Breaking Down the Dawn Breaking: A Formalist Analysis on a Literary Text

INTRODUCTION

The short story, "Dawn Breaking" is the literary text under study. This is included on Macario Pineda's anthology Love in the Rice Field and Other Short Stories which is retold in English by Soledad Reyes. This is an interesting story about a dying soldier whose last moments are spent in reminiscences of his past. The impression that one draws from the close reading of the text is the narrative technique that the author employs to set the thematic interpretation of the story. If we examine this in terms of formalist approach we see the story dramatizes through the formal features of the text-- plot, structure, and narrative which details the situation the soldier finds himself in and his actual condition. Hence, these literary elements in "Dawn Breaking" can provide us a fertile and challenging ground for a formalist analysis. In order to examine Pineda's "Dawn Breaking" from a formalist viewpoint, an overview of Formalism should prove useful in clarifying this criticism as a literary approach. Jose Garcia Villa encouraged the aesthetic principle of "art for art's sake" which espouses the idea that the very artfulness of an art can suffice alone its own justification. This principle has from one point to another been crucial to Formalism. Rather than giving emphasis to the relationship of text to its reality, author, and readers, formalist analysis draws its conclusion mainly from the text itself. Significantly,  through this study I want to show that the works of Filipino writers are worth studying for.  

ANALYSIS

The story begins with a bleak image of that a nightmare, which has seemingly hinted something significant about the situation of the unnamed protagonist. The word 'nightmare' appears twice right at the beginning however the meaning seems to change with its subsequent use. As these passages reveal: 

[This is a nightmare. But I will wake up. I have merely fallen asleep. And I am having a nightmare.]

[This is a nightmare. A monstrous lie. A horrible lie the likes of which I have not seen in my life.]

Notice that the former simply describes the literal sense of the nightmare. Words like wake up and fallen asleep support the immediate denotation of the word. While the latter, shows that words have connotative power as this time the 'nightmare' invokes an idea in addition to its primary meaning. The nightmare on the first line is about a bad dream he wishes to escape by waking up but the nightmare on the second line is about worse than a bad dream, a 'monstrous' lie which he have not seen ever. The use of this intense word right from the start of the story foreshadows something about what will happen to the protagonist. 

The stress of war exacerbates the universal human need for a sense of idealism, escape, and a vision for fulfillment. And for the soldier, this need fixates on his preoccupation with the past. In the story, Pineda employs two parallel plots that deal with the experiences of the soldier both in the past and the present. The first narrative corresponds with the point of view of the soldier who gives the readers a glimpse into his real inner feelings especially about his past life in the village before the war breaks out. The other one corresponds with the limited narrator who describes the present situation of the soldier particularly his physical condition while he is hovering between life and death in the bleak forest. And here, the moon is the common link between the soldier's past and present as it appears both in the forest and in the village. 

Perhaps the most striking part of the story is the consistent use of upper case letter to a common noun. This deliberation of capitalizing the word "moon" carries an interpretative significance otherwise the author would not use this kind of grammatical deviation for no apparent reason.

[How lovely the Moon is on this night of one's impending death!]

In all the above extracts, we can infer that the word "moon" is an important concept in the story. The moon is presented as an imagery in literature and in the story, it seems to embrace its universal representation of the rhythm of time and the phases of human circumstances. The passage of time that the moon is still beaming up in the sky symbolizes the passage of the soldier's life in the world. This is further justified by this line: 

[ In the fading light, he stares at the face now shrouded with the pallor of death. And from the shadow's lips comes what sounds like  a deep sigh. ]

The moon also symbolizes hope. This is to say that as long as the moon is still there with its radiance reflecting through his eyes means that he is still breathing a life. Then the last paragraph of the story ends with:

[  The light from the Moon has begun to fade. And the rays of the sun heralding the coming of dawn begin to flood the world. ]

This paragraph contains two sentences with each having a word "begin".  In the first sentence, it is in the form of present progressive tense. This indicates that the light of the moon has started fading but not yet totally faded. On the second sentence, it pertains to the break out of the dawn. Here, we witness the beginning of the two things almost at the same time: The beginning when the light of the moon fades and the beginning when the coming of dawn floods the world. At this point, let's find out the symbolism of dawn since it plays a huge part on the story. The "dawn" appears only once on the entire text despite the fact that it is the word on behalf the title. The dawn also appears as a symbolism in literature which suggests a notion of illumination and hope, the beginning of a new day and thus an another chance to live another life. But in the story, the dawn carries a different meaning compared to its usual representation. The dawn instead of being a symbol of hope becomes the indication of death. Looking back from the last paragraph of the story, "the coming of dawn begin to flood the world" means "the coming of death or after the coming of death". 

CONCLUSION

The study of literature is and always will be a worthwhile and rewarding endeavor. The idea alone rests upon the dictum that literature is the expression of one's culture and experience. Through literature we learn the innermost feelings and thoughts of people, the truest and most real part of themselves.  Thus we gain an understanding not only of others, but more importantly of ourselves and of life itself (Garcia & Barranco, 1980). However, understanding the depth and craftsmanship of a literary text poses many challenges especially when interpretations do not meet at a common point. But the significant polarization of 'socially committed' and 'art for art's sake' dictums could be a departure of critics and scholars alike from the confinement that literature is its own reward and oriented solely to subjective interpretations. The result is a notion of criticism that attempts to establish the relevance of literature beyond the arena of cultural understanding. As Reyes notes in her writings, Earlier texts were heavy on history but inadequate as a way of training the students to do textual analysis. This imbalance between the content and the form can be solved through Formalism. After all, the goal of this literary theory is to examine a literary text from a refreshing perspective, viewing the formal aspects of the texts hitherto unexplored. 

Bibliography

Pineda, Macario. "Dawn Breaking" Macario Pineda's Love in the Rice Field and Other Short Stories. Anvil Publishing Inc., 2016, pp. 13-20.

Dobie, Ann. "Formalism" Theory into Practice: An Introductiom to Literary Criticism, Third Edition. Cengage Learning, 2011, pp. 33-51. PDF file.

Reyes, Soledad. “Philippine Literary Studies, 1970-85: Some Preliminary Notes Salungat: a Soledad S. Reyes. Vibal Piblishing House, Inc., 2012, pp. 20-38. PDF file. 

Reyes, Soledad. "Theme in the Stories of Macario Pineda" Philippine Studies. 1971.  Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42632115. Accessed 22 October 2018. 

Dizon, Anacleto. "Macario Pineda" Philippine Studies. Ateneo de Manila University, 1970, pp. 350-363. PDF file.