History Literature / WithoutSeeingTheDawn

* CheerfulFuneral: The ''belacion'' (Filipino-Spanish for "wake") for Lucing's TragicStillbirth first child. She's puzzled why the village seems to be so cheerful, even when relatively upbeat funerals, more akin to "celebration of life" events, are not uncommon in traditional (even if Catholic-colonial) Philippine cultures. Of course, this only applies in peacetime: the many funerals to follow in the war's wake are appropriately sombre.

* TheBeautifulElite: The Spanish mestizo Luis Castro. Especially from Lucing's point of view, he looks every bit like an Iberian prince (she explicitly compares him to TheHero of the ''Ibong Adarna'' play), what with his light skin, relatively fair hair, [[CarpetOfVirility hairy limbs]], and pencil moustache. Still, he's not considered leaps-and-bounds handsomer than, say, Carding, whose own looks are very positively described (he's big, strong, muscular, richly browned from working in the sun, etc.).

* MsFanservice: Rosing. The novel, which of course mostly chronicles Carding's point of view, often lingers on her pretty face, red lips, and [[ShesGotLegs white legs]], and also goes to show how gorgeous she looks when dressed up for a night of clubbing at the local cabaret. Really it's no wonder Carding engages in a brief affair with her.

* DuringTheWar: The Philippine theatre of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, obviously.

* DuringTheWar

* ChristianityIsCatholic: Any formal religious rituals depicted are, of course, Catholic, though it's often heavily syncretised with practices left over from the precolonial past, such as the reliance on {{Witch Doctor}}s to cure illnesses believed to be caused by local spirits. A village priest marries Carding and Lucing, and the couple later mourn their stillborn first child with a typically rural-Catholic wake (which nevertheless allows for the guests to celebrate and hold festivities). They also have their second child baptised with a big and joyful fiesta in Calinog town.

* TragicStillbirth: Twice for Lucing; her first child comes out like this while it's still "peacetime" and the barrio helps her mourn it with a traditional, if not-so-downcast, wake. Her third one also comes out dead in the midst of the occupation, and so Carding is paranoid that it might've been a ChildByRape from a Japanese soldier.

* UnfortunateImplications: Some of the rural village folk are casually prejudiced against the Moros, native Muslims from Mindanao. When Carding thinks of moving his family down south to seek his fortune, they fear for him, his wife or child being massacred by those "savage" Moros with their sharp swords, because apparently they assume all Muslim Filipinos do this to all Christian Filipinos. Then again, no one would've cared to educate them otherwise, even as Isaac Celes the homesteader, who did settle in Mindanao, tries to convince them that he's only ever met peaceful (code word for "civilised") Moros.

* DefiniteArticleTitle: Most of the chapter titles follow this format. There are exceptions, such as the ending chapters for both parts (Part I ends with "End of Day", Part II with "[[LiteraryAllusionTitle Who Fall in the Night]]"), and a few other scattered chapters across the book.

* InfantImmortality: Sadly averted, and several times too. To wit:
** DeathOfAChild: [[spoiler:Two full chapters are devoted to Lucing's two stillborn sons, and the only one to actually survive birth—her second son, Crisostomo—is strongly implied to have been killed by the Japanese before he reaches his first or second birthday, though she claims to Carding (who was away training at the time) that he (and Tatay Juan) died of illness. Plus, that's not even to count, technically, the adolescent Poncing, whom the Japanese also brutally murder (and whom they also tortured beforehand!).]]

* YourCheatingHeart: On both sides of the marriage:
** Lucing falls for the Spanish-mestizo Luis Castro, son of the town's landowner Don Diego Castro. This feeling has disastrous consequences when they start, well, getting jiggy with it—precisely when Carding comes back from pasturing their carabao.
** While in the "big" city of Iloilo, Carding quickly falls for a taxi-dancer named Rosing, and expectedly they do it a few times. Lucing begins to suspect this when she notices Carding has been dressing up in his fanciest clothes when ostensibly he claims to simply be attending union meetings.

* LaResistance: In Part 2, Carding joins the guerrilla units taking down the Japanese and their local collaborators. The novel ends just as Carding's unit engages in battle and [[BolivianArmyEnding we never learn his fate.]] Though given [[TheHeroDies what the book's title alludes to...]]

* TheTheTitle: Most of the chapter titles follow this format. There are exceptions, such as the ending chapters for both parts (Part I ends with "End of Day", Part II with "[[LiteraryAllusionTitle Who Fall in the Night]]"), and a few other scattered chapters across the book.

* OffWithHisHead: The second half of the novel being set during the Japanese occupation, it's no surprise a lot of characters end up tragically losing their heads. [[spoiler:Rosing is one of them.]]

* TheOldestProfession: Rosing. Not quite explicitly, because her actual job description is "taxi-dancer" (i.e., she dances at a cabaret with paying customers), but otherwise she fits all the markers.

** ''Balikbayan'' (repatriate) Uncle Jaime sees America as a hard Type 2 because he's worked long, hard years on the U.S. West Coast and has endured similar hardships on the farms over there to his relatives back home, not to mention vicious racism from white American workers. Because of this, he's taken in with Japanese promises of actual, anticolonial liberation from the racist and imperialist U.S. … too bad all his relatives at home are so drunk on American Kool-Aid (and, to be fair, they've since been violently abused by Japanese soldiers) that none of them believe him, and [[spoiler:Carding ends up shooting him dead himself]].

* GenteelInterbellumSetting: The first half of the book is certainly genteel compared to the second half, which opens with the war and the Japanese occupation underway, though it doesn't focus on any sort of aristocracy, but quite the opposite—it focuses on a poor rural community. Specifically, though no years are mentioned, the historical background is specific enough to place most of the plot around 1941–42.
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Rosing. Though she's more explicitly a cabaret dancer instead of an out-and-out hooker.

* SettlingTheFrontier: The homesteader Isaac Celes tells tales of how he was granted land to settle in Mindanao in the south (then mostly considered the hinterlands, ignoring the fact that Muslim families had been living there for centuries), and encourages people like Carding and Lucing to move there. Since the couple (and their son Crisostomo) just endured a massive flood in Calinog town—not to mention the land Carding's working on there has been rented out to another farmer—Carding sees Mindanao as a golden opportunity. The war interrupts, however.

* DeathOfAChild: Not once or twice, but ''thrice''—[[spoiler:two full chapters are devoted to Lucing's two stillborn sons, and the only one to actually survive birth—her second son, Crisostomo—is strongly implied to have been killed by the Japanese before he reaches his first or second birthday, though she claims to Carding (who was away training at the time) that he (and Tatay Juan) died of illness. Plus, that's not even to count, technically, the adolescent Poncing, whom the Japanese also brutally murder (and whom they also tortured beforehand!).]]

* InfantImmortality: [[spoiler:Sadly averted, and ''twice''—two of Lucing's children are stillborn.]]

* TheQuisling: How most of Manhayang see the returned-from-America Uncle Jaime, who now believes or supports Japanese promises to liberate the Philippines from the Americans. All his family at home simplistically think him a Japanese collaborator (though in their defence, a Japanese invasion had not spared them just prior, so its brutality and abuses are still very fresh in their minds). Jaime himself, of course, likely thinks of much of the Filipino leadership as being ''American'' collaborators instead.

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Lucio after the Japanese chop off his balls and dick]].

* SettlingTheFrontier: The homesteader Isaac Celes tells tales of how he was granted land to settle in Mindanao in the south (then mostly considered the hinterlands, ignoring the fact that Muslim families had been living there for centuries), and encourages people like Carding and Lucing to move there. Since the couple (and their son Crisostomo) just endured a massive flood in Calinog town—not to mention the land Carding's working on there has been sold to another farmer—Carding sees Mindanao as a golden opportunity. The war interrupts, however.