Dona Consolacion was a Filipino woman who’s been married to an ensign. As I read the story, I
have discovered a lot of things about her life including her personality and temperament. As a
woman, she’ s likely to have a mean attitude. She only thinks about herself and looks at other
people as mere objects. Also, the sufferings of others were her kind of happiness. Just like how
she treated Sisa, a madwoman, who does nothing wrong to her. The time she heard Sisa’s
voice, she was moved, but still, when the servants brought her, she mistreated her for not
obeying all of the demand she had given. She chose to punish the girl instead of appreciating
her voice. She could just compliment her for having a great song, but pride stopped her from
doing that and continued to abuse Sisa. When we look at it, Dona Consolacion enjoyed
tormenting her because of the insecurities that she had and at the same time for her advantage.
But, each of us doesn’t have the right to hurt others. Because everyone has their feelings, and
we should not use it as a plaything for our benefit. Truth be told, our true happiness could be
easily seen, if only we were able to look closely at the world, we could perceive what things
could make us truly happy and fulfilled.

On the other hand, we could realize that she also has reasons why she’s doing such actions.
First, the people around her don’t consider her as one of them. She’s been isolated to the
society because of her physical appearance and boastful personality. The way she dresses, her
colorful make-up, and how she spoke hardly in the Spanish language. Maybe it’s her way of
action so that the people will notice her. She seeks attention but we all know that she was doing
it in the wrong way. As stated in the chapter, she’s been thinking so high about herself and she
doesn’t care if she was stepping into someone else. This behavior is something that all of us
should not practice. There are so many good ways on how we can have a better relationship
with everyone, but for her, it’s been too difficult. When it comes to the people, I observed that
they easily judged her, everything about her. For me, both sides have fault actions that cause a
small problem to a bigger one. It would be better if all people are in good terms, wherein there is
no judgment, arrogance, and chaos between each other. I perceived how important the
relationship is, and how it affects our lives in various perspectives.

Dona Consolacion is married to a Spanish ensign, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s still a
Filipino woman. That important thing is what she desires to forget. In my opinion, no matter
where life takes us, we should not forget where we came from. No matter what happens, our
country is our identity which all of us should be proud of. Even though our country was being
conquered by Spaniards at that time, she should still put her feet into the ground and should
stay humble to everyone, especially to her fellow Filipinos. It is quite reasonable if she just used
both languages because she has a reason to do so, she’s a Filipina and married to a Spaniard.
But what happened was she became embarrassed to speak her native language and chose to
practice Spanish dialect difficultly. This scenario served as a lesson for us to realize that we
must always be proud of where we came from as it made us who we are today. Without it, we
can’t be here. So whatever reason it is, we should not forget our past because it also became
our guide to be the person than who we are before.

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Also, one of the things that stamped on my mind was her marriage. It was clear that she was
not happy with his husband. They were brutal, violent, and vulgar with each other. The ensign
was ashamed of her, he always insults the woman and tells harsh things about her. Simply,
Dona Consolacion was being oppressed. Nevertheless, she was also undesirable as a wife.
She’s also vicious toward her husband and she always fought with him. Their life seems too
complicated as it is. What I’m thinking is why do people stay in a marriage wherein it is evident
that there was no peace, unity, and love with each other? Why do people stay in something that
continuously hurt them? Are such reasons enough for us to endure the pain? For me, staying in
a tangled marriage is not healthy especially if we know that there would be no hope for things to
be better. I believed that marriage is very significant and we should choose the person who’ll
love us, stay with us and most importantly the one who will be proud for having us.
At the end of that part, I realized that the ensign has still a good heart with him. The moment he
saw his wife whipping Sisa, he did not hesitate to help her. He ordered his servants to take the
madwoman away and to take care of her wounds. For me, it is a kind act that I don’t expect him
to do. That’s when I understand that all of us can be good, we may not perfect but deep inside,
we all have a good heart.

This chapter was interesting and knowledgeable as it holds a lot of lessons that we could use in
our everyday lives. The character of Dona Consolacion has manifested the personality of an
absurd person and how owning that characteristic greatly influences our life as an individual.
The learnings that I acquired from reading this novel is magnificent as I got to discover and
understand various things in different views and aspects of our life. I hope that this chapter
could be a good example for us to be a better person in everything we do, be a good model
because being bad has nothing good for all of us.