Republic of the Philippines Cordillera Administrative Region KALINGA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION Bulanao, Tabuk City, Kalinga BENTA, BEA MAE G. Marxist Approach BSED-3A My Father Goes to Court Carlos Bulosan Reading and analyzing literature through a Marxist perspective entails analyzing the society in which the piece is situated, with a focus on social inequity and power conflicts between social classes. This is all about power dominance for Karl Marx, the founder of this. It is mainly about the rich and the poor, owners and employees or cats versus dog. Consider taking, for example, Carlos Bulosan's fiction "My Father Goes to Court," which is about the gap of a two described families living in the same society. The story's title, "My Father Goes to Court," alludes to the rich-poor gap. The story opens by discussing two types of families, one of which was a huge and happy family who, although being penniless and frequently going hungry, were all strong and healthy. On the other side, despite having enough delicious food needed to eat , the affluent family was always unhappy, weak, and unwell. The story's wealthy man was immensely jealous of the poor family's ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle despite their poverty by spending time in the sun and laughing with their neighbors. With that, he accused the poor family of stealing the spirit of his wealth and food, and the case was taken to court. Now, it was clear from the start of the story that it was about two different social classes, the upper and lower class. Carlos Bulosan highlighted the disparity in lifestyles, backgrounds, and social status between two families. The wealthy cannot be satisfied with what they have, but the poor are grateful for even the tiniest things and resources. It is similar to what is happening presently in our society. The rich get richer, while the poor get poorer. The rich are never satisfied, regardless of their wellbeing, and are in contrast to the impoverished, who are happy and content despite their circumstances. The poor were discriminated against, while the wealthy do not and continue to oppress. In line with, in the story the affluent man obviously displayed scorn for the poor and literally looked down on them. This is due to the fact that the poor are only able to smell the food from the rich man’s house. Surprisingly, the affluent man accuses the family with foolishness because he is envious. When the rich man just hears the sound of the coins in court, that serves as a payment for the poor family. Fortunately, the judge was not prejudiced in the story. The judge rules in favor of the impoverished father, and the rich guy is forced to leave with nothing more than the "spirit" of the money collected by the poor man. Unfortunately, some people are ignored these days due to a lack of resources, and so do not receive the justice they deserve. Marxist Approach Page 1 Republic of the Philippines Cordillera Administrative Region KALINGA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION Bulanao, Tabuk City, Kalinga Conclusively, a wealthy family's wealth is limitless but there are some things that money cannot buy, such as happiness and health, which has been demonstrated in the story. It doesn't imply that you have the right to look down on others because you are privileged. Respect for others is always a positive thing. If your attitude is that awful, it doesn't matter how much educated you are. We should always choose to live with humanity in our society. References: https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/marxist.crit.html https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2604888#:~:text=Marxist%20approach %20relates%20literary%20text,a%20product%20of%20many%20ages. http://gabrielslibrary.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-father-goes-to-court-carlos-bulusan.html https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1-Tn4yTYxYhIixFilddsmfsh2XSKZJBXZvE6gsmqRnk/mobilebasic Marxist Approach Page 2
