Reaction to my Father Goes to Court by Carlos Bulosan The setting of the story is very Filipino, people in the barrio,

helping each other. The story depicts the typical Filipino family. It has the characteristics of being simple, poor, hardworking, happy and has strong family ties. The author described the plot accurately but the scenes of the story do not happen in everyday life. The family in the story was described by being happy go lucky because despite the hardships they encounter in their everyday life, they can still laugh and enjoy their lives and can still survive the burdens caused by poverty. The story tells the stereotype conflict of two groups. In this story, the rich family and the poor family having conflict with each other. The rich man in the story was very selfish and does not want to socialize with the poor people in the community so he ended up being sick because he only cares about was his wealth and money. Same thing happened to his children, they grew up thin, weak, and sad because they did not experienced and enjoyed the life of a typical kid like playing outside, and hanging out with other kids while the poor family, despite the hardships and problems the kids still enjoy playing outside so they grew up strong and healthy. The poor family enjoyed their life to the fullest. There is an old saying that happy people will live their life longer. For me this story has a deeper meaning, the story he made was very happy and was like a fairy tale that everyone is happy and laughing. I think this story implies the gap between the upper and lower classes in the society. I think Carlos Bulosan wants to reveal the reality about this issue because he experienced social discrimination when he was in the U.S.

My reaction for the short story entitled the magnificence. When I have finished reading the story, I cannot understand why it is entitled magnificence. Anyway, my comment about this story is that this story is about the life of a normal family that happens in real life and the setting of the story is I guess it is in the mid 1900s. the story illustrates some issues like the incident that happened to the little girl one night while she was left alone with the man named Vicente. This is a common issue nowadays and I cant imagine that this issue occurred long time ago. I think that Vicente was trying to molest the little girl that is why he was holding the little girl on his lap. The author wants to show the issues that are happening around the society and I think the author too wants to give a message that everyone should become aware of all the evil people wandering around engaging in illegal activities like prostitution, drugs and child trafficking. Another thing that Ive noticed in the story is that it tells about an old saying again or the pamahiin. Like in the story may day eve, the pamahiin there is when the old lady told agueda to look for her fate in front of the mirror as the midnight comes. Here in the story magnificence, after the mother saw what Vicente did to her daughter, she told the man to leave their house and immediately told the little girl to take off his clothes, take a bath and they will set the clothes on fire. When I was reading that line, I recalled a similar incident that happened to our place in Los Baos. A girl was on her way home, she was alone in a jeep and suddenly she became confused because the driver always kept turning into the wrong direction. The girl was really frightened because she thought that she will be raped by the driver. After the driver stopped, he gave instructions to the girl that as soon as she gets home, she should take a bath then burn her used clothes so that the evil spirits will not comeback. That is same instruction that the mother told her daughter, maybe the mother has a third eye and she sees all the evil spirits roaming around

their house. The burning of the clothes is the way to drive away the evil spirits. Or maybe Vicente is trying to hide something under his shirt because had oozed out of his.. Or maybe thats that way the mother got really mad where it came to the point that she wanted to burn the clothes because she didnt want to clean the stains on her daughters clothes caused by Vicente. He he I dont know..

The story is set in a city in the Philippines. The young narrator begins by describing his large family. Though they are poor they are full of mischief and laughter. The children are all strong and healthy even though they often go hungry. In contrast, their rich neighbor's children are thin and sickly although they are given plenty of good food, which their impoverished neighbors enjoy smelling over the fence. Consequently, the rich man brings a charge against the narrator's family for stealing the spirit of his family's food. The absurd case goes to court, and the narrator's father agrees to pay back the rich neighbor. He does this by collecting coins from all his friends present in his hat, then shaking the hat full of coins. Being charged to pay for the spirit of food which his family supposedly got from its smell, he maintains that the jingling of the coins is a fair equivalent. The judge rules in the poor father's favor, and the rich man is forced to depart with no other payment than the "spirit" of the money the poor man collected.