THIS IS Part 2 of Jay M. Maravilla’s brilliant critical essay entitled The Butterfly Effect: Lirio and the Flower Revolution that started last Monday.
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Suno sa amay, nagakabagay ang ngalan nga Lirio para sa iya anak bangud tuman ka puti sang bata. Kon patihan si Lola Pansay, si Lirio kuno ang pinakamaputi nga lapsag nga iya gin-utdan sang pusod sa bug-os nga kasaysayan sang iya pagkapaltera sa Barrio Jardin. Daku ini nga bugal para kay Tatay Manuel bangud pulos maitum kag batok sa adlaw ang ila kaliwat.
[The father said the name Lirio suited her well, for the baby was very fair-skinned. If Lola Pansay were to be believed, in the long time that she had been midwife in Barrio Jardin, Lirio was the fairest of all the babies whose umbilical cord she had cut. This was a source of great pride for Tatay Manuel whose ancestry bore dark sunburned skin.]
White is an archetype of purity and innocence. Being the whitest or most fair-skinned newborn of the barrio tells the readers that Lirio is not a “normal person” in the community from the time she was born. Her innocence and purity would transcend every male character in the story. Notice also the play of names: all the female characters are named after a flower (Nanay Rosa, Lola Pansay, Yasmin, and Lirio); the male characters, however, retain that manliness in their names (Tatay Manuel, Noel, Padre Rafael, Kapitan Buenaflor, and Sgt. Vicente “Itik” Lugay).
The garden that Lirio owns and tends is a microcosm of her world. The garden is effervescent when Lirio is happy. The garden suffers when she is in pain or agony. In the ultimate and climactic finale, to keep her innocence and purity against being raped again by Lugay, she transforms into a flower, all white and pure. As if to say that her innocence is not for a worldly man to possess. Lirio, the story seems to say, is supposed to be only admired and loved from afar. When she was “plucked out” of her garden by virtue of her marriage to Itik Lugay, her journey to death began.
Lirio’s innocence and purity is further intensified by her muteness. She suffers, yet she remains silent. That makes her a tragic hero. Her tragic flaw of being apa reduces her to being a mere follower. In real life, the loss of voice takes away certain innate rights. This is what happens to Lirio in the story. She withdrew from school because she lost her friend and sole confidante, the only friend who understood her in Grade 1. This results to her not getting a school education. Being “unschooled” increased her risk of being abused by the likes of Itik Lugay. It eventually leads to her demise. Moreover, the only time she gets to speak becomes her only ticket to freedom:
Dayon, kasubong sang mga daguob nga naggua ang mga tinaga sa baba ni Lirio Apa: “Ginoo, luyag ko mangin bulak nga liryo!” Nagpangilat kag nagpanaguob.
[Then, like thunder came these words from the lips of Lirio the Silent One: “Lord, I want to be a lily!” And then there was lightning and thunder.]
Lirio’s silence made her a prisoner; but when she speaks in earnest prayer, and becomes a flower, her words emancipate her from her suffering.
The extraordinary events that took place in the story needed no explanation. Characteristic of magic realism, events happen as if it were reality. The swarm of butterflies, the transformation of Lirio — these are extraordinarily ordinary in magic realism. There isn’t a thing such as coincidence in magic realism. Everything is all tied up in an intricate pattern that would lead all its readers in full circle in the end. Lirio’s surprise ending subverts the predictability of Filipino stories and dramas, but through careful plotting, Lirio’s magical transformation seemed inevitable. The authorial reticence is so strong that it keeps the readers wondering in the dark, and kept in suspense as the surprises in the story unfold.
Intertextuality plays a major role in the enhanced understanding of the story. As a postmodern literary work, the reader may reference Lirio’s storyline with Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, where the female character, Nora Helmer, like Lirio, used to be just a follower of her husband. Nora was reduced by her husband to a darling pet, calling her his “little squirrel.” Later on, as Nora realizes that she was being verbally abused, she walks out on Torvald, and slams the door to end the play. The slamming of the door signifies Nora’s freedom from her husband Torvald.
Though written in 1998 (and became the first prize Hiligaynon short story winner at the prestigious Carlos Palanca Awards for Literature that year), Lirio is now helping other forms of literature thrive and prosper in the 21st century — a small butterfly wing action. As an important piece of Hiligaynon literature, it holds the distinction of ushering regional literature into the new millennium, and our 21st century — with the total force of a butterfly effect. With its recurring and classical themes, Lirio may still prove useful at the beginning of this century. The elements presented in this paper are testaments to the story’s postmodern nature that creates the bridge for the gap between 20th and 21st century literature. After all, literature gives us, readers, a glimpse of what we were in the past, what we are in the present, and what we will become in the future — and all these timelessness are reflected in the passages of a great story, and the pages of exceptional literature.
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Originally from Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Jay M. Maravilla of DepEd Puerto Princesa City advocates the love of reading among Palaweño youth. He also teaches Literature in high school; and Anglo-American Literature, and Contemporary and Emergent Literature in college./PN
