Scent of Apples is a collection of short stories by Filipino-American writer, Bienvenido Santos and the title of one of the stories in the collection.
fabia- an immigrant from the philippines. a filipino farmer
ruth- wife of fabia. a country girl
roger- child of fabia. goes to school in town. nice boy.. innocent one.
The Scent of Apples by Bienvenido Santos reminds me of this writing style. Of course, that statement wasn’t intended to pose a comparison but was just an effect of a serious and curious rumination of an amateur reader – a sudden gush of ideas stemming from a glimpse of literary schema. Nostalgia, as it seems, is the word from which the entire short story emanates. What’s more wonderful about the literary work was that the author doesn’t have to be blunt to elucidate. In fact, the work is simple yet it can rival the literary audacities of other short stories.
It is an established rule in writing that one needs to carefully think of a title that makes a literary work worth reading. Santos’ choice of title is an effortless adherence to this rule for it runs from the literal to the metaphorical and back, suggesting that various interpretations of readers from all ranges of literary exposure are appropriate. The story itself is a display of artistic versatility - a confirmation that however one interprets the title, the story won’t lose its meaning. For this, The Scent of Apples is more than just a story of an immigrant Filipino.
The story opened with a brief introduction of where the author was. The imagery was vivid albeit the absence of several sentences teeming with adjectives, an introduction which writers like Sarah Dunant and J.R.R. Tolkien may consider a literary Scrooge.
When I arrived in Kalamazoo it was October and the war was still on. Gold and silver stars hung on pennants above silent windows of white and brick-red cottages . .
To compensate, however, the writer brings up a scene which everyone could relate to. And why would the physical environment matter when loneliness is already palpable in the mere look of a stranger’s face, enough to see and feel how longing creeps in their whole being.
. . . an old man burned leaves and twigs while a gray-haired woman sat on the porch, her red hands quiet on her lap, watching the smoke rising above the elms, both of them thinking the same thought perhaps, about a tall, grinning boy with his blue eyes and flying hair, who went out to war . . .
The historical period in which the literary work was written also contribute to the creation of an almost tangible environment despite the sparseness of descriptive text. One thing that unites humans into an unwritten bond of brotherhood is the war, along with the bitterness of living during its span and surviving its cruelty. Everything seems to be reminiscent of souls sent to a battle falsely thought of as great; for what is great in something when it takes lives, tears hearts and ends happiness?
. . . where could he be now this month when leaves were turning into gold and the fragrance of gathered apples was in the wind? . . . Under the lampposts the leaves shone like bronze. And they rolled on the pavements like the ghost feet of a thousand autumns long dead, long before the boys left for faraway lands without great icy winds and promise of winter early in the air, lands without apple trees, the singing and the gold!
Amidst the gloominess of the location, the author was expected to speak before an audience regarding the culture of the Philippines, which was now becoming a “lost country”. It is when a Filipino farmer, Celestino Fabia, asked about the difference between Filipinas then and now, to which the author responded that though their physical appearance changed, they remain the pure-hearted and nice women like their past counterparts. The farmer was pleased with the answer and he invited the author over to his house so he could meet his family.
During their trip to Celestino’s house the next day, the author discovered what his life in the Philippines was. And when he met his family, he was struck by their simplicity and contentedness. Celestino’s life stories hit him with the realization that women, or people, regardless of whatever culture, possess a charitable and kind heart. That hospitality is not a racial trademark but an innate human quality.
Ruth got busy with the drinks. She kept coming in and out of a rear room that must have been the kitchen and soon the table was heavy with food, fried chicken legs and rice, and green peas and corn on the ear. Even as we ate, Ruth kept standing, and going to the kitchen for more food. Roger ate like a little gentleman.
Along with this, the farmer’s relationship with his wife manifested that theirs was a relationship beyond the notion that companionship is a commodity. They stayed with each other through thick and thin. Women, even miles beyond the Pacific, are loving, loyal and warm-hearted – the same characteristics Celestino used to describe Filipinas he was acquainted with. His wife Ruth, at some extent, went way beyond the adjectives.
Ruth stayed in the hospital with Fabia. She slept in a corridor outside the patients' ward and in the day time helped in scrubbing the floor and washing the dishes and cleaning the men's things. They didn't have enough money and Ruth was willing to work like a slave.
Celestino’s life seemed to hit a sensitive cord within the author for he offered to send news to his family back home. But the farmer declined. This scene creates the peak of the climactic revelations of the life of an immigrant Filipino in times of war. No matter how strong the nostalgia is, or dire the desire to be home, an exile can’t leave the place to where he was banished. It may be because of fear of being long forgotten, or the consolation one gets from people who tried to complete them no matter if the attempt can only get them somewhere still far from nirvana. Whatever that is, the pain of an individual whose heart stretches to both ends of the world has no measure. And Bienvenido Santos clearly, albeit succinctly, showed all those truths. Thus, The Scent of Apples was an expected masterpiece. Besides, who else can understand things “peculiar to the exile” other than an exile himself?
Scent of Apples
Bienvenido N. Santos
Question: What is the symbolic meaning of the “Scent of apples” in the story?
Answer:
There are three identified symbolic meaning of the title “scent of apples”. These symbolic meanings are "exile, loneliness, and isolation". A line in the story illustrates that the scent of apples which Fabio always smell gives him the feeling of exile, loneliness, and isolation.
"Those trees are beautiful on the hills," I said.
"Autumn's a lovely season. The trees are getting ready to die, and they show their colors, proud-like."
"No such thing in our own country," I said.
That remark seemed unkind, I realized later. It touched him off on a long deserted tangent, but ever there perhaps. How many times did lonely mind take unpleasant detours away from the familiar winding lanes towards home for fear of this, the remembered hurt, the long lost youth, the grim shadows of the years; how many times indeed, only the exile knows.
The excerpt above represents that Fabio feels that he is living in exile, even though he may have lived in America for many years. He had to create an identity for himself that could bridge the gap between his cultural and racial heritage as Filipino and his new status as Filipino American, living in a culture very different from his own.
Each time Fabio smell the scent of the apples, he always remember our country, our country that has no apples. He has the feeling of loneliness everyday because he smells the scent of the apple every time.
Looking at the bright side, Fabio has a good wife which is worthy of her namesake, the biblical Ruth. He has a good-looking son and an apple orchard which gives him more apples than he can sell. His wife, his son, and the apple orchard are abundance enough, but his excessive nostalgia for home, where nobody remembers him, makes him blind to all these blessings. He wastes his abundance, like the apples he gives to the pigs.
Fabio should rethink the idea of home as not a place where he were born and grew up, but where he is at present, where his new family is.
Thus, the feeling of loneliness, exile and isolation are the common feelings of immigrant Filipinos, it comes with the fear of no longer belonging to a culture which itself seems at times to be wasting away, and finds expression in the rhythm of arrangement provided by the selections in Scent of Apples.
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