Gian B.

Silva Grade XI – Angel Raphael

Schedule: 8:40 am – 9:40 am 21st Century Literature

Literary Criticism
The story “The Bird” written by Tita Lacambra-Ayala is all about feminism as seen in the character of Sisa, the narrators
maid. Tita Lacambra-Ayala is a poet and a writer who gets her inspirations from anything that she experiences. She only
writes about things that she knows. Maybe she gained her knowledge on how she writes and expresses the character of
Sisa in her work for she is a mother. She is a mother of six. She likes to write poems, stories that are quite difficult to
perceive by the readers, she uses symbolisms and imageries in most of her works just like in The Bird, The Dragon and
Cactus. For me, this way of writing is useful and essential for it lets our minds to think outside the box to help us
understand more what does the story or work really meant.

Sisa,in the story, always tell the narrator about her experiences in life while having her own routine until she reaches to
share something to the narrator, about the bird, that she should wait for it to come. The story ends when Sisa is just siting
in the middle of her nest in her room, staring at the narrator with dark round eyes, expecting the narrator to envy her. The
narrator feels the presence of something. As she is disturbed by that unamiable presence, she backs out slowly and runs
down stairs immediately.

We see Sisa as an example of those older women characters who had a relationship with the adolescent female
characters. She is also an example of recurring figure or a representation of some Filipino women nowadays, as yaya or
housekeeper, as a guardian and as a wise and knowledgeable in some ways for she initiates the youngsters into the
world they must enter or they must experience.

Sisa reminds us the older Filipino women in nineties. A woman who is independent, who can stand on its own, who can
withstand and endure the struggles and problems all by herself. She resembles a Filipino women who is knowledgeable
and wise enough to advise, to exhort, to counsel us, youngsters, readers. Most importantly she reminds us as the early
Filipino women because way back then, Filipinos has a belief that only Filipino men has the right and freedom to study, to
work, to earn for a living. Philippines, many years ago, won’t let women to study, won’t let women to step outside,
experience the aesthetical beauty and majestic scenery beyond the shiny-wooden floors and tree-like structure house
walls. For the early Filipinos, women way back then, is just a house maid, a housekeeper that cleans the house, cooks for
them, doing household chores, and all that. They didn’t experience the happiness to go to school, to study, to socialize
and interact with others. Way back then, they are matured by their own experiences in an early age. That is Sisa, that is
what I perceived to her, an antiquated Filipino women who is contented to a simple and domestic life.

The narrator resembles as a simple teenager like us who has a juvenile and minor thinking and minds, who is curious to
some things unlike Sisa. She resembles a young and innocent teenager.

The powerful imagery of the bird in the story which means the masculinity of a men and their load, tells us that girls,
women, should wait to the perfect time to experience making nest and wait for a precise and right guy to be partnered with
just like how Sisa tells the narrator to wait for a bird for it will come spontaneously. Acknowledging the story’s erotic
content may helps us to be reawaken to the reality of what the world really is. The world of men and women and their
purpose. It helps us to be more open-minded to the world of sex education.

All of these are narrated with great subtlety in the story and the imagery and themes they communicate to us, readers, are
a testimony of how genius Tita Lacambra-Ayala is. She may not be as well known as other writers in the nation
nevertheless, the sincerity of her works of human experience and her truthful rendition of the Filipino sensibility capture
images of life in a refreshing manner.