Mountain Top University Library

Today’s society is stratified. In other words, individuals are categorized into classes through which
they are delineated. People are barely defined by their aptitude or dexterity but rather by their
perceived class in the society. In every sector of the society there are stratifications; in the
economic sector, we have the rich and the poor; among the religious we have the sinners and
righteous; health-wise we have able, disabled, strong and weak. Even within each group
stratification there are still further stratifications. For instance, in the class of the rich, we have
“trillionaires”, billionaires, millionaires and “thousandaires”. Among the poor, there are the
chronic poor, churning poor, transient poor and street urchins. Above it all, the stratification
element is being used predominantly to determine an individual’s fate in any given society. The
cognizance and demarcation of this class has led to struggles, protests and rallies by the
disadvantaged and the oppressed group for an egalitarian society. Hence class consciousness,
which is simply the awareness of one’s position or ranking in society, has been a major tool of
social engineering. Thus, this research focuses on the struggle of socio-economic conflict between
the haves and the have-nots. It is in this light we shall explore the place of class consciousness as
social engineering in an egalitarian society through the selected poems of A.J. Dagga Tolar.