My father Goes to Court

Title: My Father Goes to Court

Author: Carlos Bulosan


Author's Background: Carlos Sampayan Bulosan (c. 1911– September 11, 1956) was a Filipino American author, poet, and activist. A chronicler of the Filipino American experience during the 1930's - early 1950's, he is best remembered for his semi-fictional, semi-autobiographical novel America Is In the Heart (1946) — a staple in American Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies classes.

Source: https://content.lib.washington.edu/exhibits/bulosan/index.html

Vocabulary: 

• Waft - pass or cause to pass gently through the air.
• Glower - have an angry or sullen look on one's face; scowl.
• Molave - a strong tree
• Strut - walk with a stiff, erect, and apparently arrogant or conceited gait.

Characters:

• The Narrator - The son of the poor Father
• The Father - the one who was accused, poor
• The Narrator's siblings - The children of the poor father
• The Richman- The one who accused the poor father 
• The Richman's Children - Testified for the Richman
• The Judge - the judge of the court 

Settings: a small town in the island of Luzon and in the court room.

Exposition: The story starts off with the narrator introducing his family, what their life is and why they have to move house because of the flood ruining their farm. The narrator also introduced the richman's family by explaining that they're neighbors.

Rising Action: The conflict in the story was where the richman accused the poor father of stealing the spirit of the wealth and food of their family.

Climax: It would be the part where the poor father's family and the richman's family went to the court to fix their problem.

Falling Action: it is when the poor father examined the richman's children, and took off his straw hat and began filling it with centavo pieces, silver coins and small changes. He went to the other room and sprinkled it on the floor and paid the richman's family through the sound of coins falling.

Ending: The poor Family paid the Richman's family through the sound of coins and laughed with the judge endlessly. 

Symbolism: For me, I think one of the symbolism here in the story is the difference between the two families status in life, it showed how the poor family and rich family lived their life and how different it is, in the story it showed that the poor family is happy and healthy while the rich family is unhappy and unhealthy, which we can relate in real life because we all know that money cant't buy happiness. Another symbolism that i found in the story was the spirit of the wealth and food, and the sound of the coins falling down, the spirit of the food and wealth symbolizes the poor family that they are wealthy in happiness and wealthy in health, while the sound of the coins symbolizes the rich family because they revolves around money.

Theme: The theme of the story is about the status in life and how it can affect the personality of oneself.

Lesson: The lesson of the story is that money can't buy happiness, and that we should be Happy in what ever your status might be in life.