HUMALIT EA

SANTOS, Eunicqa Althea A.

11729635

Analysis Paper on
Banana Heart Summer
by Merlina Bobis

Merlinda Bobis is an award-winning writer who has published several novels, poems,
short stories, and dramas. She grew up in Albay, Philippines specifically at the foot of the
volcano which is prominently described in her writings. In her website, she said that “[w]riting
visits like grace. Its greatest gift is the comfort if not the joy of transformation.” Until now, Bobis
continues to inspire millions of people through her writings.

Banana Heart Summer is a tale about food, family and longing. Bobis created a story that
best represents the situation of the people here in the Philippines. The story tackled how we
experience poverty, hunger, and child labour. However, even with those challenges, the story
showed how Filipinos are still able to show love and compassion. Throughout the novel, we will
witness how Nenita, a 12-year old girl, discovers what she really wants in life and how she
longed for the love and acceptance of her mother.

The novel was set in the 1960s and was told through the eyes of Nenita, a free-spirited
young girl who always loved Nana Dora’s deep-fried caramelized bananas or most commonly
known as turon. Nana Dora’s hut was popular for its various food selections that changes
depending on the time of the day. Nenita, unlike any other 12-year old, has already shown a great
sense of responsibility and maturity. Even with her complex relationship with her mother, Nenita
is still keen on helping her family rise from the situation they are in.

Unlike any other Filipino family, her father was not the head of the household, but
instead it was her mother. In the novel, Gable was compared to how a lengua para diablo is
prepared because of his submissive personality. In their household, Marina was in-charge and
she was feared and followed by everyone. It is totally different from the usual family
representation that we see in movies or in teleseryes.

Nenita’s family is struggling to survive, especially with his father’s unemployment. As

the eldest, Nenita drops out of school in hopes that she could help her family by earning some
money for them. With that, Nenita decided to work for their well-off neighbors, the Valenzuelas.
Being away from her family made her reflect on reasons of her mother’s anger and violence, and
just like any child she blames herself for it.

One of the themes of the novel is hunger. In the Merriam’s Webster dictionary, hunger is
defined as the feeling of weakness or discomfort that we feel when we crave for food or when we
lack a specific nutrient. In our world today, there are a lot of reasons why people are
experiencing hunger, it can be brought by poverty, job instability, food shortages, climate
change, and many more. Similarly, in this story we will witness Nenita’s and the other
character’s own reasons for their hunger for food, acceptance, self-discovery and love.

From the start, it can be seen how Nenita expressed her love for food. She always
believed that everything can be connected to food, she believed in its power. For example, she
thought that Adobo can heal a battered soul, coconut employment can help one gain
employment, and that pan graciosa will help ease the pain of losing someone.

In the story, food was not only used as an instrument to build relationships, it also
represented love, pride, regret and sorrow when people were not able to express it verbally.
Through food, Nenita was able to show her emotions and feelings when she cannot share it to her
mother or anyone in their town. Food became her support system when she did not have anyone
to go to. Furthermore, food was the only thing that she found familiar in a town where she felt
lost.

However, hunger for food was not always positively expressed in the story. Similar to
families struggling because of poverty, Nenita’s family was hungry for food. Because of this
hunger, she had to take the leftovers of her employers, so that she could feed it to her family. We
can see here that at a very young age, Nenita was already exposed to the real world. She knew
that she needed to do something in order for her family to survive and with that, she also had to
sacrifice a couple of things that were important to her.

Bobis created a book where she can capture the hearts of people who love to eat and
those who long to love and eat. For a country like the Philippines, we cannot deny that we are
indeed a Third World country. A lot of the people here are not getting the right amount of
nutrients that they need in a day and some do not even get any at all. Through this novel, it will
hopefully help us realize that we are not the only people here, we also need to think about our
less fortunate brothers and sisters.

Again, in the novel, as Nenita desires for food in a lot of different ways, this leads us to
Nenita’s hunger for acceptance. Growing up, she has always wondered why her mother treated
her rashly and with that, she continues to explore on different recipes and concoctions in hopes
that someday she could win her mother’s heart. On the other hand, her mother, Marina, needs to
learn the value of acceptance. In the story, we can see that Marina was not pleased with
whatever’s happening in their life and with hers specifically; her marriage, her husband’s
unemployment, and her kids not being able to go to school. With all of this, Marina was never
satisfied with her life and always saw things negatively. Moreover, Nenita’s hunger for
acceptance will only be satisfied once her mother learns to accept the truth about their situation
and learns to rise from it.

Through reading this book, I also realized that longing for an abstract thing is more
difficult than longing for something more concrete. In the novel, Nenita was able to satisfy her
hunger for food by experimenting with different ingredients and styles of cooking and through
her job she was also able to feed her family. However, the book ended, but she still was not able
to feel the acceptance that she has been longing from her mother.

Furthermore, the book is also about Nenita’s hunger for self-discovery. Nenita was
curious about a lot of things. She wondered why Nana Dora did not have kids, where the
Calcium Man came from, and why was her mother angry all the time. Through all of those, she
discovered herself. Nenita realized that it is not necessary for everyone to accept her as long as
she accepts herself. She also learned that even though she was able to build relationships through
food, not everything is connected to it. Nenita knew that in the real world, it will not always be
rainbows and butterflies, that sometimes in order to experience happiness someone has to
sacrifice something.

I guess something that the younger generation should learn is that life will not always be
kind to us even if we give everything that we can. Nenita thought that if she continues to please
her mother with her cooking she would stop getting mad at her, but sadly she did not. She
believed so much in food that she thought it can solve everything, but it did not. Life will always
be difficult, but we have to learn how to rise up from it.

Lastly, Nenita was hungry for love. As a 12-year old girl who was expected to step up
and take on the responsibility of feeding her family, it is difficult not to long for their love and
care. Nenita became the breadwinner of their family and had to stay at the residence of the
Valenzuelas. At a young age, Nenita had to work and support her family because she believes
that it is her obligation to do so. She also did it because she loves her family in hopes that she
will also receive that love back.

Overall, in the story, it can be deduced that hunger comes in different forms. Some may
experience it because of poverty, unemployment and a lot of other circumstances that can make
life difficult. However, what Nenita experienced was hunger for self-actualization. She longed
for food, acceptance and love because she wants to discover herself. She used food as an
instrument to build relationships with other people which allowed her to experience a lot of
things and taught her several lessons. She longed for acceptance because she wanted to
understand what her mother was feeling and because she desired for her acceptance. Lastly, she
longed for love because at her young age she was already exposed to the difficulties of life and
that opened her eyes to what is really happening around her.
REFERENCES:
“Balancing Heart and Spleen.” Eureka Street,
https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/balancing-heart-and-spleen#.

“Fiction Book Review: Banana Heart Summer by Merlinda Bobis, Author . Delta $12
(257p) ISBN 978-0-385-34112-7.” PublishersWeekly.com,
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-34112-7.

Salinas, Johanna. “Coming of Age and Finding Life's Flavors in 'Banana Heart Summer'.”
The Guam Daily Post, 2 Apr. 2017, https://www.postguam.com/coming-of-age-and-
finding-life-s-flavors-in-banana/article_4299c2e0-91ca-11e6-a60b-13b380264449.html.