A CLOSE ANALYSIS TO THE LITERARY

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THE CHAMBERS OF THE SEA (SHORT STORY)
By: Edith L Tiempo

Through Gender Criticism

By: Deve Osbert Vargas

To: Mrs Georgette Layos

 Synopsis
In Bangan: Esteban “Tio Teban” Ferrer was originally a native of
Bangan where he lived with his estranged father and sisters, Quirina
and Mina. The Ferrer family owns a rice land they’re expecting
Teban to inherit after his father’s death. However,Teban prefers
tending to his rose garden, reading, and painting to mucking around
in mud and riding a horse, things his father disapproves of. When
Teban’s reluctance lead to his brother-in-law, Antero to manage the
lands, his sisters berate him for discontinuing the Ferrer family name.
Fed up with the non-acceptance at home, Teban moved to Dumaguete
to take up graduate work in the university.

In Dumaguete: For five years, Teban lived in the coastal city of

Dumaguete with his cousin Amalia,her husband Miguel, and their
four children; Daniel, Deena, Mario, and Tony. Despite receiving his
M. A. in Political Science, Teban is dismayed at helping Amalia with
chores in the household and feeling exposed whenever the children
invaded his privacy. Yet despite the turmoil in his life, Teban spends
his free time by strolling in his cousin’s orchard towards the path
leading a part of the beach where the fishermen work. Whenever he
got to the beach, he would witness the fishermen hauling in and
dividing their catch, nets, and boats sailing to and from the sea.

One afternoon, Teban received a telegram informing him of his

father’s death. Anticipating the complaints he’d receive from his
sisters regarding to the rice land, Teban walked to the beach, only
this time, he witnessed the unbelievable. A group of fishermen had
caught a merman and a mermaid.
 Analysis
The Chambers of the Sea, one of Tiempo’s short stories, deals with the issues of
human identity, society, family, rejection, acceptance, stereotypes, and
queerness. These topics are obstacles in the life and times or the encounters
rather of Tio Teban, the main protagonist of the piece. In real life these are also
experienced by some people, One of the most common loathsome social
construction is human identity. Elsewhere in gthe world, people are divided,
labeled, judged and expected according to their anatomy, sex and norm. The
issue of male versus female. Each sex is stereotyped according to social
expectation. Males are figured to be strong, rational, logical, intelligent,
provider, masters, straight, brawny while females are weak, irrational,
illogical, moron, receivers, slaves, sexual objects, emotional and even worse,
abused, silenced, and made evil in different media and literatures. This is
where the writer positions her paper in fully understanding the very colorful,
introverted life of Edith Tiempo’s controversial character Tio Teban in the
short story.

The short story conveys one’s search for acceptance of his or her true identity
in the eyes of faith, family, and society. The Chambers of the Sea explores the
role of men and women ought to play in society. Men are stereotypically
described as wise, strong, natural born leaders, and bread winners; whereas
women are described as keepers of the house, guardians of the children, and
performers of dainty activities. Rice land-The Ferrer inheritance is a metaphor
for society’s expectations of men. As a man, Teban is expected by his family to
continue the Ferrer name by inheriting his father’s land, but due to his
womanish disposition he becomes an outcast to his family. Roses-symbolizes
feminine nature. Bangan-symbolizes home, which Teban feels he no longer has.
Dumaguete coastline-symbolizes opportunities. Here Teban finished his
education and found solace to clear his mind from bad memories. Mermaid and
Merman- their being human-fish hybrids represents Teban as being neither a
man nor a woman but something in between. Teban is described by his family
as being queer or non-heterosexual. Many in modern society struggle coping
with people whose sexualities and identities contrast the stereotypical natures of
the two sexes. But whether or not Teban is a queer is up to the reader’s opinion
as he is a model for acceptance in the changing of the times.
Suspicion of his identity versus his personal choice as opposed to the social
expectation and labeling of his besmirched gender identity is subjected to a test
ending in crystal clear dramatic close of the story. He received a letter on the
demise of his father. Tio Teban became a persona with two faces as he runs to
the sea. He summons his grief yet finds happiness on thinking on the death of a
gfather who is greatly prejudiced against him. Without his father, there is more
personal emancipation from the obtrusive family and social expectation rather
than lamentation. The queer becomes clear. He rejoices on his true self, he is
neither man nor woman; neither a mythical merman or mermaid but a person.
He is happy of what he is without a label. His queerness, from the people’s
perception, is only a myth. All in the world is a stage, and people have different
roles to play. A man needs to be happy whether a minor or a major role in the
vast world of identities only constructed by men and women. Edith Tiempo did
an outstanding amount of making metaphors in the story, Making it very
difficult to decipher. As the narrator clinches it “He is what he is” a heirros
gamos, a union of male and a female; not gay nor homosexual but a person with
an appointed corner in the sky, with a niche in the land and has his own
“chambers in the sea”.