Critical Analysis of "The Sadness Collector"

The Sadness Collector ‘’ highlights the traditional culture in the Philippines in the field of imigration. It is authored by the Filipino-Austrilian teacher and author Melinda Bobis (born 1959). Basically,the story has come to life because Bobis iss an imigrant herself.Since her works is focus on the country’s culture,this piece is an epitome of Filipino concern with the ones who have been decieved and who have been left behind.though Filipino labor migrants have kept the philippine economy afloat and are consider as heroes ,this writing implies family fiasco behind the life overseas. The shorts story.The sadness collectoris about a girl named Rica who has a problems while growing up with her father because her monther works overseas as a domistic helper.After her mother left for paris she’s use to send different gifts to rica just to show her loveand her presence.To divert Rica’s attention,her father told her a story about the big lady who eats sadness away from the house at nigh.Her dad told her if the big lady eats all of their mess,the big lady might grow fast and brust ,so Rica has to be a good girl and save the big lady by not being sad.Ever since her mother left,Rica would be so eager to hear all of the sounds at the kitchen and waiting the big lady to show up.One night,Rica heard noises again and because of the story that her father made for the big lady who eats sadness she became nervous and afraid that the big lady might brusst but unfortunately it wasn’t the big lady at all,not even her aunties.But its only her drunk dad.Rica told her dad about her hesitations and her thoughts about the noise she heard and argue with her dad that I was really the big lady.But maybe, because of her dad’s guilt making a stiry about his wreckless actions,he said sorry and assure Rica that the big lady can’t and won’t ever get away from him,and to stop it of he assured Rica that he really love her.But due too her young mind Rica tends to wait patiently for the big lady to appear. Now, my analysis of this story is I just want to criticize regarding the narration or words being used by the author in her story and the way she narrates it to the readers in which for me it was not really clear and its not easy to understand at first read. For the first timer like me that reads her story is somehow I cannot easily understand the story at all because of the unfamiliar words being used in the story. As for me who is an average learner, I need to look for a dictionary for me to understand the word. How about those people that are not much good in English? Especially the children whose starting to learn? I bet they are struggling to understand the story. My point is, the author must used a word that is easy to understand by everyone most especially the children, why? Because for me this story was very suitable among the children's especially to those who have an OFW parents. This story teaches a lot of moral lesson that the children can get and applied to their selves. The Sadness Collector contains so many deep words that you need to read for twice just to understand the story and the author must be aware of that. In overall, the story was really good and if I'll rate it from one to ten, I’ll give ten because this story gives us a lot of lesson. The form, theme, characterizations, style and all was for me very excellent that’s why I wont be shocked if the author gets a lot of awards from this story. Since Rica’s mother was left to work as a domestic helper overseas her father don’t want her to be sad and thats why he tells a story about this big lady who eat some sadness aways from the house and because of that rica got scared that the big lady might brust so she had to be a good girl and its a good thing cause it has diverted Rica’s attention.

Jilly Jill Trinidad