Five Brothers, One Mother

By: Alexis A.L Abola

CHARACTERS:
 The Speaker
 The Speaker’s Mother
 The Speaker’s Father
 The Five Brothers
 Titius, The Fourth

SETTINGS:
 Cinco Hermanos Subdivision, Marikina
 Ortigas

PLOT:
 EXPOSITION: The story opened with the introduction of what the speaker was doing and
where he was. The speaker and his family moved in to their new house depicting that the
house is greatly unfinished yet which seems to be bruisingly clear on their first night.
Having no electricity yet and mosquitoes that keeps bugging them through the night.

 RISING ACTION: The work on the house would continue but after 8 years it remained
unfinished. Only the interior of the house such as the kitchen, Boy’s room, and guest
room, which were always cleaned by the speaker’s mother, were done but the exterior
remained unpainted leaving it with still the same cement grey as the day they moved in.

 CLIMAX: As the speaker and his siblings grew older and drifted farther and farther away
from their mother’s grasp, defining their own lives outside of the house, the speaker’s
mother must have felt that she was losing her sons and daughter to their friends, jobs,
loves – forces beyond her control.

 FALLING ACTION: The speaker’s mother might figure that food, and a clean place to stay,
was what her daughter and sons needed from her. So for the last ten years she became
more attentive on her cooking and fussier on her meals wherein she even asks her sons
and daughter if they will be there for lunch or dinner so she knows how much to cook.
  DENOUEMENT: The speaker’s family still having their get-together every special
occasion such as Christmas and New Year which makes their mother happy. The speaker
and his fellow siblings also keep trying their best to come over to the house every Sunday
and have a lunch together in order to not deprive their mother of what she does best.

CONFLICT:
 MAN VS. NATURE: The speaker stated that after they just move in to their new house it
doesn’t have electricity yet and having a plenitude of mosquitoes bugging them through
the night which making them harder to go to sleep.

 MAN VS. SELF: With the fact that the speaker and his fellow siblings started to drift
further and further away from home, their mother became anxious with this fact making
herself more attentive on her cooking and her other chores figuring out that this might
prevent or at least making her sons and daughters stay at their home.

THEME:
 The Essence of Home
 Mother’s Love and Fear of Letting Her Sons and Daughters Go.

LITERARY ANALYSIS:
The story of 5 brothers and 1 mother talks about the story of family and their home. The
author described their home which includes the kitchen where his mother always cooks food, the
bedroom upstairs and such. At first, they were uncomfortable since the house wasn't finish yet.
But it shows more than that concept. It also shows that we Filipinos, as long as we are with our
family, no matter how ugly or uncomfortable our house is, we will choose to stay. The author
also described her mother who’s afraid as she saw her sons growing up and that was the start of
exodus for leaving of her sons. The mother always cooks for her family. Not just because it was
her obligation but because she believes that through cooking, her sons would have reason to go
home and that will bind them together. The mother were always asking if her sons will go home
to eat there which symbolizes the hope of a mother as she discern her sons leaving as they grow.
They might not return, but as a mother she is hoping that no matter how impossible it was for her
sons to come back home, they will find time for their mother for them to go back with what they
were before as it was became part of their family tradition. As time passes by, her mother was
aging. And turn out that she felt that she is losing those persons important to her. That is why in
the story; the author mentioned how happy their mother is whenever their relatives visit them
during Christmas Season. The story shows that as a person grows older the higher the chance
that she will feel alone and unhappy as she sees her family and relatives having lack of time to
bond with her. It depicts about the loneliness of a mother whenever she felt alone. But on the
other side of the story, it also shows that a home should be the fixed point of a family. It should
be the place we should go to though we reach different places to make our own lives and decide
for our own fate. But it is not the home that serves as the fixed point, but the heart of each
members of the family that will bind them together.

PERSONAL VIEWS:
Throughout the story, most of its context depicts about the structure of the house, after moving to
Marikina. At the beginning of the story, there stated how the speaker, together with his family,
adjusted in the house stating how their shifting of house became extremely painful for them.
Describing their situation of having an ultimatum hanging over their head is like a relation of
Man vs. Nature wherein poverty is what they are facing in that particular situation. Having
reading the ‘Many Mansions’ describing how rich their family was before, it is good for the main
character to adjust and fit for themselves to their new home. It is because in reality, there will be
some point in our lives that we will be experiencing a culture as an outsider by moving from one
culture to another.

Likewise, from his narration that in his eyes the Marikina house is an attempt to return to the
successful Green meadows plan, it seems that he deeply thought about the home is longing for.
For him, it is the cherished memories his family made in there that matters while such
troublesome thoughts and feelings he have been resisting are not supposed to be considered as an
imperfection. This is one lesson implied by story to opens reader’s mind that we should value
and love our family because they're the one who's always there for us in good times or in bad-
that we should never forget to prioritize them, and look back.

Moreover, this story can truly speak itself about the reality of poverty that the Filipino is facing.
An example of this is experiencing the whole day without electricity. Doings of the Filipino
includes sleeping with half-asleep hands just to wave away the bugs, or just to fan themselves.
Also, most of the Filipinos utilize ‘katol’ for mosquitos.

Filipino practices are also shown from the passage that her mother loves to collect angel
figurines which is also a great representation of a Filipino having the admiration of collecting
such figurines as display in their house. Their mother also have the principle such that the first
floor is designed to have a clear separation between the family and guest areas; it is a practice
that most of the Filipino mother do.
Moreover, the writer eloquently described their home in Marikina and the parts of the house as
something more. It tackles the concepts of home and family and brings it to the question if it is
just about the house. One of the main issues was about the mother of the family. She fears and
has become anxious about her children growing up. It was described as an exodus when they
start leaving. The mother tries to maintain the home through her cooking which she believes
holds everyone together. Another connection to this is the older brother who already left for the
US but the family leaves a place for the oldest brother. This is in the hopes he would return.
Another important narrative in the story is the many houses the author’s father has lived in were
to be sold. There is an emotional connection between the family and the house. Lastly the author
has felt that house is not permanent. His experiences of moving from house to house made him
feel that way. The author mentions that the house is supposed to be a fixed point. This is where
one could find peace and comfort. But the author mentions that houses are an “uncertainty of
life” and that our fixed points changes. The final point made was that houses are not homes,
they’re just structures where people live in; and a true home is where we can find peace and
comfort and a place that our feet may leave but where our heart will always be.