Marxist reading of selected works of Bob Ong: (a study of the popular culture)

Date

5-2006

Degree

Bachelor of Arts in Communication Arts

College

College of Arts and Sciences (CAS)

Adviser/Committee Chair

Noel K. Torreta

Abstract

The "popularly advocated" has the tendency to feign the objective reality, and replace it with a subjective analysis of the actual conditions. The same assumption applies to popular literature-that the author tends to remake reality according to how perceives it and how he wants it to be perceived.

This study is basically a Marxist reading of the selected works of Bob Ong. Together, the study glances over popular culture from which the text is identified among the genre of the popular literature. In the pool of contemporary creative writer, Bob Ong stands reflective of the existing culture. This is readily perceived in the language and the formal elements that indicate the strong influence of the popular culture to the author.

Various theories and critiques are already made on popular culture. But for this study alone, the definition is trimmed down to a culture that is drawn from the inherent experiences of man (from below), but is manipulated by the upper class (from above). Emphasis is given to the latter, and to the contention that popular culture is commodified for capital acquisition of the dominant few.

In this study, the Marxist approach is holistic as it is used first, in defining the scope of popular culture (Dialectical materialism), and again, in the actual reading of the text (Economic determinism). The claims of this study are grounded also on the Marxist belief that there is a prevailing social stratification that propels the incessant struggle between classes.

On the premise that the author is a purveyor of the popular culture, he therefore promotes the prevalence of the existing status quo from which he benefits. Intersubjectivity explains that with the choice of language and details incorporated in his narratives, Ong carries a consciousness espoused by the petty-bourgeoisie. And Marx's Economic Determinism fortifies this by stating that the social being (economic being) begets the individual's consciousness (ideology).

The study proceeds with the three-phase textual interpretation of Terry Eagleton that "uncloaks" Ong's works to reveal the kind of reality that is being presented by the text. It begins with having identified the petty-bourgeois of the author and of the text.

In identifying the contradictions within the text, the study recognizes the realism in Ong's works. In the four selected books, the contradiction in the state of education, the Philippine politics and culture, and the conflict between the dominant and the dominated are presented to the readers.

However, these fragments of realism will not suffice as in this case that the text is subjected to the standards of a Marxist textual interpretation. The author is found guilty of the petty-bourgeois tendency that fails to see wider scope of societal oppression and contradiction. Ong remains confined in the moral world of his class whose concerns are limited to an urban and popular lifestyle, and discounts the genuine mass literature of the workers, peasants, and of other sectors that comprise the large number of the true masses.

With this, Ong also fails to provide a substantial resolution or any call to transform the social contradictions even to those that he has presented at the very least. And logically, failure to instigate change is an action to preserve the already existing order of the dominant versus the dominated classes.

Language

English

Location

UPLB Main Library Special Collections Section (USCS)

Call Number

LG 993.5 2006 M3 C56

Document Type

Thesis

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