macbeth

             Nostalgia in "When the Dancers Came"
             Bienvenido Santos' "When the Dancers Came," shares a common trait with the rest of his short stories in Scent of Apples. It is the trait that examines the sense of loss in the Filipino American community--a loss of home, country, and family. In "When the Dancers Came," Santos portrays this loss through the main characters of the story, Filimon "Fil" Acayan and Antonio "Tony" Bataller. Therefore, the main concentration of this dramatic story is the nostalgia that goes on between the two characters-- how the past is affecting their own sense of emotion and how the past is deceptive in a social sense and how this is affecting them in their present lives.
             Fil is a very simple character in the story. Oftentimes, he seems to convey a very naive character in comparison to Tony, who sees life in a very different way as you will see later. Fil has a yearning to have a connection with his own countrymen. When he finds out that these dancers from the Philippines were coming, he was genuinely looking forward to see them and take them for a tour in Chicago. He's more in touch with his Filipino side and he's not willing to let himself be Americanized. He shows that he's very proud of his culture. While he works he's "humming...faintly remembered tunes from the old country" (116). He also showed mastery in the Tagalog dialect: "His style, however, was florid, sentimental, poetic." Fil mentioned that when he first saw snow, he grabbed a handful, crunched it together, and stuffed it in his mouth. He immediately recalled the moment when he was home in the Philippines and the times he'd used to do that there: "...it reminded him of the grated ice the Chinese sold near the town plaza where had played tatching with an older brother..." (115). The day the dancers came, he still remembers this ...

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macbeth. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 13:00, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/36848.html