THE PRETENDERS by F. Sionil Jose

In this paper, I will attempt to reveal the real meaning of “THE PRETENDERS”, a novel written by an excellent writer, F. Sionil Jose. I will do that by showing three possible themes of this novel.

• The use of PAST and MEMORY in showing CONTRAST and COMPARISON.

“Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan”

We, Filipinos, have this belief, “Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan”, is it true? F. Sionil Jose is a foremost advocate of using past and memory to present social realities, maybe that’s why his major character in this novel, Antonio Samson can’t move on to his life because he really wants to dig up his roots. If you can notice, Tony always wants to know his forefathers, in fact in Chapter 11, he and his wife Carmen, went to Cabugaw to trace his roots. Even in Carmen we can see the method of F. Sionil, they always compare Phlippines to they United States, to be exact, Baguio's amazing appearance, smell and coldness to some states of America they had already visited before like Washington for example.

• The role of POWER and WEALTH in shaping a person’s life.

Class struggle

Greediness in power and wealth.

POWER and WEALTH, these two factors make the world go round, BUT is it really should be? Our almighty GOD taught us not to be greedy in POWER and WEALTH, in fact, GREED is one of our seven deadly sins, isn’t?

“Carmen Villa was used to being pampered, but the things that she valued were never those that could be bought but those small tokens of truth and dogged fidelity which she herself, could not give to anyone”. Carmen Villa as one of the VERY rich persons in the novel, she can have ALMOST everything, her life was so easy, and she was always pampered by everyone around her. For her, she could have everything, because she is RICH she have the MEANS to BUY everything. Carmen never attempts to get close with her husband, she never knew what was her husband was going through.

F. Sionil shows how the “RICH manipulates the POOR”, and how the poor was so far from the rich in terms of their class standing. “Tony gets to know his limitations, as a child by being beaten by his father as his MORAL SUPERIOR. Tony was beaten by his father because of eating at Rich Man's house” (page 11). His father doesn’t want to lower their pride, they can still eat, and they don’t need to beg the rich to share their food to them. In the first chapter, Tony was capturing a frog for them to eat; at that part it was clearly projected to us how poor the family of Tony was. Tony being conscious in having Carmen as his wife for she is rich (page 14 and 20). Tony is always aware that most of the people around them might think that he is marrying Carmen for her money. That is true, isn’t? Even today, most of people think like that. We can’t blame them because most of those persons do really have bad intentions. In fact, Tony, during his conversation with his sister, Manang Betty, he really defend himself regarding that matter, however, F. Sionil revealed what Tony really wants, he really wants to use the Villa’s power and wealth for his personal intentions. Manang Betty would want to have the governor as one of the sponsors to have some influential acquaintance (page 19). Even Manang Betty wants to have some connections with these powerful and rich persons specially the Politicians, as we all knew, most of our Politicians nowadays can do a lot of “magic” in our society, it is because they have the POWER and WEALTH. "The poor can't be proud" (page 20) Manang Betty said. In that line of Manang Betty, it supports how they degrade the poor. Don Manuel, a superman for he can influence almost everyone (Page 34). POWER can influence everyone, even Don Manuel use his position in influencing other people, he use this to make the people around him like his own puppets. "Beggars can't be choosers." Godo said, this statement is just like the line of Manang Betty above. Marriage of Tony and Carmen must be postponed for Tony still have to save. It shows that Tony is really poor, that he can’t afford his wife’s and her family’s demands, however, in the latter part of the novel, Tony keeps on saying that he can support his wife and the family they are going to have. Maybe Tony got his pride from his father, did you remember that his father whipped him because he ate on the rich man’s house? It just show his father’s pride for his family. In Chapter 4, Tony, Carmen and her parents faced each other for their upcoming marriage. Don Manuel doesn’t know whenever Tony is marrying Carmen for love or money; Don Manuel feels free to say anything to Tony because of his wealth. See? How wealth affects the way Don Manuel lives? And also even him was doubtful in Tony’s intentions in marrying his daughter. Tony gets more concerned about what he can afford for Carmen since he has not enough savings and Carmen already wanted to get married (page58 and 59). Again, it shows that Tony is far from Carmen’s life. Wealth removes the warmth and closeness which parents can have for their children (page61). Over wealth really can’t do good to us, as what we have seen in the television, isn’t? Don Manuel can influence everyone isn’t? Even Tony himself; Tony had no choice but to agree with Don Manuel’s idea of having Tony work for him. Dean Lopez, a highly respected person in the University where Tony is working, he suggested Tony to stop working on his papers about Ilocos (page75).

I’m a person that really loves the subject “HISTORY”, in fact, as of now; I’m planning to take up a program related to history after I had my masters in Engineering. Most of the authors we had discussed inside the classroom especially F. Sionil Jose really captured my attention. Why? It is because his works are so much related to our history.

References:

THE PRETENDERS by F. Sionil Jose

Writing a Response to Literature (modified by Joan).ppt by Prof. Joahna T. Eduarte

HUM014 The Pretenders.ppt by Mark Darwin Nacionales, Jethro Bodoso, Eugene Castillo, Frances Dyra De Asas and Victor Abraham