Some go through life
without much suffering. While other pass through it in heartache and agony, surrounded by
failed moments of happiness and especially death. This is the case with the
life of Filipino writer Carlos Bulosan. After his mother had died giving
birth to his new little brother, Bulosan as a child couldn't help but struggle
with the tough questions that many of us ask when we lose a loved one:
what is the meaning or purpose of life and death? Bulosan contemplates his
mother death and his new brother’s birth in an existentialist manner: “I could not understand why my mother had to
die. I could not understand why my brother had to live. I was fearful of the motives
of the living and the meaning of their presence on the earth” (p. 28).
Bulosan
is consistently surrounded by ambiguity: there are some positive moments in his
life, but that is temporarily pushed to the periphery as the dark moments of
death overshadow them. It seems as though he lacked stability of
friendship with the beings he came across, be it his mother, his carabao,
Marco, whom he met on his way to America; Crispin, who Bulosan shared good
and bad times with while being in America and also brought him unique reminiscent memories of his homeland; as well as Leroy, who played a very influential role in Bulosan's life and taught him "about living" (p. 32). The moment Bulosan met someone
positive, he came across death. Whether from his homeland or in America, he was
unable to find peace, stability, and even more so understand the meaning of
death. Although, these characters all have symbolic meanings to them, historically tying into his life and times. Nevertheless, the narrator was strong enough to persevere. Perhaps what we can learn from Bulosan is that we shouldn't so much contemplate and understand the philosophy of death, but figure out how to move past it, grow from it, and most of all learn how to live.
