ORIGINALLY from Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Jay M. Maravilla of DepEd Puerto Princesa City advocates the love of reading among Palaweño youth. He also teaches Literature in high school; and Anglo-American Literature, and Contemporary and Emergent Literature in college.
For today and Wednesday, I’m yielding my column space to his excellent analysis of my short story Lirio. I love that in discussing my story, Maravilla touched on the myths, and the Latin American tradition. It makes the story sound bigger, more important. But what I like most is that his essay helps readers see more, maybe appreciate more, from my humble literature.
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The Butterfly Effect: Lirio and the Flower Revolution
A critical analysis of Peter Solis Nery’s ‘Lirio’
by Jay M. Maravilla
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“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up.
Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love.
So if you love a flower, let it be.
Love is not about possession.
Love is about appreciation.”
― Osho
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Upon reading Lirio in all its Hiligaynon glory, one cannot help but attach to it such familiar literary conventions like magic realism, mythological allusions, symbolisms and intertextuality that make the story a rather rich, and enticing, literature to read. This literary analysis will attempt to discuss the meticulous underpinnings of the story using these conventions with focus on reader-response and postmodernist criticism.
Lirio brings to mind the enduring Greek love story of the god Apollo and the unwilling object of his affection—Daphne, who was turned into the laurel tree as she tried to evade and escape the sun god’s amorous advances. While being chased by the infatuated god, Daphne prayed to her river-god father Peneus to help her escape Apollo. In response, she was transformed into the laurel tree. And Apollo, in grief after losing Daphne, made the laurel tree his symbol.
The myth has this recurring theme of a battle between chastity (Daphne) and sexual desires (Apollo). This is also reflected in the story Lirio through the characters of Lirio (chastity) and Itik Lugay (sexual desires). By using this classical theme that still appeals very much to the masses, the Lirio story just elevated itself into the status of a classic. Its pathos (or quality that evokes pity) is highly successful because people can easily relate with the storyline. The tragic heroine’s hamartia (that is, the fatal flaw that leads to her downfall) is being not able to speak; and amidst all the conflicts in the story, this adds more to the dramatic irony. In its sublime entirety, the allusions in Lirio created this depth and breadth in exploring and understanding human nature, while also honoring the ancient texts.
The story also explores the wonderful world of Magic Realism. Although just a short story, Lirio is comparable to stories created by great masters like Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude), Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate) and Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits), who probably popularized most the playing with magic and reality in their fiction; thus, creating masterpieces in the magico-realist tradition. At the beginning of Lirio,
Suno sa panugiron ni Lola Pansay nga paltera, nagkinagamo ang mga alibangbang sang ginbun-ag ni Nanay Rosa si Lirio Apa.
[According to Lola Pansay the midwife, all the butterflies went wild when Nanay Rosa gave birth to Lirio the Mute.]
The very first line of the story gives the readers the feel of magic realism. It sets the tone and atmosphere of foreboding, a literary convention that is often used in this style of writing. The presence of butterflies at Lirio’s birth is a strong driving force. Butterflies in many ancient literatures are the symbol of the soul. Filipinos, too, have this tradition of connecting and identifying butterflies with the wandering soul of the beloved departed. The gathering of butterflies serves as a leitmotif (a recurrent theme or image) in the story as a swarm of butterflies traverses the entire story. Butterflies are ever present at the significant points in the life of the protagonist. Towards the end, butterflies come out of Lirio’s mouth as she metamorphoses into a lily, the flower locally known as liryo. This is quite symbolic of her soul leaving her body, and eventually giving life to an inanimate object, the lily plant.
Ordinary events like birth, baptism, wedding, and even death are made extraordinary with the presence of these alibangbangin this story. The small-town feel of the setting is also among the common characteristics shared by all magical realist literature. Barrio Jardin as the story’s setting is representative of a tightly knit community. The community has a distinct identity, of which Lirio — fortunately or unfortunately, has differed from the rest. (To be continued on Wednesday/PN)
