Ilyka Jean D.

Sionzon

BA COMM 1

Candido's Apocalypse: Looking beyond the apex

The world itself is a vast battlefield. We live in a society full of faux. The way we perceive
the world will define who we are and will change us in different ways. Just like in Nick Joaquin's
Candido's Apocalypse, it tells us how the society became complicated as the world of "pretend"
shows up (GradesFixer, 2019). There are a lot of people who tend to pretend or fake
themselves just to fit into the society. Candido's Apocalypse is about the seventeen-year-old
young man named Bobby Heredia who struggled with what he perceived the society. He had
this imaginary double, Candido that came from Bobby's traditional name in the calendar. Bobby
also had this ability to see people's bones, organs and even their secrets hidden behind those
clothes that they wore.

The narrator of this story had infinite awareness and understanding on the plot,
setting, characters and the time. In short, the narrator was omniscient. The story shows a linear
succession of events that gave me various questions about the story. There were sudden shifts
or transitions regarding the events that took place. And so, as I deepened my understanding
about what happened to the protagonist, I looked for some spatiotemporal markers. But, I
ended up being a hawkshaw trying to figure out what was going on. These spatiotemporal shifts
deepened my curiosity more.

The narrator of the story was a heterodigietic or an external narrator and the events
were focalize through psychonarration and free indirect discourse. The exposition made the
story more engaging to the readers. The X-ray vision of Bobby was also one of the things that
made the story unique. Bobby was having this schizophrenic vision that before his recovery, he
saw people naked such as his parents, doctor, principal, the prefect and all those who were at
school. He also started seeing physical defects of some people which were considered as their
deep secrets and worst, he was able to see skeletons in them and it totally made him anxious
with his life at present.
 Because of this, Bobby decided to go to his grandmother's house, which he thought
as the safe place to be away from all that he have been going through. The house represents a
connection to the Hispanic past where he and his family spent happy summers together.
Bobby's grandmother was the only one that he didn't see naked because she did not disconnect
herself to their past thereby continuing to root for the culture that she have been practicing for
a long time.

Nick Joaquin's story made me realize that there are some people who perceive the
world differently. Looking beyond the surface of our society will just create a feeling of anxiety
thereby making people disturbed with their own thoughts and actions. We need to be open and
be eager enough to understand what's in our pasts since they are something that aren't easy
to handle at all. Thus, this story also helped me understand better the essence of focalization
and how this can contribute to a good story.

Sources:

GradesFixer. (2019, April, 10) “Candido’s Apocalypse” – A World Of ‘Pretend’ And Truth.
Retrived March 1, 2020, from https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/candidos-
apocalypse-a-world-of-pretend-and-truth

Marie Rose Arong. Nick Joaquin’s Cándido’s Apocalypse: Re-imagining the Gothic in
a Postcolonial Philippines. 2016

Rimmon Kennan. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics