The Warning Voice, Essay Example

Within the literary world for short story authors in which focus on the trials and tribulations of Filipino immigrants. Marianne Villanueva’s, Mayor of the Roses, a collection of short stories that focuses on the clashing appeal, ugliness, and brutality the Philippines, her native land. More specifically it covers the stories of identity in which families are preoccupied with cultural fixations, and the value of religion, community, tradition, and family once they clash with Western culture. In many of stories within this collection, most of the stories were meant to be warnings for the protagonists, in so much trying to protect them from past and the situations that become apparent.

Looking in the stories of “The Bad Thing”, and “Lennox Hill” they tell the story of the protagonist, Teresa and her sister. From the start, Teresa had a haunting inclination that she would hit someone in her new car. The thought often came to her when would drive her son to school in the morning. However the accident actually came when she was on another side of town. She was distracted by a sign for the parking garage, and when she tried to look for help, she was overcome with an awareness of not knowing where she was. She hit “Hendrick” who was riding his bike on the sidewalk, in front of the entrance to the parking garage. She was overcome with panic, as though she was expecting an accident, didn’t believe that it actually occurred. Her first actual warning sign came from the parking garage, but the “bad thing” that kept haunting her was her hitting the young man. Yet, really she worried that maybe something worse was going to happen. “Thinking the bad thing she felt sure was about to happen had happened, and suddenly, something even worse, the real Bad Thing, came along?” (Villanueva 157) The protagonist always had a sinking feeling that something bad was going to happen, a warning she often received. She considered her sister the “Bad Thing”, unlike the protagonist, her sister was married with a family and had a very lucrative career. Everything her sister did made her ill. Even while her sister was sick, she continued to live her life, but then she died. The protagonist, Teresa felt the bad thing was her sister, but in death she was worse, because she saw her sister everywhere. The clairvoyant told her that her sister’s spirit would follow her wherever she went. Although she realized her sister wasn’t a bad thing, and it was the hospital, she still felt dread of knowing that her accident she expected for months.

For Teresa, in telling her story, was helping to discern, how she came to the point of having notions that something bad was always going to happen, or even something worse. “For months, she realized she had expected it to happen.” (Villanueva 156) She kept receiving warning signs, a thought and her sister’s face. She was dealing with a lot, when her sister was alive she felt insecurity, of being compared to her twin sister. She would disappear during family functions, and it became apparent to her mother, as they didn’t bother to inform her of her sister’s third pregnancy. All the while she was still trying for baby number two. The clairvoyant gave her some liquid to rub on her belly that was supposed to be good, but she was hesitant in giving it to her dying sister. In “Lennox Hill”, it provides more details on the story of her sister’s death. She was overcome with emotions as she came to New York, expecting to say her last goodbyes. They weren’t on the best of terms, as they drifted when they came to the states. Deciding to settle on opposite sides of the country. Her sister had plastic surgery to change her ethnic look, and married an Englishmen. They didn’t always agree, and there weren’t really on speaking terms. Knowing how she died, and seeing her body is what made her heart heavy. “I sob because I realize this is something I had not been able to do for many years, and it has to be now, now in these circumstances.” (Villanueva 94) She was emotional after finally seeing her sister. Recounting the memories of the week that she passed, she recounted all the visitors, the nurses and staff, and her family that came to the hospital to see her sister. All along, the protagonist is warned that her sister’s spirit is there with her, she is following her, she is going to die.

From then, she always felt that something bad was going to occur. It was when her brother in law came did she confide in him what was going on; she was emotional, but he was unmoved. Instead he sat silently as she cried. She suddenly felt better, as though just telling someone made her better. When she thought she was going to die, her doctor assured her that it was just the flu. From that diagnosis it seemed welcomed, she felt alive, and she could feel the earth under her feet.  “She only knows that now she refuses to be sucked under the ground and no longer fears to crack the surfaces of whatever it is she is walking on.” (Villanueva 160) The warnings from everyone, was really a wakeup call to live life. In an ironic twist, she did have a worse crash. Just like the person she hit, she refused any medical care and instead drove home, and didn’t look back. The significance of these warnings from the clairvoyant and her own mind is crucial to her mental health. She already feels the earth slipping from under her feet; she cannot deal with knowing that a bad thing is coming to occur. She feels these warnings are first to warn her of her sister’s fate, but also her sister warning her that something bad is going to happen. She lets these warnings consume her to the point of reaching out for help. She realizes that in letting her emotions flow to respectively a stranger that will listen, helps her in realizing she is still alive, and she cannot dwell on things that haven’t happened yet.

References

Villanueva, Marianne. (2005) Mayor of the Roses. Oxford, Ohio: Miami University Press.