DEAD STARS

Since it pioneers contemporary English writing in the Philippines, the 1925 short tale Dead Stars
has a special position in Filipino literature. At that time, English was recently introduced and the writers
were battling hard while utilizing English as a vehicle of expression. Paz Marque Benitez's masterwork is
Dead Stars. He did not only discuss love in this little narrative. His writing is noteworthy because it
captures the zeitgeist. It portrays the dialect, social customs, and behavior of the populace at that
period. The early twentieth century's views on marriage, faithfulness, and courting are made clear to the
readers. This serves as a means to compare the past and the present, and the vanishing traditional
culture and the predominating contemporary culture. The short narrative also shows how politicized
feminism is becoming more and more prevalent. Women are portrayed in this tale as weak and reliant
on males. It is believed that males are superior than women. Women are devoted and are known to fall
in love readily, but males are portrayed as being unsure, unreliable, and rational. The novel also
disproved the idea of a patriarchal society since it portrays men as logical and reasonable while viewing
women as sympathetic and feeling.