Magnificence

A short story by:

Estrella Alfon

Submitted by:
Michaela Micole Derelo
STEM 11-A

Submitted to:
Mrs. Cecilia Ramos
 Magnificence
[The state of being admirable due to ones impressiveness and greatness]

This short story of the Cebuana Filipino writer, Estrella Aflon, whos known for her
English literary works, indeed talks about magnificence in terms of motherhood. The author
took the idea of motherhood into the next level in the text and dealt with it in a lot more
artful way.

Since this short storys plot followed the traditional pyramid model, it began with the
introduction of the characters and as well as to where the whole story would take place. It
showed how Vicente, described as the bus conductor whos voice was soft and manner slow,
relates with the two children, an eight year old boy and a seven year old girl,
by volunteering to help them in their studies when he met their mother in a neighborhood
associations meeting. They did not fear him because he was always so gentle and kind. As
the story went, he promises the kids to buy them pencils that would make their classmates
envy them. The story now reveals his real intention. Vicente used pencils to stimulate the
little kids and earn their trust and also used the pencils so that they will be excited to see
him again. And as the story went deeper, he was actually trying to earn the little girls trust
and wanted to molest and touch her physically. Fortunately, the mother came down stairs
and caught Vincente's act before he could harm the little girl. The woman was very much
angry and slapped Vicente's face. She asked the little girl to take a bath and change her
clothes. Then the story ended with the mother, staying by her daughter's side until she fell
asleep, and wanting to burn away those pencils theyve got from Vicente, as well as clothes
her daughter wore during the incident, by the morning.

The story, mainly, is about how mothers, and women, are magnificent enough to
have been in the shadows but raise [their] hand[s] against male abuse. This is shown in
how throughout the story the mother is referred to as mother but at the moment she was
punishing Vicente, she is called woman. When she gets back to her daughter, she is seen
as mother again, but in exploring her disposition and rage she is again woman. Finally,
upon calming down, she becomes mother and tucks her child in. In addition, this brings us
as well to how the descriptions of the mother and Vicente are contrastive not only against
each other but also against stereotypes of their genders. As Ive said above, Vicente was
described as a dark little man whose voice [was] soft [and] manner slow. While on the
other hand, the mother is a gloating mother whose eyes [held] pride and also a tall
woman who spoke in a voice very low, very heavy and with an awful timbre. The
contrast emphasizes the darkness of Vicente and the mothers magnificence which explains
the metaphor of illumination. At the start, Vicente was described as slowly advancing into
the circle of light. During the crucial moment, the mother is transfigured [by a] glow (note
the connotation of Jesus/God, images of magnificence). She had been in the shadow
literally, and figuratively, about Vicentes suspiciousness. But in her anger when she then
knew of Vicentes motive, she advance[s] into the glare of light and reveals her
magnificent self. Vicente is then forced out of the circle of light and into the shadows that
ate him up.

Through reading the story between the lines, one could not only reflect the sense of
a mothers unconditional love for her children but also the idea of some social issues we
have in todays society, and this is where sociocultural contexts come in the picture. Even
from the beginning of the story, trust and betrayal can be associated. The sense of trust
came when the family trusted Vicente easily and betrayal came as the mother knew of
Vicentes dark intention. It is a common experience of everybody that after having trusted
someone, a person would soon lose his or her trust on that person because, in the end, the
person betrayed them. Nowadays, as well, many people are like Vicente, they pretend so as
to get what they want. In relation, we people most of the time are like the little girl. In our
society, we experience things innocently and, mostly, our reactions are to go away or escape
that experience because its out of our knowledge. We people tend to do things out of our
curiosity because it was developed or we had experienced it during our childhood.

The story itself is artful and graceful in dealing with a disturbing subject. The author
combined the use of language which further heightens the tension of its plot with
foreshadowing as well as skillful use of limited omniscient point of view which could be
considered as its linguistic context. Though the existence of both narration and dialogue in
the story, together with the third person limited point of view became confusing and difficult
to follow, still, the crucial points in the story were creatively, and somehow figuratively,
discussed. With a message of how magnificent and noble mothers are in the society,
Magnificence is a text that could never be outdated due to its timely contextual themes
and conflicts implied in the story itself.