THE FENCEJose Garcia Villa

CMIbarreta

Let's meet JOSE GARCIA VILLAJosé García Villa (August 5, 1908 – February 7, 1997) was a Filipino poet, literary critic, short story writer, and painter, awarded the National Artist of the Philippines title for literature in 1973, as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing by Conrad Aiken. He is known to have introduced the "reversed consonance rhyme scheme" in writing poetry, as well as the extensive use of punctuation marks—especially commas, which made him known as the Comma Poet. He used the penname Doveglion (derived from "Dove, Eagle, Lion"), based on the characters he derived from himself.

CHARACTERS Aling Biang - unforgiving woman who was

betrayed by her husband with her neighbor Aling Sebia - a childless widow/ aling

Biang's neighbor who has not seen a feeling of remorse having caught with her neighbor's husband

Iking - aling Biang's son who wanted his mom to reconcile with their neighbor

Aling Sebia's Daughter - a girl who is good in playing guitar that made Iking to fall in love

Aling Biang's husband - a man who left unsettled with his wife

About Ikeng and Aling Sebia's daughter

Ikeng - hollow dark eyes and shaggy hair

Aling Sebia's daughter - rugged features , a simian face, and a very narrow brow, dark-complex-ioned, flat-nosed

SETTINGOld house on the roadside, so brown were the nipa leaves that walled and roofed them that they looked musty, gloomy.

The setting is reflective of the kind of characters and the situation they would be in. 

The nipa huts look desolate and empty, reflective of how their occupants behave and feel for each other. 

They have no neighbors and yet the need for each other seems remote and distant.

The Setting, Par. 2

They stood there on the roadside, they two alone, neighborless but for themselves, and they were like two stealthy shadows, each avid to betray the other. Queer old houses. So brown were the nipa leaves that walled and roofed them that they looked musty, gloomy. One higher than the other, pyramid-roofed, it tried to assume the air of mastery, but in vain. For though the other was low, wind-bent, supported without by luteous bamboo poles against the aggressiveness of the weather, it had its eyes to stare back as haughtily as the other—windows as desolate as the souls of the occupants of the house, as sharply angular as the intensity of their hatred.

PLOT (Exposition)The story opened with the description of the setting and how the characters are reflected in the setting.

"They should have stood apart, away from each other, those two nipa houses."

"There should have been a lofty impenetrable wall between them, so that they should not stare so coldly, so starkly, at each other—just staring, not saying a word, not even a cruel word. "

(Backgrounding)Formerly there had been no bamboo fence; there had been no weeds.

There had been two rows of vegetables, one to each house, and the soil was not parched but soft and rich.

But something had happened and the fence came to be built, and the vegetables that were so green began to turn pale, then paler and yellow and brown.

(Inciting Incident)

Aling Biang had caught her husband with taling Sebia

one night.

(Rising Action)The next morning she had gone to the bamboo clumps near the river Pasig and felled canes with her woman strength.

When morning dawned she rose and went back to the back of the house although very tired and began to split the bamboos.

Her husband noticed her, but said nothing. By noon, Aling Biang had built that fence. Two tanned country-women finished the fence from the opposites to centerward.

Check out the convo!When her husband asked her what she was doing, she answered, “I am building a fence.”

“What for?” he asked.“I need a fence.”

And then, too, even AlingSebia, the other woman, a child-less widow, asked inoffensively,

“What are you doing, AlingBiang?”

“I am building a fence.”

“What for?”

“I need a fence, AlingSebia. Please do not talk to me again.”

(Climax)But early one night, from beyond the fence, Aling Biang heard cries from Aling Sebia. Unwilling to pay any heed to them, she extinguished the light of the petrol kinke and laid herself down beside Ikeng.

But, in spite of all, the cries of the other woman made her uneasy. She stood up, went to the window that faced the fence, and cried from there: “What is the matter with you, Aling Sebang?”

Climax cont...

“AlingBiang, please go the town and get me a hilot (midwife).”

“What do you need a hilot for?” asked AlingBiang.

“I am going to deliever a child and I am alone. Please go, fetch a hilot.”

AlingBiang stood there by the window a long time. She knew when child it was that was coming as the child of Aling Sebia. She stood motionless, the wind brushing her face coldly.

What did she care of AlingSebia was to undergo childbirth?

Climax cont...

She decided to lie down and sleep. Her body struck against her child’s as she did so, and the child moaned.

The other child, too, could be moaning like that. Like her child from the womb of AlingSebia.

Hastily AlingBiang stood up, wound her tapiz round her waist, covered her shoulders with a cheap shawl.

Falling Action

The boy Iking was not allowed to play by the roadside. And he could just catch glimpses of a girl on the other side. This made the boy to secretly sneak to the other side of the fence. At night, he hears an incomplete sound of a guitar he knew coming from the other side.

Check this out!At night, as he lay on the bamboo floor, notes of a guitar would reach his ears. The notes were metallic, clanking, and at the middle of the nocturne they stopped abruptly. Who played the raucous notes? Who played the only music he had ever heard in his life? And why did the player never finish his music? he asked.

And one night, Iking approached her and said: “I will sleep by the door, nanay. I want to sleep alone. I am grownup. I am fifteen.”

Falling Action Cont...

One morning Ikeng woke up with a disturbing sound. He saw his mother reinforcing and strengthening the fence.

“Why-why!” he exclaimed in protest.

His mother stopped hammering. She stared at him cruelly.

“I need it,” she declared forcefully, the veins on her forehead rising out clearly. “Your mother needs it. You need it too.”

DenouementIking really wanted his mother to allow him at least listen to the music but he was never granted even though that night was Christment and both of them prayed for the lord.

Even after the Christmas eve, Ikeng was still waiting for the guitar to be played because he is hearing that sound on that time. But it never played.

Until 2am when Ikeng's eyes were closed and his hands were cold. So sick he rested that night. At 3am, the guitar was played and finally finished its playing but aling Biang was very angry, shouting that the guitar playing was a mock because his son is already dead.

POINT OF VIEWTHIRD PERSON POVThe narrrator is not part of the story and can

give feedback and comments from different character.

SYMBOLISM

THE FENCEThe fence signifies the walls that hindrance and separate even best friends, family, or relatives. The bamboo strengthened the hatred as these bamboos take away the decaying feeling in the heart of aling Biang and Sebia toward forgiveness.

THEMEHatred overrulesAling Biang and Aling Sebia are most afraid one of them would give way.

The building of the fence seems necessary to protect themselves from seeing each other. 

STORY ANALYSIS

1. Who is the better mother, Aling Biang or Aling Sebia? Discuss your answer.

2. Why do you think aling Sebia was not seen any feeling of remorse in the story? Can you tell what does she feel about aling Biang?

3. If you are JGVilla, how will you end the story?