Powerlessness In Lysley Tenorio's The Brothers

From the 1980 non-fiction, The Cancer Journals, Ms. Lorde said, “Silence and invisibility go hand in hand with powerlessness.” When victors write the stories, there is another side of their story, but nobody knows since they have no power over the victors. Likewise, in Lysley Tenorio’s short story, The Brothers, he uses symbolism to explain the transgender community’s invisibility because the community has a history of powerlessness. Also, through symbolism, another Lysley Tenorio short story, Save the I-Hotel, explains the invisibility of Filipino workers in the 20th century and victims of unrequited love. Then, in an additional Lysley Tenorio short story called Superassassin, the story applies symbolism in order to talk about the powerlessness

They could argue how the company blurring Erica is normal because she showed her breasts and it was not for a general audience. However, when companies censor women, they censor their breasts, buttocks, and vagina, but with Erica, who is a transgender woman, the company censored all of her which does not add up. From this evidence, there is bias against Erica because she is transgender. Also, people could argue that Ma only uses bandages to cover Erica’s breasts since her mother is transphobic. But, in literature and especially short stories, symbolism is widely used and an idea as practical as, ‘because her mother is transphobic’ would not work because of the words in the quote such as, “vanishing” and “like they never existed” are perfectly in one sentence along with both words relating to invisibility. This does not add up to ‘because her mother is transphobic’. Then, in Save the I-Hotel, opposition could argue that the quote,“Nobody knows you here, just the work you do, just the color of your face” is just a practical implication that Filipino workers simply feel underappreciated by their bosses. Nevertheless, the author cleverly uses words since all of the parts of the sentence perfectly align with each other. The quote, “Nobody knows you here, just the work you do, just the color of your face” has words that represent a tool: “just the work you do, just the color of your face” talk about the characteristics of how we see a tool, which are seeing if the tools works and rusty color of the tool. All of these words placed are with thought. Moreover, a person would argue that Fortunado is watching Vicente and Althea swim away since Fortunado could not swim. But, Fortunado could have done anything since he could not swim, so there is a reason why the author makes him watch. The author most likely makes him watch them swim because