Postcolonial and Psychoanalytic Approach to The Bread of Salt by Gonzales

The characters used by Gonzales include the 14-year-Old Boy, Aida, Peter Saez, Josefina, Alicia, Albert, Don Esteban, The Aunt to the 14-year-old boy, the Grandfather and Grandmother to Albert. The 14-year-old boy is the main character in the story. Aida is a beautiful Spanish girl admired by the young boy and comes from a royal family. Alicia and Josefina are Aida’s cousins. Peter Saez is trombone player who owns a private band. The author asserts that the concept of postcolonialism entails the economic, social and political impacts that spanned from the colonial struggles. The ideology of postcolonialism also impacts cultural supremacy and the notion of social stratification. Sigmund Freud is regarded as the founder of the psychoanalytic theory of development. The theory defines the role of the mind in making the conscious and unconscious decisions.

The theorist uses id, ego, and superego to explore the aspects of the mind. Aida’s family owns the only Bakeshop in the area while other poor members of the social struggle to buy from their shop. In the end, money goes back to those in high ranks of the economic ladder. One important element of social stratification is social mobility. Social mobility is the efforts to move from one social class to another usually to an upper class. The 14-year-old boy struggles to succeed in his Violin talents and saves money just to fit into the royal class. The children from upper classes are exposed to more opportunities than their counterparts, and this keeps the vicious cycle of social differentiation growing in the society. Gonzales tells it all through the autoactivating narrative.

The pattern has grown since the post-colonial period to date. The history of colonization of Philippines is marked by the Spanish Colonial period that occurred between the years 1521-1898. The beginning of the colonial period was marked by the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan, a European explorer from Spain. The wide social division led to the Spanish owning most of the resources such that the Philippines had to work extra hard to reach their levels. Gonzales story reveals this chase for social parity. The protagonist, the young boy, works extra hard to meet the standards of the royal lady Aisha. Forces of Circumstances Class Struggles Circumstances may place people in social classes that they do not wish to be in case they were given the opportunity to choose. Every class is involved in struggles in one way or another.

Peace and belonging are among the struggles. The material struggles often deny the people peace, and they always want to protect the little that they have. The upper class always struggle to retain power often by suppressing the lower class. In Gabriel 465, Minimal access to better education and opportunities by the lower class are among the strategies for suppressing social mobility. During the colonial period, the Spanish rulers worked to ensure that the Philippines could not access better education and job opportunities. The young boy and the family represent the lower class in ideal Philippine society. Such families struggle with basic needs with little income and high dependence. Poverty limits social interaction. The young boy finds it hard to mingle with the lady he adores. At the wedding session, Aida promises the young boy of a package of food when visitors leave.

With the blind mindset, he engaged in pure struggles which ended up frustrating on his side. The love claims were immature. In view of the immaturity of love, age and status come into play. First, it is true that it was not possible for the boy to marry the Spanish angel at 14 years of age. Secondly, the two belonged to two different classes; the elite class and the lower class. The young boy sacrificed his studies and dined in the path of love. He majorly concentrated on the lady and issues that could fancy his chances to have the lady. For instance, he saved some cash for the brooch and a box of linen stationery for writing love letters. In case he was mature enough, he would have concentrated on his studies as well as the violin arts to make himself better and perhaps worthy of the girl’s affection.

The young boy was a victim of circumstance of immature love which was deemed to fail as seen at the end of the story. The age and social class differentiation are among the reasons. The young boy was still, and tender age is making love immature. Moreover, the thick cloud of social division placed the two in separate worlds. In an ideal setting especially during the early phase of the postcolonialism, it is difficult for the elite and lower-class persons to share sensitive matters such as love. Such ambitions relate to those discussed by Leela Gandhi is the work of critical construction on postcolonialism. VM Gonzales short story of Bread of Salt depicts the idea of unfulfilled dreams. The story begins by narrating the promising dreams of the young boy about love.

At that point, one would think that this is one of those stories that can never end without rewarding the protagonist. The quest for love was one of the bug dreams used to drive other themes in the story. Class struggles, ignorance to reality and immaturity of affection all contribute to the super-theme of love. Realization of lack of ability to face reality can be frustrating. One finds it hard to confess and reconcile with the facts on the ground. Some people may end up staying for so long in their worlds of fantasies while others come up in the blink of self-realization. People tend to avoid the reality of unfulfilled dreams especially when they thought that the weird dreams meant everything in their life. However, fate always brings compelling circumstances that force people to confess of their weird dreams and live to fight other timely battles.

Withdrawal of hopes is one of the themes that build up towards the end of the narrative. The young boy realizes that they exist in two separate worlds that can never merge. He realizes their social classes are in different zones. Furthermore, the dreamer realizes that social stratification commands the distribution of some of the most intimate items such as love. The forces of such circumstances wanted nothing less than coming to terms with reality. Education is seen as one of the best agents of social mobility. People can get good jobs, opportunities and fulfil their dreams through education. Focusing on education can help one capture the available opportunities to survive. In the story, the young had less focus in his studies at the end studies never had a substantial impact in his life.

Despite the focus on his skills as a violinist it never helped him much. Boothby, Richard.  Death and Desire (RLE: Lacan): Psychoanalytic Theory in Lacan's Return to Freud. Routledge, 2014. Dale C Crow (2011). A journey Home; A story of reconciliation.  The Common Cause: Postcolonial Ethics and the Practice of Democracy, 1900-1955. University of Chicago Press, 2014. Kristine F. Religion and Spanish Colonialism in the Philippines. Routledge Press. V. M Gonzales. Retrieved from web on July 1, 2018. blogspot. com/2012/04/bread-of-salt-by-n-v-m-gonzalez.