I figured to post this once more. Here's my analysis for "Lilies of Yesterday" by Filipino author Lilia Pablo Amansec. :) It's a really good read plus it's short. Google it and give it some time. It's worth the trouble, I swear.
Here's to one sleepless night! Cheers! :)
Lilies
of Yesterday: An Analysis
Garnering second prize in the 1958 Carlos
Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, this short story written by Lilia Pablo
Amansec tells of a young girl who is blossoming out of adolescence and slowly
budding to adulthood. It speaks about the protagonist’s idea of love, beauty
and other matters growing teens bother to think about.
It all starts one morning of the
protagonist’s twelfth birthday. While still in bed, she already offers the
readers a glimpse of her mind as she shares her idea of what love is. She would
rather choose to be alone than let others see and know what she feels. The
conflict begins when she goes down to the dining room where she sees Mercedes
and Maria, her sister and aunt, respectively. The two kept on fussing over the
way she looks and dresses. They convince her to start using make-up as she is
already thirteen to which she immediately corrects, saying she has just turned
a year younger than what they had said. She refuses to be turned ladylike and
become like her two elder relatives. However, deep inside, she also wants to be
like them. Hard though she might deny, she also dreams of using colors to make
herself different and more desirable (“Someday,
however, she would try it… so that another person, different, indifferent, but
desirable, appeared in the mirror…” paragraph 12). She fantasizes of
becoming like her teacher Miss Lopez as well. As she looked in her mirror, she
didn’t see herself. Instead, she visualizes mentor but with a voice that is
like her own. By this, she realizes that she could be herself but she could
also be someone else she opts to be, too (“…
I am myself, but I can be Miss Lopez who is not herself but another one…”
paragraph 16). The readers will later learn how much adulthood poses to be
such an interest for the protagonist. It is also interesting to note how she
feels about being young. (“How sad it was
to be young!” paragraph 19)
On the contrary, she is also afraid
of being grown up. She can no longer play with her dolls which now only belong
to a glass case (paragraph 19). She
was horrified when she saw a pimple growing on her unperturbed complexion (“It was also a mournful discovery…” paragraph
24). Still, the protagonist cannot bring herself to talk about kissing and
all things about love for she believes that they must be kept within each one’s
own context (paragraph 34). Lily, our
little protagonist, cannot even face Carlito, her classmate, alone as she sees
him as a “handsome devil” (paragraph 45).
The story then reaches its climax
when she met with Lulu and her other playmates. They were discussing Lily’s
party when suddenly they drifted their conversation to intimate stuff for
adolescents like kissing and sex connoted by Lulu’s words in paragraph 34 (“Do you know, there’s a couple who board at
our place, and my sister and I heard them one night. . .”) There is a
connotation that Lily already knows something about this but she is ashamed of
what she knows, too (“… for ah yes, she
too was wise,” paragraph 39; ‘ “Yes,” she stammered, aware of her wisdom… her
words stumbled brokenly, defensively’ paragraph 40) She told them what she knew but afterwards,
she quickly ran away back home where she placed herself in solitude. In her
moments alone, she fell asleep and dreamt of chaos. This implies what she feels
about growing up, too. There will be a lot of confusion even in falling in love
as represented by Carlito. The dream also implied what she feels about love.
She hates the idea of falling for someone but helplessly she yearns for it,
too. (“As she looks at him hatred leaped
and flamed in her eyes, but this soon gave way to hunger like a worm gnawing in
the pit of her stomach…” paragraph 48) In addition to that, she calls on
God for help in her dream which implies her religious nature.
Upon waking up, she went to
confession and talked about her dream to the priest. She served her penance by
doing the Way of the Cross which was long. However, as she was at the end, a
woman went near her and pointed out a red stain in her dress. This implies that
she was having her menarche. However,
she denoted this as something sinful as she referred it in paragraph 57, “The sin! The blood of her tears!” This
line was perhaps included in the story to revel in the fact that it is when we
are already grown up we lose our innocence, thus, we are much prone to
committing wrongdoing. The story ended with her trying to
suppress the pain of the reality that she is already growing up.
The author has set her tale in
Manila circa 1940s-50s, a time when American influence was profound in the
society. Names like Carlito, Pinang
and Maria indicate Filipino but Lily, Lulu and Mercedes imply something more American. It can also be noted that
there were jeepneys in the area that serve as the main mode of transportation
for commuters (paragraph 27). Mahjong
was also mentioned. For all we know, they are very common in the Philippines.
Finally, we can be sure that this is in Manila as Manila is cited in paragraph 30.
The author uses the third person
limited omniscient point of view (POV) as we, the readers, only know for sure
the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist. However, there was a part in
paragraph 19 where it deviates from this POV. Suddenly, it shifts to first
person POV. This might be because the author wanted to emphasize the growth of
the narrator. Here, the audience will feel that Lily is growing up though she
might not want the change.
Our
character, Lily, is a complex character as she is developed in the story with
two sides: one who looks forward to growing up and the other as one who dreads
it. Finally, she finally chooses the latter side as the story ends with her
being “afraid of her own voice.”
(paragraph 59) The title of the story, Lilies
of Yesterday, pertains to her and her childhood which is now slowly
passing. She has a wild imagination showed by her thoughts revealed to us by
the narrator. She can also be considered as popular when we learn in paragraph
33 that a lot of children left their game just to praise Lily with her party.
It can also be implied that she comes from a rich family for at that time only
the rich can afford to have parties and be sent to a private girls’ school.
Also, she often received dolls as gifts from her father who has gone to different
countries. Not all girls from middle-class families can afford those, too. In
addition to that, Lily struggles with an internal conflict as she faces
adolescence, a stage wherein she finally bids goodbye to childhood and enters a
new phase of life.
Mercedes
and Maria represent the change Lily wanted to avoid. They were all grown up,
used to wearing make-up and high heels and loved the attention from boys. They
could be gossipy, too, as indicated in paragraph 24 (“… they were now animatedly discussing Madame Butterfly’s new hairdo…
and Mr. Sneezer’s black mustache…”) Lulu, her playmate, was also what she
was scared of becoming. Slowly, her playmate has accepted the change and has
begun talking of things they, Lulu and her other friends, have never once talked
of before. This made her afraid that she ran away from them. This also implies
how much she wanted to run away from growing up.
The
story revolves around the theme, “Change is inevitable.” Like Lily, we might
dread having differences in our usual everyday life. We might not want to get
out of what we are used to having but sooner or later, we have to face the
reality that those things we are constantly avoiding are bound to happen. We
could not just confine ourselves to our own comfort zones. Reality will strike
us. Change will reach us. However fated change might seem to be, it doesn’t
mean we would let it define us.
Also,
the story tackles ideas about love. The author connotes when she wrote “She could not know for sure, but this she
was sure of: that people had a talent of loving her on her birthdays. As if age
made her more lovable!” (paragraph 13) that love shouldn’t be timely. Love
is also delicate and intimate, something we just do not talk about with others.
It would be better to have your emotions by yourself that share it with someone
else (“… she would cry, if it came to
that, alone.” paragraph 2).
Beauty
is something discussed in the course of the story as well. There was this
standard of being called beautiful ever since then. The author wrote “… she would have liked to see a splash of
vermillion on her cheeks like what she saw on the glowing gorgeous women
walking about the streets in that slow graceful walk that hardly stirred the
dust of the city but drew long whistles from the men…” Creating a facade
was considered good. Being someone else was the thing you opt for if you want
society to see your beauty. It’s just like saying that it is natural for all of
us to wear masks.
Finally,
I can say that this story is a great read. It is definitely one of the best
short Filipino stories there is. Truly, we must be proud of such authors who
spun eternal tales albeit forgotten by today’s generation. They are indeed sources
of inspiration and morals that we would be able to live through with in our
lifetime.
