Monday, January 24, 2011

The Word is An Apple by: Alberto Florentino

This is a story of how wrong decisions become greater burdens to a family.  Mario’s family happens to be in the lower bracket of society.  He cannot even provide for his family’s basic needs.  Albeit all this hardships, his wife Gloria, still manages to keep her good virtuous.  She insists that the way they are living is a much better than the one they will have if they do wrong acts.    But Gloria’s entire constant reminder to Mario did not prosper.  Mario decided to come back to his old life of crime when he lost his job when he tried to steal an apple for his daughter.  He keeps on insisting that his priority is to provide what his wife and daughter needs.  He left with Pablo, his old crime buddy, even if Gloria pleaded very hard for him not to go with the man.  
This is a sad representation of what is happening in the society today.  Due to lack of better opportunities to heighten one’s standard of living, some become entangled with the wrong crowd.  By doing so, these individuals do not help their family at all; instead, they end up worsening their family’s problem.  It is man’s basic instinct that drives him towards his survival.  But, no matter what, he should not forget that society expects him to conform to its norms.  One’s action is weighed right or wrong and thus should be kept towards the proper action.

2 comments:

  1. Can one man's world revolve in one apple? Can all his flaws be magnified a
    million times beyond the naked eyes? Can he see his mistakes no matter how he
    avoid confronting his own conscience?

    Alberto Florentino did just that. One of the stories written by a Filipino author, "The World is an Apple", has reached
    the conscience of even an ordinary man whose willpower to view life is anchored
    mainly on a three -square round meals a day. Alberto Florentino managed to tap the
    inner voice of man through the used of a symbolism to inject a deeper sense of
    purpose in life, which is rising from one's frailties.

    It goes beyond the essence of the entire plot by focusing on the microcosm of daily life lived in poverty. Florentino's "The World is An Apple" talks about the sad fate of an indigent father
    who had to struggle everyday to feed his family, but the twisting part of the story was
    focused on his weakness to the temptation of the flesh, hence eroding his noble
    purpose as a father for the story evolved in man's evil-minded nature to succumb to
    the lust for physical pleasure forgetting his greater responsibility outside himself.

    Florentino has also managed to use another angle in the story to make his readers see
    that money is not the evil but the man who uses the money is to be blamed for his
    personal woes.

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  2. KAPIT SA PATALIM" -->>
    that's what happened to Mario. He wants to provide the needs of his family so he did such a crime that he stole an apple just for her daughter.

    ReplyDelete