The Blossoming of Bongbong Literary Elements

Short story/fiction

San Francisco in the 1970’s with references to Manila, Philippines of the same period.

Third-person objective point of view from the perspective of Bongbong.

While the tone is straightforward and observational, the mood of the story is idiosyncratic and offbeat, verging at times into the surrealistic. One might be moved to describe it as Lynchian as result of this odd disconnect.

Protagonist: Antonio Gargazulio-Duarte aka Bongbong. Antagonist: insanity

The conflict is internal, a case of man versus man: Bongbong versus insanity.

The climax is ambiguous and subject to interpretation: one last letter written to Frisquito possibly suggesting that he believes he can actually fly and the narrator’s observation that Bongbong had “finally forgotten who he was.”

A young Catholic schoolgirl riding the same bus takes the time while exiting to cryptically stop, stare, and say without any context to Bongbong: “You will get what you deserve.” The lack of specificity foreshadows the many strange occurrences which subsequently befall him.

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References to platform shoes, velvet clothing, men with long hair and muttonchops, and used copy of Verta Mae’s book Vibration Cooking, Sly Stone and Snoopy posters are all allusions which situate the story as taking place 1970’s.

Imagery becomes most vivid when used for physical descriptions of other characters as seen through the perspective of Bongbong. “She had shoulder-length, greasy blond hair. She had several missing teeth, too, and what other teeth she had left were rotten. Her eyes, which were a dull brown, were heavily painted with midnight blue mascara. She wore a short red skirt, a tight little sweater, and her black sheer tights had runs and snags all over them.”

The mechanism of Bongbong’s descent into madness is his ability to deal effectively with the paradox of human contradiction: “Everyone is an artist, but I don’t see them doing anything.”

The whole story is constructed upon dualistic parallels which strongly suggest a unitary basis: Bongbong may be Frisquito, Charmaine may be Colelia, Bongbong’s hallucinatory state of mind may be the result of dropping acid or the result of being a paranoid schizophrenic.

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“Her voice was as dull as her eyes.”