More Readings on Merlinda Bobis' Sadness Collector

From Thread: The Sadness Collector
Author: Maria Nastassja Cordero AB Political Science

The story represents the importance of the specific roles played by each of the members of a Filipino family. It is evident that a mother and a father in a Filipino family tends to have a very distant role to perform in the household. The father should be the bread-winner while the mother should stay at home taking care of the kids. In the story The Sadness Collector they have seemed to break tradition. The mother went to Paris to work and actually be the bread winner while the father, although still working, stayed at home with Rica. In the absence of the mother, the Filipino perspective that the mother is the best person who can look out for the welfare of her child/children was represented in the story seeing Rica as a confused and disturbed child because her mom is not by her side. The father was so hard to connect with Rica because of the reason that it was hard for himself to accept the fact that he had to stay with his child which is for him is not his real role. Seeing this situation, I can say that a Filipino family tends to be more patriarchal and breaking this tradition seemed to be, for the many, ruining of the family. What is also evident here in this selection is the perspective of the very big role played by the mother in the Filipino family, they keep family ties and a child without a mother by his/her side tends to grow out of the way, being an incomplete person inside.


From Thread: The Sadness Collector
Post: The Heck on "The Sadness Collector"
Author: Ivanheck Gatdula AB Political Science


At first glance "The Sadness Collector" seems to be your typical story of a Filipino family, one of which we see on movies. The mother goes to a foreign country, leaving her children behind, while taking care of a stranger's child with the intent to give a comfortable living for the family. However, what seems to be the typical story may be classified as a "daily tragedy", Merlinda Bobis depicted the corroding of what is said to be the essence of a Filipino family, "Close Knitted Family Bonds". Young girls usually steps within the shadows of their mother, but Rica not like most girls, lost the chance in her growing years. Suffering a great loss from the physical distance of the mother from Paris, to the eventual emotional distance of the father, who refuses to read her mother's letter an and answer the questions about the baby pictures. In this story it is now obvious that the effects is focused on Rica, a model of every Filipino child that never/forgot feeling of the loving touch of their mothers. In Merlinda Bobis' "poetic" short story leaves an alarming message, a child who lost the joy of being her mother's daughter, Filipino family seized of its very essence - what do we do now?