This novel, "The Pretenders" made by F. Sionil Jose for me at first was very boring because it got lots of pages and small fonts. But as I encourage myself to read it, I find it interesting when I started to read the choragus. It started from the end where Antonio Samson is already dead and then the beginning where Antonio Samson was still studying.
Why Did Antonio Samson committed Suicide?
The story in the novel is a typical Filipino story, wherein I believe Antonio Samson is a resourceful and smart man. Although he is poor, he has the potential of becoming a rich man, because he got the guts to be one. Antonio Samson was engaged and married to Carmen Villa who belonged to the elite class. In the story, you can see a typical rich family where there is a mother who looks down on people especially the poor and the father who's always away and usually kind. We can see here that the elite people use their money and luxuries to get what they want. They can even buy people and tell their price. Antonio was becoming a rich man already, he's always with Don Manuel and he is somewhat influenced by him. Antonio knew that he and Don Manuel have different perspectives especially in being rich and poor. But he ignores his thoughts trying to believe Don Manuel's thoughts to be expected and be a part of the Villa family. He became a dummy of the elite class and forgot all about the poor people.
But when all things got rumbled up, and he can not go back to the past, his mind can't settle in a decision. "The beginning of knowledge, after all, lay not in the land that he has traveled but in the dark and anonymous folds of his own mind."(Jose, F. Sionil, 161)He got confused and frustrated in his life, until the only thing he could think of to escape all of these was DEATH.
Death: Root of Human Insecurity
In this paper, I will attempt to dig deeply into the minds of Antonio Samson, Charlie and Godo about their insecurities in life, and how Death became a theme in the story.
“We are all insecure. There is no one who is secure in life.We all die—and that is the root of our insecurity.”(Jose 119)This is the line said by Tony in his dialogue with Charlie and Godo. Tony is a smart and intelligent man, he got friends who is Charlie, who doesn’t want to marry because he doesn’t want to go to hardships in life and Godo, who is insecure and thinks that immortality does not mean security. ” but security for me does not mean immortality.”(Jose 119) Godo is insecure because he worries too much for his family. Godo is saying that the rich people is a big hindrance for the country to be secured. He said that people here in the Philippines could die poor. “We are all committing suicide. And we can’t stop it because of the uncertainty that hovers above us all.“ (Jose 119)Godo is saying that people is doing anything just to live. It’s like dying to make a living. Why would you make a living, if you are willing to die for you to make one. Because Tony is so much influenced by Don Manuel, and he has shut his eyes closed to the truth, he refuses to believe what Charlie and Godo was saying. Tony said that for you to commit suicide, you must have an incurable sickness. “No man—unless he is sick, takes his own life. There must be sickness, an incurable one, and it must have been there since birth, secretly growing until that time when it has consumed the love for life and then becomes nothing else but hate.”(Jose 119)
