"The Summer Solstice", also known as "Tatarin" or "Tadtarin",[1] is a short story written by Filipino National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin.
[2][3] The story narrates a ritual performed by women to invoke the gods to grant the blessing of fertility by dancing around a Balete tree that was already a century old.
Upon arriving at the house, Doña Lupeng found out that Guido, Don Paeng's cousin, had participated in both the St. John's Day procession and the Tatarin ritual.
[2][3] An analysis related to the language used in this piece of literature revealed that the speech or dialogue of the characters represented "stereotypical notions of masculinity and femininity", the difference between genders, and the hierarchy that bound the two sexes.
In spite of the part where the character Don Paeng was presented as a crawling man who kissed the feet of Doña Lupeng, female critics viewed the story as against women and anti-feminist.
[2][3] However, there were also critics who called The Summer Solstice as "pseudo-feminist" or a work that was not truly feminist because to them the authority and power given to women in the story was unreal, short-lived, of no social value, mysterious, and illusory.
In general, critics agree that Joaquin's stylistic genre was to present the way of life and culture in the Philippines during the transition from being Hispanic into American.
The presentation of pagan rituals and Christian rites, superstitious and religious beliefs, the old and the new were argued to be more of a "fission" rather than a "fusion" due to the existence of the struggles occurring between the pairs mentioned.