Jennifer T.

Bactong BEE-II SETTING

-a desolate place where two nipa huts are the only

Course Professor: Dr. Adelyne M. Costelo-
visible houses. The occupants of both the houses are
Abrea
distant and cold towards each other. Their attitudes
reflect the remoteness and emptiness of their location.
The Fence by Jose Garcia Villa
EXPOSITION
BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR
They should have stood apart, away from each other,
 He was born on August 5, those two nipa houses. There should have been a
1908 in Manila’s Singalong district lofty impenetrable wall between them, so that they
 Filipino poet, literary should not stare so coldly, so starkly, at each other—
critic,, short story writer and painter just staring, not saying a word, not even a cruel word.

 Used the penname Only a yard of parched soil separated them, a yard of

Doveglion (Dove, Eagle, Lion) brittle-crusted earth with only a stray weed or two to
show there was life still in its bosom.
 Villa enrolled in a premedical course in
the University of the Philippines but then RISING ACTION
switched to pre-law course
Two women had built that fence. Two tanned
 He realized that his true passion was in
country-women. One of them had caught her husband
arts and later enrolled in the University of
with the other one night, and the next morning she
Mexico where he was one of the founders
had gone to the bamboo clumps near the river Pasig
of Clay, a mimeograph magazine.
and felled canes with her woman strength. She left
 Graduated with Bachelors degree in Arts
her baby son at home, heeded not the little cries. And
and pursued post-graduate work at
one by one that hot afternoon she shouldered the
Columbia University canes to her home. She was tired, very tired, yet that
night she could not sleep. When morning dawned she
THE CHARACTERS
rose and went back to the back and began to split the

 Aling Biang-unforgivng woman who bamboos. Her husband noticed her, but said nothing.
By noon, AlingBiang was driving tall bamboo splits
was betrayed by her husband with
into the narrow ribbon of yard.Pok, Pok, Pok,
her neighbor. sounded her crude hammer. Pok, Pok, Pok-Pok, Pok,
 Aling Sebia-a childless widow and Pok.When her husband asked her what she was doing,
neighbor of Aling Biang who has not she answered, “I am building a fence.” “What for?”
he asked.“I need a fence.”And then, too, even
seen a feeling of remorse having
AlingSebia, the other woman, a child-less widow,
caught with her neighbor’s husband.
asked inoffensively, “What are you doing,
 Iking- son of Aling Biang who AlingBiang?”“I am building a fence.”“What for?”“I
wanted his mom to reconcile with need a fence, AlingSebia. Please do not talk to me
their neighbor. again.”And with that AlingSebia had felt hurt. Out of
spite she too had gone to the bamboo clumps to fell
 Aling Sebia’s daughter- a girl who is
canes. After she had split them, tried though she was,
good in playing guitar that made
she began to thrust them into the ground, on the same
Iking fall inlove straight line as AlingBiang’s but from the opposite
 Aling Biang’s husband- a man who end. The building of the fence progressed from the

left unsettled with his wife. opposite end. The building of the fence progresses
from the ends centerward. AlingBiang drove in the would loiter along the narrow strip of yard beside the
last split fence, and peep surreptitiously through the slits. And
he could catch glimpses of a girl, dark-complex-
CLIMAX
ioned, flat-nosed on the other side. She was an ugly

But early one night, from beyond the fence, girl, even uglier than he was, but she was full-

AlingBiang heard cries from AlingSebia. Unwilling muscled, healthy. As he peeped, his body, like a thin
to pay any heed to them, she extinguished the light of reed pressed against the fungused canes, would be

the petrol kinke and laid herself down beside her breathless. The flat-nosed girl intoxicated him, his

child. But, in spite of all, the cries of the other loose architecture of a body, so that it pulsed,

woman made her uneasy. She stood up, went to the vibrated cruelly with the leap in his blood. The least
window that faced the fence, and cried from there: sound of the wind against the nipa wall of their house

“What is the matter with you, AlingSebia?” Faintly would startle him, as though he had been caught,

from the other side came: “AlingBiang, please go the surprised, in his clandestine passion; a wave of frigid

town and get me a hilot (midwife).” “What do you coldness would start in his chest and expand, expand,

need a hilot for?” asked AlingBiang. “I am going to expand until he was all cold and shivering. Watching

deliever a child, AlingBiang, and I am alone. Please that girl only intensified his loneliness—watching

go, fetch a hilot.” AlingBiang stood there by the that girl of whom he knew nothing except that form
window a long time. She knew when child it was that them it was not right to know each other.When his

was coming as the child of AlingSebia. She stood mother caught him peeping, she would scold him,

motionless, the wind brushing her face coldly. What and he would turn quickly about, his convex back

did she care of AlingSebia was to undergo childbirth? pressed painfully against the fence.“Did I not tell you

The wind blew colder and pierced the thinness of her never to peep through that fence? Go up.”And he

shirt. She decided to lie down and sleep. Her body would go up without answering a word, because the

struck against her child’s as she did so, and the child moment he tried to reason out things, prolonged

moaned: coughs would seize him and shake his thin body
unmercifully.
Ummm—The other child, too, could be moaning like
that. Like her child. Ummm. From the womb of DENOUEMENT
AlingSebia—the wrong womb.Hastily AlingBiang
And tonight was Christmas Eve. Iking’s Christmas
stood up, wound her tapiz round her waist, covered
Eve. He must be happy tonight—he must be made
her shoulders with a cheap shawl.Ummm.Ummm.
happy tonight…At one corner of the room his mother
The cry that called her. Ummm. The cry of a lifeShe
crooned to herself. A Biblia was on the table, but no
descended the bamboo steps. They creaked in the
one read it; they did not know how to read.But they
night.The fence grew moldy and inclined to one side,
knew it was Christmas Eve. AlingBiang said, “The
the child of AlingBiang grew up into sickly boy with
Lord will be born tonight.”“The Lord will be born
hollow dark eyes and shaggy hair, and the child that
tonight,” echoed her son.
was born to AlingSebia grew up into a girl, a girl
with rugged features , a simian face, and a very “Let us pray, Iking.”Iking stood up. His emaciated
narrow brow. But not a word had passed across the form looked so pitiful that his mother said, “Better lie
fence since that night. down again, Iking. I will pray alone.”

FALLING ACTION Dark-skinned bats occasionally lost their way into the
room. A pale silken moth flew in to flirt with the
The boy Iking was not allowed to play by the
flame of kerosene kinke.And then the cicadas had
roadside; for if he did, would he not know were on
tired of singing. The moon was far above at its zenith
the other side of the fence? For his realm he had only
now. The bats had found their way out of the room.
his home and the little backyard. Sometimes, he
The moth now lay signed on the table, beside he The notes were metallic, clanking and at the
realized now that the fence between their houses end of the nocturne they stopped abruptly.’’
extended into the heart of this girl.“The Lord is born,”  Simile- ‘’windows as desolate as the souls
announced AlingBiang, for it was midnight.“He is of the occupants of the house, as sharply
born,” said her son, his ears still ready for her music angular as the intensity of their hatred’’
because the fence did not run through his soul.The  Personification- ‘’Cicadas sang and leaves
moon descended… descended..At two a.m. Iking’s rustled’’
eyes were closed and his hands were cold. His
THEME
mother wept. His heart beat no more.Two-three
a.m.—only a few minutes after—and from beyond -Hatred overrules
the fence came the notes of a guitar.The notes of a
guitar. Metallic.Clanking.Raucous.Notes of the same Aling biang and Aling Sebia are most afraid one of

guitar. And she who played it finished her nocturne them will give way. The building of the fence seems

that mourn. necessary to protect themselves from seeing each

other.
AlingBiang stood up from beside her son,
approached the window, stared accusingly outside, sources:

and said in a low resentful voice, “They are mocking. https://khevinstinct.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/the-

Who would play at such a time of morn as this? fence-by-jose-garcia-villa/

Because my son is dead.”

https://englishsummary.com/fence-jose-garcia-

But she saw only the fence she had built and villa/#The_Hate

strengthened, stately white in the matutinal moonlight.

SYMBOLISM

The fence signifies the walls that separates and

enclose two ownership lands. It symbolizes that the
property is exclusive only and that no one is allowed
to trespass.

The bamboo strengthened the hatred as these

bamboos take away the decaying feeling in the heart
of Aling Biang and Aling Sebia towards forgiveness.

IMAGERY

 Touching- ’’She stood motionless, the wind

brushing her face coldly.’’
 Seeing- ‘’The fence grew moldy and
inclined to one side, the child of Aling
Biang grew up into a sickly boy with hollow
dark eyes and shaggy hair, and the child that
was born to Aling Sebia grew up into a girl,
a girl with rugged features, a simous face,
and a very narrow brow.’’
 Hearing- ‘’At night as he lay at the bamboo
flooor, notes of a guitar would reach his ear.