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    He Bread of Salt Is Perhaps NVM Gonzalez' Most Famous and Most Anthologized Short Story. It

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    shanecelladora
    1) The story tells of a young unnamed narrator who falls in love with Aida, the niece of a rich Spaniard, but their class divide prevents them from being together. 2) The narrator dreams of becoming a renowned violin player to make himself worthy of Aida. He gets a chance to perform at a party at Aida's house but embarrasses himself by greedily eating pastries in front of her. 3) Though the story tries to comment on both class division and young love, it fails to fully develop either theme, leaving the story feeling shallow and simplistic. However, some descriptions, like that of making pan de sal bread, are vivid.

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    He Bread of Salt Is Perhaps NVM Gonzalez' Most Famous and Most Anthologized Short Story. It

    Uploaded by

    shanecelladora
    30 views2 pages
    1) The story tells of a young unnamed narrator who falls in love with Aida, the niece of a rich Spaniard, but their class divide prevents them from being together. 2) The narrator dreams of becoming a renowned violin player to make himself worthy of Aida. He gets a chance to perform at a party at Aida's house but embarrasses himself by greedily eating pastries in front of her. 3) Though the story tries to comment on both class division and young love, it fails to fully develop either theme, leaving the story feeling shallow and simplistic. However, some descriptions, like that of making pan de sal bread, are vivid.

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    The Bread of Salt

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    He Bread of Salt

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    1) The story tells of a young unnamed narrator who falls in love with Aida, the niece of a rich Spaniard, but their class divide prevents them from being together. 2) The narrator dreams of becoming a renowned violin player to make himself worthy of Aida. He gets a chance to perform at a party at Aida's house but embarrasses himself by greedily eating pastries in front of her. 3) Though the story tries to comment on both class division and young love, it fails to fully develop either theme, leaving the story feeling shallow and simplistic. However, some descriptions, like that of making pan de sal bread, are vivid.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    30 views2 pages

    He Bread of Salt Is Perhaps NVM Gonzalez' Most Famous and Most Anthologized Short Story. It

    Uploaded by

    shanecelladora
    1) The story tells of a young unnamed narrator who falls in love with Aida, the niece of a rich Spaniard, but their class divide prevents them from being together. 2) The narrator dreams of becoming a renowned violin player to make himself worthy of Aida. He gets a chance to perform at a party at Aida's house but embarrasses himself by greedily eating pastries in front of her. 3) Though the story tries to comment on both class division and young love, it fails to fully develop either theme, leaving the story feeling shallow and simplistic. However, some descriptions, like that of making pan de sal bread, are vivid.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    he Bread of Salt is perhaps NVM Gonzalez most famous and most anthologized short story.

    It
    tells the tale of an unnamed narrator, on the cusp of youth, as he falls in love (or, to be more
    accurate, infatuated) with a young girl named Aida who is the niece of a rich Spaniard. Aida,
    however, is out of his league as she is the rich while the narrator is poor. Class division then is
    the obstacle that our narrator must overcome in order to be worthy of Aida and his tool in doing
    so would be his violin which he dreams would propel him to great heights by being an adept and
    world-renowned player of the instrument, only then will he be worthy of Aida.
    The critical moment in the story occurred when the narrator was invited by a friend of his to play
    in a band for a big and gallant occasion in Aidas household. As a custom, hired musicians arent
    allowed to eat until the festivities are about to end and so our narrator, during the course of the
    festivities, could only observe Aida while playing his violin, desperate to impress his beloved
    with his musical ability. In the end, the musicians are finally allowed to eat and they do so with
    uninhibited glee, overwhelmed by the bounty in front of them and our narrator is no exception.
    Seeing globes of egg yolk-like pastries, he abandons himself to gluttony and eats ravenously
    while also wrapping such pastries in tissue paper so that he can bring it home. Then, to his
    horror, he realizes that Aida is observing him and, to further his embarrassment, proceeds to tell
    him that she will wrap up a parcel of food for him to bring home. This incident caused him to
    retreat to the veranda where he threw the tissue-wrapped egg yolk-like pastries to the darkness
    beyond. Walking home, he stopped by the local bakery where the baking of the pan de sal, bread
    of salt, comforts him.
    I first read this story in high school when it was assigned as a required reading for our English
    literature class and this story never stuck with me because I didnt really find it remarkable. Now,
    reading it years after our first encounter, I am reminded of what I felt when I read Carlos
    Bulosans My Father Goes To Court. Both stories are written by giants in Philippine Literature
    and yet both stories disappointed me. I found both stories to be rather simplistic unworthy of the
    reputation of the giants who wrote them. Yes, there is poignancy to the stories and I felt that both
    were trying to deliver a message yet it is unfulfilled.
    In the case of The Bread of Salt, I felt that the story was unsure if it is going to be a commentary
    on class divisions or a primer on young love and all its heartbreaks. By sitting on the fence, the
    story lacked the punch needed to make an impact. Maybe if Gonzalez concentrated more on
    either the class divisions or young love and not bothm the story would be on a more steady
    ground and would work better than what we have now. Aside from problems of tone, I found the
    story very simple in its handling of its characters. They arent fleshed out in a way that you
    expect them to be so, for me, the narrator just seemed flat and Aida, as an object of affection,
    seemed like your run-of-the-mill alpha female that hopelessly romantic protagonists pine for in
    mediocre stories. In short, I felt that the story lacked depth.
    Still, despite the storys major flaws, it is not without moments of brilliance and beauty. The
    narrative felt rushed, yes, but the descriptions within the story especially that of the process of
    making pan de sal is vivid enough to leave an impression with the reader.

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