Narrative diegesis: Recollection of events that happened to Gideon "Religion as the opium of the masses" vs "whatsoever state I am" conflict  Cynics: "They have to imagine a God who cares." Christians: "God actually cares." Balanced: God works through people who ideally make known his care Do not romanticize people whatever socio-economic condition they have Living in poverty makes one try harder [not envy in the sense that they want to outdo their neighbor].  Uneven kindness of God Design principle = conviction + organizing idea Why are you writing this: -As a prayer/apology -To practice being responsible to your characters -~~Might give you an opportunity to practice skills so you can write biographies~~ -Sort out your views without making your characters mouthpieces/obvious propaganda -To practice writing the Other Question of God being different or the same throughout the ages. The same God who "allowed"/predestined wars and revolutions allowed capitalism/industrialization to take hold this century.  -God playing favorites or what looks like playing favorites when he gives to some, afflictions, and to some, wealth -Human beings' job and duty to fellow man to alleviate suffering wherever they are capable of -Prayer "warrior": the idea that prayer works for those whose hearts are right with God. Whether the answer is yes, no, or no answer. The problem with "prosperity for everybody," attaching God with the idea of immense joy and happiness on this Earth if you follow Him. "Take up your cross"  --- The epidemic that spreads is not named nor is the cause known Setting: village/barrio [has the pharmacy and the doctor whose abilities are questioned by Edgar] is not that far from the poultry farm -Stick to synopsis by still summarizing in even just a sentence how Edgar was replaced by a relative who was equally, if not more, harsh [without the drunken angry cursing]. Summary of how Gideon and Lucinda's business develops, have him recollect in hindsight how Gideon didn't offer to alleviate their living conditions, how their houses still looked the same. Lucinda (40): dark brown  -Wanted to be a dressmaker/designer -Her most precious possession/object is the ring her husband gave her [his mom's]  -Stern but caring mother who wants the best for her children -Belen [because puberty and teenage angst] thinks she knows better than mom -Works at the market selling produce -house is on poultry grounds or Gideon's property -Tells husband to stop drinking [where he realizes he might have revealed or hinted at hidden money] -What remained of Gideon's family's money, they agreed to buy land with. -Met Gideon when she was only 23-24, when Lucinda was asked to judge a local beauty pageant held at a school gym Gideon (40): has worked for Edgar for 2 years  -legalist Christian who tries to live according to the good that he sees  -recollective narration comes first when his quiet life is upended when Edgar comes back to his hometown to put up a poultry business -recall memory of grade school years -something he does not anticipate will make him question God's "kindness" -farm produce business does not work out  -what he doesn't anticipate: his son, Alfonso, after the lucky chicken dies, becomes a sort of stand-in, and Edgar tries to appease/please God by "fattening up" the child who had a direct link to Gau, the idol chicken who brought them fatter chickens  -Alfonso is brought to the city and becomes Santa to his friends when he brings them toys  As a father, he knows this is beneficial to them but at the same time he feels twinges of pain -does not realize how God's love does not often translate to worldly comfort/success   -conflict resides in Christianity's "to each one's talent" parable - some people have more talents to grow   -Christianity and capitalism  -tries to become a hero/reformer when he attempts to convince other workers to be honest—naturally, does not work. Human nature. Fear.   -What worked before in the Bible which involved violence, God talking directly to people, and wars involving the pitting of armies against each other, is not going to work now. -Formative incidents in childhood: when his most deeply-set beliefs and motivations were formed; parents were not originally poor, squandered money [especially his father] -He feels a fatherly duty to his daughter, and one of his motivations for the produce business is to send her to school, but he wants to make sure he has enough until then, he keeps it secret. Their relationship is not as emotional -Money stash gets stolen a week after wife tells him to go to the town cooperative bank -Gideon, who used to trust Marlon, thinks that he stole the money, because Marlon at about the same time gets a new TV from his other rackets -Wife of Gideon confides this to wife of Edgar, Hannah. Hannah gives Alfonso a chicken which he names Tweety Bird.  Belen (16): looks like her mom -wants to study in the city, studies hard and gets high grades -King gets her pregnant -gives birth to a daughter - Alfonso (8); looks like his dad -not a complete robinhood character but sort of -~~Alan~~ treats him like a little brother and a close friend -~~Alan~~ distances himself from Alfonso after he notices his father playing favorites -Problem is solved after Tweety follows Alan -since Alfonso is the link to Tweety, and since the chicken does not follow anyone else but Alan and Alfonso, Edgar assumes that this is like a brotherhood initiation without the blood. Hence he curses everyone, including Gideon's family, when Alan dies. -~~is prone to anxiety/depressive bouts—parents don't understand why~~ -transference of power from local saint to chicken of prosperity; the equivalent of Jesus YHWH's fish symbol -fisher of men is to chicken of (golden) eggs --- Edgar (40): of Chinese-Spanish descent; fair-skinned -hires Gideon when he is in the middle of putting up a farm produce business at the market -Edgar is more economically successful, has one son, Alan [12] -promises to fix their houses, but doesn't [or the fact that he forgot] out of negligence -false promises -doesn't make Gideon the manager because as Gideon says, his farm produce business is his first priority -Marlon becomes manager  -formative years incident: believes because he goes to mass every week, gives abundantly to the local churches, his son's school, has only drinking as his vice, that justice will always be on the side of the good, he has never wavered in this belief, since he has not experienced anything of the contrary [if he has witnessed events that happened to others, he thinks it won't happen to him]. Formative years: Reinforced belief in a God who is always on his side: got to see a trial, his dad defended an innocent man who was accused of crimes, who got acquitted, got repaid in millions for damages, criminals involved got sent to prison for life . . -Edgar becomes bitter and decides to leave the poultry farm for a few years  -Edgar goes back to the village because he is sorry for, amongst other things, blaming the poor for ruining his business and killing his son, and blames the epidemic on them for being unclean and sinful -He lost Hannah during Sendong, which he doesn't say, but Fatima knows because she has relatives who also work for Edgar's family in the city -"if it had been your boy who died" implying Gideon's son's life is worth less than Benjamin's -Alfonso, now twenty-five, declines because he is now managing his father's produce business, Belen's daughter is introduced, Maryfe, who is seventeen, and she is given the scholarship  Hannah (41): -mom of Alfonso  ~~Benjamin~~ Joseph[12]: -grade 6, wants to become a doctor because he doesn't think law is going to fix "bad men" wants to be ~~president~~, or ~~"maybe mayor,"~~ doesn't get high grades,  -hints at "uneven kindness," -He is the first to notice ~~splotches~~ on some chickens and Gideon advises him to not handle the chickens, put them in boxes;    some foreshadowing of his own death [how?]  -Gau follows him everywhere, and so do the chickens - Marlon (45): -has one son, King [17] -has a potty mouth -does not take it well when he sees Edgar going into the village brandishing his 4x4 car bought from the city -loves his wife and has a breakdown in front of her when he is found out Randy (20+) -served in prison -fight erupts with outnumbered innocent workers; threatens to kidnap Alan which Gideon overhears Peter (30+) -former "rebelde" or rumored to be  -reportedly has ties to NPA --- Info ~~Fatima~~ Maryfe sends for Gideon, who is working with his fellow farmers, to come to his house because his former amo has visited after twelve years. He's wondering why—describe surroundings and some background on who he is and what his relationship with Edgar was back when he worked for him.  Stealing of young chickens happens because half is for food and half is for lucky chicken—if Gau does the sign that he approves say, walk towards the chick, then it's considered "blessed" Delves into what has happened since then to Edgar and Gideon. Edgar tries to draw some connection to Gideon, whom he humiliates when he gets drunk and curses the land, God, and the poor people who worked for him for causing the death of his son.  ^ [Crucial scene because this leads to Gideon's emotional fallout]—start with the memory when Edgar arrives years later Gideon is  How to not write mere propaganda—develop characters more. Plot vs character debate in tragedy/tragic actions displaying moral fiber When a character uses arguments based on God and religion [acc. to Marx] to complain and seek relief about his situation it's usually because...  2:47PM My characters are not people yet I don't know what I'm  It's the first draft of course it's going to be bad.  Start with what they look like Materialist reality determined by brain chemical composition in day-to-day varying or stable ratios Limit narrative voice and style—no existential philosophy Milton jargon --- Alfonso, then eight years old, was the first to show the symptoms that seemed resistant to any kind of prayer or medicine, and it had spread to the other children of at least five families in the poultry compound. [put in another scene] He remembered all those nights when they could not do anything but listen to Alfonso's cries as he vomited pungent and bloody liquids into a bucket. Edgar's family sent only one doctor, a man named Dr. Salcedo, who could not do anything but give them Mefenamic and Amox. No one, he had whispered, not even the city doctors Edgar brought his son to, knew what it was.  For all their efforts and money, it was only Joseph, Edgar's lone child, who did not  survive. Anyone who must have seen him healthy, Gideon thought, remembering what the disease did to his own lively son, must have  at his [description of ], as if he were forcefully drained of blood and fat. Year: 2014 First scene, high noon, Gideon memories of poultry farm [flashback]: Visit from Edgar [diegesis age: 52] leads to phone call from Lucinda [d.a.: 52] and then Lucinda, Belen [d.a.: 28], Alfonso [d.a. 20] ~~riding in Edgar's 4x4 to Gideon's~~ [d.a.: 52] farm. Belen has a daughter, Maryfe [d.a.: 12] 2014 It was still before noon, and only the distant sounds in the far edges of the fields was  Gideon's company as one foot moved after another, aside from the sounds of the wet ground. The partially leveled paddies, almost promising relief to the waves of ache in his legs and lower back as they flattened, pushed him minute by minute forward to the day when he could save enough for his son and granddaughter's future. As was his habit, he had set out before dawn on a Sunday, and with no exception worked towards bigger harvests, the blistering heat a given of God's favor, as he grew to endure it, like the bountiful rain complementing sunlight. In Gideon's mind, the ground he toiled could not be laid to waste if properly managed by good people. Therefore, when his dead father who had had enough once and more sold all his land, as he had no longer wished to manage anything, and had no more, as was the fate of those like him, he had kept the only inheritance he could muster, and it was worth more than anything his father could ever give.  Presently, Gideon brought home enough earnings to save at least two thousand per month, which had been a far cry to what he could earn years ago. He had remembered Lucinda, his wife of twenty-eight years, who had accompanied him to the cooperative in their barrio on a balmy Monday to open an account and deposit their savings of five hundred pesos. His son, Alfonso, had been ten years old, and was left to the care of his daughter, Belen, then eighteen. Lucinda had worn a red dress that in his memory seemed to cast an energetic glow about her dark hair and finely lined face, and on their way home they shared a kiss under a tree whose branches stooped low enough for shade.   He thought about the next season's harvest five months away. Another leveled portion of land, his arms guiding the tractor's left turn, and the cramp on his neck radiating to his upper arm repeatedly brought his vision back to the last stretches of uneven ground.  With the way it was the last five years, he had been consistently increasing his harvests, he would bend down to the brown soil, his legs weighed down against the sun's heat, and his back, strained forwards until the last rows had been planted, watered, or harvested, and afterwards, he would rest under a mango sapling near Marlon's own farm [explain how they settled their conflict], and two days had passed since his hired farmers had begun work on the fields themselves.  The phone he had bought last week, a secondhand iPhone 6S, played the ringtone his granddaughter, Maryfe, had selected. The voice on the other line was Lucinda's.  "Gideon," she said. "Edgar's visited."    His throat tightened when he heard Edgar's name. He had not seen the man in twelve years.   Gideon closed his warm eyes, rubbed his dark, lined forehead. Despite his former amo's failings, the man had once treated their family kindly when he had worked for them in his poultry farm in Samar.    "Gideon," Lucinda's tone was weak and muffled, like she had been crying, "Hannah is gone. They lost her in the flood and her body—"     He could hear Edgar in the background. On the morning Edgar left the poultry farm, Gideon and Hannah could only exchange pained looks, and Hannah,    "Gideon, I'll go there, bring your family, and we can talk."   "It's good to hear from you, Edgar" Gideon said, finally. --- Scene Two: Gideon working for an amo. Gideon, poorer and working to meet immediate needs like food and his family's needs. [ Hannah has long been buried. Although her body was found near the poultry farm Edgar did not contact them. Why Edgar contacted them will be revealed. If he could subsist on one and a half kilos of chicken feed for a month, and where would the rest of his earnings go? ]