Words that Make a Hero

Heroism–this is a word we always hear. Upon hearing this word, we immediately think of all the extraordinary people who have changed the world or even the legendary heroes that we have heard of. The usual candidates for this title are the specially gifted people on television such as Hercules, Superman and Spiderman or the historically famous people who risked their lives for others such as Ninoy Aquino. To a lot of people, heroes are people who stand out because they have supernatural abilities. People may even speak vainly of how they are the heroes of the society or a certain group of people. Very rarely will one hear people call the poor or even people they see everyday heroes.Their mindset is based on the fictional characters showed by media.

Of all people in the novel, why is the pauper the hero? Why is this “nobody” considered so important in the society? He doesn’t even have the sense of honor people always see in heroes. He isn’t distinguished by the rest of the society because of his strength either. The answer lies in his courage. He does not fear the fact that he has to face something new and deal with something that he has never experience before. He went through so many different challenges in many different places such as Binalonan, his native province, Baguio and America. None of these places gave him too much of a hard time as to leave his dream of giving identity to everyone in America in ruins. He held on with everything he could, and in the end, he earns his reward of satisfaction and peace in his heart.

However, heroes can be found everywhere. They can be the people beside you, your best friend, a family member or even a farmer in the province. Although many may not agree with me, for me, Carlos, better known as Allos, the main character in the novel America is in the Heart is a true hero.

At the beginning of the story, Allos was just a simple farm boy who could only dream to do what he will go through. He lived a simple life and tried to stay alive by planting and harvesting food. Some of their harvest will be eaten while some of these will be sold for additional money. He has no idea of the world out there. He helps out by harvesting and accompanying his mother to Puzzorobio to sell their harvested beans. It seems as though his whole life would be dedicated to doing this.

One day, Allos hears about Baguio, a city far away from their province. This makes him generate the idea that he can earn a lot of money in Baguio. It was because of this that made him go to Baguio and try his luck there. This is a start of a new journey in his life. In the past, he was merely with his family, wherein they were all interdependent on each other to work for everyone’s survival. Now, he will have only himself to rely on for his survival. There, he met a number of people. One of them was Mary Strandon, his boss. He was tasked to do the general household work in exchange of money and a place to stay in. Another person Allos met in Baguio is Dalmacio, the Igorot-looking houseboy of Mary Strandon’s neighbor. Unlike Carlos, Dalmacio is educated and is being taught when he is not working. He was said that he, too, wanted to go to America to find a new life and a future for himself. In a way, Dalmacio was the companion of Allos in Baguio.

During the stay of Allos in Baguio, the hero cycle or monomyth is evident. The call to adventure in this is when he decides to go to Baguio, a whole new place that is away from the comfort of his family so that he might find a better future. His crossing occurs when he arrives at Baguio, where he will struggle to survive and seek to find a job that will make him earn money. One of his helpers is Dalmacio, who is educated and told Allos about what he knows. In a way, Dalmacio complements the skills of Allos because Allos has the drive within him to survive while Dalmacio has the knowledge to guide Allos to help him make it through. His supreme ordeal is not the usual “man vs. man” battle. Allos actually struggles within himself to ask if he will escape to America, a land that will test his courage and ability to survive. His decision was to leave for America. His flight and return are his journey and experience going back to Binalonan.

After leaving Binalonan again to travel to America, his main journey takes place. This is where he will pour his sweat and blood and where he will put everything on the line so that he may earn money.However, once he lays his feet upon America, he sees what he never expected. He thought America was a place where he can find a promising future. Apparently, he was never informed that Filipinos and foreigners were not allowed to be employed in America.

He was facing a whole new way of life, where nationality spelled out success or failure in the future ahead. Throughout his whole stay in America, Allos constantly tries to seek the answer to one very simple question: Where will the future take him? He wants to know what tomorrow has in store for him. As he tries to find his answer, he realizes that to achieve the future he aspires for, he has to go against the tide. He has to go against a whole way of life which is dictated by a whole race, the white race. Because of this, he changes his question to “How can I make a difference against this tide?” He sees a certain need to fight the flow of life in America so that not only he will rise from their current state in life.

He wants to give them a chance to progress. As he finds his role in this change, he reads a lot of books, helping his literacy improve and making him more aware of the past and present. He becomes so fascinated by these books that he decides to help the nation though his writing. He goes through so much pain brought about the punishment given to him by the white people and the tuberculosis he catches in America. However, he does not let this stop him from achieving his goal. He continued to push even though his body was weakening. He continued to write, and he felt as though he were at Heaven when he found out that his writing was published.

In his stay in America, another monomyth cycle was present. His call to adventure starts when he arrived in Seattle, where he could not understand anything and anyone. He was placed in a circumstance wherein he was a real stranger. His first helper was Amado, his brother. When they meet, Allos notices that Amado has become a thug. Because of this, their reunion does not last. However, Amado still lets his brother realize that there is more to life than earning money.

What is important is that people are able to keep themselves alive so that they will be able to make a difference, even if the way of keeping themselves alive is done in the most brutal way. After this, Allos goes through a lot of tests and tries to push and keep himself alive through honest means. However, this does not prove to last because at one point, Allos steals and sells what he stole in order to survive. He also tried to be part of rally groups, but when he sees that these are not ideal, he decides not to join anymore and instead, makes his own group. His group of helpers in America consists of Felix Razon, Jane, Eileen, Jose, Ganzo and his brother Macario. Jane and Eileen helped him by giving him more books to read. The others formed a group with him to publish an article. They all helped in Allos’ journey in one small way or another. The supreme ordeal of Allos is his struggle against the discriminating Americans to have his writings compiled to a single document while staying in bed because of his condition of tuberculosis. It was as if everything was against him. However, he did not let this crush his spirit. He moved on with his fight, and it all paid off. His reward was the compiled document of writings he had been working on and the satisfaction that after all his pain, struggles, sorrows, hardships, sufferings, losses and defeats, he was able to rise back up and make a difference. All the blood that came from his body was nothing compared to how he felt because he was now able to achieve something that he could only dream of achieving back in Binalonan.

Taking a look at the journey Allos from the moment he left Binalonan until the point when his book was made, one large monomyth can be noticed. The two monomyths come together and form one large monomyth, encompassing the whole journey of Allos. The call to adventure in this cycle is the search of Allos for something that will help the current status of his family. Prior to this, he never thought of trying to find extra help for his family. However, the problem now is that the family’s land was taken away and they are relying purely on Macario. He needs to find a way to help because if not, the efforts of the family will be inadequate for their survival. His first helper is Mary Strandon, who helped him be aware of some historical events such as Abraham Lincoln who died for a Negro or black person. His crossing extends from the time he set foot on the ship to Seattle all the way until the end of his journey, when he was trying to find his role in the society.His group of helpers contains his two brothers, Amado and Macario, Jose, Felix Razon, Jane, Eileen, Ganzo, Dalmacio and Mary Strandon. All of them helped shape him to the way he is as a factor of change in the society. His supreme ordeal was the struggle with the society that discriminated other races and the current status quo while he was trying to cope with his condition of tuberculosis. His boon is the compilation of his writings into a book and ultimately, the satisfaction and peace he felt when he knew that even through he was going to die, he has already left his mark and it will live longer than he did in the hearts of everyone who has met him and everyone who will read his book.

The monomyth is not the only trace of Greek and Roman influences on literature in this novel. Greek mythology was portrayed as the “literature of the spirit,” which means that it is about man’s search through the ages for truth, meaning and significance.

In other words, they are the clues to the spiritual potentials in life and inner values that they possess. This can very clearly be seen in the novel. Allos went through everything because he wanted to search for the truth behind the discrimination, meaning and significance in his own life and the society.

He wanted to find a solution to these flaws by speaking his mind out through his writing.

As I read the novel and after studying the influences of ancient myths on our contemporary literature, I now view literature in a whole new light. Before, I used to think that the novels were just there because people wanted to share what was in their mind. Now, I know that novels were written because they are to serve a purpose. The purpose of this novel is to inform everyone around the world about the happenings in the past and how fortunate the current generation is that they are not experiencing misery on a degree of which Carlos Bulosan experienced in his journey in America. This is why I consider writers, especially Carlos Bulosan, a true hero.

Heroes are not about fame and glory. On the contrary, heroes are usually portrayed as the weaker character or the underdog when compared to the enemy. Even Hercules was made inferior my making him hated by the cities. Our very own Ninoy Aquino, along with his wife Corazon Aquino, looked like an underdog when former dictator Ferdinand Marcos threw him in jail. Allos is no different. He struggled greatly with poverty, discrimination, injustice, pain and hunger while he had to deal with a whole new society and way of life. He went through so much punishment for the identity of everyone in the land of America. His pain was, just as Joseph Campbell said, lovable because his flaw of experiencing pain paid off and bore the fruit of being able to build a new world. He recreated America so that this was no longer a place. It was no longer a nationality. He, a pauper who used to sell beans and work in the fields, was able to reshape America so that it is “in the hearts of men that died for freedom…in the eyes of men that are building a new world.”