Lionheart

 

Lionheart

An Analysis of a 21^st Century Philippine Literature entitled

Turban Legend

by R. Zamora Linmark

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the subject of

21^st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

Introduction

            Ferdinand Lachica once quoted, "I wanted a life that's comfortable enough for me, my ambition, and love." This quote is about why Filipinos work abroad. It is to provide all the things that they need and the things that they want. OFW’s have loved ones to go back to, houses that can not be called home because their loved ones aren't there. They provide many things for the family they left. Some force their selves not to buy anything that isn't necessary just to provide something for their balikbayan boxes.

BACKGROUND

●    Authorial information:

○   R. Zamora Lindmark

○   NCR- Manila, Philippines

○   He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor in Creative Writing at The University of Hawaii and the University of Miami.

○   He is the recipient of a Japan-United States Friendship Commission, a winner of a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship in poetry (2001), and was a Fulbright Foundation Senior Lecturer/Researcher in the Philippines (2005-2006).

○   Time Apparitions (2005), The Evolution of a Sigh (2008), Drive-By Vigils (2011), Rolling the R’s (1995), Leche (2011), and The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart (2019); themes involving ethnic and sexual identity are common throughout.

 

●    Textual information:

○   2011

COPY OF THE LITERARY TEXT

 

Turban Legend

    By the time Vince arrives at the Philippine Airlines departures terminal, it is already bustling with restless souls who, with their balikbayan boxes, have transformed the terminal into a warehouse, as if they’re returning to the motherland on a cargo ship rather than Asia’s first airline carrier. Comedians use these durable cardboard boxes as materials for their Filipino-flavored jokes. “How is the balikbayan box like American Express to Filipinos? Because they never leave home without it.”

    Everywhere Vince turns are boxes, boxes, and. more boxes. Boxes secured by electrical tape and ropes. Boxes with drawstring covers made from canvas or tarp. Boxes lined up like a fortified wall behind check-in counters or convoying on squeaky conveyor belts of x-ray machines. Boxes blocking the Mabuhay Express lane for first-and business-class passengers. Boxes stacked up on carts right beside coach passengers standing in queues that are straight only at their starting points before branching out to form more-or converge with other-lines, bottlenecking as they near the ticket counter.

    Boxes that ought to be the Philippines’ exhibit at the next World’s Fai1, Vince tells himself as he navigates his cartload of Louis Vuitton bags in and out of the maze. An exhibit that should take place none other than here, at the Honolulu International Airport, he laughs, as he imagines an entire terminal buried in the Filipinos’ most popular-and preferred-pieces of luggage.

    With a balikbayan box Filipinos can pack cans of Hormel corned beef, Libby’s Vienna sausage, Folgers, and SPAM; perfume samples; new or hand-me-down designer jeans; travel-sized bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body lotion gleaned from Las Vegas hotels; and appliances marked with first-world labels that, as anyone who’s been to the Philippines knows, can easily be purchased at Duty Free right outside the airport or from any of the crypt-like malls that are so gargantuan they’re a metropolis unto themselves.

     Filipinos will even throw themselves into these boxes, as was the case of the overseas contract worker in Dubai. The man, an engineer, was so homesick that, unable to afford the ticket-most of his earnings went to cover his living expenses and the rest to his wife and children-he talked his roommate, who was homebound for the holidays, into checking him in. He paid for the excess baggage fee, which still came out cheaper than a round-trip airfare. On route to Manila, he died from hypothermia.

     Vince, who had heard the story from his older sister Jing, didn’t buy it. There were too many loopholes, too many unanswered questions, like wouldn’t an x-ray machine in the Middle East detect a Filipino man curled up inside a box? He simply dismissed it as a “turban legend.”

    “You’re missing the point brother,” Jing said. “It’s not the mechanics that matter. It’s about drama. The extremes a Filipino will go to just to be back home for Christmas with his family.”

ANALYSIS

A.    Literary Genre

Fiction generally is a narrative form, in any medium, consisting of people, events, or places that are imaginary—in other words, not based strictly on history or fact. In its most narrow usage, fiction refers to written narratives in prose and often specifically novels, though also novellas and short stories.

We can say that the turban legend is a fiction because the story of the engineer who entered the box because he could not afford a ticket, it is impossible because it was undetected, and it is not realistic. It also contains the elements of fiction, the character is flat characters are types or caricatures defined by a single idea of quality and the point of view of turban legend is omniscient which an author using the limited point of view recounts the story through the eyes of a single character.

 

B.     Analysis Guides

We use these guides to apply and indicate analyzed text.

Reader Response

            We can understand the text because we are related to the point of the author about the balikbayan boxes. We Filipinos are valuing the balikbayan boxes because it is the sign of the OFW’s that they are hardworking for the sake of their family. Reading the text repeatedly can help us to clearly understand what the author meant in the story.

Plot and Structure

            The story is all about Vince who remembers the story of her sister. The story of his sister is all about the OFW who went inside the balikbayan box because he can’t afford a ticket and he eventually died. The OFW faced an external conflict which is character vs. society. The parts of the story give meaning to the story.

Setting

         The story takes place at the airport at the time Vince arrived. Nothing happened in the historical and cultural events by that time. The author makes connections between the literary work and in a real-life situation because it is all about the OFW’s do their best to sustain their family needs and about their homesickness.

Tone

The author tone is just stating the text casual to the readers. He just has a simple conversation by expressing his opinions and ideas about the literary work he wrote.

Character

            Vince and Jing are the two protagonist that can be seen in our literature that have a flat adjective evaluation because they don't change during the course of our story and they are only a minor characters that did not developed by the author very well. Only their payment salary and their pasalubong are the only things that keep them on working abroad. And as a flat character, they don't change in action, motivation, and interaction and they also use conversation to interact with each other.

Point of View

            The story didn’t have the words “I” or “me” which stated that the writer is pretending himself as the protagonist of the story. He didn’t just focus on just one person to narrate the story. He is an omniscient narrator that knows about everything and not just one person. He knows what was the story all about and he knows complete ideas about it.

Diction and Style

            The literature is informal because it tells the story in a direct way and not usually using any formal words. It also uses ellipsis or one or more words, which are supplied by the listener or reader for the sentence to be understood. And in the literature, it is when Vince and Jing are discussing the legend of the OFW.

Images and Symbols

            The image used is the balikbayan box. It can be seen in the part where the typical things in the balikbayan box are mentioned. Balikbayan boxes symbolizes the hard work and love of OFWs and Louis Vuitton symbolizes wealth. The images and symbols make the readers feel what the characters feel and it gives emotion.

Theme

           The theme is about the hardships that OFWs experiences when they are far away from their families. The reason why Filipinos left the Philippines to find better jobs abroad is because of poverty. It shows the longing of Filipinos all around the globe. And also, it shows Philippine diaspora and brain drain happening in the Philippines. The moral lesson of the story is to appreciate and not criticize the OFWs because they sacrifice just for their family.

C.   Contextual Analysis

          Socio-cultural Context

                          According to the results of the latest survey on overseas Filipinos recently released by the Philippine Statistics Authority, of the 2.2 million estimated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who were working abroad at any time from April to September 2019. We can conclude that many Filipinos work abroad.

            Linguistic Context

                      Mabuhay Express Lane which is a designated 17 routes to and from various parts of Metro Manila.

SUMMARY

                  The theme of the text is about the balikbayan boxes which valued by the Filipinos. It contains food, clothes or any object that is from the other countries which is brought by the OFW’s. OFWs work hard and suffer homesickness to sustain their family needs. Even those people who graduated with a high degree, they go to other countries and get any job and opportunities just to earn and save money. The balikbayan boxes are the symbol of their hard work because all of the things inside it are signs of their drudgery.

                                                                   REFERENCES

                            Down below are the citations that we used to utilize the veracity of every information that we put and to accomplish an absolute and profound accumulation of the finished paper.

 

Book/s Uychoco. Marikit Tara, A. (). 21st CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES AND THE WORLD. REX Book Store: 856 Nicanor Reyes, Sr. St.

Online Sources Medina, Marielle (2020). Did You Know 2.2 million Filipinos working abroad April- September 2019. Retrieved from https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1313607/did-you-know-748#ixzz6b609kuSh

R. Zamora Linkmark. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Zamora_Linmark