Father Character Analysis

Father is a Filipino peasant farmer and the patriarch of Carlos’s family. Throughout the book, Carlos never provides his father’s actual name. Father first appears plowing his small plot of land with a very young Carlos. Father’s relationship to the land is the defining element of his life as a peasant. He relies on the land to provide food and shelter for his family, but farming is backbreaking labor. Father is also illiterate, but despite his lack of education, he and Mother understand the important role education plays in achieving a better life, and he works hard to keep Macario in school. Ultimately, however, tragedy comes to define Father’s life. The cost of Macario’s high school education forces him to sell his land to the moneylender, and instead farm a small plot of land owned by a church. When the church sells the plot to a distant plantation owner, father tries in vain to purchase it back. The loss of his land turns Father into an idle alcoholic who eventually dies a destitute man. Carlos calls his father’s death “the turning point” of his life, as it comes during a particularly dark period when Carlos doubts the promise of equality in America. This setback notwithstanding, much of Carlos’s motivation to make something of himself in America stems from his desire to avoid becoming his father and perpetuating the cycle of poverty and ignorance into which he was born.