The Sadness Collector

The story tells about Ricas problems while growing up with her father only because her mother honors
an overseas contract as a domestic helper.
To divert the childs attention, her father creates a story about:
Figures of Speech
Apostrophe Big Lady
Hyperbole so she can be saved from bursting
Metonomy she only comes to eat your sadness
Metaphor she likes sadness, its food
Simile shes sad, like her meals
Symbolism
Sadness collector/Bed time story
Source of comfort
Separating reality from fantasy
A Reading of Merlinda Bobis' The Sadness Collector
And she will not stop eating, another pot, another plate, another mouthful of sadness, and she will grow bigger and
bigger, and she will burst.
Notice the transition of thought in the story. No familiar marks to separate the different thoughts within the story,
not even quotation marks or italics.
What is the point of view of the story? What is its focus?
The sentences are clipped and the bedtime story (or whatever story it is that Ricas father made up) weaves in and
out, leaving the readers with only enough bits and pieces to make out that the main protagonist is a troubled little
girl of six. The reader must stay attentive to grasp everything that is going on.
We even see some art sketches in this story.
snippets of bedtime stories, the central conciousness of Rica, the gossips of aunties intertwined with the
philosophical descriptions of the omnicient narrator cleverly brings us to an understanding of this poignant story of
a disturbed little girl and her displaced family.
As soon as Ricas mother left for Paris to work as a domestic helper, her father has since repeatedly told her the
story of the Big Lady (supposedly an imaginary creature who goes to collect any traces of sadness in everyones
kitchen) to distract or divert her loneliness.
The Big Lady "goes from house to house and eats the sadness in many houses, it just keeps on growing each day,
so she cant stop eating, and cant stop growing too."
"checking the plates now, lifting the lid off the rice pot, peeking into cups for sadness, both overt and unspoken."
We see the psychological effect that the madeup story and the mothers absence had on Rica:
Since Rica was three, when her father told her about Big Lady just after mother left for Paris, she has always
listened intently to all the night-noises from the kitchen. No, that sound is not the scurrying of mice shes
actually checking the plates now, lifting the lid off the rice pot, peeking into cups for sadness, both overt and
unspoken.
What about the taste of salt in the following lines?
To Rica, it always tastes really salty, like tears, even her fathers funny look each time she asks him to read her
again the letters from Paris.
Perhaps, shes licking a spoon for any trace of saltiness, searching between the prongs of a fork. Unknown to Rica,
Big Lady is wise, an old hand in this business. She senses that theres more to a mouthful of sadness than meets the
tongue. A whisper of salt, even the smallest nudge to the palate, can betray a century of hidden grief. Perhaps, she
understands that, for all its practice, humanity can never conceal the daily act of futility at the dinner table.
(this despite her efforts to conceal her loneliness)
The Sadness Collector AKA Big Lady became Ricas very defense mechanism, "an ambivalent relationship,
confusing, but certainly a source of comfort."
Fascination, fear and a kinship drawn from trying to save each other. Big Lady saves Rica from sadness; Rica
saves Big Lady from bursting by not being sad. An ambivalent relationship, confusing, but certainly a source of

comfort. And always Big Lady as object of attention. Those days when Rica drew stick-drawings of her, she made
sure the big one was always adorned with pretty baubles and make-up. She even drew her with a Paris ribbon to
tighten her belly. Then she added a chic hat to complete the picture.
It is at this point where we are made to wonder who was the SHE being referred to in beginning of the story (if we
are to get that as Rica gets older hence bigger, she will not be able to contain her sadness, that she will burst.
Things change with time, children grow up, old tales become boring, and sadness will not always be contained
Bobis prepared us for this, hence
"Unknown to Rica, Big Lady is wise, an old hand in this business. She senses that theres more to a mouthful of
sadness than meets the tongue. A whisper of salt, even the smallest nudge to the palate, can betray a century of
hidden grief. Perhaps, she understands that, for all its practice, humanity can never conceal the daily act of futility
at the dinner table."
"Nowadays, her father makes sure he comes home late each night, so he wont have to answer questions,
especially about the baby photograph. So he need not improvise further on this three-year-old tall tale."
This part reveals the seriousness in the situation of the family. We come to realize that Ricas father is now in
denial, we are made to speculate on the affairs of the mother and then we are brought back to Ricas tight-spot.
Bringing the Dolls
The poem Bringing The Dolls written by Merlie Alunan is about a mothers realization that in ones moving on,
one need not bring only those considered important.
The predominant image of the poem is the dolls. It can initially be found in the first 3 lines, which describe the
dolls as mangled:
Two dolls in rags and tatters,
One missing an arm and a leg,
The other blind in one eye
The dolls image appears again in line 18, wherein the persona sees the deliberately left dollsrags, tatters and
all. In both appearances, the persona tries to reinforce the idea that the dolls are unsightly, and as the lines move
along to reveal the dramatic situation, this reinforcement suggests the representation of the hideous past which,
like the ugly dolls set side by side against the neat trim packs (line 19), the persona rule[s] to leave behind
(line 20).
We can see that the poems dramatic situation is the struggle of the mother, as she and daughter move to a new
home, never to take/what must be left behind (lines 13-14): the past. The poems title vividly presents the
dilemma that if the mother concedes to her daughters bringing the dolls, the mother will be hounded by the past; if
the mother does pack only the barest need:/no room for sentiment or memory (lines 8-9), she will most probably
break her daughters heart. The dramatic situation is very important because the persona detailing the dramatic
situation soon realizes a truth that her child has unwittingly taught her: to keep her faith, even if things seem
trivial. This she discovers only later because she denies herself the luxury of being sentimental for a while: a
smart wind blowing dry/the stealthy tears [she can] not wipe (lines 16-17).
The persona in the poem is a mother who tries to escape from the past by leaving the seemingly unimportant (and
essentially harsh) reminders of it. She is the one putting in detail the dramatic situation; thus, she is integral to the
poems progress. It is through her that the truth about keeping ones faith is revealed, amid her attempt to have a
stern resolve (line 11) to erase the past through the only way she knows: her own way. The child, however,
insisted in bringing the dolls along (lines 18-20), a defiance: her clean white years unlived /and paid [her
mothers] price (lines 24-25).
In lines 21-23, the persona tries to tell us that the child understands what her mother is going through. She feels
empathy as supported by the following lines:

Her silence should have warned me

she knew her burdens
as I knew mine:
The mother now knows that her child is not oblivious of her problem. Ultimately, her child teaches her a lesson.
The main point of the poem unravels in the last four lines:
when whats at stake
is loyalty or love,
hers are the true rights.
Her own faith she must keep, not I.
The child has the discretion of what is most important to her, and the mother has no right to insist upon what she
deems vital for her child, in this case the childs bringing the dolls, which the child loves and is loyal to. Her
daughters keeping the faith eventually teaches the mother that memories, even those one will rather forget, serve a
function or two, in her case a learning point as mother and child go on in life. This realization of an old truth
fulfills the promise of the material used in the poem, that the daughter and her rag dolls have a lesson to tell to the
too-practical mother, in which case the poem succeeds in projecting the universal theme of keeping the faith.

Classified as one of the experience poems, Bringing the Dolls

(for Anya) is a recount of an actual experience of Alunan when
they, as a family, had to move from Cebu to Tacloban, her
present residence.
While this first interpretation is a kind of inference by this
researcher- the analyses of the poem seem to agree with this
inference.
Bringing the Dolls (For Anya)
First, the most striking feature or dramatic quality of this
monologue is the persona (who defines the poems speaking
voice, its point of view). The basic storyline of the poem is told
through the persona (the mother) in the form of a monologue.
The mother has decided to move her family to another place,
and tells her young daughter to leave her two threadbare dolls
behind. The mother thinks to herself that this is the correct
thing to do, since she wants to teach her daughter some
lesson. On the boat the mother tries to hold back her tears
when she sees the dolls tucked away among the packs; it is at
this point that the mother realizes the reason behind her
daughters silence: the daughter knew all along what she
needed to do, which was to keep her own faiths and stay loyal
to the dolls whom she loves.
Here we find that a good poem is more than its images or its
theme; rather it is mainly its words:
Bringing the Dolls Paraphrase
Each tight luggage I was economical in my packing
I had packed I didnt bring

Only for the barest need unnecessary objects

No room for sentiment or Memory.
To clutter with loose ends
And so the boat turned seaward, Then the boat sailed out to
the sea
A smart wind blowing dry the tears I didnt want to shed
The stealthy tears I could not were blown away by the strong
wipe. wind.
The last three lines dramatize an emotion (one of sadness) in a
painfully understated way (a smart wind blowing dry/ the
stealthy tears I could not wipe)
paraphrased to mean; the wind wipes away the tears for her;
in other words, she cannot even admit to herself that she is
crying.
While this poem of Alunan is distinctly clear in telling the
theme, making it one easy poem to teach-it contains its own
set of ambivalence or even ambiguity; though its purpose is
intentional. Certain lines do invite ambivalent interpretations,
like the
following five lines in the fourth stanza:
Her silence should have warned me
She knew her burdens
As I knew mine:
Her clean white years unlivedAnd paid my price.
Whose burdens are referred her- the mother persona or the
daughter character in the poem? Moreover, is it correct to
assume that her clean white years refer to the daughters
than it is, of the mothers- because she is younger and still has
a long way to go and several experiences likely to have.
Finally, who is paying the mothers price- the mother or the
daughter? In all these, this particular syntax is definitely not a
random occurrence. The poet decided on it precisely to
heighten the tragedy of her personas realization- that she
must respect her daughters choice too in bringing the
dolls.knew all along what she needed to do, which was to keep
her own faiths and stay loyal to the dolls whom she loves.
Here we find that a good poem is more than its images or its
theme; rather it is mainly its words:
Bringing the Dolls Paraphrase

Each tight luggage I was economical in my packing

I had packed I didnt bring
Only for the barest need unnecessary objects
No room for sentiment or Memory.
To clutter with loose ends
And so the boat turned seaward, Then the boat sailed out to
the sea
A smart wind blowing dry the tears I didnt want to shed
The stealthy tears I could not were blown away by the strong
wipe. wind.
The last three lines dramatize an emotion (one of sadness) in a
painfully understated way (a smart wind blowing dry/ the
stealthy tears I could not wipe)
paraphrased to mean; the wind wipes away the tears for her;
in other words, she cannot even admit to herself that she is
crying.
While this poem of Alunan is distinctly clear in telling the
theme, making it one easy poem to teach-it contains its own
set of ambivalence or even ambiguity; though its purpose is
intentional. Certain lines do invite ambivalent interpretations,
like the following five lines in the fourth stanza:
Her silence should have warned me
She knew her burdens
As I knew mine:
Her clean white years unlivedAnd paid my price.
Whose burdens are referred her- the mother persona or the
daughter character in the poem? Moreover, is it correct to
assume that her clean white years refer to the daughters
than it is, of the mothers- because she is younger and still has
a long way to go and several experiences likely to have.
Finally, who is paying the mothers price- the mother or the
daughter? In all these, this particular syntax is definitely not a
random occurrence. The poet decided on it precisely to
heighten the tragedy of her personas realization- that she
must respect her daughters choice too in bringing the dolls.