Xavier University – Ateneo de CagayanENGLISH 47 EDA

Philippine English LiteraturesProf. Nancy Cocamas, MA

Arturo B. Rotor's Convict's Twilight:An Analysis by Alton Melvar Madrid Dapanas

BS Secondary Education – English1

Thematic

The short story revolves around one thing – Freedom. Or more clearly, it seeks to define what is freedom, and what sense it makes to those who are not free; slaved for the atonement of their sins. The genuine scenario of what freedom is not was argued somewhere in between “the massive walls and iron gates of Bilibid” and “the unfenced forest of Davao.” [page 304] Twilight here is synonymous to the happiest hour , as all the worries and aches, all the slavery and atonement are put, temporarily, to oblivion. “It is a premonition more than the actual experience, a forestaste rather than sensation,.. the cessation of all the hurrying and stumbling during the day.” [page 298]

Mythological

Some pertinent and 'unignorable' archetypal motifs were also present in the story. These are as follows:

A. Twilight (the Darkness)

This portrays a passage of time and life (rising of the sun means birth, creation, and hope; setting of the sun means death, destruction, and despair); the unconscious.

In the story, there was an ironical manifestation, however, between what the meaning of this archetype suggests. The day's end in the story depicts quiet awaiting for that “sleep and forgetting,.. peace and resigned.” [page 299]

Also, twilight is the period of the day when light leaves the earth and darkness reigns, which reminds the narrator of the consciousness leaving a sick body. During the day, “he is an unfortunate man who marches with heavy feet and a heavier heart”, [page 301] working laboriously. Twilight is the safest and the happiest day for them, it is the waiting for the night. It is the hour between his fretful existence and his brief lethargy when he can forget he is a convict, someone condemned, an outcast.

B. Water

This element suggests eternity and timelessness; the unconscious.

(1)River – “No Angelus rings here, for the nearest church is a day's journey away, down the river..” [page 299]

(2)Stream – “Darkness comes like a sluggish, ever deepening stream.” [page 300]

These only shows that water and darkness which were in simile and both depicts the unconscious are closely related to each other.

C. Number Three

This suggests the male prinicple (e.g. The Roman Triumvirate, The Holy Trinity).

(1)“I have been expecting them for the last three days..” [page 303](2)“Those tower, reach by three flights..” [page 305]

Rotor's Convict's Twilight is, indeed, a world of MEN.

D. Forest/Nature

This suggests of innocence, unspoiled beauty (feminine), fertility, birth, warmth, protection, and growth.

(1)“The sense of solitude brought about by one's being in the midst of thousands of hectares of virgin forest..” [page 298]

(2)“The creaking of the stiff branches, the scampering of the small animals under the trees.. the wind.. the lattice of leaves and vines.” [page 305]

This is strongly linked to the fact that the Forest, so feminine and vulnerable, though of its vastness, is still dominated by Men (convict camp), as the latter stands erect and virile above the very prone earth.

Feministic

Arturo B. Rotor has created a world where there is an inclusion of female elements (or wished not to have it, at all) with a mere sense of inferiority (a euphemism for oppression and slavery) and the fact that women, though of their beauty, are not valued more than being a housewife, a mother, or worst, just a sexual object for men; that they need men regardless of their strengths. He is, indeed, unfeministic, maybe because feminism was yet to come out of the closet during those days, or it is his style; that whenever he lived during our times, he may still choose to do so. It seemed that feminism is not in his vocabulary.

Formalistic

In this short story, there were elements of figures of speech used which were remarkably utilized well, as diction is concerned. This is overwhelming to know that after such a short span of time after the English language has been introduced to our tongues, we were able to produce such kind of A-List product of

literature, in the person of Rotor. Such were as follows:

A. Personification

(1)“The breeze dies down, the leaves cease to rustle..” [page 299](2)“..more mysterious than light or darkness, heat or cold, the shifting of the

vagrant winds..” [page 298](3)“imperceptibly, it (the stream) crawls, inch by inch.. swallows everything

that stand on its way.” [page 300]

B. Onomatopoeia

(1)“..an occasional crow, its obstreperous caw-caw-caw echoing..” [page 299]

C. Metaphor

(1)“twilight is the quiet awaiting of that sleep and forgetting..” [page 299](2)“to discord a numbered uniform, is to discredit your senses..” [page 305](3)“the silence itself was a prayer, to the darkening world's invocation of

twilight.” [page 307]

D. Hyperbole

(1)“talking audibly to each other in a language not only beyond my sense of hearing , but also utterly beyond my pitiful comprehension..” [page 307]