Edited at 2007/07/18 14:15:26 PDT
Analytic Essay
Education is something Carlos Bulosan wanted throughout his whole life. In a time of poverty and when American ideals were spreading throughout the archipelago and popular education was becoming popular. “When the free education that the United States had introduced spread throughout the islands, every family who had a son pooled its resources and sent him to school.”Pg.14 He finds education a way to get out of poverty and the brutality of the poor Filipino districts.Carlos Bulosan always wanted to have an education in Part One of the book. Instead of getting and education like he wished, he helped his family put his older brother through school, Macario.
“It was because I wanted to help keep our family together that I had neglected going to school”Pg. 32. Carlos Bulosan always valued his family more than anything, even his own education. His love for his mother and father was extremely great. Even when he went to America he always remembered his mother and father, He remembered how hard they worked, so that Macario could go to school. Carlos’ father made the biggest sacrifice for Macario’s education, when he sold all of his land and could never again get it back.
“‘You can go to school now son,’ she said.”pg.41 This is Carlos’ first time to go to school. It was always his dream to go to school and become a doctor because he saw so many people dying around him. “The other children taunted me in the school yard and threw stones at me, laughing at my long hair and bare feet.” School was not easy for Carlos. He always got made fun of for being poor. He kept on studying and never let the other children get to him, “I did not listen to them. I was too absorbed with my book.” Carlos just wanted to study and never let rich kids extinguish the fire in him.
Carlos gets down on himself when he has to miss school due to his legs beginning to swell. “Sometimes a boy on his way home would stop beneath the window and read aloud to me.”Pg.49 Kids would come and read to Carlos when he could not go to school. Carlos would be depressed as he had to stay home. School meant the whole world to him and if he could not go to school, there is a huge hole in his world.
Carlos’ brother who came back from serving in the army told Carlos never to give up reading. “‘Reading is food for the mind. Healthy ideas are food for the mind. Maybe someday you will become a journalist…’”pg.56 Carlos never gave up trying to write, even in America when he was dying. “‘Yes I will be a writer and make you all live again in my words,’ I sobbed.”Pg.57 Carlos never lost his spirit and passion for writing.
Carlos packs his things and goes to work in the city of Baguio. He meets a kid named Dalmacio and starts taking English lessons from the kid. “‘Don’t swallow your words. Blow them out like Americans.’”Pg.69 Around this time Carlos is inspired by the story of Abraham Lincoln. He is told that Lincoln was a poor boy who was born in a log cabin and became president of the United States. Carlos was in awe that a poor boy could become president of the United States. Carlos was deeply moved by reading about Abraham Lincoln. While in Baguio Carlos gets a job working in the library. He felt extremely grateful since he learned that the, “…American Negro writer, Richard Wright, had not been allowed to borrow books from his local library because of his color.”Pg.71 Carlos understands the privilege that he has to read books and work in the library.
Carlos goes to Lingayen to escape a possible marriage. He goes to school with his cousin. His American teacher likes Carlos a lot and makes a fake credit card that states that Carlos has been going to school for two years with perfect marks. He helps Carlos cheat on the intelligence exam by giving him a copy early. “I felt guilty and ashamed.”Pg84 Carlos did not want to cheat to pass school, he actually wanted to learn and get smarter. He did not want to pass and then go out into the world without knowing anything.
Carlos wanders into the world of America. He is confused and bewildered when he arrives in America. Not fully understanding what he is doing and lonely in the country.
“Then it came to me, like a revelation, that I could actually write understandable English.”Pg.180 After some years in America, Carlos can finally write English. This was very important skill to Carlos. That was huge step for Carlos to becoming a writer. Carlos goes to a house where a man named Pascual edits a newspaper. Carlos starts pouring his heart out in his writing as he is so excited that he can write. When Pascual suffered a stroke Carlos, and his best friend Jose, took over editing the newspaper. “I pounded my head with my fists when I found that I could not write what was in my mind.”Pg.184Carlos is determined to write whatever is in his mind, even when he gets frustrated, he still continues writing instead of taking a break.
When Carlos leaves the newspaper he wanders off and starts an organization. He gets taken captive and is beaten brutally. He escapes and wanders off to a house where a girl named Marion lives. Marion is a bright shining beacon of hope in Carlos world. Marion cares and loves Carlos. “‘I wanted to go to school to,’ I said. ‘But that was a long time ago. In the Philippines.’”Pg.212 Carlos tells Marion all about his life and what it was like to be in America. He tells her about his lost dreams of going to school and becoming a writer. “‘Now you can go to the university,’ she said, tossing a roll of money on the bed. ‘Nearly three hundred dollars. All for you-from Marion.’Pg.215 Marion gives a lot of money to Carlos so he could to school and finally do what he wanted to do. He never got the chance as another tragedy happened in Carlos’ life. Marian sadly died of syphilis.
Carlos starts drinking heavily after the death of Marian. He is later diagnosed with tuberculosis, the same disease that killed his brother Luciano. Carlos spent most of his tine writing poems and a young girl by the name of Alice Odell takes a liking to his poems, but when she leaves to go to California she tells her sister Eileen to visit Carlos. “When I found Eileen I found the god of my youth.”Pg.236 Carlos loves it when Eileen brings books for him to read. He doesn’t really talk to her at first, but he starts writing poems for her. “I began to feel stirrings inside me, coming out in torrents of poetry.”Pg.236 He writes all his emotions in the form of poetry, expressing his anger in his poems. Carlos vents his frustration with America through his poetry as he cannot physically anymore.
Carlos finally gets his writing to break through and gets a book of his poetry to get published. “He wanted to publish an edition of my poems. Was it possible that I would have a book at last?”Pg.320 Carlos is ecstatic with the idea of getting his poems published into a book. When the book finally came Carlos “…felt like shouting to the world.”Pg320
“The book was a rush job and the binding was simple, but it was something that had grown out of my heart. I knew that I would not write the same way again. I had put certain things of myself in it: the days of pains and anguish, of starvation and fear; my hopes, desires, aspirations. All of myself in this little volume of poems-and I would never be like that self again.”
Carlos had great pride in his book and he rushed to tell his brother Amado.
Carlos takes education very seriously. He sees it as a weapon that he could use very effectively to his advantage. He would sacrifice his education to help his family. He would also sacrifice it to help his brothers with rent. Carlos would always put his education ahead of anything, except his family.