The Woman Who Had Two Navels (1961) PDF

The Woman Who Had Two Navels Study fate, and reality and fantasy. watermelon seeds instead of dancing. Paco Guide describes her as evil, and says she conspires...

The Woman Who Had Two Navels Study fate, and reality and fantasy. watermelon seeds instead of dancing. Paco Guide describes her as evil, and says she conspires The Woman Who Had Two Navels Character with her daughter rather than competing with Nick Joaquin's The Woman Who Had Two List her. Navels is a 1961 English-language novel about several Filipino characters grappling Pepe Monson Rita Lopez with their identities after the Philippines Pepe Monson is the novel's protagonist. The gains independence from the U.S. following Rita Lopez is Pepe's fiancée. She lives child of Filipino emigrants, Pepe lives in Hong separately from him in Hong Kong. World War II. Kong and works as a "horse doctor." When Tony Monson Connie visits him in distress over her Tony is Pepe's brother. Tony studies in a When Connie, a wealthy young Filipino purported two navels, he learns of the strange woman, comes to Hong Kong to see Pepe Roman Catholic seminary. Like Pepe, Tony story of his friend Paco's relationship with grew up listening to romanticized stories of Monson, the son of an exiled Filipino rebel, Connie and her mother. Pepe listens to she asks him to perform surgery to correct their father's home in Manila but eventually accounts from the characters who move gave up on the dream and became more her two navels. Pepe's sense of reality grows between the Philippines and Hong Kong, unstable as he listens to Connie's stories and invested in his faith. concluding that they have all gone through sits in her surreal presence. Pepe then meets "the mirror" and have become ghosts of Connie's mother and learns of Connie's Doctor Monson themselves as a result. Pepe is engaged to relationship with Paco Texeira, a jazz Doctor Monson is Pepe and Tony's father. Rita Lopez. He has a habit of betting on horse bandleader whom Pepe has known since After an idyllic childhood in Manila, Doctor races. childhood. Paco tells Pepe the story of how Monson fought in the Philippine Revolution he was drawn to Connie's mother and Connie with General Aguinaldo and then with his Connie Escobar guerrilla forces against the U.S. Monson is while performing in Manila. After becoming Connie Escobar is a young newlywed woman obsessed with Connie, who he accuses of exiled to Hong Kong in the early 1900s, where from Manila. She tells people she has always he dreams of returning to an independent being evil and driven to torture him, Paco had two navels, although her mother, the returns to Hong Kong with a fatalistic belief Philippines. After the Philippines gain señora de Vidal, disputes the truth of her independence in 1946, Monson travels alone that he is helpless against Connie and her claim. After engaging in a tumultuous mother's allure. The novel ends with Pepe to his homeland for a month. The trip leaves emotional affair with Paco Texeira in Manila, him disillusioned, reticent, fatigued, and reflecting on how his father was similarly Connie travels to Hong Kong, purportedly disturbed upon returning from a trip home to prone to hallucination. He secretly takes following him. Connie brings plastic dolls as dissociative drugs while living in the small the Philippines; like Paco, Pepe's father is a offerings to an idol with two navels in a ghost of his former self. Now that the barrier Hong Kong apartment he shares with his Chinese temple. Paco describes Connie as sons. between worlds has been breached, Pepe evil, while Pepe suspects she is mentally ill. believes he isn't safe from the disillusion She is married to Macho Escobar and wears haunting Paco and his father. Paco Texeira expensive, elegant clothing and jewelry. Paco Texeira is a Filipino-Portuguese jazz Considered a classic of Filipino literature, The bandleader who lives in Hong Kong. As a The Señora de Vidal child, he becomes an expert on Filipino jazz Woman Who Had Two Navels is a dream-like The señora de Vidal is an elite Filipino woman by listening to Manila-based radio stations exploration of the themes of fatalism, ruin, who lives in a mansion in Manila. Connie is on a short-wave radio. During a six-month wealth disparity, postcolonial identity, parent her daughter. The señora kindles a close contract to play at clubs in Manila, Paco -child relationships, and the connection friendship with Paco Texeira while he is in starts a friendship with the señora de Vidal. between worlds. More than a hallucination, Manila. She is blunt when speaking and often He pulls away from her when people Connie's two navels are a symbolic surrounds herself with other high-society insinuate that their relationship is romantic or representation of how people can be torn people. When listening to live music, she eats sexual. He then develops unconsummated between colonial cultures, parents, will and sexual desire for Connie, Vidal's daughter. He gains The Woman Who Had Two Navels Symbols, leaves Manila after three months, returning to Abolish Allegory and Motifs his wife Mary and their children. Paco put an end to something Two Navels (Symbol) expresses a loss of will, telling Pepe that Beget The supposed condition Connie diagnoses Connie and Vidal have an evil strangle-hold bring something about or create something herself with is a symbolic manifestation of over him, and that he is destined to return to Navel her feeling of dual forces operating within her. them when they call. bellybutton In one interpretation, the two navels she Spectacles longs to rid herself of represent how she is Mary Texeira eyeglasses torn between a familial allegiance to the high Mary is Paco's wife. She lives in Hong Kong -society world of her cold, wealthy mother and is of mixed Portuguese and Filipino Cagey and the morally and spiritually virtuous world descent. Athletic and down-to-earth, Mary guarded and reluctant to give information; she escapes to in the Chinese quarter as a has a sarcastic attitude toward her husband, secretive teenager. Connie's inner turmoil emerges who is often openly rude to her in front of Primly again when she marries Macho, a man she Pepe. Pepe thinks of Paco and Mary as being formally and respectably eventually is drawn away from by her so similar that they are like twins. Mary Coy fascination with Paco. Connie's two secretly meets with señora de Vidal to gather feigned shyness so as to be alluring bellybuttons also symbolize the split identity information about her relationship with Paco; Midriff she inherits from the American and Spanish the two women bond over Mary's watercolor midsection of the torso; stomach colonial cultures that have informed her idea paintings, two of which the señora purchases. Eligible of herself as Filipino. Now severed, the She has children with Paco. suitable as a partner in marriage umbilical cords of the two nations have astonishment withered, leaving the bellybutton scars of Pepe's Mother Extreme surprise their formative connection. Lastly, Pepe Pepe's mother is a Filipina who lived in exile Cosmopolitan suggests to Paco that Connie's story about in Hong Kong. She dies before the events of involving people of different cultures having two navels is her way of saying that the story begin. Gleaming she believes a "guardian angel" is watching brightly shining over her, an interpretation that contextualizes Macho Escobar why she gives dolls as offerings to the idol Vexation Macho Escobar is Connie's husband. Connie with two navels in the Chinese-quarter annoyance tells the story of concealing the revelation of temple. her two navels from him by leaving Manila on Shabby their wedding day and fleeing to Hong Kong, worn-out; in bad condition due to use Short-Wave Radio (Symbol) where she asks Pepe to perform an operation. The short-wave radio Paco uses to listen to Connie's mother's account differs from The Woman Who Had Two Navels Themes Filipino jazz from Hong Kong is a symbol for Connie's, as the señora claims Connie has 1. Reality vs. Fantasy transmission between cultures. Although already been married to Macho for a year. 2. Parent-Child Relationships Paco never travels to Manila as a child or She also says that Macho has written letters 3. Postcolonial Filipino Identity young man, he listens to the radio so often in which he says there is nothing wrong 4. Ruin—the disintegration of something that he develops a sophisticated between them. once stable understanding of Filipino musicians' unique 5. Intercultural Transmission interpretation of American jazz; he also The Woman Who Had Two Navels Glossary 6. Wealth Disparity becomes familiar with all the local jazz clubs 7. Fatalism in Manila. That he receives this education Corrupt through the radio is symbolic of how cultural involved in dishonest practices for personal influences travel around the world, particularly in colonized territories like the self's terror of being judged as unattractive standard logic doesn't apply. With this Philippines and Hong Kong, and become and freakish by likening her twin bellybuttons metaphor, Joaquin emphasizes how Pepe's reinterpreted by locals. to pigs' eyes. encounters with Connie and Connie's mother, and Paco and Mary, lead him to conclude that Concha's Mansion (Symbol) Up to My Neck in Clubs and Charities he is not safe from the madness that has The lavish Manila mansion in which Concha (Metaphor) reached them and his father alike. Pepe has lives is a symbol of elevated social status. While talking to Pepe about her history, not been to Manila himself, but he now Constantly surrounding herself with guests in Connie says that she could see herself inhabits a world where fantasy has mixed her grand home, Connie's mother reifies her "getting older, painting [her]self thicker—a with reality to a startling degree. social position as a powerful and wealthy regular hard-boiled veteran, up to my neck in woman. Her home contrasts with the clubs and charities." In this metaphor, Connie The Woman Who Had Two Navels Irony neighboring slums to which most citizens of illustrates the overwhelming amount of Only One Navel (Situational Irony) Manila are confined. Initially enamored with responsibilities she took on volunteering by Vidal and her environment, Paco later finds Having spoken with Connie and believed her describing herself as up to her neck, as himself disgusted by the indifference people when she said she has two navels, Pepe though the clubs and charities were a of her class seem to have for the Monson meets Concha. She is quick to physical liquid threatening to drown her. impoverished people in the rest of the city. correct Connie's account, informing Pepe that her daughter is eighteen, not thirty, and that Laugh at the Little Goose (Metaphor) she is quite sure Connie has only one The Woman Who Had Two Navels bellybutton. In this instance of situational Metaphors and Similes When Concha recounts how Connie left boarding school after a scandal involving her irony, the surreal atmosphere Connie creates Eve of the Apple (Metaphor) father's embezzlement of public funds is dispelled by her mother's no-nonsense When recounting to Pepe the story of how became a news story, the image of her attitude. As a result, both Pepe's and the she discovered she had two navels, Connie distraught daughter evokes amusement reader's understanding of what is and isn't describes the innocence she had before she rather than concern: "For a moment I was true becomes muddled. learned the shameful truth about her body: "I tempted to laugh at the little goose." In this was the Eve of the apple at five years old: that metaphor, Concha refers to her daughter as a Remembering That House He Had Never was when I found out." In this metaphor, "little goose" to disparage the girl's moral Seen (Situational Irony) Connie emphasizes the state of blissful standpoint and convey that she believes Pepe Monson grows up hearing elaborate ignorance she occupied by comparing herself Connie was being silly and irrational. stories of what his father's childhood home in to Eve, the Biblical figure of the first woman, Manila was like, developing his own memory who was expelled from the unspoiled The Mirror's Cracked World (Metaphor) of a place he has never been to. Because the paradise of Eden when she ate from the tree At the end of the novel, Pepe considers how house lives in the realm of fantasy for Pepe, it of knowledge of good and evil. Paco and his father have both lost their takes on such weight in his mind that he former selves upon visiting the newly remembers a house he has never seen "more Like Pigs' Eyes (Simile) independent Philippines. Explaining Pepe's vividly... than any of the houses he had While telling Pepe the story of how she grew thoughts, the narrator writes, "The mirror’s actually lived in." In this instance of up concealing her two navels from scrutiny, cracked world was safe no longer; was situational irony, the expectation that a Connie relates the horror she felt when it perilous with broken glass, teeming with person would remember something they have became fashionable for women to wear ghosts." In this metaphor, the mirror—a seen is undermined by the paradoxical truth clothing that exposed their midriffs. Had she reference to the mirror portal between worlds that a place constructed by fantasy can followed the trend, Connie says her navels that Alice enters in Lewis Carroll's appear more vivid in the mind's eye than a "would have been like pigs' eyes peering out." novel Through the Looking-Glass—is a now- place one has inhabited. In this simile, Connie illustrates her younger broken barrier holding back a reality in which  although his eyes were open and his mouth the stranger's footfalls he had been alarmed Doll Offering to the Idol With Two Navels smiled." In this example of visual imagery, to hear in his father’s room when his father (Dramatic Irony) Joaquin describes the shocking zombie-like should still have been in Manila." In this During their emotional affair in Manila, physical appearance Pepe's father has taken example of auditory imagery, Joaquin Connie brings Paco to the Chinese quarter, on since becoming a "ghost" of his former immerses the reader in Pepe's point of view where she buys dolls she offers to an idol self while re-visiting his homeland. by describing the distressing sound of an with two bellybuttons in a temple. While her unknown person's feet walking in an actions are opaque to Paco, the reader Arrowy Silhouette of a Pagoda (Visual apartment that should have been empty. understands that she first discovered she Imagery) was different for having two navels when she As Connie and Paco's relationship deepens The Woman Who Had Two Navels Literary saw that her childhood doll only had one. At while remaining strained, Connie brings him Elements the time, Connie threw the doll in a pond. In to the Chinese quarter of Manila. Joaquin Genre this instance of dramatic irony, the reader writes that there are "wet walls, wet cobbles, Psychological fiction understands what Paco doesn't: the offering bridges arching over stagnant canals, craggy Setting and Context of the doll has a symbolic connection to tenements dripping rain into tight twisting The novel is set in Hong Kong and Manila Connie's initial discovery and reaction as a streets, a raggedness of black roofs and the following the declaration of Philippine child. arrowy silhouette of a pagoda soaring in the sovereignty in 1946 rainy moonlight." In this example of visual Narrator and Point of View "Go Away! Leave Me Alone!" (Situational imagery, Joaquin enhances the air of mystery The story is told by an unnamed third-person Irony) and foreboding that surrounds Connie by omniscient narrator; the point of view stays Toward the end of the novel, Pepe reflects on describing the dark, damp, and impoverished largely with Pepe with some shifts to how his father returned from his visit to area to which she brings Paco. supporting characters Manila with the same lethargy, despair, and Tone and Mood irritability as Paco does. Just as Paco tells The Babble of Departing Folk Faded The tone of the story is noir-like and Pepe to leave him alone and to go away, Remotely (Auditory Imagery) nostalgic; the mood is dreamy and lamenting Pepe's father once shouted the same when After two weeks without seeing or hearing Protagonist and Antagonist Pepe tried to learn what his father had from Connie, Paco leaves the club one night Pepe Monson is the protagonist; antagonists experienced while finally revisiting his to find her yellow convertible waiting for him include Connie, Connie's mother, and Paco homeland. In this instance of situational irony, on the street. Everything else in his periphery Major Conflict Pepe observes the eerie phenomenon of two suddenly becomes meaningless, melting into The major conflict in the novel is that Pepe Filipino men close to him becoming ghosts of the background as "the babble of departing does not know how to relate to his father and their former selves upon visiting a country folk fade[s] remotely." In this example of his friend after they have been that existed for them in fantasy. auditory imagery, Joaquin immerses the psychologically transformed during their reader in Paco's point of view by describing visits to the newly independent Philippines. The Woman Who Had Two Navels Imagery how Connie's presence is such a powerful Climax draw on Paco that any sound not coming The story reaches its climax when Pepe His Eyes Were Open and His Mouth Smiled from her fades into the same background as concludes that his father and Paco, as (Visual Imagery) visuals unrelated to her. Filipinos in exile, have turned into "ghosts" of In contrast to Concha's memory of Pepe's their former selves because of the father as the figure of dignity and authority he disillusionment and madness they suffered had once been in Manila, the narrator The Stranger's Footfalls (Auditory Imagery) upon visiting their former homeland. comments on how Pepe had earlier that day At the end of the novel, Pepe reflects on how brought his father lunch to find "the old man his father returned from his month in the The Woman Who Had Two Navels Essay slumped forward in his chair, unconscious, Philippines a changed man. He "remember[s] Questions What is the significance of the two establishes that the women are of a the house in Binondo after the navels Connie claims to have in The privileged, wealthy class, far more Philippines achieves independence in Woman Who Had Two Navels? affluent than Pepe, Paco, and their 1946, he finds only a foundation and a Connie Escovar's self-diagnosed respective family members. The dazzling staircase extending to nowhere. The condition of having two navels is the outfits—out of place in his cramped Hong bleak image of his ruined home multifaceted symbol shining at the center Kong apartment—distract Pepe when he devastates Doctor Monson, and he of the novel. Representing Connie's meets Connie and Concha, and his returns to Hong Kong himself ruined. feeling that dual forces are operating fiancée Rita Lopez is similarly taken with Having lost the hope that kept him going, within her, the two navels she claims to Concha's embroidered dragon dress. The he becomes dependent on opium and on have can be interpreted in several ways. luxury the women display denotes their his sons. Like his house, Doctor Monson In one sense, Connie's two navels speak affluence and the power that comes with becomes a ruin of his former self. to the emotional distress she feels as a having elevated social standing. The sensitive person torn between an allure the women possess is inseparable What is unique about Paco's musical allegiance to the wealthy but spiritually from the lives of privilege they live. In background? bankrupt high-society world of her contrast to Paco's tiny apartment full of Although he is the bandleader of Tex's parents and the humble, virtuous world drying clothes, Concha lives in a Manila Tune Technicians, a band that she escapes to in the Chinese quarter mansion surrounded by adoring high- specializes in Manila jazz, Paco learned when she is a teenager. Her inner turmoil society types. Initially drawn in by a life the Philippines-influenced music style is also present in her relationship with so different from his own, Paco later while growing up in Hong Kong. As the Macho, an upper-class man who lacks comes to think of Connie and her mother son of a Filipino piano player, Paco the cultural authenticity of Paco, a as "evil" beings bent on watching men developed an interest in music at a young musician with whom Connie becomes like him "twist." The women's supposed age. Through his childhood and obsessed. Connie's dual bellybuttons can evilness is bound up in their wealth, adolescence, he listened to jazz also be interpreted as a physical which allows them to exercise power performances broadcast over short- manifestation of her Filipino identity. As over people like Paco, who finds himself wave radio from Manila to Hong Kong. By a people colonized by Spain and America, so helplessly enticed that he is willing to listening to the Manila-style music, Filipinos live with the severed umbilical abandon the humble life he leads with whose unique character results from the cords of the two nations that have Mary. Philippines having been colonized by the influenced the culture through colonial United States (where jazz originated), imposition. In this way, Connie's two What is the significance of Pepe's Paco develops a sophisticated ear and navels represent not just her personal father's childhood home in Binondo? becomes familiar with the local jazz struggles with identity formation but Pepe's father's childhood home in Manila clubs of Manila. Having educated himself those of anyone trying to define is a symbolic representation of his ruined in this way, Paco can travel on contract to themselves in a culture that has been dream of returning to an enchanted past. Manila as an adult and play regularly at historically destabilized by foreign Having chosen exile in Hong Kong after the same clubs he listened to broadcasts invaders. participating in the failed revolution in the from as a child. Ultimately, Paco's Philippines, Doctor Monson raises his peculiar ability to master a music style Why does Joaquin repeatedly sons on stories of returning to the originating in a country he had never emphasize Connie's and Concha's homeland once it gains independence visited is emblematic of how cultural clothing? from the U.S. He shares such glowing products are reinterpreted in different Throughout the novel, Joaquin draws the descriptions of his childhood home that cultural contexts, particularly in reader's attention to the fur coats, pearl Pepe comes to remember a house he has colonized territories like the Philippines necklaces, gold earrings, and silk dresses never seen more vividly than he can and Hong Kong, as they are transmitted Connie and her mother wear. By recall the places he has actually across cultures. emphasizing their clothing, Joaquin inhabited. When Doctor Monson visits What significant role does fatalism play in The Woman Who Had Two Navels? As one of the novel's major themes, the concept of fatalism plays a fundamental role in The Woman Who Had Two Navels. The theme arises most explicitly in Joaquin's portrayals of Paco and Connie. For Connie, fatalism—a belief that events are inevitable because they have been predetermined—is bound up in her two navels. As a condition she conceives of herself as having had since childhood, the twin bellybuttons are a physical mark that dooms her to a life of being torn between conformity and rebellion, loyalty and betrayal. At the same time, Connie makes offerings to the idol with two navels in the temple, suggesting that there may be a more hopeful side to her belief that things are predetermined. Rather than resign herself to misery, Connie appears to pray that a higher power is watching over her and ensuring her safety—a "guardian angel," as Pepe suggests. Paco's more pessimistic fatalism emerges in his belief that his attraction to Connie is determined by evil forces beyond his control. Rather than think of himself as someone with enough will to resist his attraction to Connie, Paco tells Pepe that he is doomed to return to her when she calls, claiming that Connie and her mother have a stranglehold on him. Ultimately, both Paco and Connie think of themselves are being led toward lives that have been laid out for them; they merely have different attitudes toward accepting whatever is in store for them.