Dog Eater Analysis 6ac2x

Leo Improgo Tan III

BSE-ENGLISH4

July 3, 2013

A Formalistic Analysis of the Short Story Dog Eaters Dog meat has been eaten in Korea dating back as far as the 4th century AD. In 1984, the sale of dog meat was prohibited, but this legislation had little or no effect on the consumption of dog meat and wasn't enforced. In the Philippine scenario, most of the people who eat dog meat were the men who have no work and were on the busy streets early in the morning drinking hard liquors. The story was written by a Filipino author, Leoncio P. Deriada and was given the brand name “Father of Contemporary in Western Visayas”, he pictured out the real situation of the spur-of-the-moment marriage. The story was analysed using the formalistic approach, an approach that focuses in the interpretation and analysis of the literary works. As cited by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Organic Unity, it is the whole being of harmonious involvement of all the parts of the literary work which entails that the text should be analysed as a whole not to be analysed by chunk. Another idea was given by Robert Penn Warren which states that Poetry (or literature) is a valid source of knowledge that cannot be communicated in other than its own which gives us the idea that a literary piece should be analysed on how it was written through the use of lexical items and the author’s writing style. The theme of the story was a sense of irresponsibility, as we scrutinize the text with the use of the formalistic approach, Victor married Mariana due to the fact the he had impregnated her. Without proper orientation of being a parent, they faced the road of marriage with curiosity and testing. As we stick to the story, most of lines are involving harsh conversations and war between couples. Both of the character faced the dilemma of having a baby at the early age, unstable jobs and a very poor state of living. As we move on further to the lines of the story, the main gist is about Mariana’s husband who shows sense of irresponsibility as he thinks that he was still single and he can mingle with his friends every day. A sub-urban place was the imagery projected on the story, where downgraded people struggles with their way of living. The place was dominated by workless people who just enjoy life without thinking about their future. They prefer to share boisterous laughter than finding a stable job. The setting was also described as a small barangay wherein their houses are like bungalows. The protagonist in the story was Mariana, as we read through the lines of the story and as we feel the pain she is feeling, she was the one who loosed hope and had many expectations towards his husband. She was the educated one in the story but then, she had made the wrong decisions in her life. The character felt that she faced the life alone. The character was the one who struggled much in life, while on the other hand his husband Victor, didn’t finish any degree and was just into male beauty pageants. Mariana could have raised her child alone and have her dreams come true. She showed the sense of responsibility in the story as she was the only one who worked well to achieve about their status in life and her approach towards their’ marriage. She have been a responsible wife as well. But at the end his husband was the one who drives her to be angry due to his husband’s irresponsibility. The story tells us that before barging into the depths of every situation, we should think about the consequences, the problems that we will be encountering. The state that we could say to ourselves that we are ready to take risk. This story has also inculcated that getting married is a great responsibility it is not a joke and it shouldn’t be taken for granted. And lastly the story entails that we should be firm in our decisions and we should have to think twice as to what other options we could have to solve problems. Since in this life, everything has a purpose and it is up to us on how we handle it.