Point of view of hunger in barok
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In N.V.M. Gonzales' work, “The Hunger in Barok”, the story revolves around the lives of a peasant and his landlord. ... Just like Pare Crispin who is a peasant in the story, together with his family, survives only for the parcel of land rented from Mang Cesar, who is the landlord in the story.
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Ocutare, Sheena C. Ed Ling 206 August 26, 2017
Hunger in Barok by NVM Gonzales (A Literary Analysis based on Marxist Theory)
The story Hunger of Barok shows the difficult situation of a poor person and a land tenant named Pare Crispin struggling to provide food for his family because of the famine that is happening in their town. His only way to address his problem is through Cesar Manao, a rich landowner who let people come to him and ask for a loan or something to do and later pay him in rice after each harvest. The social class of the two mentioned characters brought conflict mostly to Pare Crispin who is poor and Cesar Manao who is rich. Pare Crispin in the story experiences a class struggle which is the underlying pattern of contradictions in a social order. This is from the perspective of George Lukacs (1885-1971). The struggle was shown when Pare Crispin is in need of rice for his family to eat and asked Mang Cesar to lend him some yet he failed on his first try. He even uttered
the words “It’s really hard with us…” The “us” would mean the poor and needy. They don’t have anything to eat because
there is no rain for their crops to grow. As a land tenant, life for Pare Crispin is really difficult during drought because he only relies on his harvest which he does not have. The character of Mang Cesar in the story is relatable to a traditional politician that we have now. He is doing good things in front of many people but when you reach out to him behind the curtain, like what Pare Crispin did, he will use his power and wealth to abuse your weakness. In the story, the time that Pare Crispin asked for rice, Mang Cesar only agreed to lend him some seed rice when Pare Crispin mentioned that he would pay him double the next harvest. Considering the situation of Pare Crispin, if Mang Cesar is really a good person and willing to
help, he will not agree with Crispin’s proposal.
This action of Cesar shows how greedy he is for power, abusing the situation of those who are desperate to live. He is esteemed by the people because the people think that he is a good person but in reality, he is not. Pare Crispin in the story is having a conflict with himself and the circumstance. Being poor, he is experiencing difficulty in providing the needs of his family caused by the famine. The situation faced by Pare Crispin mirrors the society we have now. If you are in the lower class, you are being abused by the higher class. And those in the higher class are those who are greedy
and will not share what they have if you don’t give any favorable condition to them.
Pare
Crispin’s situation shows how a father would do anything for the sake of his family. He is
willing to do desperate actions just to provide the needs of his family. In the end of the story, Pare Crispin was able to get a cavan of seed rice from Mang Cesar but he has to choose whether to cook it for his family to eat or to plant it despite of the drought they are experiencing which may hinder them to get a good harvest. The next day, Mang Cesar went to the house of Pare Crispin expecting them to see the man and his wife pounding rice while three hungry boys looked on. But what he thought was wrong; he saw that the family used the rice for planting. This assumption done my Mang Cesar showed idealism as proposed by Louis Althuser (1918-1990) which he thought that because Pare Crispin is so desperate, he will immediately use what he borrowed for his primary needs, expecting him to use the rice to eat but he was wrong. Mang Cesar easily judged Pare Crispin probably because of his difficult situation yet Pare Crispin showed how hardworking and optimistic he i