the four men struck Selos

chest using the hilt of the machete
and Selo fell into the dirt.
After loading the sacks, the four men
left
Selos grandsons helped him to get
back up and they waited for the
mother and the granddaughter
When the mother arrived she tended
Selos wound

 The granddaughter went to the pond

with her two brothers
They took a bath in the canal
It was nearly dusk when they came
back home
Before entering the house, they
heard her father growling
The drunkard father became wild
again and went out in the middle of
the night

 The mother pleaded for the daughter

to follow his father despite the
curfew imposed in the area
The daughter and his old brother
followed
They found their father arguing with
two soldiers
The daughter made his brother go
back to the house
The daughter entered the barracks
and was greeted by two soldiers

 The daughter pleaded to them to

release her father
The soldiers explained that he still
has to go with a trial and pay a fine
The daughter said that they have no
money to pay the fine
But the soldiers offered another
solution to pay in an another way
and the daughter agreed

 In the morning, the father was

released, and he found his daughter
waiting for him
The daughter stumbled into a pebble
and he saw bruises at the back of her
left thigh
The father laughed without even
hinting a feeling of remorse
They left, the father walked quickly
leaving her daughter behind
When suddenly something hard and
jagged smashed into the fathers

 The older brother found his sister

with their fathers dead body
The daughter said that the soldiers
killed him
The daughter wanted to her mother
but her brother insisted her to go
with him in the canal
They took a short cut across the field
Their mother, still tending Selo saw
them crossing the field and she
smiled and waved at them

Themes
Feudal
Patriarchal
Military Oppression