Exploring Ideology in Luis Teodoro’s “The Undiscovered Country”

Exploring Ideology in Teodoro’s “The Undiscovered Country” *

Luis Teodoro’s short story, “The Undiscovered Country” dramatizes how ideology constructs socio-cultural conditions.  Although this short fiction is not clearly situated in a specific time and place (perhaps hinting at its allegorical nature – i.e. the places, events, and characters picture out situations wherever and whenever nationalisms contend with imperialisms), this essay operates on the idea that Teodoro’s work is a Marxist critique of the prevailing socio-cultural order of the time covering the year in which the short story was written (1968) and the decade or decades immediately preceding it. The delineation of this historical period is based on the major assumption or interpretation that Dr. Olvido, the main character, is a Filipino married to an American (Anne).  To bolster this assumption, parallel historical facts are dovetailed with some of the details in the story.

Marxist theorist Louis Althusser propounded that ideology is a system of beliefs or ideas which, operating through “ideological State apparatuses” (schools, media, judicial and legislative institutions ,etc.), governs the lives of people. This system constructs an illusory “reality” that masks existing socio-cultural contradictions.¹ This power relationship, adds Antonio Gramsci, is wielded by a “ruling bloc” and is effected not only by force but also by the consent of the ruled.² “Ideology,” as used in this study is thus equated with Foucault’s concept of “discourse” (a set of power-conferring and rule-making ideas and practices).

One of the ideologies interrogated in the story is the Humanist type which presents humans as creatures of free will, an idea that is debunked by the text right at the start when the following is said of Dr. Olvido (p. 93)³:

…he was convinced – as many men were, alas, convinced – that he was free and possessed the capacity to make a choice…he lived in an age in which the prime illusion was the belief that men, though they lived dark and demented lives, possessed these completely as they possessed objects…

As Olvido gazes at the ruins of Aurangzeb’s empire (p. 93), he asks: What mortar could keep the edifices of civilization intact? What forge could create an iron permanence? These questions point to his illusory ideals of permanence and the soundness of acceptability of the status quo, and therefore to his insipid academic pursuits that are out of touch with reality.  In subscribing to a humanistic, idealistic ideology, he was clapped with intellectual blinders and has refused his ailing country’s call for societal, institutional reform.

This ideology works through the Academe where Olvido seemed to have found himself insulated from the harsh socio-political reality he lives in. Here, the classroom is  a secure place where one is awed at the certitude of scholarship and the autonomy of a professorial job, as shown by Anne’s fascination with her husband’s lectures (p. 97). But this sense of stability and autonomy is an illusion for, as the helplessness of Dr. Olvido in the face of Dr. Hooke’s impositions on the “new graduate school program” would show, Olvido is actually under the hegemonic influence of those who hold the purse (pp. 106-107).

The library, too, is another “cool shelter” where, “[s]urrounded by the concentrated learning of the ages in the towering book stacks,” one experiences a “flood of peace” (ibid.). In this comfort zone, “The comfortable smell of old books and the hum of the fans” (ibid.) can lull one to sleep – a scene which can symbolize one’s yielding to the opium of an otherwise oppressive academic or political setup.

But just as “sharp rays of light [would stab] like bayonets into” a library table and a wind could invade the silence of the library to awaken the sleeping book reader (p. 97), so would the raw scenes of poverty and injustice outside the academic walls force one to be aware of a larger world where emaciated children beg (p. 102), where workers forced to labor at night accidentally fall to their deaths (p. 106), where one gets slapped by warm air that comes as a “furnace blast” and deafened by “the roar of traffic” (p. 105), and where one cannot fail to see the forboding darkness beyond the lights and glass windows of a classy diner.

“Nothing,” Dr. Olvido utters twice in response to his wife’s gesture of concern as if hoping that by saying so, the problems of his country would go away. But his frantic escape with his car from the scene of the dead worker who had accidentally fallen from a scaffold,  as well as his disturbed breathing in bed , would betray his sense of guilt.

Another ideology critiqued in this work is American Exceptionalism which Mark Slouka defines as “the myth of ‘America as an elect nation, the world-redeeming ark of Christ, chosen, above all the nations of the world, for a special dispensation.’”⁴ In the 20^th century, the catch phrases “White Man’s Burden” and “Manifest Destiny” were powerful ideological tools that conveyed what Servando Halili would call “a racialized ideological and representational discourse.”⁵ This imperialistic drive of the U.S. government was strengthened by the rise of militantly anti-Communist Evangelicalism in America in the 1950s as embodied in its poster-boy, Billy Graham.⁶ Religion as a tool to escape from reality or justify political ends may be referred to by Anne’s appeals to God (p. 102) in her hour of perplexity.

US hegemony over a vast geographical area, including the Philippines, was sustained by this discourse which finds its voice in the wife of Dr. Olvido’s visiting colleague, Herman (pp. 103-104).  She is identified as coming from “one of the western states” and one whose smile is indicative of “one who, venturing from the metropolis of the world, has seen much of the rest but has misunderstood it” (p. 103).

She speaks condescendingly of “this part of the world” where traffic snarls and the hot climate are unbearable, where lawlessness abounds – in other words,  where “rights and things that are sacred to [her and her people] don’t mean anything” (p. 105).  She paints a benevolent picture of her country, but where she sat the world outside wails for the abuses of her government in this “othered” society.

This depiction of a civilized hegemonic culture (in this case, the US) is greatly mediated by mass media or popular culture. This is indicated toward the end of the story where Anne, as she speeds away in a plane  from the turbulent country of her husband, watches on TV the “clean and beautiful images of the men and women of her own race” (p. 108) and images of “the soldiers of her own country towering above the men of another land so much like those of the earth she had left” (p. 109).⁷

But mass media can also be a tool for exposing the oppressive nature of this political relationship. In the same  section of the story, American soldiers are shown on screen “firing their weapons at small running figures who fell on the blooded street like stilled large dolls” and, “in another city [that lays] prostrate beneath the shadows of [Anne’s] land.” While involved in that carnage, these  G.I. Joes mask “their bewilderment behind a swaggering cruelty” (ibid.).

This “long train of abuses” by the U.S. is revealed in the heated exchange between Anne and the young activist Fortunato Riesgo. In this verbal skirmish, the latter indicts the U.S. government’s meddling with the affairs of his country and killing “hundreds of thousands here and millions more all over the world” (p. 101).  In the 1960s, the memories of the Philippine-American War may not have completely been overshadowed by World War II.

According to Augusto De Viana,⁸ the said conflict claimed the lives of 4,000 American troopers and 16,000 Filipino soldiers as well as over a million civilians and that during the “early part of American rule parts of the country were turned to a ‘howling wilderness’ and Filipinos endured reconcentration, exile, indiscriminate killings, water cures and other tortures never practiced before.”⁹ This came especially after the Balangiga incident where a group of US infantry were massacred by Filipino revolutionaries in Samar.¹⁰ The “no-holds-barred” operations of US-led war against the anti-imperialist Hukbalahap soldiers in the ‘50s and ‘60s also saw the oppression and even death of thousands of Filipinos.¹¹

Add to this the fact that at that time the US was engaged in several conflicts in other parts of the world like Nicaragua and Cuba in accordance with its “Policy of Containment.” Most notable among these little wars was that in Vietnam in which the US involvement began as a “counter-intervention act” and ended up as, in the words of American political analyst Michael Walzer, “an American war, fought for American purposes, in someone else’s country.”¹²

Riesgo also laments the destruction of “native undertakings” due to the machinations of Anne’s government. This could be read as a reference to the treaties and policies made during this period which ensured the protection of American interests in the Philippines. Filipino National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera perhaps summarized best the arm-twisting strategies of the U.S. in Philippine politics during this period:

The Bell Trade Act imposed free trade, which meant free flow of U.S. goods into the Philippines for 28 years, and insisted on “parity” rights allowing U.S. citizens to enjoy the same rights as Filipinos in the exploitation of the natural resources of the country.  The Philippine Rehabilitation Act tied war damage payments to Philippine approval of the Bell Trade Act.  Free use of 23 base sites in the Philippines for 99 years was demanded by the Military Bases Agreement.  Capping everything was the Military Assistance Pact which gave the U.S., through military aid, control over the military forces of the Philippines.¹³

Thus, “1946 to 1960 was an era of effective American control of the Philippine economy, political life, and military affairs.”¹⁴ Angelo and Aloma De Los Reyes¹⁵ extend the period of American control over the Philippine government to the time of Ferdinand Marcos who made his Presidential debut in 1965. At the time, the political and social condition of the country was delirious, a description of which was made in a CIA report  prior to that year’s political exercise:

There is a generalized condition of discontent and lawlessness…fed by several basic and interrelated factors: widespread rural poverty; deep social and economic cleavage between upper and lower classes; extensive unemployment and underemployment; widespread graft, corruption, and favouritism in government and in business.  In the cities, especially among the youth, there is frustration over the lack of political and economic opportunity… ¹⁶

The rise of Ferdinand Marcos to the helm of government did not spell the rise of the country from squalor for, among other acts that made him notorious, he continued his money-making schemes which he established during his Senatorial days. He  eventually amassed more than USD 950,000 that was eventually deposited in three separate accounts in Zurich’s Swiss Credit Bank.¹⁷

It is no surprise then that the period following Marcos’ first term also marked the rise of nationalistic movements seen not only in the streets but also in literature among which is the short story under study.

Toward the end of Teodoro’s work, an optimistic teleology is articulated: Even if Olvido continues to be deaf to his people’s cries of reform, change will come to free  them from the prison built by a dominating culture with the aid of the dominated. That day will come when the wrath of the oppressed “would come crashing down in a shower of sparks to break the fire-forged chains, to let loose the great purifying storm of fire that would howl through the fetid streets of the evil cities of the world” (pp. 109-110).

Such a hopeful stance squares with what Karl Marx wrote in “World Revolution”:

The communists… openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution.  The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.  They have a world to win.¹⁸

Of course, Marxism is itself an ideology and whether Marx’s vision is as illusory as Olvido’s Humanism is open to debate – as open as the way the story ends in which there is no promise of certainty that separation will eventually end up in lasting reconciliation, or that revolution will spell meaningful reform.

Notes:

* Many thanks to Professor Delfin Tolentino, Jr. of UP Baguio for his much-needed comments used in polishing this essay.

1 Hans Bertens, Literary Theory: The Basics (New York: Routledge, 2001), 85.

2 Chris Barker, Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, 2^nd ed. (London: SAGE Publications, 2003), 80-81.

3 Henceforth, page references as this pertain to Teodoro’s book, The Undiscovered Country (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2004.

4 Quoted by Michael J. Baxter in his article, “God is Not American,” in D. Brent Laytham, ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004), 56.

5 Servando D. Halili, Jr., Iconography of the New Empire: Race and Gender Images and the American Colonization of the Philippines (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2006), 18.  The concept of “Manifest Destiny” was first articulated by journalist John L. O’Sullivan who wrote in 1845:

It is our manifest destiny to overspread and possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.

Notes historian Alan Axelrod: The phrase “manifest destiny” instantly becomes a justification for  the United States’ possession of territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific, even if acquiring the land means war. 1001 Events That Made America: A Patriot’s Handbook (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2006), 79-80.

6 Robert S. Ellwood, 1950: Crossroads of American Religious Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 189.

7 In one of his comments on this essay, Professor Tolentino writes:

The film that Anne watches in the plane appears to be one of those typical Hollywood  war pictures where the American military is represented as agent of salvation while their enemies are completely demonized.

8 De Viana, Augusto. Apples & Ampalaya: Bittersweet Glimpses of the American Period in the Philippines (1898-1946). (Manila: UST Publishing House, 2001), 53.

9 De Viana, 157.

10 see Cherilyn A. Walley, “A Century of Turmoil: America’s Relationship with the Philippines,” Special Warfare, 17 (September 2004): 6.

11 Renato Constantino & Letizia R. Constantino. The Philippines: The Continuing Past (Quezon City: The Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1978), 215, ff.

12 Michael Walzer,  Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1977), 196; cf. John T. Rourke & Mark A. Boyer, International Politics on the World State, Brief, 5^th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004),  31.

13 Bienvenido Lumbera & Cynthia Nograles Lumbera, Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology, Revised ed. (Pasig City, Philippines: Anvil Publishing Inc., 1997), 180.

14 ibid.

15 Angelo J. De los Reyes & Aloma M. De los Reyes, eds.,  Igorot: A People Who Daily Touch the Earth and Sky, Vol. II (Baguio City: Cordillera Schools Group, 1986), 101.

16 Cited in Charles C. McDougald, The Marcos File: Was He a Philippine Hero or a Corrupt Tyrant? (San Francisco: San Francisco Publishing, 1987), 118.

17 David Fagan [Constantino, Renato], “The Left and the Future of the Marcos Regime in the Philippines,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 30 (August 2000): 446-449; cf. McDougald, 119.

18 Michael Curtis, The Great Political Theories, Vol 2, New Expanded Ed. (New York: Avon Books, 1981), 172.

Works Cited:

Axelrod, Alan. 1001 Events that Made America. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2006.

Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Constantino, Renato & Letizia R. Constantino. The Philippines: The Continuing Past. Quezon City: The Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1978.

Curtis, Michael. The Great Political Theories. Vol 2, New Expanded Edition. New York: Avon Books, 1981.

De los Reyes, Angelo J. & Aloma M. De los Reyes, eds. Igorot: A People Who Daily Touch the Earth and Sky. Vol. II. Baguio City: Cordillera Schools Group, 1986.

De Viana, Augusto. Apples & Ampalaya: Bittersweet Glimpses of the American Period in the Philippines (1898-1946). Manila: UST Publishing House, 2001.

Ellwood, Robert S. 1950: Crossroads of American Religious Life. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000.

Fagan, David [Constantino, Renato]. “The Left and the Future of the Marcos Regime in the Philippines.” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 30 (August 2000): 446-449.

Halili, Servando D. Jr.  Iconography of the New Empire: Race and Gender Images and the American Colonization of the Philippines. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2006.

Laytham, D. Brent, ed. God is not…Religious, Nice, “One of Us,” An American, A Capitalist. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004.

Lumbera, Bienvenido & Cynthia Nograles Lumbera. Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology. Revised ed. Pasig City, Philippines: Anvil Publishing Inc., 1997.

McDougald, Charles C. The Marcos File: Was He a Philippine Hero or a Corrupt Tyrant? San Francisco: San Francisco Publishing, 1987.

Rourke, John T. & Mark A. Boyer. International Politics on the World State, 5^th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.

Teodoro, Luis. The Undiscovered Country.  Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2004.

Walley, Cherilyn A. “A Century of Turmoil: America’s Relationship with the Philippines.” Special Warfare, 17 (September 2004): 4-8.

Walzer,  Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1977.