“Be brave”, her father's lasts words to his family before he died is just a few among the quotations found in the book “Breaking the Silence” by Lourdes Montinola. The book is the author's account of her personal experience of war which happened five years ago.
Henceforth, the task of this writing is to go beyond the lines and quotations and dig deeper to an understanding the techniques used to tell her memoir. The thesis of this critical review is the discussion of the factors which made her life writing an effective narrative.
When hundreds of Filipino lives were stolen, the Montinola family was among the few groups who had endured the adversities of the Japanese regime by at least living the best of each day. Amidst the war, the elite family celebrated special occasions, ate those premiere meals and products, educated their children, fancied recreations and entertainment, sustained enough livelihoods, and benefited from influential public personalities—all of which made their life in better condition. Unfortunately, they were later deprived of those grace periods during the faltering power of the aggressive Japanese oppressors. They became victims of the Japanese soldiers’ last execution of violence as they escape from the strong force of the American-Filipino soldiers. At those moments, they were treated by the Japanese with the same cruelty they have exercised to punish the Filipinos. There was neither rich nor poor, neither woman nor man, neither old nor young—no one escaped the wrath of war. A few days before the Liberation, the majority of the family was massacred, an unbearable pain that befallen to them.
For more than five decades passed, her heart had been weeping for her lost; and yet she bravely willed to simmer again the tension and fear. The autobiographical narrative was primarily focused on running through the unrelated events of recollected history using a single thread to connect and stitch them together.
To deliver the story of her past that had been kept for long with clarity and effectiveness, the “Breaking of the Silence” had to resurface from the trials in between. It was a challenge for the writer to revisit the repressed subconscious because it is difficult to draw an insurmountable courage and strength to face the trauma again. The problem should come from the possibility that the writer may alter facts due to the limitation of her willingness to engage again with the pain and terror; and, that the writer may hardly articulate her thoughts. Nevertheless, some points can negate the concept of alteration from her narrative. First, although the writer had been subjective; there is coherence, consistency and logic to her deliberation. Second, she would, presumably, benefit from creatively adjusting the details to achieve interest; however, the joy of expressing a genuine experience/history is sacrificed —which the author probably doesn’t tolerate. “A trauma can be truly said to have happened until it can be spoken and listened by sympathetic readers”, Leigh Gilmore said in theLimit Cases: Trauma, Self-Representation and Jurisdiction of Identity. Last, she had allowed time to heal her despair and to clear her mind before working on the narrative. Thus, the narrative, hopefully, is safe from emotional prejudices and lies.
Nevertheless, the output was successfully obtained and the author achieved her aim which is to go back, to learn more and to achieve an interpretation of the events in her life.
The narrative has achieved clarity of effectiveness through the techniques the author had utilized. One, there was emphasis which characterized the chapters of book. In effect, the stress on the events fortified her cogent point revealing passionate appeal and reaction from the readers.
The repetitions, also, indicated that those experiences were the most memorable and the most important detail of her past. For instance, the incident which ended to the tragic death of her entire family played several times in the book because she wanted to underline it as unforgettable. In addition, it was one of her intended method to develop a picture with vividness and verifiable deliberation. She wanted to press the reader that this actually happened in the past and it had brought devastating impact to her.
Also, she was capitalizing on creating a comparison and contrast between the before and after of the events. Almost common in all the chapters, the anecdotes were established in a light and happy mood. Eventually, the author introduced a disruption and added tension to the peaceful and nearly perfect setting. Then, the ending would frequently closed with the tragedy that came to their family. The chapters A Playhouse, A Special Father, Trees, Kublai Khan and Mother had proved to shared this particular narrative arc. The establishments of the scenes in these chapters provided the basic knowledge about everything and simple enough to be easily drawn to the schema.
The author had always anticipate that this strategy will drew out sympathy from the reader. The emotions inevitably came out because Montinola had used clear descriptions which rendered an image into the reader's mind and provided an active participation of their imagination. Sorrow and pain for the innocent who suffered and died, regrets and despair for the frustrations; compassion for the oppressed and hate for the Japanese cruelty—were only few among those feelings. In the end, her work, for this reason, was impressive.
The narrative refrained from a soliciting tone nevertheless, it still had the similar action and intensity of a dramatic progression . Without being emotional in tone,on the other hand, she made me cry. For her, it was already enough for the facts to unfold in accordance to how it actually happened through the use of simple descriptions and proper order of events. She knows how to delay the tension and impact and to properly stage the elements according to their value in the story. She delivers these by establishing the characters and elements to create the anticipation. Although, there was an inevitable pattern created. Nevertheless, the connection between the reader and the writer was present. It made us felt the love and blessing of a good father and mother, the excitement of outdoor adventures and even the comfortable silence with a brother or sister.
Also, what made her style effective was the cathartic feel of it. It can't be helped to compare this with Historical textbooks which were read in schools such as The Philippine History by Zaide and books by Leon Hidalgo Guerrero. Although these books, including Lourdes Montinola’s The Breaking of Silence, were about history; they wire different on the attitude/manner of presentation. The textbooks were informational, tedious and plain and while, the Breaking the Silence’s approach was descriptive and narrative which exercised imagination and stimulated participation. Between the two, the narration was more felt than the plain textbooks and it is more relational to the readers. It felt as if the reader have been present and have experienced the Japanese oppression themselves.
Furthermore, she had segmented her narration into unrelated events. It was a challenge for the author to find a way to connect all those unrelated events with a single thread. What she did was to patch those events by always directing/m ending it to the same end. She made certain that all those ideas were connected and important.
Also, the use symbolism and metaphors in the narrative are likewise admirably expected from Lourdes Montinola. Because the elements, characters and object were per-established from the start, it was never difficult to grasp her ideas and to comprehend the story. Furthermore, the metaphors which were simple yet deep contributed to the solemnity of the tone and savored with feel of the story like a poetry. There was a this line in the book that was inspiring: “As for Life, what is it but 'the flash of a firefly in the night,' or 'a little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.' What matters most is the beauty of the brief passage, and the preciousness of its after glow”
On top of everything, The Breaking of Silence is Lourdes Montinola's memoir of the history of the Japanese Occupation in the Philippines. It allowed the imagination to wonder subjectively but neither totally gratifying into fiction. But, it should be justifiable enough to credit her work as simple as a work of art, and therefore, be appreciated for giving hope and light to the readers.
No comments:
Post a Comment