HOLY INFANT ACADEMY

Bonifacio Drive, Ilaya, Calapan City

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ‘’MY ISLAND’’

BY N.V.M. GONZALEZ

Nestor Vicente Madali Gonzalez was a Filipino novelist, short story writer,
essayist and poet. Conferred as the National Artist of the Philippines for Literature in 1997. He
was born on 8 September 1915 in Romblon, Philippines. However, Gonzales was raised in
Mansalay, a southern town of the Philippine province of Oriental Mindoro. Gonzalez was a
son of a school supervisor and a teacher. When he was a teenager, he helped his father by
delivering meat door-to-door across provincial villages and municipalities. Gonzalez was also
a musician. He played the violin and even made four guitars by hand. He earned his first peso
by playing the violin during a Chinese funeral in Romblon. Gonzalez attended college
at National University in Manila but he was unable to finish his undergraduate degree. In
1950, Gonzalez returned to the Philippines and taught at the University of Santo Tomas,
the Philippine Women's University and the University of the Philippines (U.P.). At U.P.,
Gonzalez was only one of two faculty members accepted to teach in the university without
holding a degree. On 14 April 1987, the University of the Philippines conferred on N.V.M.
Gonzalez the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, for his creative genius in
shaping the Philippine short story and novel, and making a new clearing within the English
idiom and tradition on which he established an authentic vocabulary. N.V.M. Gonzalez was
proclaimed National Artist of the Philippines in 1997. He died on 28 November 1999 at the
age of 84. As a National Artist, Gonzalez was honored with a state funeral at the Libingan ng
mga bayani.

The Islands being mentioned in his poem is his hometown which is in

Mansalay, a southern town of the Philippine province of Oriental Mindoro. N.V.M
Gonzalez’s works has nationalistic themes. His poem ‘’My Island’’ reflects on the
beauty of his home and how proud he is of it. Mr. Gonzalez is proud of their
hometown even if it is a small city. He personally used to this place because he is
comfortable with it and he created some very pleasant memories there. N.V.M.
 HOLY INFANT ACADEMY
Bonifacio Drive, Ilaya, Calapan City
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

Gonzalez do not live in their hometown maybe because he want to achieve his
goal without any disturbance. He might believe that living in such comfortable place,
with relatives and friends can be distracting and too relaxing on the way of pursuing
goals. Also people not only youth strive to explore other places and experience
different cultures across the globe.

He describe the island just like an ancient yet a beautiful one. A place
that has a long history to all of those who live there. A hometown that very pleasing in the
eyes. Mansalay City is a lively city, with lots of things to do and see. His hometown is very
popular tourist also. He describe their island by telling in the poem that his home town is his
strength even that there so many problems or struggle that came into his life. His hometown
is charming and interesting in a unique or unusual way. Humans are made to live and work
with others in a positive community where we can thrive because every successful individual
knows that his or her achievement depends on a community of persons working together.

The superiority of N.V.M. Gonzalez’s novels lies principally in their

ability to provide social realism without submitting to sentimentality, at one extreme, or to
any doctrinaire program of violent reform at the other. This same authenticity of character
and situation acquits him of the charge of being a mere imitator, even though age-old
struggles between peasant and proprietor, between barrio and city values, recur in his work.
They do so not because of slavish adherence to literary formulas but because basic social
patterns have persisted in Philippine culture for hundreds of years: It is to these patterns that
Gonzalez is true, and in response to them that his vision has remained constant.

PREPARED BY;

AGBUYA, MA. AIRA VERONICA S.

GRADE 11 ABM- ST. FRANCIS DE SALES