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THE Visitation of The Gods: Written By: Gilda Cordero-Fernando

The story "The Visitation of the Gods" by Gilda Cordero-Fernando is about the annual inspection of a Philippine school by supervisors. It follows Miss Noel, a dedicated teacher, as the school scrambles to impress the supervisors. Miss Noel finds the visitation pointless as effort and merit do not matter if supervisors are not pleased. While others try to gain favor, Miss Noel maintains her integrity and determination. The story exposes corruption and discrimination in the education system through symbols of the supervisors as gods and differences between male and female teachers.

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Ashley Fiona Pascual
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1K views4 pages

THE Visitation of The Gods: Written By: Gilda Cordero-Fernando

The story "The Visitation of the Gods" by Gilda Cordero-Fernando is about the annual inspection of a Philippine school by supervisors. It follows Miss Noel, a dedicated teacher, as the school scrambles to impress the supervisors. Miss Noel finds the visitation pointless as effort and merit do not matter if supervisors are not pleased. While others try to gain favor, Miss Noel maintains her integrity and determination. The story exposes corruption and discrimination in the education system through symbols of the supervisors as gods and differences between male and female teachers.

Uploaded by

Ashley Fiona Pascual
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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THE

VISITATION
OF THE
GODS
Written by:
Gilda Cordero-Fernando

Pascual, Ashley Fiona D.


10 - Archimedes
A critique of the story
“The Visitation of the Gods”

The story "The Visitation of the Gods" was written by Gilda Cordero-
Fernando in 1994. It's about the yearly visitation of the superintendent, district
supervisors, and division supervisors for "purposes of inspection and evaluation."
The author exposed the Filipino's mentality towards competition in the story. The
story is about a quiet, headstrong woman who works hard at her job and does not
allow herself to please her superiors. The plot was very interesting since it shows
that no matter what hard work a woman does, the superintendent and supervisors
would not value it if they weren't pleased.

The story starts when one morning, a sleepy janitor gives a letter to the
principal, named Mr. Obles, that announces that there will be a visitation. After the
first period, all the morning classes were dismissed, and the Home Economics
building became the hub of a general cleaning. When the visitors arrived, Miss
Noel met the new English supervisor, whose name is Mr. Sawit, who then told her
that Mr. Ampil, whom she respected and admired, had died. Mr. Sawit asked her
about the visitation, and Miss Noel frankly told him that it's all a farce because it's
like a script.

Miss Noel realized that those who sacrifice and dedicate their lives for their
job usually end up getting nothing at all, and it seems that all of her years of hard
work have been for nothing. At the end of the story, she still had her
determination, and the next morning, even if she was late, she ran to take her
place with pride and humility on the lowest rung of the school's hierarchy.

The story contains binary oppositions like men and women and less attractive
lady teachers and prettier lady teachers. These binary oppositions show that in the
story there are men and women, and that they're discriminating against the lady
teachers based on their looks by giving the less attractive lady teachers the hard
work while the prettier lady teachers are getting drafted or selected by the
superintendent.

The story also shows symbolism where, in the story, the supervisors,
especially the superintendent, were treated as gods. So when the school knew
about the visitation, they had to set up everything because the impression of these
people was important to the school, especially because they would be judged like
a god would judge a mortal for its actions (Elijah's Review, 2018).
Literary devices are shown in a lot of parts of the story, such as Pugad
Lawin High School, which is the name of the school that's in the story. The
schoolhouse was accessible by a series of stone steps carved on the hard face of
the rocks, and its west windows looked out on the misty grandeur of a mountain
chain shaped like a sleeping woman.

It's also shown in sentences like Mr. Alava emerged into the sunlight; he
was brown as a sampaloc seed. The class had been so well rehearsed that they
were reciting like machine guns. Mr. Sawit sat on a cane chair, straight as a
bamboo, and Miss Noel sailed through a sea of prepositions, using the oral
approach method.

Throughout the story, it shows that there's a big difference between the
positions of the temporary teachers (mostly females) and supervisors or
superintendent (mostly males). While the supervisors or superintendent get to
be treated like gods, the temporary teachers have to court the favor of their
supervisors with lavish gifts of sweets, de hilo, portfolios, and what-not so that
they could get a permanent position on their job. This represents that even in
education, you will find the highest and meanest forms of men.

As a reader, I was not that satisfied by the wording and structure of the
story because there is a lot of symbolism and some vocabulary that I cannot
understand. Although the plot was wonderful, the situation in the story was
pretty much true to life. I'm amazed by the way the author shows the corruption
of the school system by showing a lot of situations that show how terrible the
system is.

I respect and admire Miss Noel just like how he respected and admired Mr.
Ampil for what he stood for. She didn't need to impress their supervisors by
doing such things, instead she passed her exams and had been recommended to
the first vacancy by Mr. Ampil.

I concluded that the story was pretty interesting, even though it's difficult
to fully understand because of its wording and structure, just like I said earlier. I
recommend lessening some symbolism and literary devices, although it is alright
to have them but not too much. Other than that, the story was enjoyable to
read, and the main protagonist was very inspiring.
References list:

Belarmino, J. (2018, March 07). THE VISITATION OF THE GODS. Prezi. https://
prezi.com/p/ggq0mvnztl39/the-visitation-of-the-gods/?fbclid=IwAR0O
KsE9y0sGsmn5PwR-elnfPRNd-1eJjVRhXYAJrFbWA8_CuQ8TVrunPvo#:~
:text=The%20short%20story%20is%20about,of%20education%20in%20
the%20country.&text=The%20story%20also%20exposes%20the%20Fili
pino's%20mentality%20towards%20competition

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