PLOT

- What is the plot of the story?

- Why is the plot important in knowing the story?
- Is there an Artistic Unity in the story?
- Is there a quality of suspense in the story?
- What is the ending of the story? How did you find it?
- How is the plot structured?

CHARACTERS
- What type of characters are the characters in the story?
o Protagonist – ROUND
o Nasser
o Payatot – FLAT
o Gary –
o Raul
o Shirley –
o Protagonist’s Father
o Holdaper
o Aling Maring
o Pulis
o Lito
o Rico
o Ador
- Why are the characters interesting?
- Real Consequences and Imagined Consequences
- FLAT, ROUND, STOCK, STATIC, DEVELOPING

THEME
- What is the controlling idea of the short story?

SETTING
- Place and Time

POINT OF VIEW
- How is the story told?
o First-person POV

HUMOR AND IRONY

- The swearing of the protagonist’s office boss despite of him practicing
religious habits by reading the Bible in their morning prayers.
- ‘Maskin dugay na kami nga magkatupad sang balay, normal na sa amon
ang magsuspetsahanay, me gira man o wala.’ (Dark Humor)
 - Baluktot na Tagalog
- Protagonist wishing he could just be his boss’ dog (Dark Humor)

SYMBOL AND ALLEGORY

- Discrimination of religion (pork incident, Abu Sayyaf)
- Hopelessness of the people of Mindanao on the war
- False declaration of peace
- Similarity of situation in Mindanao and Luzon
- Struggle for freedom and peace

The situation of Nasser symbolizes today’s reality of discrimination of religion. The

protagonist’s decision of disposing the gun instead of taking advantage of it can
also symbolize that he refuses to act what other people would think people like him
would act. The police not finding the gun in his bag could then be a symbol of other
people being proven wrong of the characters of people discriminated by race,
religion, etc. The ending could symbolize at least two things. It could either mean
that he decided not to live anymore and found his ideal Mindanao as his heaven or
he could still be looking forward to his ideal Mindanao to become true in the near
future.

In the short story, the symbols used are typically found in an urban set-up like
Manila. It gives the readers familiarity while presenting it in a different perspective.

Theme: The struggle for survival in the urban life in the perspective of a victim of
the war in Mindanao