I consider The Scent of Apples as a diasporic Literature for it features the life and plight of a Filipino immigrant in the United States. The story is told in a first person point of view, which we can identify Bienvenido Santos as the narrator, narrating the moments of the narrator during his talk in Michigan. A man from the audience asked Santos about the comparison of Filipino and American women. During that scene, we can sense a foreshadow that the said comparison will have its vitality in the entire fiction. As Santos responded, we can infer that comparing nationalities is a tough question to answer, especially when you’re not used to meeting a lot of people belonging to these nationalities. That moment serves as a springboard to move the plot forward since after that talk, Santos and that man met and talked shortly.
Finally, Santos is invited to meet the man’s family, who introduced himself as Celestino Fabia. Santos agreed and the next day, he visited Fabia’s family. However, during their trip, Santos observed that their residence seemed to be afar from the city proper. With this observation, we can identify a lurking isolation to the family of Fabia. Santos and Fabia’s family met and it left a remarkable impression to Santos as he observed Fabia’s wife and son.
From the aforementioned scenes, the themes of isolation and belongingness started to manifest. Fabia asking about Filipino and American women might be interpreted as a curiosity if Fabia, as a Filipino, might be able to see some sort of belongingness to this foreign country. Moreover, their residence that is far away from the city proper is a metaphor of isolation Fabia and his family undergo. As a Filipino immigrant, Fabia seemed to feel isolated in the country where the white people dominate. But, somehow, Fabia did find an avenue to, at least, be able to survive from these adversities, that is through the apple orchard.
The apple orchard symbolizes American life since apples are known to be from the US. Fabia did have an opportunity to live the American life but still longs for his past life in the Philippines. Through the scent of apples, he feels nostalgic as isolation and issue in belongingness start to succumb. Even though Fabia seemed amicable, which is seen on how he is warm and hospitable to Santos, there is still a sense that he really did not find any satisfaction living the American life. The way he brought Santos, who is introduced as a first class Filipino, brought warmth to his entire family, signifying that they, too, long for their past lives.
The title, The Scent of Apples, is a metaphor for nostalgia that every Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) feel during their stay in a country where they are not a native. The title also serve as a symbolism that whenever Fabia smells the scent of apples from his orchard he felt happy because of the American life he’s living but sad because it may also mean being inferior to it. Thus, the scent of apples reflect the duality of OFWs lives in a way that they are happy working abroad but at the same time, they must be under that country and culture resulting to their melancholy.
Dubbed as the modern day heroes, the OFWs are best depicted in the entire fiction through Fabia and his family. As readers, we assumed the role of Santos as an observer of the OFWs’ lives and reveries staying as immigrants. This short story portrays the suppressed emotions of longingness to your past lives as your attempt to build a sense of belongingness towards your new environment. However, it teaches us that our present states will always have that moment of retrospection not because we are not contented with what we have, but it is inevitable to miss how things are before.
Overall, nostalgia, belongingness, isolation and retrospection play critical roles on building the narrative and theme of the story. Through the usage of metaphor in the title, this fiction strongly deliver the duality of emotions you will feel once you will be an immigrant, a person who needs belongingness in a place where you are not a native.
Tags: Scent of Apples, Bienvenido Santos, literature, story review, themes and symbolism, modern relevance, LifeThinker.
