Summer Solstice
Representing Men’s and Women’s Speech: A Linguistic Analysis of Nick Joaquin’s “The Summer Solstice”1
Aileen O. Salonga
Without a moment’s hesitation, he sprawled down flat, and, working his arms and legs, gaspingly clawed his way across the floor, like a great agonized lizard, the woman steadily backing away as he approached, her eyes watching him avidly, her nostrils dilating, till behind her loomed the open window, the huge glittering moon, the rapid flashes of lightning. She stopped, panting, and leaned against the sill. He lay exhausted at her feet, his face flat on the floor. She raised her skirts and contemptuously thrust out a naked foot. He lifted his dripping face and touched his bruised lips to her toes; lifted his hands and grasped the white foot and kissed it savagely—kissed the step, the sole, the frail ankle—while she bit her lips and clutched in pain at the window-sill; her body distended and wracked by horrible shivers, her head flung back and her loose hair streaming out the window—streaming fluid and black in the white night where the huge moon glowed like a sun and the dry air flamed into lightning and the pure heat burned with the immense intense fever of noon. (Joaquin, “The Summer’s Solstice” 38)
Introduction The passage above comprises the last two paragraphs of “The Summer Solstice,” a popular and rather controversial short story in the Philippines written by Philippine National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin. The short story’s popularity relies on a number of things: 1) it is one of the most anthologized of Joaquin’s works; 2) it seems to be one of Joaquin’s personal favorites, since he also wrote “Tatarin: A Witches’ Sabbath in Three Acts,” which is a drama version of the short story;2 and 3) its drama version was turned into a popular movie some years back, making the story familiar even among non-literary Filipinos. The short story is also controversial, primarily because of the conflicting interpretations that generations of
Aileen O. Salonga
Without a moment’s hesitation, he sprawled down flat, and, working his arms and legs, gaspingly clawed his way across the floor, like a great agonized lizard, the woman steadily backing away as he approached, her eyes watching him avidly, her nostrils dilating, till behind her loomed the open window, the huge glittering moon, the rapid flashes of lightning. She stopped, panting, and leaned against the sill. He lay exhausted at her feet, his face flat on the floor. She raised her skirts and contemptuously thrust out a naked foot. He lifted his dripping face and touched his bruised lips to her toes; lifted his hands and grasped the white foot and kissed it savagely—kissed the step, the sole, the frail ankle—while she bit her lips and clutched in pain at the window-sill; her body distended and wracked by horrible shivers, her head flung back and her loose hair streaming out the window—streaming fluid and black in the white night where the huge moon glowed like a sun and the dry air flamed into lightning and the pure heat burned with the immense intense fever of noon. (Joaquin, “The Summer’s Solstice” 38)
Introduction The passage above comprises the last two paragraphs of “The Summer Solstice,” a popular and rather controversial short story in the Philippines written by Philippine National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin. The short story’s popularity relies on a number of things: 1) it is one of the most anthologized of Joaquin’s works; 2) it seems to be one of Joaquin’s personal favorites, since he also wrote “Tatarin: A Witches’ Sabbath in Three Acts,” which is a drama version of the short story;2 and 3) its drama version was turned into a popular movie some years back, making the story familiar even among non-literary Filipinos. The short story is also controversial, primarily because of the conflicting interpretations that generations of
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