Name: Paguio, Ganie Mari M.

Date: February 25, 2022

Course, Year & Section: BSED ENG 3-A. Prof: Dr. Anonuevo

Comparing the Three Stories about Women

This essay will going to explain my views regarding the Three Stories about Women.

There are three stories about Women; the Love in the Cornhusks by Aida Rivera, Magnificence

by Estrella Alfon, and The Virgin by Kerims Polotan Tuvera. Each stories shows different

aspects of being a woman and how it mainly affects their life as a person. Since there are three

stories, there are also three sets of protagonist within the stories. The different protagonist are;

Tina in Love in the Cornhusks, The Mother in Magnificence, and Ms. Mariveles in The Virgin.

All of them have important role in showing different unique characteristics that a woman

may possesses. This essay will going to compare the three stories and we must first focus on the

plot of each story. The plot of Love in the Cornhusks revolves around Tina who married a

Bagobo and still contacted by his lover. Next, the plot of Magnificence revolved around the

Mother and her daughter who will get molested by a bus conductor. Lastly, the plot of The

Virgin revolves around a successful woman named Ms. Mariveles and her story how she found

love.

The three stories might have connection to history and culture of this country. These

three stories have shown the different aspects that of a women and we can definitely see it to the

central characters within the story. Tinang is a motherly figure with a horrible sense of love.
Horrible because he definitely have a husband, though why did he have a lover, her reactions is

not supposedly a reaction of a married woman, “A flush spread over her face and crept into her

body,” a married woman/mother should not act like this. After some analysis of her character,

she’s also a terrible mother in my perspective and this is the line to prove it; “A little green snake

slithered languidly into the tall grass a few yards from the kamansi tree,” and this line “Tinang

started violently and remembered her child, she only remembered the baby when she noticed the

little green snake, she's an irresponsible mother.

In contrast of being a terrible wife and mother, she has a good side. Tinang is a diligent

woman and even recognize by her previous boss and its child and here's the line to prove it;

“Tito, the young master, had seen her and was calling to his mother. “Ma, it’s Tinang. Ma, Ma,

it’s Tinang.” He came running down to open the gate.” Tito which is the child of her previous

boss was very eager to see her again. With this line, we can assume that Tinang possesses the

work etiquette of Filipino Workers.

Let's now analyze the second story, which is the Magnificence. In this story, we can

assume that the mother of the molested daughter is the protagonist or central character of the

story. In my own opinion, despite being this mother and her family is the main focus of the story,

to make things more interesting, the antagonist of the story which is also the molester had his

stated within the story. As I said earlier, this story revolves around the mother and her daughter

that got molested by Vicente and the response of the mother is heroic and not surprising at the

same time. The story started when Vicente, a bus conductor appeared to children of the mother

whose three president of the neighborhood association, here's the line; “They could remember
perhaps two weeks when he remarked to their mother that he had never seen two children

looking so smart.”

Vicente introduced himself as a harmless and caring guy, he provided things that’s can be

interesting to the children, here's the line; “But their homework. They’re so lazy with them. And

the man said, I have nothing to do in the evenings, let me help them.” As you can see, he even

volunteered to help the children do their homework. In my point of view, this is just an excuse to

regular visit the children, especially the little girl, here’s the line; “They both came forward, the

little girl and the little boy, and they both made to kiss him but Vicente slapped the boy smartly

on his lean hips, and said, Boys do not kiss boys,” the way that he's rejecting the boy send like

he's more interested to be kissed by the little girl which kind of suspicious when I first read this

story.

Later on, he would attempt to do his deed, here's the line; “Don’t hold me on your lap,

said the little girl, I am very heavy, you will get very tired.” Vicente held the little girl into his

lap, though the little girl resist it but he insisted. Though, not until the mother arrived and saw

what Vicente did. She responded very well by instructing the little girl to go upstairs. She did

this to protect the young mind of her child.

Her respond is very splendid and she also wanted her little girl to forget what happened,

here’s the line; “Take also the pencils, said the mother to the watching newly bathed, newly

changed child. Take them and throw them into the fire.” She thinks that destroying the things
that would make her child remember this event is the best way. Her actions was heroic and

motherly at the same time, her character also is not very surprising to me, she did her job to

protect her children and I also think what the mother did in this story might also be done by other

parents in this situation.

Finally, I'm now also going to analyze the last story titled The Virgin The Virgin is

focused on the successful woman named Ms. Mariveles who happened to be the protagonist and

central character of the story. Also, additional information, the title also seems to reflect her life

situation as a successful woman, here's the line; “When she was younger, there had been other

things to do--- college to finish, a niece to put through school, a mother to care for.” Since she

focused more on studying, I can conclude that she might never have a boyfriend, thus, she is a

Virgin as the title suggest. She was so successful that she was the one assessing the hiring of the

so called “jobless” or the applicants in the story. However, she seemed to be have a significant

attention to the carpenter in her company.

In fact, I also noticed her harsh reaction when the carpenter reappeared after a few days

of absent due to his child’s situation, here's the line; “”You could have sent someone to tell us,"

she said,” here's another line when she found out that the carpenter had a son; “A slow bitter

anger began to form inside her. “But you said you were not married!”” Although this is caused

all by a regulation committed by the carpenter, here reaction was not supposedly like that she

supposed to respond like a professional. After that, a situation happened that confirmed my

speculation, here’s the line; I just get away, she thought wildly, but he had moved and brushed
against her, and where his touch had fallen, her flesh leaped, and she recalled how his hands

had looked that first day, lain tenderly on the edge of her desk and about the wooden bird (that

had looked like a moving, shining dove) and she turned to him with her ruffles wet and wilted, in

the dark she turned to.” After this line, I confirmed that she fall in line with the carpenter.

After I analyze each story, I will now rate it based on my thoughts. I’ll rate the Love in

the Cornhusks 3/5 because the protagonist have more negative aspects within her. Then, I will

rate the Magnificence 4/5 because of its good plot, great characters, the message conveyed

within the story is well stated. Finally, I rated The Virgin as 5/5 because the plot is great, the

characters is also great, and the ending is actually good as well. I almost rated the Magnificent as

5/5, but due to missing names of protagonist, I only marked it as 4/5. All in all, these three

stories are all good.

In conclusion, not all women are the same. We can clearly see this differences in these

three stories that I read. We must note that these are only aspects and not the true classification

of women in are society. They are also human with different choices and circumstances to go

through. After reading all of the three stories, I would also like to recommend to interested

readers who want to broaden their perspective about women’s aspects.