A PRELUDE TO HENLEYS MOTIVATIONAL POESY

1 Chapter A PRELUDE TO HENLEY’S MOTIVATIONAL POESY Rationale of the Study The quest to discover a definition for “literature” is a road that is much travelled, though the point of arrival, if ever reached, is seldom satisfactory Most attempted definitions are broad and vague, and they inevitably change over time In fact, the only thing that is certain about defining literature is that the definition will change Concepts of what is literature change over time as well What may be considered ordinary and not worthy of comment in one time period may be considered literary genius in another By reading and discussing literature, readers improve their ability to read critically and interpret texts while gaining appreciation for different literary genres and theories of interpretation Texts that interpret literary works are usually persuasive texts Literary critics may conduct a close reading of a literary work, critique a literary work from the stance of a particular literary theory, or debate the soundness of other critics' interpretations The work of literary critics is similar to the work of authors writing evaluative texts For example, the skills required to critique films, interpret laws, or evaluate artistic trends are similar to those skills required by literary critics People have been telling stories and sharing responses to stories since the beginning of time By reading and discussing literature, they expand their imagination, their sense of what is possible, and their ability to empathize with others Reading and discussing literature can enhance their ability to write It can sharpen their critical faculties, enabling them to assess works and better understand why literature can have such a powerful effect on their lives Literary texts include works of fiction and poetry In school, English instructors ask students to critique literary texts, or works Literary criticism refers to a genre of writing whereby an author critiques a literary text, either a work of fiction, a play, or poetry Alternatively, some works of literary criticism address how a particular theory of interpretation informs a reading of a work or refutes some other critics' reading of a work Students interpret literary works for English instructors or for students enrolled in English classes In their interpretations, students may argue for a particular interpretation or they may dispute other critics' interpretations Alternatively, students may read a text with a particular literary theory in mind, using the theory to explicate a particular point of view Over the years, literary critics have argued about the best ways to interpret literature Accordingly, many "schools" or "theories of criticism" have emerged As readers can imagine given that they were developed by sophisticated specialists some of these theoretical approaches are quite sophisticated and abstract There are several ways of interpreting a text and one way of interpreting the literary text is reviewing the life of the author The term is expressivism In a literary piece, the author centralizes the writing of the text based on his/her significant experience in life This may be interpreted as the experience that gave impact to his present Thus, it is necessary to go through this in a scholarly work so that the readers will be guided on what is the proper way of interpreting a literary text Though literature is subjective in nature but there are guidelines or procedures to make the nature to objective Being objective does not mean that it can be measured but in interpreting a text, a literary theory would serve as a guide to come up with a good understanding of what the author is conveying to his/her readers Theoretical Setting This critical paper by William Ernest Henley’s Invictus theorizes that its textuality is a construct of multi-dimensional aspects of critical theories and descriptive grammar This research assumption is supported by the literary critical theories of mimesis, expressivism, objectivism, affectivisim, and the linguistic theories of linear grammar, phrase structure grammar, and transformational grammar Mimesis This theory considers texts as limitations, representations, copies— definable in terms of whatever they copy: nature, the world, realities, and some other texts Plato explains mimesis by asserting that literature is a copy of a copy of a reality Reality refers to ideas which are perceived in the appearances of objects, which the writer uses verbally in his creative texts Thus, the writer, who is restricted to imitating the realm of appearances, makes mere copies of copies of realities and his creation is thus twice removed from reality Furthermore, when the writer writes, he is possessed by dementia (madness) and not in control of himself (Adams 3) Aristotle believes that the writer imitates reality by taking a form (idea from nature) and reshapes it in a different matter or medium—thus he is both an imitator and a creator Art then is an improvement on nature in that the writer has brought to completion what nature still endeavors to complete (3) In mimeses, the reader looks for the antecedent of the verbal structure of the literary text, as follows: • • • • • • • • • • life signified by figurative speech; object/idea by symbolism; events/history signified by plot; significance signified rhetorical devices; phenomena signified by myths; human significance signified by literary elements; behavioral/sociological realities signified by literary themes; philosophical/ideological realities signified by literary elements; fantasy represented by literary texts expressing sex and power; historical/anthropological/biblical/cultural figures signified • • • archetypes; taboo themes signified by texts; gender biases signified by textualities; and themes on self and on the other signified by fictional characterizations by (Pesirla 2) Expressivism This theory considers text in terms of what its author expressed, stressing the presence of the writer in the text Thus, this literary text is the expression of the author’s inner being This author-work relationship considers the creative process, therefore, expressivism delves into the ideas of: • • • • • creative spontaneity; preference for feeling over rationality; the individual and particular over the general; the psychology of the author emerging as subject for the study; and inquiry into the merger between the nature of textuality and the nature of its writer Hence, expressivism sees a literary text as a reflection of the writer’s life and times on the character’s life and times in the work The interpretative textual processing in expressivism focuses on: • • delving into the author’s race, moment, milieu; and relating the author’s religion, family education, political meanings, even the writer’s sickness This is also called subjective criticism Here, fictional characters vis-à-vis the psychology of the author are analyzed according to Freudian psychoanalysis following the premises: • • • Most of the individual’s mental processes are unconscious All human behavior is motivated ultimately by human sexuality Many human desires and memories are repressed by social taboos • attached to certain sexual impulses Female and male sexual symbols/images are unconsciously used by the author in the text: o Concave images as female or womb symbols (ponds, flowers, cups, vases, hollows, etc.); and o Length-exceeding-diameter images as male or phallic symbols (tower, mountain peaks, snakes, lances, swords, staffs, canes, tree trunks, etc.) Sexual pleasure is unconsciously symbolized by images of flying and riding in psychoanalysis Therefore, the expressive critical theory can ultimately interpret a literary text as the conscious and unconscious expression of the author’s sexuality through the literary images used that are subjectively interpreted female and/or male symbolisms of certain sexual impulses, desires, and memories repressed by taboos In this study, the researcher delved into this theory to interpret Henley’s Invictus because the poem tells the real situation and condition of the author It clearly states in every line of the poem the different characteristics of the theory of expressivism (Pesirla 4) Objectivisim This theory considers text as an object with internal purpose The reader/critic faces the task of examining the literary work’s internality or structure, and of communicating a sense of its textual unity, hence, called by many names: genre study, signification study, formalism, textuality, intertextuality, metatextuality, organicism, new criticism Objectivism holds that the literary text generates its own unique form so that no external formal laws can be applied to it Textual signification (the relation between content and form) of a text to interpret its meaning gives rise to two opposing ideas within objectivism: correspondence and coherence Textual content at the expense of form (content dictates form) assumes correspondence whereas stressing formal structure to govern meaning (form dictates content) assumes coherence These qualities differentiate the two: (1) Correspondence refers directly its statements to some outer existent reality for verification, thus, the text’s formal nature is less important than what the words denote and no fundamental difference is acknowledged between one use of language and another because formal considerations only minimally affect meaning; and (2) Coherence builds its statements and test them by their ability to exist in a system with other statements, hence, formal structure governs meaning, providing an analogy to the idea of the text as an organic unity, assuming that the relation of symbols to reality is more indirect that usually assumed because the text’s formal order dominates over what the form would seem to contain (Pesirla 6) Literature as an organic unity asserts that the text is independent of its author on the historic time of its writing, when, and why it was written A study conducted by Schroeder (116) entitled “Expression for Expressivists” conclude that: First, according to assertability expressivism to say that a normative utterance expresses a non-cognitive state of mind is to say that it is semantically correct to assert that sentence only if you are in that state of mind So this raises the obvious question of whether semantic cor-rectness is a normative concept If it is, then assertability expressivism falls under its own scope, and the central claims of the theory turn out to be mere expressions of non-cognitive states of mind Second, it is periodically argued that despite the protestations of expressivists, expressivism is still really committed to the view that morality is in some way ‘‘relative,’’ depending in some sense or other on the attitudes of speakers On another study on “Expressivism and Tracking Mentatl States, Shroeder states that expressivism is fundamentally a parity thesis It is the view that moral sentences like 'murder is wrong' are related to non-cognitive states of mind (disapproving of murder) in the very same way that ordinary descriptive sentences like 'grass is green' are related to ordinary descriptive beliefs (believing that grass is green) There is no 'just expresses' about it - the view is precisely that moral sentences no more 'just express' attitudes than descriptive sentences 'just express' beliefs - it's exactly the same relationship, and so if you are comfortable with the relationship between descriptive sentences and descriptive thought, then you should be comfortable with the relationship between moral sentences and moral thought - it just turns out that moral thoughts turn out to be structurally somewhat different than descriptive thoughts As Gibbard put it in 1990, 'that words express judgments will, of course, be accepted by almost everyone (Schroeder 116) In Brown’s (25) “Emotive Realism: A (Mostly) Neglected Kind of Expressivism, he stated that, in this study, expressivism can be entirely realist or entirely emotive The theory of justification will give an account of why the moral feeling that the subjects have expressed is the correct one to have This answer may be a constructivist one, or a utilitarian one, or a deontological one, or even some combination of these views He argued that people need a mixed theory of justification that exploits all of the major normative theories What they want is a moral theory that takes account of certain basic facts about Human Beings; like that they are rational, autonomous, and sentient But Brown (25) did not see any reason to think that these properties are moral properties They are natural properties that people expect a moral theory to take into account Problem Statement This research investigates the textuality of William Ernest Henly’s Invictus through multi-dimensional critic and linguistic description Specifically, it focuses on the following aspects: The theme as mimeses of reality/life; The writer’s presence; The dominant structure/element; The reader’s significant experience; and The linguistic description of significant utterances Significance of the Study This study is beneficial to the following: The Writers/Authors/Students They will be able to realize that their experiences could be expressed through writing This entails that if one wants to express his feelings (positive or negative), writing it one way of putting out these emotions They will also be able to appreciate that life is colorful and that each individual has different experiences and if shared will help the other to realize things The Readers/Students In this study, they will be able to get lessons or morals from the literary piece especially on struggles and pains that one should not give up no matter what happens This study would serve as their guiding principle in their day to day activities The Teachers 10 Through this study, they will be able to impart knowledge and relate significant human experiences to their students They will also learn other experiences from the students through the different interpretations of the latter The Literary Critics This study will guide to the proper way of interpreting the text using this theory They will also be directed as to the correct interpretation of the text and will be able to guide the teachers in dealing with the different interpretations of the students Scope and Limitations This scope of this study is on the interpretation of William Ernest Henley’s Invictus Also, this study is focused only on the following aspects: (1) The theme as mimeses of reality/life; (2) The writer’s presence; (3) The dominant structure/element; (4) The reader’s significant experience; and (5) The linguistic description of significant utterances Definition of Terms Expressivism The term is a doctrine which entails that moral statements such as "this is wrong" express a moral evaluation rather than a statement of fact Formalistic Analysis This refers to an established method in art history and criticism for analyzing works of art: "In order to perceive style, and understand it, art historians use "formal analysis" This means they describe things very carefully 18 can merit a bit of conquering When proven wrong, one may be obstinate or allow the facts to conquer our pride and prompt us to apology The spirit of determination and conviction pictured here is certainly admirable when one is standing for principle Many have died while refusing to bow to tyranny, persecution or torture, but the nobility is of greater value when the cause is greater than merely pride or personal aggrandizement In verse three, the speaker speaks of future “Horror” beyond the hardships of the present Perhaps he refers only to the empty void or oblivion that some believe awaits those who die But, the word “Horror” sounds ominous enough to describe a hell of sorts anticipated by those who defy or deny their Creator This fatalistic attitude is not completely unlikely and is even referenced in the biblical book of Revelation where those suffering tribulation woes curse the God they know has sanctioned their judgment To claim to be unafraid in this context sounds somewhat boastful and premature In the final verse, the speaker references the “strait” gate While this could have been pulled from the words of Jesus found in the Gospels, it may simply be a reference to the author’s willingness to take the hard path Line two seems to be an unavoidable reference to the “scroll” or book opened in the final judgment that records the sins of the condemned and (supposedly) the pronouncement of “punishments” in the Lake of Fire (again, Revelation) The speaker supposes that his judgment before God will somehow be overruled by his own human power of self-determination One wonders if the speaker understood the concept that a captain can choose to challenge the reefs with his vessel, but once upon 19 the savage rocks, his will cannot overturn the shipwreck he has caused by his arrogance People can all make choices, they cannot control the results, but they have to live with them I am the master V D N P of my fate Prep P N Rewrite the Rule: The Linguistic Description of Significant Utterances P + V + D + N + Prep + P + N S Where: Linear Grammar: Immediate Constituents P – pronoun V – verb D – determiner N – noun Prep – preposition S sentence I P – am the V D captain N of my Prep P soul N Rewrite the Rule: P + V + D + N + Prep + P + N Where: P – pronoun V – verb D – determiner N – noun Prep – preposition S - sentence S 20 Phrase Structure Grammar: Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase Model Analysis S NVP NP NP NP P V Det I am the NP N master Prep Det N of my fate Rewrite Rule Description: S NP + VP NP NP + Prep + NP NP Det + N VP V +Det + N + Prep + Det + N 21 Transformational Grammar Model Analysis SENTENCE: I am the captain of my soul TRANSFORMS: The captain of my soul is me (nominative focus) He is the captain of his soul and no other The soul’s captain is me (possessive focus) He is the only captain of his sould I am the captain of my soul Step P + V + Det + N + Prep + Det + N The soul is captained by me (objective focus) Step captain + soul + receiver His soul is controlled by him Step the owner of something Step Sentence transforms: Model Analysis The captain of my soul is me He is the captain of his soul and no other The soul’s captain is me He is the only captain of his soul The soul is captained by me His soul is controlled by him 22 Chapter SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS This chapter presents the summary of findings, conclusions, and recommendations SUMMARY OF FINDINGS This research investigates the textuality of William Ernest Henly’s Invictus through multi-dimensional critic and linguistic description Specifically, it focuses on the following aspects: The theme as mimeses of reality/life; The writer’s presence; The dominant structure/element; The reader’s significant experience; and The linguistic description of significant utterances The following are the findings of the study: The theme as mimeses of reality/life 23 In this study, the researcher found out that in life, one is the master of his/her fate, the captain of his/her soul He/she is the champion of self-reliance, and challenges the notion that man cannot rely upon inner strength alone, that he/she must have the help of some sort of deity in order to survive in this world The writer’s presence The most important aspect of "Invictus" is Henley's agnostic attitude Unsure of any one particular god, he thanks "whatever gods may be;" that is, if there are any gods at all By the end of the poem, it is clear that the existence of any god or gods is purely inconsequential to Henley's own existence Henley's feelings towards these experiences were most likely born out of his harrowing hospital experiences, and his powerful triumph over tuberculosis "Invictus" is the poem of a survivor, and a survivor is exactly what Henley was It is, though, the most characteristic of his strong willed personality The dominant structure/element Line 13 of this poem seems to give people the most trouble is this reference to a "strait gate" "It matters not how strait the gate" is either a reference to John Bunyan's tract The Strait Gate, or Great Difficulty of Going to Heaven This refers to an acceptance of whatever judgment or doom death may bring He accepts no master but himself He bows to no authority He is his own god, guide, and judge He is the Captain The reader’s significant experience The speaker supposes that his judgment before God will somehow be overruled by his own human power of self-determination One wonders if the 24 speaker understood the concept that a captain can choose to challenge the reefs with his vessel, but once upon the savage rocks, his will cannot overturn the shipwreck he has caused by his arrogance People can all make choices, they cannot control the results, but they have to live with them The linguistic description of significant utterances The last two lines of the poem have the same structure in terms of linear grammar: immediate constituents while in the phrase structure grammar: noun phrase and verb phrase the structure of Line 15 is composed of two noun phrases In transformational grammar, Line 16 transforms into three categories: the nominative focus, the possessive focus, and the objective focus CONCLUSION Based on the findings, this realization is arrived at the research assumption that is supported by the literary critical theories of mimesis, expressivism, objectivism, affectivisim, and the linguistic theories of linear grammar, phrase structure grammar, and transformational grammar RECOMMENDATIONS Based on the findings and the conclusion, the following recommendations are hereby offered: Life is a precious gift from God but it is not precious stones or gold at all times It is compared to a wheel that it sometimes goes up and sometimes goes down This must be treasured at all times by taking care of the body as the temple of the soul 25 Everyone has his/her own destiny or fate He/she cannot control it because there is a supreme being who controls it The author though arrogant in his words but is realistic, thus, his battle for life and courage to face death must serve as an inspiration to everyone He is a model of great faith The structural element in a text is varied, thus, it is recommended that in interpreting a text aside from the subjective point of view, the other way which is the objective point of view must also be observed and analyzed There are several ways of interpreting or analyzing the text and in the classroom every student has his/her own significant experience in life which would give a different interpretation, thus, teachers must be opened and recognized that each is different from one another In the different linguistic utterances in a text, there are several ways of analyzing the grammatical structure, thus, teachers can use a poem that would serve as an instrument in language discussion Literary analysis is not only limited to English teachers but to everyone because literature is about life and all the themes are products of man’s significant human experiences, thus, everyone must not be hesitant to read and interpret literary texts Further Recommendations Based on the findings, the conclusion, and the recommendations, the following topics are proposed for future research Engineering, Mathematics, Science: The Impact of William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus” William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus”: The Philippine Setting Invictus: A Filipino Approach to Critical Analysis The Philippines: The Invictus 26 William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus”: A Filipino Critic WORKS CITED Journals/Articles Acton, H B 'The Expletive Theory of Morals', Analysis, 4: 42-45 (1936) Ayer, A J Language, Truth and Logic (2nd edn) London: V Gollancz ltd (1946) Baldwin,T 'Ethical Non-naturalism', in I Hacking (ed),Exercises in Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.39 (1985) Ball, S 'Reductionism in Ethics and Science: A Contemporary Look at G.E Moore's Open-Question Argument', American Philosophical Quarterly, 25: 197-213 (1988) Bar-On,D., Speaking My Mind: Expression and Self-Knowledge New York: Oxford University Press (2004) Blackburn,S, Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language.New York: Oxford University Press (1994) Pesirla, Angel O Literary Critical Theories Cebu City (2013) Internet Sources Literary Criticism http://writingcommons.org/genres/academic-writing/literarycriticism Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol LXXVI No 1, International Phenomenological Society 2008 http://wwwbcf.usc.edu/~maschroe/research/Schroeder_Expression.pdf 27 http://peasoup.typepad.com/peasoup/2007/01/expressivism_an_1.html http://onemorebrown.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/er-ch-1.pdf http://www.bartleby.com/103/7.html http://EzineArticles.com/4615906 28 Appendix A THE PRIVATE LIFE OF WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY* William Ernest Henley (August 23, 1849 - July 11, 1903) was a British poet, critic and editor Henley was born in Gloucester and educated at the Crypt Grammar School The school was a poor relation of the Cathedral School, and Henley indicated its shortcomings in his article (Pall Mall Magazine, Nov 1900) on T E Brown the poet, who was headmaster there for a brief period Brown's appointment was a stroke of luck for Henley, for whom it represented a first acquaintance with a man of genius "He was singularly kind to me at a moment when I needed kindness even more than I needed encouragement." Brown did him the essential service of lending him books Henley was no classical scholar, but his knowledge and love of literature were vital After suffering tuberculosis as a boy, he found himself, in 1874, aged twenty-five, an inmate of the hospital at Edinburgh From there he sent to the Cornhill Magazine where he wrote poems in irregular rhythms, describing with poignant force his experiences in hospital Leslie Stephen, then editor, visited his contributor in hospital and took Robert Louis Stevenson, another recruit of the Cornhill, with him The meeting between Stevenson and Henley, and the friendship of which it was the beginning, form one of the best-known episodes in English literature (see Stevenson's letter to Mrs Sitwell, Jan 1875, and Henley's poems "An Apparition" and "Envoy to Charles Baxter") In 1877 Henley went to London and began his editorial career by editing London, a journal written for the sake of its contributors rather than the public Among other distinctions it first gave to the world The New Arabian Nights of Stevenson Henley himself contributed a series of verses chiefly in old French forms He had been writing poetry since 1872, but (so he told the world in his “ advertisement” to his collected Poems, 1898) he “found himself about 1877 so 29 utterly unmarketable that he had to own himself beaten in art and to addict himself to journalism for the next ten years.” When London folded, he edited the Magazine of Art from 1882 to 1886 At the end of that period he came into the public eye as a poet In 1887 Gleeson White made for the popular series of Canterbury Poets (edited by William Sharp) a selection of poems in old French forms In his selection Gleeson White included many pieces from London, and only after completing the selection did he discover that the verses were all by Henley In the following year, HB Donkin in his volume Voluntaries, written for an East End hospital, included Henley's unrhymed rhythms quintessentializing the poet's memories of the old Edinburgh Infirmary Alfred Nutt read these, and asked for more; and in 1888 his firm published A Book of Verse Henley was by this time well known within a restricted literary circle, and the publication of this volume determined his fame as a poet, which rapidly outgrew these limits, two new editions of the volume being printed within three years In this same year (1888) Fitzroy Bell started the Scots Observer in Edinburgh, with Henley as literary editor, and early in 1889 Bell left the conduct of the paper to him It was a weekly review on the lines of the old Saturday Review, but inspired in every paragraph by the vigorous and combative personality of the editor It was transferred to London as the National Observer, and remained under Henley's editorship until 1893 Though, as Henley confessed, the paper had almost as many writers as readers, and its fame was mainly confined to the literary class, it was a lively and influential feature of the literary life of its time Henley had the editor's great gift of discerning promise, and the "Men of the Scots Observer," as Henley affectionately and characteristically called his band of contributors, in most instances justified his insight The paper found utterance for the growing imperialism of its day, and among other services to literature gave to the world Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads.* *http://www.poemhunter.com/william-ernest-henley/biography/ Appendix B 30 Summary of William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus” The speaker of the poem is the author himself, William Ernest Henley As the speaker stated, “Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul (Henley)”, you just imagine the speaker thinking about death When the speaker talked about the night covering him, it seems as if it is the thought of death since his youth, and the black as the pit, is where he feels he will go With the fear of death still running through his head, the speaker thanked gods for his unconquerable soul, because he felt they were the reason he was still surviving tuberculosis In the second stanza the speaker stated, “In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but not unbowed (Henley)” When he stated that, I feel the speaker was talking about how tuberculosis has tried to kill him before, and it will keep trying The speaker tried to not let the fear show on the outside, even though it was bursting on the inside You can really tell by the details Henley gave, that the speaker was very tough When he talked about his head not being unbowed, he was talking about that even though it was taking over his life, he would not let it ruin him completely The third stanza stated, “Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the Horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the years finds, and shall find, me unafraid (Henley)” In this stanza the speaker talked about the life he was living in, that was full of tears coming from people scared to lose him The shade was the place he would go after he died, and the place he would no longer be able to see all the people there for him at the hospital Even though the speaker had this for so long, he still hid his fear from everyone, to show them he was unafraid In the last stanza it is written, “It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul (Henley)” The speaker said this, meaning that it didn’t matter how rocky or troubled his past life was, he knew he would die eventually, so he was going to keep living his life the way he wanted to The theme of “Invictus” would have to be survival after all the troubles he went through while having tuberculosis When writing the poem, Henley, used the rhyme format ABAB, meaning every other line rhymed To make poem more visual, Henley added in some similes such as, “Black as the Pit from pole to pole (Henley)” William Ernest Henley did a great job of giving details and thoughts, so the reader could imagine what he was going through Appendix C 31 About the Literary-Linguistic Critic He was born on November 10, 1976 of a father who was a fisherman and a mother who is a farmer His father died on August 17, 1986 when he was years old then His father died due to infection in the liver at the age of 36 His mother was left with his siblings (1 brother and sisters) He was in Grade then with his elder brother Though faced with tough problems, the critic continued his studies He graduated as Class Salutatorian in elementary with his elder brother as the Valedictorian They were both consistent honor students in elementary When in high school at St Mary’s Academy, Oslob, Cebu, since they were three, he decided to take a scholarship examination He successfully passed the examination and was granted full government scholarship until graduation They also received several academic and character awards in high school After graduating high school, he continued to pursue his dreams to finish college and that he applied as a working student in the University of San JoseRecoletos assigned at the Medical Clinic He struggled so much since his mother could hardly sustain in giving him his weekly allowance and that he decided to sell foods in the classroom to support his daily needs He successfully finished his bachelor’s degree in English (AB English) on March 23, 1996 After graduation, he applied as a sales representative at the International Pharmaceuticals, Incorporated (IPI) and was assigned to several places all over the country After three years, to decided to get married with his long time girlfriend and classmate for five years also a graduate of the same university but was taking Education with Biology and Chemistry as her field of specialization He was married with a beautiful woman with a big heart on March 6, 1996 both were gifted with a gorgeous son and a beautiful daughter They are happy living together with the excellent academic performances provided by their children 32 Last 2006, he was invited to teach at Colegio del Santo Nino and it was then that he discovered his skills in teaching He was then recommended to teach in La Consolacion College-Liloan with the OSA (Order of Saint Augustine Sisters) After three years, he was promoted as part of the lay administrator Last 2010, he then decided to join the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of San Jose-Recoletos Until now, he is a full time faculty the same college teaching English, Literature, Speech and Communication, Professional Subjects, and Humanities He is presently pursuing his Doctor of Philosophy in English