Nick Joaquin’s Cándido’s Apocalypse: Re-imagining the Gothic in a Postcolonial Philippines
Journal Title: Text Matters. A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture - Year 2016, Vol 6, Issue 6
Abstract
Nick Joaquin, one of the Philippines’ pillars of literature in English, is regrettably known locally for his nostalgic take on the Hispanic aspect of Philippine culture. While Joaquin did spend a great deal of time creatively exploring the Philippines’ Hispanic past, he certainly did not do so simply because of nostalgia. As recent studies have shown, Joaquin’s classic techniques that often echo the Hispanic influence on Philippine culture may also be considered as a form of resistance against both the American neocolonial influence and the nativist brand of nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s. Despite the emergence of Gothic criticism in postcolonial writing, Joaquin’s works have rarely received the attention they deserve in this critical area. In this context, this paper explores the idea of the Gothic in Joaquin’s writing and how it relates to Joaquin being the “most original voice in postcolonial Philippine writing.” In 1972, the University of Queensland Press featured Joaquin’s works in its Asian and Pacific writing series. This “new” collection, Tropical Gothic (1972), contained his significant early works published in Prose and Poems (1952) plus his novellas. This collection’s title highlights a specific aspect of Joaquin’s writing, that of his propensity to use Gothic tropes such as the blending of the real and the fantastic, or the tragic and the comic, as shown in most of the stories in the collection. In particular, I examine how his novella (Cándido’s Apocalypse) interrogates the neurosis of the nation—a disconnection from the past and its repercussions on the present/future of the Philippines.
Authors and Affiliations
Marie Rose B. Arong
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP326111
- DOI 10.1515/texmat-2016-0007
- Views 108
- Downloads 0
The Monk by M. G. Lewis: Revolution, Religion and the Female Body
This paper reads The Monk by M. G. Lewis in the context of the literary and visual responses to the French Revolution, suggesting that its digestion of the horrors across the Channel is exhibited especially in its depict...
Here Be Monsters: Imperialism, Knowledge and the Limits of Empire
It has become a truism in discussions of Imperialist literature to state that the British empire was, in a very significant way, a textual exercise. Empire was simultaneously created and perpetuated through a proliferati...
Cabeza de Vaca, Estebanico, and the Language of Diversity in Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account
Published in 1542, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s La relación is a chronicle of the Pánfilo de Narváez’s 1527 expedition to the New World in which Cabeza de Vaca was one of the four survivors. His account has received cons...
Boy Melodrama: Genre Negotiations and Gender-Bending in the Supernatural Series
For years Supernatural (CW, 2005–) has gained the status of a cult series as well as one of the most passionate and devoted fandoms that has ever emerged. Even though the main concept of the series indicates that Superna...
“A past that has never been present”: The Literary Experience of Childhood and Nostalgia
This essay explores the modernist aesthetic involved in creating a fictive, nostalgic, childhood experience. Evoking the experience of childhood through fiction is as close to actually reliving childhood as we can get. T...