Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter deals with the review of related literature or studies that are

relevant to the present investigation. The concepts and studies here vary in scope

and methodology from the present study but they provide insights into the

phenomenon under consideration. A number of articles and studies survey the

major issues related to this study.

Foreign Literature

An analysis explains what a work of literature means, and how it means

it; it is essentially an articulation of and a defense of an interpretation which

shows how the resources of literature are used to create the meaningfulness of

the text. There are people who resist analysis, believing that it 'tears apart' a work

of art; however a work of art is an artifice, that is, it is made by someone with an

end in view: as a made thing, it can be and should be analyzed as well as

appreciated. One significant reason for analyzing literature presented according

to Lyle (1997) that is relevant to this study, is the function of analysis that can

help researchers, through close reading and through reflection, understand the

way ideas and feelings are talked about in our culture or in other times and

cultures in order to have a sense both of communities of meaning, and of the

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different kinds of understanding there can be about matters of importance to

human life.

On Concepts of Class

Many discussions of the concept of class confuse the terminological

problem of how the word class is used within social theory with theoretical

disputes about the proper definition and elaboration of the concept of class. While

all uses of the word class in social theory invoke in one way or another the

problem of understanding systems of economic inequality, different uses of the

word are imbedded in very different theoretical agendas involving different

kinds of questions and thus different sorts of concepts. One way of sorting out

these alternative meanings is to examine what might be termed the anchoring

questions within different agendas of class analysis. These are the questions that

define the theoretical work the concept of class attempts to do. Five such

anchoring questions in which the word ―class‖ figures centrally in the answers

are particularly important. (Wright, Encarta 2003)

First, the word ―class‖ sometimes figures in the answer to the

question: ―How do people, individually and collectively, locate
themselves and others within a social structure of inequality?‖ In this
case the concept would be defined something like this: ―Classes are
social categories sharing subjectively-salient attributes used by
people to rank those categories within a system of economic
stratification‖. Second, class is often central to the question, ―How
are people objectively located in distributions of material inequality.‖
In this case, class is defined in terms of material standards of living,
usually indexed by income or, possibly, wealth. Class, in this
agenda, is a gradational concept; the standard image is of rungs on a
 37

ladder, and the names for locations are accordingly such things as
upper class, upper middle class, middle class, lower middle class,
lower class, under class.2 Third, class may be offered as part of the
answer to the question: ―What explains inequalities in economically-
defined life chances and material standards of living of individuals
and families?‖ Class, in this usage, is contrasted to the many other
determinants of a person’s life chances – for example, geographical
location, forms of discrimination anchored in ascriptive
characteristics like race or gender, or genetic endowments. And
fourth, class figures in answers to the question, ―How should we
characterize and explain the variations across history. (Encarta,
2003)

On Concepts of Class Identity

The idea of Marx’s theory of class identity and hegemony also shows the

idea of counter hegemonic thrust of Marx’s new concept of class as capitalism’s

injustices and its wastes, and inefficiencies were connected to its particular set of

class structures. It is the basis of the researcher to consider class identity as

remedy to systematic problems if property and power are distributed evenly.

Marx provided that supplement by his exposure of class structures as particular

organizations of surplus production, appropriation, and distribution and by his

demonstrations of their multiple, complex effects on the societies in which they

existed. (www.users.zetnet.co.uk/amroth/ scritti/williams.htm.)

Moreover, Marxist literary theories tend to focus on the representation of

class conflict as well as the reinforcement of class distinctions through the

medium of literature. Marxist theorists use traditional techniques of literary

analysis but subordinate aesthetic concerns to the final social and political
 38

meanings of literature. Marxist theorists often champion authors sympathetic to

the working classes and authors whose work challenges economic equalities

found in capitalist societies. In keeping with the totalizing spirit of Marxism,

literary theories arising from the Marxist paradigm have not only sought new

ways of understanding the relationship between economic production and

literature, but all cultural production as well. Marxist analyses of society and

history have had a profound effect on literary theory and practical criticism, most

notably in the development of "New Historicism" and "Cultural Materialism."

(vbrewton@unanov.una.edu, 2002)

With Engels, Marx presents in ―Strategy and Tactics of the Class

Struggle‖ that people from the ruling class also join the proletariat and supply it

with educated elements, when such people from other classes join the proletarian

movement, the first demand upon them must be that they do not bring with

them any remnants of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc.

Correspondingly, what has become the Weber-inspired tradition of class

analysis (e.g. Giddens 1973; Parkin 1971; Scott 1996) is largely based on Weber’s

few explicit, but fragmentary, conceptual analyses of class in Economy and Society

([1924] 1978). Weber writes:

We may speak of a ―class‖ when (1) a number of people

have in common a specific causal component of their life
chances, insofar as (2) this component is represented exclusively
by economic interests in the possession of goods and
opportunities for income, and (3) is represented under the
 39

conditions of the commodity or labor markets. This is ―class

situation.‖ It is the most elemental economic fact that the way in
which the disposition over material property is distributed
among a plurality of people, meeting competitively in the
market for the purpose of exchange, in itself creates specific life
chances.... But always this is the generic connotation of the
concept of class: that the kind of chance in the market is the
decisive moment which presents a common condition for the
individual’s fate. Class situation is, in this sense, ultimately
market situation. (Pp.927-28)

On Class Conflict

Moreover, class is a conceptual category designating a relationship of

exploitation. It is indissociable from class conflict, from the specific historical

struggle of social groups divided by unequal property relations. Marx's singular

accomplishment is to show how the liberation of the proletariat implies the

abolition of classes and class society, together with the exploitation of

commodified labor.

In this connection, Marx says:

"Theory becomes a material force as soon as it has

gripped the masses." (Marx and Engels, Vol. I, p.
406.)

Hence, it is discussed in view of the influence of the conditions of material

life of society and the acceleration of their development and their improvement,

the proletariat must rely upon such a social theory, such a social idea as correctly

reflects the needs of development of the material life of society.

On the Concept of Cultural Materialism in Anthropology

 40

In the 1960s and 1970s American anthropologist Marvin Harris

attempted to show through studies of specific societies that many aspects of

culture relate directly to a people’s economic conditions. He argued that a

culture’s technology shaped its economy, which in turn shaped its beliefs and

values. The theories of Harris and other anthropologists that focus on the strictly

economic basis of culture are known as cultural materialism. (Bodley, 2004)

On Class Roles in the Society Through Literary Genres

Most literary forms presented by Beacham in Encarta that are famous

are those that discuss social class. Dickens treats a variety of social issues in Great

Expectations—prejudice, materialism, social status, and class—in a sensible

manner that the teacher, librarian, and parent will undoubtedly applaud. The

author's presentation of these issues offers young readers an understanding of

social situations, guidance for their future roles in society, and a vision of the

"good life." (McCelvey, Encarta 2003 ed.)

For example, Pride and Prejudice contains no violent or explicit scenes

and adults should feel comfortable that it is appropriate for young readers.

Nevertheless, the novel does present as "normal" certain attitudes that few

readers share today. The class system imposes unwritten rules on who may

marry or socialize with whom. Young readers may profit from learning about

other manifestations of class discrimination: injustice, social unrest, and the

leveling of aspirations. (Porterfield, Encarta 2003 ed.)

 41

Meantime, another example of a literary genre on class role is the basic

plot of Wuthering Heights that may seem to be a timeless love story, but the

characters and situations reflect many of the real social problems of the late

eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. (Evans, Encarta 2003 ed.).

Foreign Studies

On Class Structure

A philosophical analysis of class structure was presented by Theodore

Adorno, a German Marxist philosopher where class theory was his basis in

writing most of his books, stressing the centrality of class divisions in modern

societies. http://www.well.com/user/deucer/thesis.html.

On Content Analysis about Class Issues

Although Carolyn Whitson’s The Sexual Boundaries of Race and Class in

Working-Class Novels. Marrying Up and Living it Down/Marrying Down and Living

it Up concentrated on a novel as the focus of her criticism, content analysis was

used to concentrate on class issues for emphasis, with the notion that working-

class novels with strong attention to sexual politics are often categorized

elsewhere. The novels discussed here were more commonly examined as

women’s literature, immigrant literatures or as literature by people of color or

"ethnic" literature. Critics seeking a niche audience for these texts, will usually

opt for these labels, for the working-class as a topic of discussion or analysis But
 42

these minority subjects are usually, due to their marginal status, perceived as

poor, so working class issues, specifically poverty, violence, illness, oppression,

struggle, are considered a subject of the conditions of an African-American novel

or a lesbian novel.

On Class Identity

Since female are considered to be part of the marginalized society, studies

related to the feminist view are considered related and significant to the present

study. In this paper entitled All in a Day’s Work. A Feminist Analysis of Class

Formation and Social Identity, Celine-Marie Pascale explores the mutual

production of racialized, gendered, and classed identities in the United States.

After a brief theoretical overview that includes Marxist theories of class, theories

of racial inequality, and feminist Marxism, Pascale turns to a historical account of

proletarianization in the United States between 1860 and 1920. In view of this,

Pascale analyzes the division of labor and the development of class

consciousness in the United States by taking into account the legal and social

restrictions that enforced racialized and gendered conceptions of citizenship.

Local Literature

On Class Identity

In his article published in the internet, E. San Juan, Jr., reiterated his

reflections and questions, on why problems of culture and knowledge are of

 43

decisive political importance. He asserted that although Filipinos always

conceive of themselves as citizen-subjects with rights, it is also the case that they

are all caught up in a network of obligations whose entirety is not within their

conscious grasp. One question was raised: What is our relation to Others—the

excluded, marginalized, and prostituted who affirm our existence and identity--

in our society? According to him, in a sense, all Filipinos are responsible for the

plight of the Moros— including the existence of the Abu Sayyaf--insofar as they

claim to live in a community of singular persons who alternatively occupy the

positions of speakers and listeners, I’s and you’s, and who have obligations to

one another, and reciprocal accountabilities.

(http://qc.indymedia.org/news/2005/01)

On Feudalism and Commodification

Filipinos would always question the intervention of America in every

decision in the government. In this article that appeared Walden Belo’s regular

commentary, Perspective in Business World, June, 2000 in Focus on the Philippines

with the issue: Why Land Reform Is No Longer Possible Without Revolution:

On the issue about land reform in the Philippines where the country had

been known to be-country-"born bourgeois," to use Louis Hartz’ words—that

had known to be feudalistic in nature. In this kind of a system based on small

owner-cultivators and the friar lands were sold to the gentry as a move to
 44

military pacification is an evolving strategy to commodify the working class and

would serve as the base of American colonial rule.

Local Studies

On Class Conflict

When Ariel Guides, leader of the Freedom from Hunger Coalition was

asked regarding issues facing sugar workers in Negros, More than half a million

Negrons depend on the island's sugar economy. More than 300,000 of those are

sugar plantation workers who have suffered for more than a century from the

particular phenomena known as the ―dead season‖ which lasts from March until

mid-October. Thus, there is no work on the plantations during this time and very

little work anywhere else.

―We have conducted research and found that 86% of sugar

plantation workers have food insecurity. We also found that 94%
of children in the province suffer from malnutrition and food
insecurity. There are no food subsides, there are rampant
violations of fair labor practices and there are big problems with
the agrarian reform process. The sugar workers and farmers have
been struggling for decades now in legal battles with the big
landowners‖. (www.marxist.com/Asia/philippines87.html)

Another study that has great impact in this paper is the dissertation by

Raymundo Piccio on The Logic of Power. The research reads the logics of power, in

particular, its concepts, strategies of domination and resistance, in Philippine

 45

novels in English. It problematizes the traditional notions of power and it

interrogates domination and power abuses within the novels.

As read from the selected Philippine novels, power may variously mean a

reproductive capacity in the rewriting of history, a strategy of excluding certain

discourses, a governmental technology, a technique of manipulating public

opinion and poll results, a disciplinary puissance in prisons, a colonial

domination and strategic game, a power of money to corrupt and win over

victims and a strategy of resistance. As likewise read from the novels, power has

productive, covert, capillary and micro dimensions. (Piccio, 1999, Internet

Source)

On Capitalism

Meantime, in view of the perspectives for the Philippine revolution and in

defense of Marxism, questions of which class has been bothering the Filipino

masses since time then. It follows, then, that the native landlords and capitalists

are incapable of leading a struggle to overthrow foreign imperialist domination.

The history of the Philippines demonstrates this especially clearly on real

traditions of the Filipino national bourgeoisie that are utterly wretched and

servile. Even the saint of bourgeois nationalism Jose Rizal chose exile over

revolution and died a passive hostage, a sterile martyr immortalized in his

poems and novels wherein the revolution of 1896 exposed the true attitude of the

ilustrados. From then on, it took the initiative of the insurrection of the
 46

Katipunan, party of the nascent Manila proletariat led by the worker Andres

Bonifacio, to stimulate them into any activity. Thus, the first act of the national

bourgeoisie was the murder of the workers who had led the revolution. Having

crushed the original cadres of the revolution, Aguinaldo's second act was to

accept a bribe of P400,000 from the Spanish and sail away into exile in Hong

Kong. (www.marxist.com/Asia/philippines87.html)

Another study about capitalism was the proposed theses of E. San Juan, Jr.

that was presented in 1998 regarding Transformation in the Philippines in the Next

Millennium was about social formations on a ―combined and uneven

development and its complex operations‖, with the ―barbarism of the U.S.

military suppression of the Filipino revolutionaries in 1898 up to the twenties,

together with the destruction inflicted by the Japanese and American liberation

forces in World War II, and the neocolonial years from Roxas to the present-all

these have distorted the economy, stagnated the politics, and on the whole

damaged the capacities of the majority for the autonomous management and

direction of their lives. (philcsc@netscape.com.)

On Commodification

The present study on commodification, the researcher is definite that

issues regarding given unavoidable class divisions, and segregation of the

various spheres of the social formation such as economic, political, ideological by

colonial subordination, have been a ―melange of such features: Makati-style

 47

computerized business, transnational styles of administration, feudal or artisanal

production, pre-capitalist slavery of children and women, archaic superstitions

and practices, and of course comprador and bureaucrat-capitalism of all kinds. In

addition, researchers on this matter have the unprecedented distinction of being

presumably the No.1 supplier of cheap labor for the world, especially the

patriarchal/capitalist Arab sheikdoms, in the form of domestic help,

entertainment hospitality workers, and so on.‖ (philcsc@netscape.com.)

On Class Struggle

Cornel West (1999) contested that the modern history of the Philippines can

best be characterized by colonialism, neo-colonialism, resistance, and struggle.

Having endured 4 colonial periods, the fight for sovereignty and radical

democracy for the Filipino people continues to be waged today. In his study,

among those participating in the national democratic movement of the

Philippines are the most impoverished, oppressed, and exploited sectors of the

Filipino populace: peasants, workers, urban poor, women, and indigenous

minorities. He asserted that the articulation of their goal of liberation and the

recovery of their sense of agency has been partially catalyzed by the emergence

of a contextualized Filipino theology springing up from the grass roots: the

theology of struggle. In accordance to this, Christian-based theology has evolved

substantially over the last 3 decades, facilitated by the parallel development of

liberation theologies in Latin America and the United States. His paper entitled,
 48

The Philippines and its Theology of Struggle: A Gramscian Analysis, centered on the

notion of praxis that the theology of struggle strives to provide the most

oppressed and exploited groups in Philippine society with the spiritual, social-

analytical, and strategic tools necessary to advance their project of social justice

and structural transformation. With the aid of analytical tools, concepts, and

historicizing methodology indebted to the work of Antonio Gramsci, this essay

will attempt a brief assessment of the Philippine situation and the distinct

contribution provided by the Filipino theology of struggle to the cause of

sovereignty, socio-economic justice and radical democracy for the Filipino

people. (West, 1999, Internet Source)

On Ideological Vision

Antonio Ferrer made a dissertation on seven novels of struggle, namely,

The Power of the People by Carlos Bulosan, Mass by F. Sionil Jose, State of War by

Ninotchka Rosca, Bamboo in the Wind by Azucena Uranza, Hulagpos by Mano de

Verdades Posadas, Sebyo by Carlos Humberto, and Gera by Ruth Firmeza, as a

response to the call for renewed national consciousness.

In his study, the novels show the political and ideological range of the

Philippine nationalist movement. The novels are studied in themselves, among

themselves, and in their relation singly or collectively to relevant events in the

Philippine socio-historical setting. The differences among them constitute the

 49

novels as distinct or plural discourses, while their similarities place them within

the ambit of a broad nationalist ideological frame.