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Rickzel G. Casis

Dr. Ma. Junithesmer D. Rosales

Bachelor in Secondary Education major in English

12 October 2017

Mariah Aleah Taboclaon: The Little People

In the Philippines, horror stories and mythical creatures are famous particularly in
the provinces. Many authors wrote short stories that entertain readers to these
unbelievable things. In this short story, elves are one of the focuses here. From the
book written by Rosen, earth elementals are the Gnomes that dwell in caverns. They
are little creatures about twelve to eighteen centimetres tall. Most look like little old men,
with long white beards and rotund bellies, and are usually dressed in green or brown
(253). The story will be discussed what was the real world of elves.

Archetypal literary criticism has a specific attack on this story. It is a type of

critical theory that elucidate a text by focusing on recurring myths and archetypes in the
narrative, symbols, images and character types in literary work (Kharbe 327).

The short story entitled The Little People was written by Mariah Aleah
Taboclaon in 2000. The author was a student of University of the Philippines that took
education majored in English. She currently works at the office of the Chancellor for
Research and Development at University of the Philippines while working for her M.A in
clinical psychology.

This short story is based on as the aspect of life of the playwright because the
main character seems to be the author. The important characters are her parents and
the two elves known as Prax, the leader of the elf tribe who helped and showed
compassion to Aleah, and Bat, the suitor of the protagonist who brought real life
nightmares to her. The exposition started with the setting of the story in the residence of
the young girl where they discovered the elves. The protagonist became friends with the
elf named Prax because of a little accident when she fell down from the broken branch
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of the tree. Prax helped her by giving healing sensation. Since then, she thought that all
elves are nice. Her parents warned her not to talk again to the elf. However, the rising
action here when there was another elf named Bat who met her in the school. Bat
helped the protagonist in her tests and gave materials that she gladly accepted until he
fell in love with her. The climax started when she rejected Bat because Aleah was nine
years old then. Bat felt angry toward her and contrive revenge. Aleahs family and even
the relatives died one by one except her. The falling action is when Prax helped her by
appearing on her dream and defeat Bat. Because of Prax help, she defeated Bat.
Finally, Prax appeared in her dream telling her that she could better on her own. She
woke up and and studied Mathematics and remembered where it all started.

The First person point of view was used in this story because of using pronoun I
and We .The conflict of this short story is person against the supernatural environment
because of breaking the authors promise to the elf. The elf represents nature because
of belonging in the hidden nature of the world.

The overall tone of the story is being attached in the story. Fear because of the
parents warning toward their daughter on whatever happened. Because of Bats
revenge to the protagonist which caused devastation in the tone. Skepticism and
Uneasiness because of the protagonist struggles.

The text in the story was presented in narrative form. According to Teeter and
Sandberg, narrative or story is a report of connected events, real, and imaginary,
presented in a sequence of written or spoken words (91). The protagonist narrates her
past experiences with elves. It was made with an informal and descriptive style also.
According to Kirszner and Mandell, informal style is when the characters speak
informally while descriptive styles purpose is to describe characters, an event, or a
place in great detail.

The theme of the story is persistence in a situation through standing on your fate
and the importance of a persons well being because the conflict started when the
protagonist is gladly accepted the materials that were given by the elf.
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Works Cited

Kharbe, A. s. English Language and Literary Criticism. Discovery Publishing House,

2009.

Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Fiction--Reading, reacting, writing.

Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1994.

Hector Santos, Sushi Dog Graphics, Geejay Arriola. THE LITTLE PEOPLE by Maria
Aleah G. Taboclaon, www.sushidog.com/bpss/stories/little_people.htm.

Rosen, Brenda. The mythical creatures bible: the definitive guide to legendary beings.
Sterling, 2009.

Teeter, Preston, and Jrgen Sandberg. Cracking the enigma of asset bubbles with
narratives. Strategic Organization, vol. 15, no. 1, 2016, pp. 9199.,
doi:10.1177/1476127016629880.