Zac brings up Lina’s tiger dream. Hagedorn builds up the whole tiger scene, and it’s completely anticlimactic. In fact, Pearce’s son says it was lame (270), one of the instances of self-reference in the novel. However, Lina seems to be looking for some sign that “could help her make her decision. To stay or to go? To leave Yeye behind or take her along?…The tiger blinked its amazing eyes and roared. As if to say, Yes, yes. It’s about time!…Lina felt great joy” (270). This incident seems to have guided Lina in her eventual decision to move to the U.S. and leave her daughter behind. But other than that, I’m not sure of its symbolic significance, even though Hagedorn tells us that the tiger represents the Hindu god of destruction (263). Also, “Tigre! Tigre!” (270) is an allusion to the famous William Blake poem, “The Tyger”; however, once again, I’m sure of its significance.
And on the topic of dreams, I’m having trouble making sense of the novel’s title. On a quick flip-through, I counted 12 separate mentions of dreams or nightmares throughout the book. It seems to me that the two most important dreams are the one that Zamora describes to Rizalina about being a crucified he-goat (47), and Lina’s recurring dream about the tiger, described in detail on page 270. However, after looking closely at these two dreams, I can’t see how they relate to the novel’s title exactly.
Ada mentions language and the fact that Hagedorn left many words untranslated. I think this is important in relation to the Philippines. From what I understand, Tagalog is sort of a mesh of Spanish, English and native dialects. So I think it makes sense for Hagedorn to have her characters use a mesh of different languages.
Julie G. brings up the idea of truth or lack thereof. Something that stood out to me was Moody’s description of the Napalm Sunset script; he sees it as “funny in a fatalistic, ironic, Filipino kind of way. No clear-cut heroes or villains, no simplistic, black-and-white notions of justice. Just murk and mud” (175). I think this is an apt description of the novel itself, which was probably the intention.
OK. Now someone fill me in on the title.