An Analysis On To The Man I Married

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Pablo Borbon Main I, Batangas City
Analysis of To the Man I Married by Angela Manalang Gloria
“TO THE MAN I MARRIED”
I
You are my earth and all that earth implies:
The gravity that ballasts me in space,
The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries
For food and shelter against devouring days.
You are the earth whose orbit marks my way
And sets my north and south, my east and west,
You are the final, elemental clay
The driven heart must turn to for its rest.
If in your arms that hold me now so near

I lift my keening thoughts to another one,
As trees long rooted to the earth uprear
Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun.
You who are earth, O never doubt that I
Need you no less because I need the sky!
II
I cannot love you with a love
That outcompares the boundless sea,
For that were false, as no such love
And no such ocean can ever be.
But I can love you with a love

As finite as the wave that dies
And dying holds from crest to crest
The blue of everlasting skies.
Introduction
The poem To the Man I Married metaphorically portrays her love for
her husband Celedonio P. Gloria, by comparing her need for him to her
need for the earth.the husband of Angela Manalang Gloria, the writer itself,
who unfortunately died after an ambush by Japanese soldiers. That
incident was greatly traumatized her. From that incident sudden changes
arises. From an idealist who lived a colorful life early on, she became a
pragmatist after being faced with sorrows and realities. To The Man I
Married reveals a realistic side of how sadness and grievance fades bliss
of life.
Background of the Author
Angela Caridad Legaspi Manalang Gloria,
born August 23, 1907, was the third of 11
children of Felipe and Tomasa Manalang of
Pampanga. She was a lyric poet, pianist, and
editor who loved reading at an early age. She
took up liberal arts at University of the
Philippines, where she discovered her passion
for poetry and painting on the sides. She
graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in philosophy in March 1929.
She first appeared on the literary scene in Manila in 1925 and was
immediately hailed with extravagant praise as “the only Filipina poetess
worthy of the name.” After graduating in college, she became the editor of
the Herald Mid-Week Magazine. Her poem “To the Man I Married” portrays
her love for her husband by comparing her need for him to her need of the
earth the earth.
Literary Approach and Literary Lens

The poem To the Man I Married greatly manifest the deepest love
and sorrow of the writer Angela Manalang Gloria to his man. It speaks
about of a love rooted in a frank realism and honesty. It manifests a real
love that exists here on Earth and the feeling of sorrow and abandonment.
But it does not change the fact that she greatly loves him and assured that
she will love him until the end of time. Unfettering love for her husband
driven her to a glamourous literary art .
As Manlapaz (1889) notes that Angela pruned her poems of
melodious but meaningless diction and stripped their lines of all
extraneous syllables. This manifest her authentic, deep and unconscious
feeling towards this poem. In fact, Manalang-Gloria's refinements of style
sharpened her focus, rather than opening the door to differing opinions
about the thematic direction a given poem might be taking. Significantly,
flow of circumstances in her life depicted in this literary.
In this being said the critic of this literary believed that Feministic
Approach is utilize by the in analyzing this literary piece. Feminist
approaches emerged along with the women’s rights movement in the late
1960s and were initially a reaction against male-dominated literary studies,
which neglected literature produced by women and which had perpetuated

clichés and stereotypes about women. Moffett’s (2006) noted that
feministic principle primarily concerned with and focused on women’s
experiences and accounts of being gendered subjects within society. The
focus and objective is to critically engage women’s lived social realities
with a view to changing them for the better. At the same time, feminist
approaches highlight the differences between ‘male’ and ‘female’ writing in
terms of style, topics and structures.
On the other hand, Socio-cultural is utilize as a lens in studying this
work. The critic is certain that it would be aligned in analyzing the literary
as a whole. The lens of sociocultural theory is considerably wide. A
sociocultural theorist, when interpreting a learning situation, might attend to
the broader social system in which the learning is happening and will draw
interpretations about an individual's thinking and development based on
his or her participation in culturally organized activities. Vygotsky (1979)
argued that the social dimension of consciousness is primary in time and in
fact.
The individual dimension of consciousness is derivative and
secondary. From this perspective, mental functioning of the individual is
not simply derived from social interaction; rather, the specific structures
and processes revealed by individuals can be traced to their interactions
with others. Moreover, it explores the relationships between the artist and
society. Examining the artist’s society is fundamental to better understand
the author’s literary works. Hence literature is a representation of such
societal elements within the literature itself.
FEMINISTIC APPROACH vis-à-vis SOCIO-CULTURAL LENS

To better understand the text, the critic decided to include prior
knowledge and information of the society and circumstances that happen
to the author herself, when the time this literary works was written. This
work was written 1940, from the time Philippines was being colonized by
Japanese. It was also revealed that toward the end of the war while she
was pregnant with her third child, the retreating Japanese killed her
husband.
You are my earth and all that earth implies:

The gravity that ballasts me in space,
For food and shelter against devouring days.
And sets my north and south, my east and west,
The driven heart must turn to for its rest
In the first stanza above, the woman described how dependent she
was to the man. In the line “You are my earth and all that earth implies”
and “The gravity that ballasts me in space” in these lines, the persona
describes her husband, or rather ‘man she married’, in a metaphor that
compares him to the earth. Like gravity which holds everything steady on
the ground and prevents all things from floating away in space, the man for
her is someone who ‘ballasts’ or provides her stability in life which explicitly
says that the man is so important to her that he means the whole world, as
in everything, to her.
“For food and shelter against devouring days.

To compare the man to air is to say that she cannot live without him
just like how she cannot live and breathe without air. She also sees the
man as someone who is always there to land on to for comfort and to calm
her during times of sadness. It also manifested and gave us a hint that the
woman’s longingness and that she is chained to her husband and to leave
him will be a great loss because he is the one who sustains her.
And sets my north and south, my east and west.”
The driven heart must turn to for its rest.
She describes how the man, who means everything to her, is the
person who gives direction or purpose in her life, like a guide she relies on
to follow and obey. “You are the final, elemental clay The driven heart
must turn to for its rest.” In the metaphoric description “final, elemental
clay”, she means that the man is both the first or primary thing and the last
piece she needs to complete her life. It is in him where her restless or
beating heart only finds rest, meaning he is supposed to be the only one or
thing her heart, or rather love, belongs to.
The first stanza is a figurative description of the persona about the
man to whom she is married. From a Feministic perspective, it can be
clearly understood the great influence of man to a woman and how
significant he is to her life and to her entirety. The man’s image in this
stanza is glorified as someone who provides for, guides, steadies, and
gives comfort to the woman, and without him, she cannot stand on her
own.
“If in your arms that hold me now so near
I lift my keening thoughts to another one,”
As trees long rooted to the earth uprear
Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun.
In the second stanza above, these lines states that while she is with
her husband, she“lifts” her thoughts to someone else; therefore, possibly
implying that she is thinking of someone else from above, someone like
God. “Upon her keen thinking, she connotes that the trees rely on the
Earth to stand, they owe their leaves and flowers to the sun who, despite
being far away or not directly with them, provides for what these trees
want and need, just like how she depend on her husband to stand, but
there is someone else far greater, albeit not literally or directly with her,
who is providing for her more than even her ‘Earth’, or rather husband can
give.
“You who are earth, O never doubt that I
Need you no less because I need the sky!
She then tells her man that he is still the world for her, and that he
should never think less of how much she needs him, but she also wishes
for him to understand that there will be something more important than him
that she needs, which is God, who is symbolized by her as her sky, an
encompassing entity who is not physically present like her man but is still
there and provides for her.
“I cannot love you with a love
That outcompares the boundless sea,”
“For that were false, as no such love

And no such ocean can ever be.”
In the third stanza presented above, the first two lines are very
literal. Here, she expresses her love as finite or limited. She uses a
metaphorical line, “that out compares the boundless sea”, which functions
as a supportive line that tells us that her love cannot be greater than a sea
which is free and has no barriers to keep it in place. It simply gives us an
understanding of the limits of her love for her husband.
The last two lines of the stanza explain that her love can never be
everlasting because in reality, there is no such thing as boundless love that
exists in this world. In the second metaphorical line, “And no such ocean
can ever be”, the ocean symbolizes love in general. It means that no love
in this earth can ever be infinite. Even something as great as the ocean
has boundaries and limitations.
But I can love you with a love
As finite as the wave that dies
And dying holds from crest to crest
The blue of everlasting skies!
In the last stanza, the first two lines describe the woman’s love as
limited as the wave that dies. It means that the woman can only love her
husband to that extent and cannot go beyond that because nothing on
Earth lasts forever and there is no such thing as infinite love.
Crest to crest means from birth to death or something that starts
and ends like life. It is a fact that the woman and husband are mortal
beings, and that love will soon just come to an end when they die. On the
contrary, the blue of the ocean waves reflects the blue of the “everlasting
sky”, creating an illusion of perpetuity in the afterlife; making their love
resemble like that of the sky, who is God- eternal and infinite.
In this poem, the title already shows what it is all about. It speaks
about the feelings of a woman, most likely the author, to her husband.
These feelings refer to a real love that is not exaggerating, a real love that
exists here on Earth and is not everlasting. It also depicted how a man
greatly influence the woman. This poem also tackles the reality and social
issue of our society. It manifested on how the protagonist was pertaining to
her life as a married woman desiring to escape and admire another man.
However, the fact that she needs her husband and she depend on him so
much hinder her desire. This mirrors the life in our society.
To conclude, through feministic approach and Sociocultural lens,
To the Man I Married has clear depiction of socio-cultural context. This
poem values the status of a man and a woman and the Supreme Being.
This mirrors the reality and the circumstances that is happening in present
time. Thus, it shows the significance and value of this literary.
References:
--- CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE ---. (2019). Retrieved from
Olemiss.edu website:
http://home.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/spring97/litcrit.html
‌ Theory02. (2019). Retrieved from Uni-freiburg.de website:
https://www2.anglistik.uni-
freiburg.de/intranet/englishbasics/Theory02.htm
Angela Manalang Gloria’s “To the Man I Married.” (n.d.). Retrieved May
28, 2020, from Owlcation website:
https://owlcation.com/humanities/Glorias-To-the-Man-I-Married-He-
is-Her-Earth-and-Foundation
Grow, L. (2002). The Journal: Angela Manalang-Gloria: Alive in Both the
Ice and the Fire. Retrieved from www.philippinestudies.net website:
http://www.philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps
Kiguwa, P. (2019). Feminist approaches: Transforming Research Methods
in the Social Sciences, 220–235.
https://doi.org/10.18772/22019032750.19
Manlapaz, E., & Pagsanghan, S. (1989). . A feminist reading of the poetry
of Angela Manalang Gloria. Philippine Studies 37: 389411.
Retrieved from http://www.philippinestudies.net
Moffett, H. (2006). ‘These women, they force us to rape them’: Rape as
narrative of social control in post-apartheid South Africa. Journal of
Southern African Studies, 32(1), 129–144
Scott, S. (n.d.-a). Sociocultural Theory. Retrieved from http://dr-
hatfield.com/theorists/resources/sociocultural_theory.pdf
Scott, S. (n.d.-b). Sociocultural Theory. Retrieved from http://dr-
hatfield.com/theorists/resources/sociocultural_theory.pdf
Vygotsky, L. S. (1979). Consciousness as a problem in the psychology of
behaviour. Soviet Psychology, 17(4), 3–35.

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BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Analysis of To the Man I Married by Angela Manalang Gloria

“TO THE MAN I MARRIED”

If in your arms that hold me now so near

But I can love you with a love

who unfortunately died after an ambush by Japanese soldiers. That

Background of the Author

Angela Caridad Legaspi Manalang Gloria,

born August 23, 1907, was the third of 11

children of Felipe and Tomasa Manalang of

Pampanga. She was a lyric poet, pianist, and

editor who loved reading at an early age. She

took up liberal arts at University of the

Philippines, where she discovered her passion

for poetry and painting on the sides. She

graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in philosophy in March 1929.

immediately hailed with extravagant praise as “the only Filipina poetess

earth the earth.

Literary Approach and Literary Lens

about of a love rooted in a frank realism and honesty. It manifests a real

driven her to a glamourous literary art .

As Manlapaz (1889) notes that Angela pruned her poems of

melodious but meaningless diction and stripped their lines of all

extraneous syllables. This manifest her authentic, deep and unconscious

feeling towards this poem. In fact, Manalang-Gloria's refinements of style

about the thematic direction a given poem might be taking. Significantly,

flow of circumstances in her life depicted in this literary.

Approach is utilize by the in analyzing this literary piece. Feminist

approaches emerged along with the women’s rights movement in the late

1960s and were initially a reaction against male-dominated literary studies,

which neglected literature produced by women and which had perpetuated

clichés and stereotypes about women. Moffett’s (2006) noted that

feministic principle primarily concerned with and focused on women’s

experiences and accounts of being gendered subjects within society. The

focus and objective is to critically engage women’s lived social realities

approaches highlight the differences between ‘male’ and ‘female’ writing in

terms of style, topics and structures.

On the other hand, Socio-cultural is utilize as a lens in studying this

as a whole. The lens of sociocultural theory is considerably wide. A

sociocultural theorist, when interpreting a learning situation, might attend to

interpretations about an individual's thinking and development based on

his or her participation in culturally organized activities. Vygotsky (1979)

argued that the social dimension of consciousness is primary in time and in

The individual dimension of consciousness is derivative and

secondary. From this perspective, mental functioning of the individual is

and processes revealed by individuals can be traced to their interactions

society. Examining the artist’s society is fundamental to better understand

the author’s literary works. Hence literature is a representation of such

societal elements within the literature itself.

FEMINISTIC APPROACH vis-à-vis SOCIO-CULTURAL LENS

To better understand the text, the critic decided to include prior

knowledge and information of the society and circumstances that happen

You are my earth and all that earth implies:

describes her husband, or rather ‘man she married’, in a metaphor that

The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries

“For food and shelter against devouring days.

You are the earth whose orbit marks my way

And sets my north and south, my east and west.”

You are the final, elemental clay

The driven heart must turn to for its rest.

thing her heart, or rather love, belongs to.