MULTIMEDIA

We used the exerpt from the prologue of "Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami, which is titled "The Boy Named Crow." In particular to the scene where Crow let Kafka imagine a metaphysical storm, it gave us an inspiration that enable us to make this multimedia presentation possible. By adapting it to a multimedia format, we managed to enhance the use of literary devices like foreshadowing, metaphor, symbolism, and allegory through visual and auditory storytelling. In the opening-the-door scene, it is foreshadowing how the boy hesitates, showing the fears of change and the metaphysical storm that he was about to take. It is strengthened by the atmosphere and the overall background where it is equipped with dim lighting and slow movement. The sandstorm scene acts as a metaphor for internal struggles, with swirling winds and harsh sounds immersing the viewer in his emotional turmoil. Crow, as both a guide and a challenge, embodies the boy’s resilience or, to put it simply, his alter ego guiding him and giving him wisdom, and was visually depicted through positioning and movement. By combining visual composition, motion effects, and sound design, we managed to pull off a multimedia that transforms abstract literary themes into an engaging and entertaining experience.

A SIX-WORD STORY

Innocent said, "Don't Emulate: Drug User" 

Two shots coming from the outside, I heard; it seems that an innocent teenager was shot dead at point-blank range by the representing body of justice. The body illustrates how he pleaded for mercy, but unfortunately, the quota was deemed more important than principle. This event occurred during the bloody campaign against drug addicts; I saw the corpse was labeled as someone who should not be copied. It left me feeling disturbed as it set off a hole in both the literal and figurative upon this innocent adolescent. I don't know who he was or what he did, but I know that he was innocent based on what he was wearing—a school uniform. This event engraved in me a fearsome experience of how our country can be a territory of greedy individuals who are ready to kill for money. What if I am their target next? Eventually, the victim still never got the justice he deserved. I don't want to disclose any personal information about this person, but he often buys ice tubig that we are selling. The only mark that he left us was a label: someone whom people shouldn't emulate.

A Promise Contract to Myself

I, hereby genuinely promise that at the end of the 4th quarter, I am going to be one of the first grade 11 HUMSS students of batch 2024-2025 to achieve a high honor. In exchange for this promise, I must dedicate myself to sacrificing the majority of my time procrastinating into active and productive studying. If the said promise was not actively done within the period, a punishment to eradicate the promisee's phone will be effective. This promise contract will be governed by my reflective self in order to incorporate a healthy and productive studying habit and to create a self-made and justifiable fate for myself.

AN ANTHOLOGY

"And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is for certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person you walked in. That's what this storm is all about."—Crow, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (Murakami, 2005)

This quote from the prologue of Kafka on the Shore, for some reason, evokes a profound enlightenment for my case. It illuminates a hurdle, a trial, or a challenge that we always face in life. Sometimes I tend to ignore it, and even though it weighs me down, I still don't understand its essence.

Unmistakably, I was used to challenges, but it varied in how I reacted to them. Is it my first time? Is it really that hard? Why does it need to be me? These questions loomed over me once I knew that I couldn't just escape from it. If I wanted to grow, I needed to face it head-on, just like the sandstorm Kafka imagined. Inside the sandstorm are full of challenges, and when I go through it, I'll change—and I won't even notice that the sandstorm has stopped or even realize that it really did. Clearly, the sandstorm is my fate, and it's inevitable. However, the way I receive and react to it is the game changer—the reason why there's always a message after a failure, a rainbow after the rain, a lesson after a war, a whole new identity after a breakup, and a new person after facing reality. There is always an aftermath after I face certain challenges. Whether good or bad, I come out as different people.

In light of this concept, I'd like to share a personal story of mine when I heard two gunshots inside our home coming from the outside. Obviously, it was traumatizing. Once I heard it, I didn’t know how to react because a gunshot means threat, fatality, and death. So by instinct, I quickly dropped and lay down on the floor, trembling, waiting for what would happen next. The first shot—drop—and then the second shot. It was quiet after a while, but then suddenly, people's voices were everywhere. When people are noisy in our area, that means it's time to get some information. That factor in my book tells me that it's safe to stand. After all that confusion, a dead body was found, shot dead by a policeman. My jaw dropped as I witnessed a dead man’s body being dragged by the justice system. That bullet was never meant to hit anywhere near me; I heard it, which means it was never meant for me.

It reminded me of the film I watched on Netflix named Birdshot (Red, 2016), where a young girl named Maya unknowingly pulls the trigger on something far bigger than herself: an endangered species of eagle only seen in the archipelago of the Philippines. This brought her a sequence of continuous violence she didn't fully understand. Like her, I was thrown into a moment that revealed the harshness of the world around me. And just like Maya, I came out of it not untouched, but undeniably changed. That's when I learned to understand and acknowledge my situation—because if I don't, it might perhaps kill me sooner.

Reverting to what the Crow says, my story is synonymous with what it’s trying to inflict upon its readers—every circumstance you may be in has its respective aftermath and lesson. It always changes us, whether for bad or good. In my case, it developed my awareness and boldness to face my area. Ultimately, it highlights that fate is already within us, and we have the power to change its direction.

Yet, storms don’t always come with thunder and fear, a gunshot or a threat; sometimes, they arrive quietly, in front of a mirror, asking questions we often avoid. You just can't escape from the big, emerging hands of fate. You can't fight it, but you can sail through it and change your direction. In light of that, another insight I got from The Boy Named Crow is the same quote: "And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through… you won't be the same person you walked in. That’s what this storm is all about" (Murakami, 2005). The storm that we are currently facing right now is our own destiny, and we can change its path. By saying "path," I mean how we experience it and how we enjoy it—not repel it, because that will only cause trouble. Destiny is already laid down in our lives; it's a premeditated phenomenon. However, its process is for us to decide.

One similar experience that can be profoundly compared to this concept is having a reflection between me and the face I see in the mirror. A communication that brings insights and awareness to what my current situation is: "Are you ignoring something? Are you procrastinating too much? Do you even value time? How much time have you wasted throughout your life? You're useless? What if you achieve heights? You, yourself, don't even know where you will be after 10 years." I'm undefined. In fact, my grades don't define me because they are not me; they are only made by my external expectation of what I really want to become in the eyes of others. These are the complaints of the one speaking in the mirror. Does reflecting mean I'm changing? Or does it make me aware that what I'm doing is passively accepting my fate?

This leans me toward the same way I look at myself in the mirror and start asking those difficult questions about the life of Lucia in a short story by Scott P. Salcedo, The Edge of the Fields, who also faces her own quiet moment of reflection. She was surrounded by endless rain that could possibly destroy the hard work she put into the farm fields, but she didn't panic or try to escape from it. Instead, she takes in her surroundings and thinks deeply about what’s happening. It's as if she knows she can't control the rain, so she just sits with it, watches it, and accepts it. That silence is powerful. She’s not giving up, but she’s choosing to observe and endure. Going back to mine, it aligns subtly—I'm not “fixing” anything in that moment either; I'm just starting to recognize what’s really happening in my life. And sometimes, that kind of quiet honesty is the first step before any real change can happen. The story really is a simple but powerful moment that reminds me how sometimes, just being honest with ourselves can help us understand what we’re going through (Salcedo, 2020).

This is the reason I can conclude that my fate is inevitable, but wasting my life just because I know that I'll end up somewhere unrecognizable is not a reasonable argument to waste my potential to enjoy it at its fullest. Life is short; destiny is its expiration. The process of using it is in my own hands.

If It's Not Safe, Can You Run?

 

  Whenever you feel that your own family is not safe, run. However, in the case of Mila, the daughter of Dadong Carandong, the house patriarch, her escape may come down as a tragedy. 'Kisapmata,' a thought-provoking and eye-opening film directed by Mike De Leon that debuted in 1981 and was inspired by a true crime story, "The House on Zapote Street, written by Nick Joaquin in 1961, possesses an eye-catching narrative that can trigger a disturbing nature upon watching it. The film started with a great introductory tone for the whole plot: serious, encaged, and the urge to fight back from incarceration. Then, it ended in a snap as if it happened in a blink of an eye, finishing it with 4 bodies shot to death by the house patriarch. The iron-fisted father choked his family under his forceful, disciplinarian rule, where everyone just obeyed, not just because he was someone to fear, but because he had the power to end them in a snap. Henceforth, introducing a patriarchal system within the household that reinforces the father to have full control over everything, including decision-making, gender biases, and domestic abuse. This film will either make you vomit the reality that lurks within the patriarchal family or seek justice for people that undergo this unjustifiable system.

  After I watched this film, my curiosity consumed me, and I wanted to know more. Why is the film included incest theme? Are there details that I've missed? There are a lot of questions I need to answer as I dive deeper into this incredible film. For more detailed background information, this film detailed a real-life event surrounding Pablo Cabading, where a Manila police officer, hinted indirectly based on the story, has a secret love for his daughter (De Guzman, 2022). Just like in Joaquin’s account, the film masterfully portrays how a father’s twisted love can turn into a terrifying obsession, trapping his daughter, Mila, into a room that resembles her own incarceration. The cinematography was just top-notch: the following of the camera that adds up to the intensity of every movement. Not to mention the sound effects that make you hold your seat. Another element of the film can be seen in the setting: the house; it alone becomes a character, an extension of the patriarch's body. As Gomez (2023) said, the architecture of the house, where one could see the second floor when you're in the sala, tells us of how the father can see all the actions inside his own territory: an architectural design that symbolizes Mila’s inability to rebel against her father because even the place she was sleeping in was under her own nemesis. All these technicalities intensified the tragic end of the family, where they meet their end in the hands of their own patriarch under his territory. Indeed, a well-orchestrated classic film that straightforwardly just gave us a reality that no one even thinks of, just like a tree falling from a forest—no one even can hear its noise.

  All things considered, the themes explored in Kisapmata remain relevant today, because we all know the stigma of a husband ruling a family still does not cease. Therefore, this film is a reminder for us to open our eyes to our surroundings: there are people that hide secrets that can kill a whole family. In light of gender norms, in contrast to today's world, where it was considered modern and progressive, many women still suffer under oppressive fathers or male figures who dictate their choices, manipulate them, and use them as much as they want, just as Mila experienced. For instance, De Guzman (2022) highlights how Anunciacion Cabading, Pablo’s wife reference to The House on Zapote Street, lived in fear and submission, much like many women today who are trapped in abusive relationships. The prevalence of these patriarchal structures that lurk deep within our community shows that we still struggle to break free from deeply ingrained gender norms and patriarchal family systems. It just gives us disturbing questions: How many more Milas must suffer before we finally escape the systems that allow such horrors to persist? And if it still persists, how many Milas can run? How many cannot?

References:

De Guzman, Y. (2022). Tragical Elopement: The House on Zapote Street. Retrieved from https://discover.hubpages.com/literature/Tragical-Elopement-The-House-on-Zapote-Street

Gomez, J. (2020). This house birthed a Filipino movie classic. Retrieved from https://www.abs-cbn.com/ancx/culture/movies/09/06/20/return-to-the-set-of-kisapmata-or-whatever-happened-to-the-house-in-d-tuazon-street

A Short Reflection on Preludes by Daryll Delgado

From Endurance to Liberation: A Personal Reflection on Preludes by Daryll Delgado

In the silence of an enduring and forgiving slave comes an enraged and twisted outburst. Likewise, the story Preludes by Daryll Delgado, a piece of 21st-century literature, follows Nenita, an indulgent and placable woman, and how she reacted to her infidel husband and offensive in-laws. Reflecting on this story, I have come to understand the importance of speaking out to others and not hiding your burden to yourself. This became clear in moments such as when a very unpleasant and illogical argument with my mother, where a slip of her tongue made me burst into anger due to past endeavors that I endured, yet she doesn't even acknowledge it. In that moment, I realized what if I opened up and told her everything before that argument even happened. It's a story that will make you conceive of how cumbersome a glass of water could be if you hold it in a very long time—indeed, it is so heavy that no one can escape its weight or endure it without eventually giving up. In contrast, after all the burdensome weight that you've lifted, it gives you a sense of freedom and relief just like what Nenita end up having in the end of the story where her husband died in the hands of her perfect plot to kill him. The silent cycle of her pain-enduring acts to her husband and in-laws made me in awe of how patient she is.

In the story Preludes, the author used various literary devices, primarily foreshadowing, flashbacks, and symbols. At the beginning of the story, there's an essence of foreshadowing. It was shown through introducing a man who died singing. This creates suspense and thrill to read for the upcoming sequence. At the end of the story, it reveals Nenita's husband died singing his last song. Here, it shows direct foreshadowing, a kind of foreshadowing that occurs when a problem, event, or twist is explicitly hinted in the story. Direct foreshadowing is typically achieved by a prophecy, a prologue, the narrator's remarks, or even conversations between the characters (Masterclass, 2021). Furthermore, the story shows flashbacks through Nenita's reminiscing about her in-laws' offensive, yet indirect remarks about her significance to her husband, and her endurance of taking him back when he was with another woman, and nursing him when he was sick. In addition, a symbol of death was integrated using the relevance of the purple leaves in the story. For a better plot development, a writer must know how to put objects together and make them have a significance in the story. That's where Chekhov's gun theory comes into play. It simply refers to any seemingly unimportant element that becomes significant later on in the story. “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story,” Chekhov wrote. According to Chekhov, "get rid of everything that isn't related to the story." "It must unquestionably go off in the second or third chapter if you mention in the first that there is a rifle hanging on the wall. It shouldn't be hanging there if they aren't fired. In essence, Chekhov's Gun is a literary principle that says that if an aspect captures the audience's interest in great detail, it should somehow be essential to the plot because, in theory, it wouldn't have mattered if the author hadn't included it (Perelman, 2021). In the context of the story, Daryll Delgado prominently used this concept in Preludes where Purple leaves seems to have been refused to use by Nenita, which was gradually revealed when we come to realize that the death of her husband was not just merely because of his illnesses but because of the poisonous leaves that was mixed in his medicinal brew. Turning to a different aspect, the conclusion of the story shows Nenita's husband dying while she dances on his last song. It shows that Nenita was finally liberated through the hands of her infidel husband and her abusive in-laws. The unfair treatment, and emotional and psychological abuse she had to endure just to get the taste of freedom has a lot of effects on how gender roles can affect household management. Here, it directly tells us the main idea of the story—gender inequality. Also, passive endurance could lead to a worse outcome, and if Nenita just spoke out about the unfair treatment, it could possibly end up having a better outcome. On another note, through the use of reader-response lense, which focuses on the personal interpretation of the text, I was able to show my own comprehension and understanding of the story's plot and message without the limitations of other ideologies. In particular, the means of perseverance of unfair treatment just make me mesmerize Nenita and how she got through it is what made my jaw drop when I realized what she just did. Throughout the story, it gives me the idea of how a silent rebellion and loud yet unfazed reality could make up a broken society. In light of Nenita's life where she had undergone a lot of pain, yet she still managed to get revenge through planning a perfect crime, she got her revenge by eliminating her unfaithful husband.

All things considered, the short story Preludes, which follows the struggles and endurance of the girl Nenita through the hands of her in-laws' and husband, shows a plentiful observation of literary devices such as foreshadowing, flashbacks, and symbols. Furthermore, the main idea of gender inequality integrated into the acts of characters is one of a kind reality check for failed and conservative household management. Through the use of a reader-response approach, I could read and analyze the story with ease and without the need to consider several factors of ideologies. In the essence of the story, it greatly introduced in this century a catalyst for recognition of the significance of opening up your feelings and what you don't like about a person and not just hiding it forever because it might cause you more than what you're currently having. As a result of this reflection, I am now more aware of the danger of silent rebellion where it dictates a powerful reminder of the importance of speaking out against injustice before it leads to irreversible consequences.

References:

Masterclass(2021). Writing 101: Foreshadowing Definition, Examples of Foreshadowing, and How 

to Use Foreshadowing in Your Writing. Retrieved from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-foreshadowing-foreshadowing-literary-device-tips-and-examples

Perelman, B.(2021). Everything You Need to Know About Chekhov’s Gun. Retrieved from 

https://screencraft.org/blog/everything-you need-to-know-about-chekhovs-gun/

The Blue: A Haiku

The Blue

Bottomless deep blue
Embodies taunting allure
Yet, remain serene