Report of Zita

summary of zita Zita is about a brokenhearted teacher who comes to the land of Anayat. From the minute Mr. Reteche steps on the shores of Anayat, his lonesomeness is apparent f or the villagers. He comes across Zita, the innocent province girl who who coinc identally has the same name as her past lover. Zita becomes fond of her gloomy t eacher and soon grew keen and observant with his actions. Mr. Reteche was saddes t whenever a certain mail arrives: a letter enveloped in a blue. Zita's father asks Mr. Reteche to teach his daughter how to be 'a lady'. He agre es and teaches her how to dress, act and dance like a city lady. One day he told Zita to dress accordingly as he will teach her a spanish dance. She does so and manages to show up like a true lady. She dances dreamily with her teacher, but Mr. Reteche doesnt show any affection towards her. Their dance was paused by a T urong, a messenger, who hands him a blue envelope. But he tore the letter into p ieces. She asks him why he tears it when he will only pick them up and put it to gether. Then he explains that soon she will someday understand. After a while, Zita realizes that her teacher will soon go. on the day that he will depart, she tried to be in her very best. She was well d ressed, and made-up. she waited impatiently for her teacher to come by her house and bid her farewell. soon Turong arrives and gives her a letter. She opened th e window and sees Mr. Reteche's silhoutte disappearing, but was quite sure he wa s looking at her. suddenly she realizes that the letter she was holding,she was unaware she had torn apart... slowly... panifully... she picks them up and put i t all together. __________________________________________________________________________ Arturo B. Rotor’s short story Zita focuses on the story of a young (in local terms ) probinsyana, and how she is groomed to be a “lady” through a series of events in h er life. However, this grooming results into sadness for both her and another pe rson in her life. Zita is reflective of the alienating nature of society during the time of its wr iting, especially in how society wants women to be: how they should dress, their manner, etc., and how these norms that society is imposing result in new and di fficult issues for women of that period in history. The protagonist of the story (the eponymous Zita) is put into this period, as a girl whose transition to wom anhood is put under various strains due to the nature of society’s demands on wome n, as well as by a certain man. Throughout the story, Zita’s transition from an in nocent province girl (the aforementioned probinsyana) to a (at least in society’s eyes) a refined and matured woman. However, despite this transition, which was s omething encouraged by everyone else in the story, she still encounters sadness (possibly even as a part or result of this transition). In the end, despite her becoming all that society wants her to be, she ends up l osing (or so it seemed) the man that possibly loved her. The story closes with Z ita doing what she once witnessed Mr. Reteche doing as he was grooming her to be the woman society wants her to be, and finally understanding its significance. In my opinion, Zita is focused on etching out how during the time of its writing (the period of American “colonization” of the Philippines), and even until the pres ent, province girls often wish to be the same as the girls from the city, not be ing aware that even if they become something like the “well-bred” women or girls fro m the city, attaining happiness and getting what they want, especially in matter s of love, is still a toss-up, or an absolute uncertainty; that no matter what o ne does, love remains that single most elusive desire of humans. It clearly visu alizes the lengths that families from the province would have their children, es

pecially daughters, go in order to be of the same “social class” or “breed” as that of t he women from the “high society” in the cities. It also demonstrates how a man who s eemingly has found what he wants in a province girl ends up destroying that whic h he has found by forcing it to become something it isn’t (namely, by making her b ecome something same as that of the city girls or women). ________________________________________________________________________________ ARTURO BELLEZA ROTOR Arturo B. Rotor (June 7, 1907–April 9, 1988) was a Filipino medical doctor, civil servant, musician, and writer. Rotor was an internationally respected writer of fiction and non-fiction in Engl ish. He is widely considered among the best Filipino short story writers of the twentieth century. He was a charter member of the Philippine Book Guild; the gui ld's initial publication (1937) was Rotor's The Wound and the Scar, despite Roto r's protests that someone else's work should have been selected. In 1966, the Ph ilippine government recognized his literary accomplishments by awarding him the Republic Cultural Heritage Award. Rotor's best-known literary works are The Woun d and the Scar (1937), Confidentially, Doctor (1965), Selected Stories from the Wound and the Scar (1973), The Men Who Play God (1983), and the short stories "D ahong Palay" (1928) and "Zita" (1930).[3]\