The Marxist Approach in “The Bolo”

by Loreto Paras

Marion Theodore G. Guayco

March 27, 2014

A literary research paper submitted to

Dr. Robert M. Picart

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for

LIT 121 (Literary Criticism)

Kalayaan College

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………3

The Author: Loreto Paras……………………………………………………………….…3

Early Life and Education………………………………………………….………3

Literary Career…………………………………………………………….………3

Chapter One: “The Bolo” by Loreto Paras………………………………………………….…4

Character Background………………………………………………………………….…4

Plot and Summary………………………………………………….……………………...4

Chapter Two: Marxism………………………………………………….………………………6

History………………………………………………….………………………………….6

Main Tenets……………………………………………………………………………….7

Impact in Literature………………………………………………….…………………...10

Chapter Three: Marxist Approach on “The Bolo” …………………………………….……12

Presence of the Class Struggle………………………………………………….………..12

Alienation and Material Determinism…………………………………………………...12

2

The Exploitative Capitalist Market………………………………………………………13

Conclusion………………………………………………….…………………………………...14

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………….…15

INTRODUCTION

The Author: Loreto Paras

Early Life and Education

“The Bolo” by Loreta Paras – Sulit (December 10, 1908 –

April 23, 2008) was written and published in 1927. She graduated

magna cum laude with a degree in Secondary of Education in the

University of the Philippines in 1927 and co-founded the U.P.

Writers Club in 1927 with fellow writers Jose Garcia Villa and

Arturo B. Rotor.

3

Literary Career

She taught as an English teacher in Florentio Torres High

School as an English teacher and joinged the Philippine National

Red Cross and served as a secretary-general for several decades.

In her stay there, she focused on creating short stories for

children that were published in the Philippine Junior Red Cross

Magazine. She was considered by many writers as an excellent

short story writer in English, more notably, Jose Garcia Villa.

Pangasinense Novelist and Poet Juan Laya regarded her work during

that time as ‘one of the few remaining great pioneers of

Philippine Literature in English. Many of her stories remain

unsurpassed in thi day in sensitivity and depth of feeling.’

(Valeros, F. B. 1999)

CHAPTER ONE:

“The Bolo” by Loreto Paras

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Character Background

The short story, “The Bolo” has two main characters:

Sita and Clara. Clara was the eldest of the two sisters. Clara

was a widow, as Ramon her previous husband has left this mortal

world. Sita on the other hand was simply a young girl who was

consumed by hunger. Aside from Sita’s misfortune did not end in

her husband’s passing, she also lost her son in the process. For

them, the last conceivable way out was to sell their most prized

possession: the bolo.

Plot and Summary

The plot begins with them in desperate need of sustenance,

and the only feasible method for the sisters is to sell the bolo.

However, aside from the conflict of the two sister on finding a

solution for their hunger, another conflict is present in regard

of selling the bolo at Old Hison’s Store: Clara, the older of the

two, refuses to sell the bolo, while Sita, the younger one, is

persistent in selling the artifact. Clara stood her ground for

she believed that the parents of the late husband of Sita, Ramon,

5

would still send them money, despite his departure from the

mortal world along with their unborn son. At the first three

paragraphs, they not only describe themselves are famished beyond

reason, but the eldest sister, Clara, is also sick. However

despite her weak state, she stands her ground in keeping the said

heirloom. The narrator described the bolo as such: ‘They were

bound by a dull line of solid gold, the stolen piece of the heart

of the great mountain – and this gold wedded the jade and the

ivory to the boldly gleaming steel.’ (p. 27) Despite their shared

admiration toward the belief of the bolo being a legendary

artifact that has been passed down from generation to generation,

Sita’s desperation was simply greater. As the hour became late

and dawn grew close, Sita snatched the bolo from Clara’s weak and

helpless hands. She then went to Old Hison’s store to sell it,

and was swindled to a meager price of fifty pesos for the blade.

Sita, through the words of narrator thought: ‘Oh, she was

realizing that there are other things more confounding than

hunger…like shame and pride.’ (p. 29) Nonetheless, for her at

that moment, she was without a choice and sold the bolo for the

price.

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Nearing the end of the story, as she went away, she

overheard the first customer, named Oscar, before her arrange

something with the storeowner. Oscar bought the bolo for a far

more superior price and have it back to Sita. Oscar explained

that such objects must indeed be cherished, pointing out that he

understood the rarity of it and its value must always be

appreciated. Sita then went back to the storeowner, returned the

money, and said, “Here is your money and I shall keep the bolo.”

(p. 32)

CHAPTER TWO: 7

Marxism

History

Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818, Marx lived in a period of

unrestrained capitalism when exploitation and misery were the lot

of the industrial working classes, and it was his and Engels’

humanitarianism and concern for social justice that inspired his

work.

A student at the University of Berlin, Marx was strongly

influenced by the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel and by a radical

group called Young Hegelians, who attempted to apply Hegelian

ideas to the movement against organized religion and the Prussian

autocracy.

In 1841, Marx received a doctorate in philosophy. In 1842, he

became editor of the Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne, a liberal

democratic newspaper for which he wrote increasingly radical

editorials on social and economic issues. The Prussian government

in 1843 banned the newspaper, and Marx left for Paris with his

bride, Jenny von Westphalen. There he went further in his

criticism of society, building on the Young Hegelian criticism of

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religion. Applying Ludwig Feuerbach idea of alienation to private

property, Marx elaborated on the idea that alienation had an

economic base. He called for a communist society to overcome the

dehumanizing effect of private property.

In 1845, Marx moved to Brussels, and in 1847 he went to London.

He had previously made friends with Friedrich Engels, the son of

a wealthy textile manufacturer who, like him, had been a Young

Hegelian. They collaborated on a book, The Holy Family that was a

criticism of some of their Young Hegelian friends for their

stress on alienation. In 1845, Marx jotted down some notes,

Theses on Feuerbach, which he and Engels enlarged into a book,

The German Ideology in which they developed their materialistic

conception of history. They argued that social and economic

forces, particularly those related to the means of production,

determined human thought. They developed a method of analysis

they called dialectical materialism, in which the clash of

historical forces leads to changes in society.

In 1847 a London organization of workers invited Marx and Engels

to prepare a program for them. It appeared in 1848 as the

Communist Manifesto. In it they declared that all history was the

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history of class struggles. Under capitalism, the struggle

between the working class and the business class would end in a

new society, a communist one.

In 1867, Marx published the first volume of Das Kapital in which

he worked out a new theory of society. Marx showed that all

social systems are economically motivated and change as a result

of technical and economic changes in methods of production. The

driving force of social change Marx found to be in the struggle

that the oppressed classes wage to secure a better future. Marx’s

theory of historical materialism implies that history is

propelled by class struggle with communism and a classless

society as the final stage when man will have emancipated himself

from the productive process.

Illness and depression marked Marx’s last years. He continued to

write treatises on socialism, urging that his followers disdain

softhearted bourgeois tendencies. His wife died in 1881, and his

eldest daughter in 1883, shortly before his own death on March

14, 1883.

Main Tenets

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Marx can be thought of as having offered two sets of ideas,

the first of which we can accept if we wish to, without accepting

the second. Marx gave us a theory of society, i.e , an

explanation of how society works, of how and why history has

unfolded, and especially an account of the nature of capitalism.

These are of great value for the task of describing what is going

on in the world and for understanding the problems and directions

of our society today.

But Marx also regarded capitalism as extremely

unsatisfactory and he was very concerned with getting rid of it,

via violent revolution and the establishment of a communist

society. Marxism is therefore also about political goals and

action. Obviously very few people in western society today accept

this second set of ideas; most seem to think capitalism is

desirable, most do not want to see it destroyed and most do not

like the idea of revolution or communism.

Marx argued that the economic situation, the form of the

productive system, is the most important determinant of all other

aspects of the society, such as its social institutions and

ideas, such as the system of law, of morality and education.

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These are elements within the "superstructure" of society. Hence

Marx is said to be a "materialist". Marx rebelled against Hegel's

philosophy in which ideas were taken to be the important

determinants of history. Marx argued that dominant ideas are the

result of material or economic conditions and he was therefore

strongly opposed to reformers who thought that mere change in

ideas can change society. The main types of society Marx

distinguished were primitive, slave, feudal and capitalist. In a

capitalist society capitalists own and control the productive

resources (i.e., capital), workers own only their labour and work

for capitalists, who then own the product and sell it at a

profit. The key to understanding a society at any point in

history is to focus first on the mode of production. In feudal

society land was the crucial productive factor and the feudal

lords owned and controlled it. In capitalist society capital,

machinery, mines, factories etc. are the key productive factors

and these are owned and controlled by capitalists (...as distinct

from being owned by all members of society, which is the focal

idea in varieties of socialism).

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Marx saw the relation between these two factors as the main

determinant of the type of society existing and of social change.

The “forces of production” may be loosely regarded as the type of

productive technology the society has; e.g., slave labor, machine

technology. The “relations of production” refers to the social

organization of production; i.e., basically who owns the

productive forces, or how they are controlled. For instance in a

slave society masters force slaves to do the work, and in a

feudal society serfs are obliged to work for the lord a certain

number of days each week. In capitalist society capitalists own

society's productive resources and employ workers to operate

these for a wage when capitalists think profits can be made.

  At first the relation between new forces of production and

new relations of production is progressive or beneficial to

society in general. Marx stressed the great increase in human

welfare that economic growth under capitalism had brought.

However as time goes on the situation becomes less and less

beneficial. The new social relations of production begin to

hinder the full development and application of the new forces of

production. For example in the late feudal era it was not in the

13

interests of the lords to allow land to be sold or labourers to

sell their labour freely to any employer. These practices were

inhibited although they eventually became essential in the

capitalist mode of production and therefore in the increase in

production and benefits that capitalism brought. Similarly at

present we are unable to apply powerful technology to doing

useful things like designing longer-lasting goods, and feeding

hungry people simply because of the existing social relations of

production. That is, the relations of production take a form in

which control over the application of productive forces is in the

hands of capitalists and it is not in their interests to do these

socially beneficial things. This is a major contradiction in

contemporary capitalist society. Such contradictions have been

intrinsic in all class societies and as each has developed its

contradictions have become more and more glaring, to the point

where they lead to revolutionary change. So the relation between

the forces and the social relations of production and the

consequences this generates is the major dynamic factor in

history, the primary cause of social change.

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Impact on Literature

Marx's philosophy is known as "dialectical materialism-." No

place is given by him to the soul or the spirit. According to

him, religion is the opium of the masses which keeps them in a

world of material reality. He adopted the Hegelian dialectic to

give a materialist account of social formations. His concept to

class conflict is a basic point. Conflicts arise from the desire

to control the means of production. He attacked the laissez faire

policy which allows the industrialists and capitalists to exploit

the working class without let or hindrance. Marx was for

Communism, i.e., the supremacy of the community of workers rather

than of a few individuals in control of the entire wealth and its

generating sources. The proletariat should rule a country jointly

instead of a king or an elected parliament, which normally

protects vested masses throughout the world. His teachings

inspired the Russian Revolution and then the Chinese, not to

speak of another dozen or more on smaller scales throughout the

world. So far as English literature is concerned, Marx's impact

manifests itself in four different ways:

15

A greater concern for the poor exploited masses, without any

overt projection of the Marxian ideology. Even non-Marxian

writers in the twentieth century tend to give a much greater

representation to the working class in their works. In the

novels of Arnold Bennett, for example, we have mostly

working-class heroes. And Lawrence's proletarian hero

sometimes walks away with an aristocratic lady.

se of literature as a means of communistic propaganda. See,

for example, the English Socialist theatre of today.

A tendency to subvert the conventional literary forms and

techniques by condemning them as constructs of the

bourgeoisie. Here the Marxians are on avant-garde ground.

A reaction against Marxian ideology which seems to

encourage statism as against the concept of the sanctity and

freedom of the individual and abject materialism as against

spiritualism and "the higher values of llife." Witness

George Orwell's novels 1984 and Animal Farm.

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CHAPTER THREE:

Marxist Approach on “The Bolo”

Presence of the Class Struggle

It can be said that the dire situation of the two sisters,

Clara and Sita is due to poverty. One cannot ascertain, firstly,

that they are proletariat within the confines of the piece, or as

part of the supposed working class. It was not stated that the

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two sisters maintained or was even associated to any form of

labor before and after their conflict with the bolo. However, one

can infer that Sita’s late husband, Ramon, was the designated

proletariat in the plot. Our society has always been perceived as

a patriarchal society, thus inhibiting women with labor within

and for the household as well as the primary provider of care

towards the children of the couple, but in respect of the

situation of “The Bolo”, Ramon passed away along with their

unborn child. Thus, the siblings are rather victims of poverty

through the hands of an already established society of

capitalism, presented in the story.

Alienation and Material Determinism

Firstly, it needs to be pointed out that the means of

production is the bolo itself. The bolo throughout the story

acted as the most valuable asset in producing the wealth needed

for the two sisters to survive. The bolo is the main instrument

of labor for the two main protagonists who were merely victims of

the capitalistic society situated by Paras. Their hardship and

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desperation was not only due to the death of Sita’s late husband,

who can be said as the main subject to wage labor, but also the

manipulated market presented by the pawnshop, Old Hison’s Store.

Due to one of the sister’s unwavering desire to feed herself, she

was opted to trade the bolo for income, blinding her of the true

importance of the artifact

Old Hison’s store perfectly reflected a capitalistic

economy. James Fulcher describes it as such:

“Indeed, it is typical of a capitalistic society that virtually all

economic

activities that of on within it are driven by the opportunity to

make profit out of capital invested in

them.” (Capitalism – A Very Short Introduction, p. 14)

The Exploitative Capitalist Market

Capitalist production is based on wage labor. A clear line of

division and conflict emerges between the owners of capital, who

own what Karl Marx called ‘the means of production’, and those

who sell their labor in exchange of wages. In the case of Sita

and Clara, their labor is defined and represented by the bolo,

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which also symbolizes their capital; an investment that aims to

produce more than what their initial capital.

Towards the end however, it was not a worthy investment from

the side of the sisters. The exchange-value of the bolo which

acted as their capital was far lower than the initial cost, which

was then pointed out by the customer, Oscar, the supposed savior

of their investment. Even though a sense of justice was achieved

through the return of the bolo to its owners, it still did not

succeed in producing an acceptable in return in terms for the

production of material life, which was the quest for sufficiency

in terms of habitation and sustenance, despite the preservation

of tradition through the return of the bolo.

CONCLUSION

Loreto Paras was able to grant its reader a glimpse of how

our country before was in the state of tension from preserving

certain traditions that support our culture and heritage, and an

20

age of advancement where for one to keep up with the times,

sacrifices are needed for a path to development. The two

characters represent such a contradiction, thus also subjugating

themselves to a world that is being run by the market. Through

the Marxist analysis, this paper was able to determine how we are

torn apart by our needs to survive through exploiting ourselves

or our own personal possessions for the simple desire to feed.

The Marxist approach offers a vantage point of how people are

solely reliant on such superficial object to survive such a

world. through this reliance, we exploit ourselves, disregarding

all forms of safety, and for the case of “The Bolo”, their

heritage and tradition.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kaczender, George, John Kemeny, and Ian MacNeill. Marxism The Theory That Split the World. New York: Learning Corp. of America, 1970.

Singer, Peter. Marx: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Yabes, Leopoldo Y. Philippine Short Stories, 1925-1940. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1975.

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