Two Novels on Conflicts Between Old and New Culture of Filipinos

The central position in the novel of the public celebration, such as the beauty display or the film festival, shows how the people come together almost certain issues, cultural events, and ideas, people from very different backgrounds who motive in other societies be some(prenominal) more(prenominal) removed(p) from one another.

This hotshot that differences are not that important and tail end be overlooked in some social soul is apparent in the attitude toward sexuality as well, as can be seen in the character of Salvador, who embodies male and female person without attracting much attention or concern, as the narrator indicates when she says,

He fascinates me too. In spite of his effeminate gestures, Salvador is married, the hardworking father of seven. I complete he has eyes for my brother Raul (Hagedorn 80).

The a standardised(p) issue applies to the narrator's uncle:

Uncle Panchito likes to wear dresses and other women's clothes from time to time. He often wins "Most Original" at those transvestite beauty contests he goes to with my mother (Hagedorn 81).

Opposites are thus combined in characters and situations end-to-end the novel so that differences are not erased but muzzy until they no longer matter.

The subject of this novel is not evidently the story of the characters but the story of the Filipinos as an entity. Each segmentation is introduced by an excerpt from a book written rough the Philippines by Jea

In Hagedorn's book, much of the time of the narrator and her friends is taken up with daydreaming just about America and American personalities, as in the golf game story. The same sort of dreaming and imagining is apparent in Rolling the R's by R. Zamora Linmark from the beginning:

n Mallat in 1846, showing a sense of historical continuity. The titles for the two parts of the book withal contact past and present when taken together. "Coconut Palace" refers to the Philippine government during the colonial era, while "The Song of Bullets" refers to the civil tensions concomitant the rise of a dictator to power in the 1950s.

The power of American culture in this distant area of the population is apparent in the many cultural references by which the narrator makes connections between her world and the American world to which she aspires, though in the end, her memory of her youth in Manila is what will call forth to her more after she has actually lived in America. For the young girl, though, American culture is defining, as is apparent when she and Pucha want to be like their favorite American stars. The narrator says, "We affect the casual jejune glamour of Gloria Talbott in our favorite movie, All That Heaven Allows" (Hagedorn 236). Pucha wants a perm because Audrey Hepburn and everyone in Hollywood and Rome are doing it (Hagedorn 237). Girlie Alacran dreams of golf and evokes all the known American names--Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan (Hagedorn 180).

This book is also filled with American popular culture references, and much more than in the hagedorn book, the narrative and the style are influenced by a variety of popular culture forms, such as the restate use of popular songs as a rhythmic widget for shaping the language, as in, "So if you want his body and you conceive of he's sexy, roller skate on down to America, sugar, and let him know" (Linmark 26).

In Rolling the R's, R. Zamora Linmark uses language in interesting shipway to evoke a mixed colony of pe
Ordercustompaper.com is a professional essay writing service at which you can buy essays on any topics and disciplines! All custom essays are written by professional writers!