Literature

under
US
Colonialism
INTENSIFICATION OF SOCIAL
CONSCIOUSNES
Continuation…
Reported by : AILA NICOLE M. PALMAS
BSED MATH 2B
 Banaag at Sikat
Its discursiveness tends to
get in the way of swifter
pacing, but satirical wit
leavens the book with
touches of humor.
 Banaag at Sikat
It is to this wit that the novels
owes its success in exposing
the greed and corruption of
the ruling class,
Banaag at Sikat
leaving the readers vivid
character portraits of
philanderers, cuckolds
and mistresses.
 Banaag at Sikat
Closely related to Rizal’s
Noli and Fili, Banaag at
Sikat also depicted
Filipino customs and traits
that impede social
change.
 Banaag at Sikat
The shortcomings of the
novel to give flesh to
socialist concepts because
the author failed to find
scenes and situations that
with dramatize them.
 Banaag at Sikat
Its defect notwithstanding,
Banaag at Sikat is a
landmark; showing
subsequent authors that
the social novel under the
new conditions.
Banaag at Sikat
created by US colonialism
could focus attention on
social inequities that had
been sharpened by the
advent of modernization.
Faustino Aguilar
(1882-1953)
More sophisticated than
Santos, he is also a social
novelist who wrote
“Pinaglahuan”
 Pinaglahuan
Aguilar demonstrates a
firm grasp of the concept
of class struggle and the
broad understanding of the
historical forces that
determines social change.
 Pinaglahuan
Like Banaag at Sikat,
Pinaglahuan used to
“Poor-Boy-Rich-Girl” plot
to put across its historical
message.
 Pinaglahuan
Aguilar has been able to
particularize the message
in terms of exploitation of
workers by capitalist, the
feudal family system,
 Pinaglahuan
the blindness of religious
belief and the
subservience of the
Filipino ruling class to
American civil officials and
military men.
 Lihim ng Isang
Pulo (1926)
The novel is an impressive
achievement in which
Aguilar experiments
successfully with a diction
purged of Spanish – loan –
words in telling a
 Lihim ng Isang
Pulo (1926)
pre conquest love story
that mirrors class struggles
in Philippine society in the
1920’s.
Ang Pangginggera
(The Pangingge Gambler
-1912)
It represents Santos the
poet at his best.
Ang Pangginggera
(The Pangingge Gambler
-1912)
The poem speaks about
the prevalence of gambling
in Philippine society during
American occupation.
Sakdal (Radical)
1930
An opened forum tabloid
for anti colonial ideas was
to rally Filipinos seeking an
alternative to the colonial
administration.
Sakdal (Radical)
1930
Benigno R. Ramos(1892-
1945) was the founder and
publisher of Sakdal.
Sakdal (Radical)
1930
Ramos, in his early works,
showed himself to be a
highly innovative poet with
a natural concern for the
oppressed but inarticulate.
 In 1935, the Sakdalistas in
19 towns of Luzon rose in
revolt. This revolt was only
one of the many eruption of
violence during the decade.
Proletarian Literature

From the U.S., it was the

center of discussion of
many literary periodic in
which it reach local writers.
Jose Garcia Villa
He continued to be
regarded with awe as some
kind of literary dictator, but
his “Art of Art’s Sake”
creative philosophy was
already being challenged
by young writers
Jose Garcia Villa
whose consciousness had
been shaken by the social
unrest around them and
who had begun to look for
an alternative critical
orientation.
 The essays on letters by
Salvador P. Lopez
(1911-1993), later to
become part of Literature
and Society (1940),
offered such an
alternative.
Salvador P. Lopez
He called the attention of
the vacuousness of Villa’s
aestheticism in one of his
essays.
Salvador P. Lopez
Lopez’ critical ideas were to
serve as basis for the
socially conscious “call to
arms” when the Philippine
Writers League was
organized in 1939.
Manuel E. Arguilla
He turn away from the
idyllic countryside he
painted in his Nagrebcan
*stories and write about
rebellious peasants and
desperate workers
Manuel E. Arguilla
in such
pieces as “Epilogue of
Revolt” and “Caps and
Lower Case”.
Brigido Batungbakal
He is a member of the
avant-garde Tagalog writing
group Panitikan, rejected
the temptations of avant-
gardism and focused his
efforts on making
Brigido Batungbakal
readers aware of the
problems of their society,
such as “vote buying” in
“Ngayong Gabi
(Tonight)”and labor capital
conflict in “Aklasan (Strikes”.
The Pacific War broke out in
1941, bringing the Japanese
to the Philippines. Exerting
every effort to de-emphasize
English.
The Japanese authorities
pushed for Tagalog as the
national language.
English writing came to a
standstill, and the fact that
Panitikan writers were the
ones running literary outlet
allowed to operate.
Liwayway (Dawn)
This literary piece made
possible the modernism to
enter Tagalog writing.
 Carlo Bulosan
(1913-1956)
A Filipino peasant boy who
had landed in the U.S. at
the start of the Great
Depression. He taught
himself how to write.
 Carlo Bulosan
(1913-1956)
He had gone only as far as
high school when he left for
the U.S., and in that country
he experienced
discrimination against non-
Caucasians,
 Carlo Bulosan
(1913-1956)
exploitation of ignorant
immigrant workers and
violent repression of ethnic
minorities.
 Carlo Bulosan
(1913-1956)
His quasiautobiographical
book America is in the Heart
(1946) was a painful record
of the experience of a
Filipino who did find his
American dream.
 Stevan Javellana
In his writing “Without
Seeing the Dawn” (1947),
he relates the story of
Carding whom the atrocities
of war brutalized.
 Philippine literature, at the
end of the period of U.S.,
colonialism, had attained
identity as national literature,
largely as a result of the
patriotic and resistance
literature produced during
early years of American rule.
The growth of English writing
signaled the assertiveness
of the Americanize
intellectuals being turned out
by the universities.
 For a while, it seems that
English might lead writers
away from Philippine literary
heritage until 20th century
through Spain and
vernacular literature.
 However, realities in
Philippine society and
outside pressed hard on the
writer’s consciousness, and
some of the best writing they
turned out came to grips with
those realities.
Thank you!