The Province Lad Who Loved a City Gal
Looking at the sky, they sang, “Our sky, my Muse, this is ours, our sky, our ocean, our sand, our moment, our love, and our sky sown with stars”. Do you think a city woman can live in a province?
The story “How my Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife” was written in the year 1930s at Nagrebcan, Bauang La Union, the birthplace of Manuel E, Arguilla, we can see in the text that the author, Manuel, treasures his hometown by the vividness in describing the visual and sensory details from the imagery, the scent and the sound in the text.
This story has three main characters, Leon, the province man, the husband of Maria, Maria, a city woman, the wife of Leon, and Baldo, the one who narrates the story. Baldo and his older brother Leon were waiting for Maria to arrive so that they could meet Leon’s family, Since Maria was born and raised in the city, Leon’s father wanted to test Maria if she could thrive in the province, Maria was afraid that Leon’s father might not accept her because she has never experienced the province life before but in the end, after their father learned that Maria was not afraid of Labang and that they sang the song “Our Sky Sown With Stars”, their father accepted her.
The story “How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife”, by Manuel Arguilla, shows that people can still find love and their special someone in the world who will love and care about you regardless of your social status. Just like Maria who is a city woman met Leon who is a province man, they are two people from a different part of the world where their life is different, Maria knew that Leon lived in a province where life is hard, but even after knowing that she still married Leon, she didn’t care about where he lived, how hard it was, she only cared about Leon and who he is.
Maria respected Leon and didn’t care about his social status. When Maria arrived at their province she hesitated but grabbed the courage to pat Labang, she visited Waig and was amazed by the view and how clean it was there, she sang “Sky Sown With Stars”, the song that Leon and his father sang, Maria didn’t complain about anything, she was only concerned if Leon’s family would accept her. She was willing to sacrifice the city life just to be with Leon.
In the story “How my Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife”, by Manuel E. Arguilla, the story starts with Baldo meeting the wife of his brother Leon who has never experienced the province life, I was fascinated by the story because it tells people that regardless of their social status you can still find your special someone in the world who will love and care for you.
In conclusion, the story tells us that there are people in the world who won’t care about your social status and still love and appreciate you and that we should never be afraid to commit and sacrifice for the people we love.
