by Bai Maleiha

Created on: September 07, 2008   Last Updated: September 09, 2010

Can one man's world revolve in an apple? Can all his flaws be magnified a million times beyond the naked eyes? Can he see his mistakes no matter how he avoid confronting his own conscience?

Alberto Florentino did just that.

One of the stories written by a Filipino author, "The World is an Apple", has reached the conscience of even an ordinary man whose willpower to view life is anchored mainly on a three-square round meals a day. Alberto Florentino managed to tap the inner voice of man through the used of a symbolism to inject a deeper sense of purpose in life, which is rising from one's frailties.

It goes beyond the essence of the entire plot by focusing on the microcosm of daily life lived in poverty.

Florentino's "The World is An Apple" talks about the sad fate of an indigent father who had to struggle everyday to feed his family, but the twisting part of the story was focused on his weakness to the temptation of the flesh, hence eroding his noble purpose as a father for the story evolved in man's evil-minded nature to succumb to the lust for physical pleasure forgetting his greater responsibility outside himself.

Florentino has also managed to use another angle in the story to make his readers see that money is not the evil but the man who uses the money is to be blamed for his personal woes.

The story went this way...

A poor worker of an apple factory was fired from work after stealing one apple which he said was for his sick daughter. He had to steal to feed his daughter for he used his salary to spend nights with prostitutes, hence, the money that was intended for the family was diverted to satisfy his lust for the flesh.

Unmindful of his own sin, the poor worker blamed the management of the apple factory for firing him just only because of the one apple that he stole. He opined that the company had plenty of apples to share and asserted that he was treated unfairly.

He questioned the act done to correct his mistake, but he failed to examine himself for the bad thing he did as a wayward and selfish husband.

What is the moral lesson of this story: that man's ineptness is the cause of his own misfortune. Man can choose to become bad because he wanted the pleasures of life and he does not exercise control over his reactions to the evils that life could bring.

He should have prevailed over his temporal desires for the flesh and not spent all his money for prostitutes. His family should have been his priority more than anything else.

Why did I cite this story?

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