Introduction to ASEAN Lit

1. FICTION
Understanding Fiction
A narrative tells a story by presenting events in
some logical or orderly way. A work of fiction is a
narrative that originates in the imagination of the
author rather than in history or fact.

2. Authors’ Milieu
Genoveva Edroza-Matute
 • retired teacher
 • In 1980, she was the head of the Philippine Normal
 College under the Department of Filipino, and Dean of
 Instruction
 • known Feminist
 • received four Palanca Awards for her creative works
 • the first prize she was awarded was in 1951 for her
 short story entitled Kuwento ni Mabuti.

3. Rogelio Sikat
 - novelist, storyteller, dramaturge, interpreter, professor
of literature, creative writing, language and translation
 - was a professor at UP Diliman
 - former Dean of the College of Arts and Literature in UP
 1991-1994
 - Notable works:
 • Impeng Negro (1962)
 • Tata Selo and Moses, Mose

4. Manuel E. Arguilla
 - an Ilokano writer in English, patriot, and martyr. He is
known for his widely anthologized short story "How My
Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife."
 Born: June 17, 1911, Bauang, Nagrebcan
 Died: August 30, 1944, Manila
 Parents: Crisanto Arguilla, Margarita Estabillo
 Books: How my brother Leon brought home a wife, and
other stories, The Essential Manuel Arguilla Reader

5. PLOT
It is the sequence of events within a story: a
description of what happens and why it happens. A
story is a comprehensive narrative. Plot is a part of
the story, but a story also includes settings,
characters, themes, and other factors that influence
how the events (or plot) are told.

6. Stages of Plot
Climax – the point of greatest tension or
importance, the scene that represents a story’s
decisive action or event.
Resolution or denouement – (French for untying of
the knot) draws the action to a close and accounts
for all remaining loose ends.
Chekhov’s gun - tells of an inherent object inserted
in the narrative.

7. Deus ex machina – (Latin for “a god from a
machine”), an intervention of some force or agent
previously extraneous to the story – for example the
arrival of a long lost relative or a fortuitous
inheritance, the discovery of a character’s true
identity, or a last minute rescue by a character not
previously introduced.
In medias res – (Latin for “in the midst of things”),
starting with a key event and later going back in
time to explain events that preceded it.

8. Flashback – moves out of sequence to examine an
event or situation that occurred before the time in
which the story’s action takes place.
Foreshadowing – the introduction early in a story of
situations, events, characters, or objects that hint
at things to come.
Narrative hook - tells a catchy story opening to
hook the attention of the readers.
Hypodiegesis - tells a story within a story.

9. Plot twist - tells a surprise ending
Poetic justice - tells a reward to the good
characters and punishes the bad characters.
Cliffhanger - tells and abrupt ending which
places the main characters in a perilous
situation with no resolution.
Flash forward - tells a scene that takes the
narrative to a future time from the current point
of the story

10. CHARACTER
Is a fictional representation of a person – usually (but
not necessarily) a psychologically realistic depiction.

11. POINT OF VIEW
It is a narrative convention which tells from
whose perspective is the story told.

12. First Person point of View
In this instance the narrator speaks in the first person, (“I did this, I said that, I
thought the other.”) The narrator and the novel’s protagonist are essentially one
and the same.
Example:
“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little
or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I
thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a
way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.”
—Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

13. Third Person Point of View
In this instance, the narrator speaks in the third person, (“She did
this, he did that, they did the other.”) The narrator is basically an
invisible storyteller, telling the reader what happens to the novel’s
protagonists. The narrator is not affected by the story situations.
Example:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in
possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be
on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in
the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the
rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you
heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”
—Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

14. Unreliable Narrator
Telling the story by an insincere narrator, misleading the characters.