lessons learned

Francisco Arcellana’s two short stories “The Mats” and Divide by Two” are both stories of hardships that each and every family goes through and how they deal with it.

The Mats, a story about a father coming back home to his family from a trip, with of course “pasalubong”, a tradition Filipinos have been doing every time one of them go to a different place. It is their way of bring a piece of that place back with them and share it with others. And for this family the father had bought each member of the family their own specially made mats. But the most touching part of the story was that the father had also gotten three other specially made mats for three daughters that had died. That was the really moving part of the story for even though three people from their family had died they are still remembered and are still a part of their lives no matter what happens.

Divided by Two is basically about the love affair between two neighbors. And ever since one these neighbors had put up a fence which unevenly measured pressure between the two started heating up. And just because of a fence being built between two houses a husband and a wife led to the revelation that the wife had been having an affair with the man next door, who also is married. Even though these things had been a lot to take the wife had still chosen her husband.

These stories undergo different situations and different emotions. The Mats is a very moving story and it true in most cases, that when somebody close to your heart dies they will never go away and be forgotten. And as for Divided by Two, it shows that marriage can be difficult and that no matter what happens you have agreed to be in that marriage, whether or not it may be difficult you will still struggle and fight for the one you love.