Tayong Dalawa (Marxist Approach)

Tayong Dalawa

Plot Summary

David "JR" Garcia Jr. was born into a poor family. His father, David Sr., deserted his mother Marlene before he was born because his wife, Ingrid Garcia is pregnant with David "Dave" Garcia, Jr. When Audrey King and her family goes to Tagaytay for a visit, she falls from a set of high stairs. JR saves her life and introduces himself as David Garcia Jr. after she asks for his name. When she gets to the hospital and is asked by the witnesses and her family who saved her, she says it's David Garcia Jr. - but Dave is given the credit instead of JR.

As she grows up falling in love with Dave, Dave meets JR and they become the best of friends, but their families do not approve of their friendship. Dave's family thinks JR wants to use Dave just for the money. The siblings' mothers would not let the two hang out, although their father allowed the friendship to continue. Dave's grandmother, Elizabeth, and JR's mother, Marlene, suspects David Sr is keeping the two boys' friendship alive.

Audrey's father, Stanley Sr., sends her to Cebu to continue her studies. JR and Audrey have a chance encounter in the airport. Dave and JR enter the Philippine Military Academy where they graduate at the top of their class. The family rivalry becomes worse as everyone finds out that Dave and JR are half-siblings when David Sr. appears on graduation day. Elizabeth exerts all efforts to cover up the truth to the point that she engineers Marlene's imprisonment. Things become even worse as David Sr. dies from a gunshot wound during a raid by gun smuggling boss Leo Cardenas on his armory on the suggestion of Ramon Lecumberri, JR and Dave's estranged older half-brother. It would be followed by more events such as the death of Audrey's mother Loreta, Ramon killing Leo to save Lola Gets and the involvement of Audrey's younger brother, Stan Jr., in Ramon's syndicate. Further DNA testing confirms that Dave and JR are twins.

As things develop, Stanley kills Elizabeth over a financial dispute and frames JR. He is imprisoned and escapes with a former enemy, Ka Doroy, as part of a double agent operation with the military regarding the syndicate. He discovers that the syndicate's boss, "Hunyango", is actually Marlon Cardenas, Dave's godfather and Leo's father.

After JR is hit in a later incident, Dave agrees to a kidney transplant to save his twin in exchange for a civil wedding to Audrey, but the marriage turns out to be fake because of Mamita's machinations. Dave and Audrey plan a church wedding, but Dave backs out. Audrey ends up marrying JR in church and later bears him a son named Adrian. However, she dies of heart disease a few days after giving birth.

The brothers eventually face off in a final showdown with Ramon, who agrees to surrender after Marlene's appeals and completing a plan to bring down his syndicate. However, a mentally-insane Ingrid shoots Ramon in the head while being taken into custody. He survives the shooting but doctors said the bullets rendered him blind. Dave later commits Ingrid to a psychiatric hospital. Ramon is sentenced to life imprisonment and makes amends with Marlene, JR, and Dave behind bars. The three, who visit Ramon from time to time, now live together with Robert, Adrian, Ula, Angela and Lily. The story ends with a cliffhanger: a woman and her son appears at the Garcia house one evening. They introduce themselves as Emma Garcia (a third wife of David Garcia Sr.) and David Anthony Garcia III.

Analysis: Marxist Approach

It was a common fact that our movie industry in the Philippines are mostly outdated because of the usual rich-poor plot- a cliche. "Tayong Dalawa" is never an exception. The story follows the usual plot of the soap opera bandwagon.

The story centers on the lives of Garcia brothers- paternal brothers to be exact.They were raised separately. Dave was raised in a rich family while JR was raised in a very poor family but this difference didn't hinder them to become close.The conflict arises when Dave's family know about JR and the history of his birth.  They do everything to keep Dave away fro JR and not yet satisfied, they ruined JR's life. 

In Philippine setting, we can't deny the fact that social classes still exist. Some rich people considered the poor as opportunist, gold- digger and social climber. They tend to stereotype a poor person's motive for befriending someone. At least, this attitude does not only limit to rich people. There are also instances that average people do this to the person less fortunate than they are.

As stated by Karl Marx,  literary works reflect the social institutions from where it originates. Guess, he is right. Basing on the fact that the leading theme of our literary works, movie industry and soap operas is about social classes from the time immemorial until now, it is undeniable that it is just a mere reflection of the social institution that we  had, have and will be having.

Hands

Hands

     by Sherwood Anderson

Summary

After peculiar introduction, the first chapter begins. Entitled "Hands," it tells the story of Wing Biddlebaum, an eccentric, nervous man who lives on the outskirts of the town of Winesburg, Ohio. Despite having lived in Winesburg for twenty years, Biddlebaum has never become close to anyone, with the exception of George Willard, a young man who works as a reporter for theWinesburg Eagle. On this particular evening, Biddlebaum is pacing on his porch, hoping that George will visit. As he paces, he fiddles with his hands, which are famous for their dexterity and wanton behavior. "Their restless activity," Anderson writes, "like unto the beating of the wings of an imprisoned bird, had given him his name." He has difficulty controlling his hands, which have a tendency to wander inappropriately of their own accord. The last time he was talking with George, he jerked back in horror after finding himself starting to caress the young man's face.

Biddlebaum's horror stems from his past as a schoolteacher in Pennsylvania, where he was named Adolph Myers. He was very talented, but during his passionate lectures, he would often caress the shoulders and heads of his pupils, and one boy accused him of molestation. The schoolteacher barely made it out of town with his life, changed his name, and moved to Winesburg, where he lives in a seclusion broken only by his friendship with George Willard. On this particular evening, George does not come to visit.

Analysis: Psychological Approach

The story received harsh commentaries from all over the world and been considered as one of the "widely condemned stories" due to the general theme homosexuality which most readers in the twenties thought unimaginable.

 The story centers on the life of Wing and his hands known for their dexterity and wanton behavior. He finds it hard to control the impulse of his hands to move which often brings him serious trouble. In psychological account, we can attribute this wanton behavior as whim dictated by the ID- the instinctual, pleasure-seeking part of the mind. Although his EGO tries to control these impulses made by his ID, it cannot repress it. His decision of secluding himself in a far away land is a representation that his SUPEREGO is taking over the control of his mind, preventing himself to further submerge in deep water.

In the Author's Perspective

In 1912, Anderson suffered from nervous break-down which cause him to leave their family business and his family to become a writer. He started writing novels but all of his previous works pale in comparison with this sensational novel "Winesburg, Ohio (1919) This is a collection of short stories, one of these is the story entitled "Hands".

 It was mentioned in the story that Wing abandon his old identity to move to a secluded place-away from the society who judge him for what he is. This is pretty similar to what happened to the author's life. He chose to leave for him, away from his family, away from the line of work that he had. He  even described the experience as "escaping from his materialistic existence".

Anderson was tagged as "sex-obsessed`' by his fellow authors because none of his fellow fiction authors had dared describe a sexual pervert.  They call him daringly frank. (cliffnotes.com)


Sexual Symbols

Hand
 -As implied in the story, the characters hand became the pleasure- seeking part of his body. He used to caress his students face, head and shoulder using this.

Head
-In Freudian perspective, the head of the student that was being caressed by his wanton hands can either be, a real head-the upper part of the human body, or the private part of a man. After all. the theme of the story is about homosexuality.

Imprisoned Bird
-It can be attributed to a male sex organ.
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My topic report

 Biag ni Lam-ang

Summary

Don Juan and his wife Namongan lived in Nalbuan, now part of La Union in the northern part of the Philippines. They had a son named Lam-ang. Before Lam-ang was born, Don Juan went to the mountains in order to punish a group of their Igorot enemies. While he was away, his son Lam-ang was born. It took four people to help Namongan give birth. As soon as the baby boy popped out, he spoke and asked that he be given the name Lam-ang. He also chose his godparents and asked where his father was.

After nine months of waiting for his father to return, Lam-ang decided he would go look for him.  Namongan thought  Lam-ang was up to the challenge but she was sad to let him go. During his exhausting journey, he decided to rest for awhile. He fell asleep and had a dream about his father's head being stuck on a pole by the Igorot. Lam-ang was furious when he learned what had happened to his father. He rushed to their village and killed them all, except for one whom he let go so that he could tell other people about Lam-ang's greatness. 

Upon returning to Nalbuan in triumph, he was bathed by women in the Amburayan river. All the fish died because of the dirt and odor from Lam-ang's body.

There was a young woman named Ines Kannoyan whom Lam-ang wanted to woo.  She lived in Calanutian and he brought along his white rooster and gray dog to visit her. On the way, Lam-ang met his enemy Sumarang, another suitor of Ines whom he fought and readily defeated.

Lam-ang found the house of Ines surrounded by  many suitors all of whom were trying to catch her attention.  He had his rooster crow, which caused a nearby house to fall.  This made Ines look out. He had his dog bark and in an instant the fallen house rose up again. The girl's parents witnessed this and called for him. The rooster expressed the love of Lam-ang. The parents agreed to a marriage with their daughter  if Lam-ang would give them a dowry valued at double their wealth. Lam-ang had no problem fulfilling this condition and he and Ines  were married.

It was a tradition to have a newly married man swim in the river for the rarang fish. Unfortunately, Lam-ang dove straight into the mouth of the water monster Berkakan. Ines had Marcos get his bones, which she covered with a piece of  cloth. His rooster crowed and his dog barked and slowly the bones started to move.  Back alive, Lam-ang and his wife lived happily ever after with his white rooster and gray dog.

Archetypal Analysis:

This is my topic report, guess all the explanation has been thoroughly presented during our discussion:-)

Things Fall Apart

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Epic

Epic (The movie)

Mary Katherine (Amanda Seyfried), or M.K., is a headstrong, spirited teenager who has a strained relationship with her father (Jason Sudeikis). She loses patience with her dad's tales of unseen people who live in the woods, but when she is magically transported to that mythic realm, she gains new perspective. M.K. joins a race of beings known as the Leafmen in their battle to protect their queen (Beyoncé Knowles) from their enemies, evil Mandrake (Christoph Waltz) and his crew of Boggans.

Analysis: The Fantastic Theory

This movie falls into the category of  The Marvelous specifically, Pure Marvelous. Most scenes from the movie convey a message that what we are looking at were supernatural things and magical. There were no concrete explanations as to why these so called "leafmen" exist. It can also be consider as science fiction because the characters in the movie resembles the physical attributes of a real person, their characteristics and their way of living ,only that they are far smaller. It look like another sick scientific discovery similar to the idea of the "bonsai" in plants, just another smaller version of a particular specie.

The famous quote from the movie, "Not because we cannot see them necessarily mean they don't exist" explains the imaginary world that is separate from the world that we are living. It implies that in real life, maybe they do really exist, only that we are unaware of their existence. 

The Virgin

The Virgin

                   by Kerima Polotan Tuvera

Summary

Having spent most of her adult life caring for an ailing mother, Miss Mijares is past her youth. She realizes to her disappointment that love and marriage have eluded her. She lives a dull life and behaves with stiffness and aloofness, camouflaging her tiredness and loneliness with ruffled and pastel-colored clothes. When a new carpenter applied at her agency, she is unwittingly drawn to the man. After a confrontation, the two find themselves stranded on an unknown street in the rain, and Miss Mijares allows herself to be led by her feelings for the carpenter and responds to his invitation.

Analysis: A Feminist Approach

 The main character of the story live up with expectation of the society towards women. She is a virgin- a word often associated with the dignity of a woman. In the Philippine setting, women are expected to be a virgin until the night of her marriage. Women are so tied up with this norm that it became a ground for husband's ridicule if you failed to live-up with this societal expectation.(aside for those men who have  broader perspective). She also has the inner struggle to be the ideal woman, physically. She was described as the skinny type, bony if you call it, but her desire to portray the physical attributes of the ideal woman- with curves on the right places and a bosom, she started wearing clothes with ruffles in the front to conceal her flat chest. She liked poufs and shirrings and little girlish pastels to achieve the illusion of hips and bosom.

 She had  undergone the three stages of women's history namely the feminine, feminist and female stage. The scene of the story which depicts  the character  in her feminine stage was when she spend most of her young life taking care of her old and sick mother, sending her niece to school and being responsible for the family. She's so selfless that she even  put  her dreams of having a man in her life on hold. When she reached the feminine stage, she started to realize  that she can't go on forever doing these things. She realized that love and marriage are slowly eluding her.She developed inner protest. She no longer feel the satisfaction she once felt doing the sacrifices for the family. After nine long years, her mother died. Surprisingly, she feel not only grief but also gratitude.

The scene in the story wherein she got lost on her way back home, having seen a new and much easier route to get back  is a symbolism of her- self discovery. She now reached the third stage which is a female stage. in this stage she no longer struggle with her inner protest. She's now entitled with her long-suppressed emotions, freed from the societal roles she used to follow.