Cruz Lucero's The Death Of Fray Salvador Montano, Conquistador Of Negros

1. A. Two waiters are waiting to close up their café for the night. They only have one customer left-an old man, deaf, drunk, and seemingly peaceful. He’s a regular at the café, and the waiters seem to know all about him. Apparently, the old man attempted to hang himself the previous week, but was stopped mid-suicide by his niece. The older waiter and younger waiter debate the possible cause.

Meanwhile, a soldier walks by with a young woman, presumably out beyond curfew. The waiters wonder idly if he will get picked up by the guard, but decide that it doesn’t matter, as long as he gets what he wants from the girl.

The old man asks for another drink. And the younger waiter goes to serve him, disdainfully commenting that the old man should

A. This article attempts to draw out the intertextuality of Filipino fictionist Rosario Cruz Lucero’s “The Death of Fray Salvador Montano, Conquistador of Negros”-one of the stories in her collection Feast and Famine: Stories of Negros (2003)-by studying it from the perspective of the reader’s “circular memory” (Barthes 1975). Following the introduction are sections of varying lengths that create conjunctions between the story and other works or concepts drawn mainly from the fields of history, theology, and postcolonial literary criticism. The first section discusses the interplay of conversion and subversion in the story within the context of the conquista espiritual on which was founded Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines. The second and third sections briefly delve into some aspects of the author’s creative technique as evidenced in the story. The fourth section links the pasyon-singing incident in the story with a historical study that focuses in part on the pasyon. The final section reads the colonial relationships depicted in the story in terms of Thiru Kandiah’s concepts of symbiosis and perceptual diversity. Through these varied approaches, the article hopes to demonstrate the richness of the reading experience offered by Cruz-Lucero’s story.

“The Summer Solstice”, also known as “Tatarin” or “Tadtarin”, is a short story written by Filipino National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin. In addition to being regarded as one of Joaquin’s most acclaimed literary

“The Death of Fray Salvador Montano” begins with Fray Montano’s being haunted by accounts of his parishioners mating like animals in order to ward off the pestilence caused by these creatures. He envisioned an idyllic life of prayer upon arriving in strange shores, Fray Montano was given a glimpse of the troubles he would face as hundreds of natives lined up to welcome him while singing “a hymn only they could recognize in voices that God had not created for the Grgorian chant.” Civilizing work would indeed be far more difficult in a “savage island” where the hegemonic power of the Church and State were continually questioned from below: “he had found that in this town, the truth sprouted many heads, and whatever explanation he gave would be as valid as the many versions it would give birth to overnight over bamboo cups of