Dead Stars by Paz Marquez Benitez

Elements of Fiction
Characters
Alfredo Salazar
- Son of Don Julian, a more than 30 years old man and a bachelor. He is engaged to Esperanza but him still fleeting to Julia Salas. Esperanza
- Wife of Alfredo Salazar. She is a homely woman, literal minded and intensely acquisitive. She is one of those fortunate women who have the gift uniformly beauty.

Julia Salas
- Sister-in-law of Judge Del Valle. She is the other girl of Alfredo Salazar that remains single in her entire life. Don Julian - An old man, a father of Alfredo Salazar and Carmen.

Carmen - Sister of Alfredo Salazar

Judge Del Valle - Brother-in-law of Julia Salazar

Donna Adella
- Sister of Julia Salas. She is small and plump, a pretty woman with a complexion of a baby with an expression of likeable cow.

Calixta - Note carrier of Alfredo Salazar and Esperanza

Dionisio - Husband of Donna Adella

Vicente - Husband of Carmen

Brigida Samuy - She is the illusive woman whose Alfredo is looking for.

Settings Don Julian’s House
- Carmen was asking Don Julian about Alfredo’s wedding. Alfredo remembered that period with a wonder not unmixed with shame. That was less than four years ago. He could not understand those months of a great hunger that was not of the body nor yet of the mind, a craving that had seized on him one quiet night when the moon was abroad and under the dappled shadow of the trees in the plaza, man wooed maid. Judge Del Valle’s House
- Alfredo went neighboring with Don Julian. This is when he met Julia Salas. Don Julian and his uncommunicative friend, The Judge, where absorbed in a game of chess. So he and Julia went outside to talk.

Don Julian’s House in Tanda where there are coconut plantations and a beach
- After the merienda, Don Julian sauntered off with the judge to show him what a thriving young coconut look like-- “ plenty of leaves, close set, rich green”—while the children, convoyed by Julia Salas, found unending entertainment in the rippling sand left by the ebbing tide. Alfredo left his perch on the bamboo ladder of the house and followed. Alfredo and Julian had a very long conversation and told each other about themselves.

Calle Real
- After the parade of the Lady of Sorrows, Alfredo caught up with Julia in Calle Real. Julian congratulated him for his upcoming wedding ironically. They were walking until the gravel road laid before them; at road’s end the lighted windows of the house on the hill. There swept over the spirit of Alfredo Salazar a longing so keen that it was pain, a wish that, that house were his, that all the bewilderments of the present were not, and that this woman by his side were his long wedded wife, returning with him to the peace of home.

Sta. Cruz
- Sta. Cruz’s was Julia’s hometown. Alfredo was searching for Brigida Samuy, a lady important for his defense in the court. Knowing that this plays was Julia’s hometown he thought of his marriage. He was not unhappy. He went to Julia’s house. He saw her; she asked him about the hometown, about this and that, in a sober, somewhat meditative tone. He conversed with increasing ease, though with a growing wonder that he should be there at all. He could not take his eyes from her face.

- The time of the story is the Lenten Season because they are celebrating the holy week proven by the procession they made with the Our Lady of Sorrow.

Conflict Man vs. Circumstances - In the story, Alfredo struggles against his fate and the circumstances in life and love facing him. He needs to face problems in choosing between difficult choices of his life.

Plot Exposition
- At Don Julian’s house Carmen was asking Don Julian about Alfredo and Esperanza. Alfredo reminisce how he met Julia Salas.

Complication
- He had gone neighboring with Don Julian to Judge Del Valle’s house. He met Julia Salas. All the time he was calling her Mrs. Del Valle which led him to embarrassment. Coming to the judge’s house became often. Then he realized she was in love with Julia in spite with his engagement with Esperanza.

Climax
- After the procession for the Lady of Sorrows Alfredo caught up with Julia. It was when Julia found out about Alfredo’s wedding so he congratulated him; Alfredo needs to make a very difficult decision. Would he choose what he wants to? Or would he choose what he has to?

Denouement - Alfredo and Esperanza got married. After eight years, she was searching for a lady named Brigida Samuy. He went to Julia’s house and found her there. Still unmarried. And he realized that his love for Julia was like a Dead Star. It was nonexistent.

Resolution - An immense sadness as of loss invaded his spirit, a vast homesickness for some immutable refuge of the heart far away where faded gardens bloom again, and where live on in unchanging freshness, the dear, dead loves of vanished youth.

Point of View Third Person Point of View
- The author tells the story in the third person (using pronouns they, she, he, it, etc.). We know only what the character know and what the author allows him/her to tell us. We can see the thoughts and feelings of characters if the author chooses to reveal them to us.

Theme
- The short story “Dead Stars” by Paz Marquez Benitez is conveying the theme that pertains to forbidden love. It says that forbidden love is only apparent, and its banes haunt the person until such time that he realizes his faults.

Mood & Tone - It’s an almost tragic story, the melancholic tone and mood fit like they should.

Symbolism
- An example of this is the name Esperanza, with its relation to the name of the street where she lives in, which is Calle Real, meaning “royal.”

- Calle Luz—Alfredo realizes that Julia is like the “light that brightens up his life amidst the darkness of the mundane life with Esperanza” in a way – “the one” for him. Luz, meaning “light”

- Dead Stars symbolize a dream for something that is nonexistent.

- Some symbols in context: “setting the table” = marriage; “Esperanza” = hopeful, illusion, expectation