Philippine Literature compiled lessons

1. MAGNIFICENCE
Estrella Alfon
Educ 211
Ma. Isabel B. Cruz
MAE- English
3rd
Tri. AY 2015- 2016

2. Author’s Background
Estrella D. Alfon
(1918 - 1983)
Management Fundamentals - Chapter
14
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3. Personal
Born in Cebu, Alfon set many of her stories
in the fictional community of Espeleta, a
recognizable lower middle-class district of
that city. Though she wrote mostly in
English, she also wrote some stories in
Cebuano. Of the women writers of the
region, she is among the most prominent.
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4. Achievements
1940: A collection of her early short stories, “Dear Esmeralda,” won
Honorable Mention in the Commonwealth Literary Award.
1961-1962: Four of her one-act plays won all the prizes in the Arena
Theater Play Writing Contest: “Losers Keepers” (first prize),
“Strangers” (second prize), “Rice” (third prize), and “Beggar” (fourth
prize).
1961-1962: Won top prize in the Palanca Contest for “With Patches of
Many Hues.”
1974: Second place Palanca Award for her short story, "The White
Dress".[6]
1979: National Fellowship in Fiction post at the U.P. Creative Writing
Center.

5. Palanca Awards
Estrella Alfon has won the Palanca Awards a
number of times:
Forever Witches, One-act Play (Third place, 1960)
With Patches of Many Hues, One-act Play (First
place, 1962)
Tubig, One-act Play (Second place, 1963)
The Knitting Straw, One-act Play, (Third
place, 1968)
The White Dress, Short Story (Second
place, 1974)

6. Stories
Magnificence and Other
Stories (1960)
Stories of Estrella Alfon (1994)
(published posthumously)
Servant Girl (short story)
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7. Literary Background
The Alfon fictional world is defined by family
relationships: between parents (especially the
mother) and children, women and lovers, wife and
husband, women and their female friends. Where
Alfon explores the mother-child relationship, her
stories become most powerful and intriguing.
“Magnificence” is unmatched for its quiet
intensity, its ability to stop short of spelling out its
potential horrors.
Management Fundamentals - Chapter
14
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8. Literary Background
Alfon’s fictional world is largely a world of
women and children, elements traditionally
marginalized by literary criticism.
Alfon offers the reader women characters:
some strong, some weak, most stoic; many
victims, a few overcoming initial
disadvantages bequeathed to them by nature
and nurture.

9. Synopsis of Magnificence
There is couple with a son and a daughter.
Their parents have a good job. They go to
school. Their mother is a president in their
village. In a meeting the man volunteered to
be their tutor because he doesn’t do
anything in the evening also for an extra
job. His name is Vicente. He is a bus
conductor. So he went to the house every
night to teach the kids.

10. Synopsis of Magnificence
He promised the kids to give them 2 pencils
each. One night he gives the pencil to the
kids. That time it was the "it". The children in
this time want pencils. Vincent is nice to the
children. He knows their wants. But when he
gave the pencil, he gives 3 pencils for the girl
and 2 for the boy. Their mother said to say
thank you.

11. The boy kissed Vicente but Vicente told
him that boys don't kiss boys. Then the
girl goes to Vicente to say thank you. He
hugs her so tight and the girl started to
get out of his too tight hug. The girl
looks at Vicente with a little wonder on
his face. The next day they were so
proud and happy with their new pencils.
They showed it to their friends in class.
They also thought of asking Vicente for
new pencils.

12. In dinner they talked a little about
Vicente but the father is busy reading
something. He did not listen to what the
mother said. The mother thinks that
Vicente is fond of the children with the
way he is treating them. That evening
Vicente arrived earlier. The children are
proud of the pencil. Their classmates are
jealous with their new pencils given by
Vicente. He asked the little boy to get
him a glass of water. Then he put the girl
on his lap.

13. Then he let the girl write her
homework. The little girl told him
not to carry her because she is
heavy. Vicente is perspiring, and
his eyes are strange. Then the girl
jumped out of his lap because she
became afraid. Then their mom
arrived. She rubs the girls back
and told them to go upstairs.

14. The mother slapped the man
repeatedly. Vicente just accepts
the entire slap that the mother
gave him. Then he went out of
the house. The mother closed
the door. She gives a bath to the
girl. Then she asked them to
throw the pencil. Then she put
her to sleep.

15. Theme

16. Theme

17. Implications of the story
primacy of the mother-daughter bond
as well as into the psychological
oppression of women and children,
especially daughters, which emerges
into the light of consciousness once the
mask of false chivalry is wrenched
away

18. Implications of the story
implications of pedophiliac tendencies are
proof that the sexual relationship between
male and female has been seen as the basic
ground for the physical and psychological
domination of the male over the female

19. Implications of the story
This can be read by parents for them to
realize that you need to maybe check on the
people that you trust your child with. You
cannot trust everyone around you. Your
children are very precious. As a parent you
want them to be always safe with the people
around.
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20. Implications of the story
Woman
POWER!!!
Who run the world???Girls!!!

21. References
“The Filipina As Writer: Against All Odds,”
critical essay by Prof. Thelma E. Arambulo.
Published in its entirety in Women Reading…
Feminist Perspectives on Philippine Literary
Texts.” Ed. Thelma B. Kintanar. Quezon City:
UP Press & University Center for Women’s
Studies, 1992, 170-175.