"I Would Remember" Response

"They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” - Banksy

Everyone dies, it is the sad fact of life. But the memory of us that the ones we love have, will live forever. That is what I believe the short story "I Would Remember" by Carlos Bulosan is about. The narrator of the story had five deaths in his life that he will always carry with him. Each death has meaning behind it. The narrator of this story will remember each and every death from this story because they all have meaning behind the deaths. Each death that the narrator experiences has a complex relationship behind it. 

The first death that the narrator experiences is the death of his mother. His mother dies giving birth to his younger brother. This death can be seen as the loss of innocence. The narrator who is so young for the death of his mother, looses the security of his mother always being there for him. When his brother is born, his mother dies. Where there is life there is death. No one can escape death. It is all around us, the narrator just gets a taste of it at a very young age. It can be said that with the death of his mother, the narrator looses that connection he feels to his homeland or motherland. With the death of his mother, the narrator is severing the link between him and his homeland. The narrator will always feel a sense of anxiety and premature loss when he thinks of his homeland because that is where his mother died. He will always feel it and that I think is one of the reasons that the narrator moves to America, because he needs to escape that feeling of loss and anxiety that he associates with his homeland. Our mothers are our place of origin, and with the loss of his mother, the narrator feels that the tie has been severed between him and his homeland and it can never be replaced. The narrator will always feel that anxiety when he thinks of his homeland because of the death of his mother. 

The second death that the narrator will remember is the death of his families carabao. The family carabao was more of a brother to him than his actual brother, because he will always associate the death of his mother with the birth of his brother. The death of the family carabao can be seen as the relationship between people and God. God, his father in this situation, can do what ever he wants and people, the carabao, can do nothing to stop it. It cal also be seen as the loss of an national identity. The narrator sees the death of his carabao at the hands of his father, as the plight of the Philippines against those who wanted to colonize it. The death of the carabao can be seen as this because, the carabao is trying to escape the wrath of his father and runs into a pit, breaking all of its legs. Then his father seeing that the carabao can not longer work, decides to kill the carabao. The people working the land are worked until they cannot anymore. They are seen as useless by the people who have colonized them, so they are cast aside for the new workers to come and do their job. This death of the carabao is representative of the colonization of the Philippines because the carabao does everything in its power to escape the wrathful hand of his master, but in the end is still killed. It shows that the people of the Philippines did all they could to escape the colonization of their land, but in the end they were forced into colonization.

The death of Marco is one that the narrator will always remember because it shows the hardships of being an immigrant and traveling to a new land for a better life. Marco's death shows that to believe in the dream of coming to America to start a new life, is not always easy. Marco has a picture of the girl back home who he intends to marry, and that picture represents the hope for the future and a better life. But that dream is cut short when Marco is murdered on the boat over to America, for ten dollars. This death exposes the cheapness of human life. That someone would kill this man because he had ten dollars, shows how little it takes for someone to kill another human being. This death shows how easily disposable human being are, and that is sad. To kill anyone over money, shows that human beings are no higher above animals, because killing someone over money is likened to an animal killing another animal over food. After the death of Marco the narrator holds onto that picture of the girl because it represented the journey that he went on to get to America. But that dream of America being a better life than that of home is killed when he looses the picture of the girl. 

The death of the narrator's friend Crispin in the most poetic death in the short story. Crispin's death is the only non-violent or violated death. Crispin just expires. He is not nourished or fed. This is poetic because Crispin's death is a reflection of the role of the artist in society. The artist's creativity is not nourished and so their spirit for life is crushed. The artist does not get fed because society does not feed them. Crispin chooses his death because he does not want to world to change him. While the narrator eats the news paper, Crispin refuses. This symbolizes his refusal to conform to society by eating the words of those who want to change him. The narrator wanting to live conforms to society, but does so only by choking the words of the world down. He does this only to survive. Crispin wants to live his life on his terms, so he does not eat the news paper because he sees that as a way of conforming to the way society wants him to be. Crispin was the light in the darkness for the narrator. Crispin is described as having a luminosity about him. He was the moon that guided the narrator though his darkest times. The moon is seen as a reflection of emotion. Crispin was seen as the artist, and a artist will always reflect his emotion into his work. With this death the narrator looses his guiding light in this new world, and for a time being he is lost in this world. 

With the death of Crispin, Bulosan actually predicts his own passing. He dies without knowing that his work is celebrated. Bulosan never got to see his own work honored. and that is very sad, because most artists never get to see their work being well know and celebrated 

The last death that the narrator talks about is the death of a man names Leroy. Leroy's death is a death that reflects a dark time period in America. Leroy's death is a historicized death because he is lynched. Leroy's death is symbolic of the human condition being violated. Everything that these men do to Leroy is symbolic of them talking away a part of his humanity. They emasculated him when they cut off his genitals. When he was stabbed in the chest, it means that they took away his heart for the cause he was fighting for. When the men gouged out his eyes, they were taking away his vision for a better future. When the men cut out his tongue, they were taking away his voice to stand up against a corrupt system. When the men eviscerate Leroy, they are taking his courage to stand up. These men who killed Leroy took away his humanity. With everything that these men did to kill Leroy, they stole away a part of who he was. These men took away his humanity and strength. This death shows the narrator that life in America was not so different from life back home. It shows him that everywhere people have a lack of respect for life and all of the beauties that come with it. With this death the narrator is growing into a more politicized self. He is learning more and more about the world he lives in. 

The point of this short story is to show the reader that no matter what profound loss shapes who we are. Everyone will experience death in their lives. No one can escape it. It just matters on how you take it and how you let it shape you into the person that you are. 

I feel that this story is important because death is inevitable. Everyone dies. It is the sad fact of life. We are only on this floating rock in space for a short amount of time, and it is what we do with our short amount of time that makes us important. 

Death effects us all differently. I have been very fortunate in life to only have been subjected to the deaths of two of my grandparents. I have had no tragedies in my life, like the narrator of this story. I lost my two grandparents because they were elderly and sick. I miss them terribly, but they, I hope, are in a better place.

This is a picture form my cousins wedding.
This was one of the last times my whole
father's side of the family was together. 

I was only in fourth grade when my grandmother died. She had heart disease, and was in the hospital for a month before she passed. She did not want any of her grandchildren to see her that way. I had no idea that she was sick until it was almost too late. I was only nine years old when she got sick, and at the time I did not fully understand the severity of her situation. So my nine year old brain thought that she would get better and we would be able to see her every Friday night again. But she never got better, and I never got to say goodbye in person. That is the only thing that I wish I could have done. But I did get to say goodbye at her funeral. It was very hard on my family and I when she was gone.

I did not experience death again until I was a senior in high school. My grandfather, also like my grandmother, had heart problems, and was placed in the hospital. He was only there for a couple of weeks before he passed. I remember hearing that he had been taken to the hospital because he had been having chest pains and that he had had a heart-attack. Again, like my grandmother, he did not want any of his grandchildren to have to see him in the state he was in. I was unable to see him before he passed. But I remember the morning that I heard that he had died. It had snowed the night before, and school had been canceled. I was sleeping in and I remember my mom coming in to my room and gently tapping my on the shoulder. She then told me that during the night my grandfather had had another heart-attack and had passed away. I remember feeling numb and just sitting in my room for an hour just staring off into space. The next few days passed in a blur and again I only got to say goodbye at the funeral. 

I have been very fortunate in my life to have not had death surround me the way it has other people. There are only two deaths that I can recall that affected me so. 

Death surrounds us all, and it will happen to each and every person on this planet. It is how we let it effect us that shows us the kind of person that we truly are.