Alentajana, Kahil Diego Bonifacio XI-Babbage

Garcia, Honesto

Paña, Geraldine May P.

Literary Analysis of “Dead Stars” by Paz Marquez Benitez

Using the historical and biographical lens

The first modern English-language short story, “Dead Stars”, written by Paz Marquez Benitez
was published on 1925 in the Philippine Herald. The author of the said short story was born in 1894 at
Lucena City, Quezon. Born into the influential Marquez family, she was among the first generation of
Filipinos educated in the American education system that used English as the instructional medium. She
was a member of University of the Philippines’ first freshmen class and graduated on 1912 with a
Bachelor of Arts degree. Two years passed after the graduation, she married Francisco Benitez, the dean
of UP College of Education, and bore four children with him. Paz Marquez Benitez then became a teacher
at University of the Philippines (UP) and taught short-story writing and had become a prominent figure to
many Filipino writers in the English language.

2.How do the author’s experiences relate to the content of the text?

3.What historical events happened when the author wrote the text? How are these events connected to the
content of the text?

4.Overall, how can you describe the beauty of the text? What does the text tell us about the author and the
history at which the text was written?