A Child of Sorrow 

(A Romantic Novel) 

                                                      By: Zoilo Galang 

Introduction

 

    Zoilo Galang was born on June 27 1895 in Bacolor, Pampanga. An encyclopedist, and 

the very first English-language Filipino novelist.He spent his early life in a Bucolic town 

famed for its writers and artist. He lived with influenced of Spanish culture but was raised 

and gained consciousness under American culture. He went to school at the Bacolor 

Elementary School and then went to Manila to study at the Escuela de Derecho, the 

country’s eminent law school where he graduated in 1919. A self-starter, he learned typing 

and stenography in English and Spanish all by himself. Attracted to the English language, 

he took special courses at the University of the Philippines in 1925, then went to Columbia 

University for further studies in Literature.

   After which, he began to write books of fiction, biography, and philosophy.His early poems

saw print of the Kapampangan paper, “E Mangabiran”. He authored “ A Child of Sorrow”, the

first English novel  written by  Filipino. This was later made into a movie in 1930. Other 

notable works include “ Nadia”, “ For Dreams Must Die”, “Springtime”, “ Leaders of the 

Philippines”, “Glimpse of the worlds”, “ Life and Success”, Master of Destiny”, “Unisophy”, 

and “Barrio Life.”

     "A Child's Sorrow"  is the very first Filipino novel written in English. It was published in 

1921 by Zoilo Galang, a Filipino Novelist. A Child of Sorrow, which is a romantic novel is 

considered to be the first novel written in English by a Filipino, hence its full text is printed 

for every Filipino to know it's contents.

     The novel tells a typical setting of a Filipino love story. It was set in a particular province 

or town in a time too far from the modern setting where technology is abundant and 

dominant, but it manifests  certain characteristics of a love story which can still watched in 

televisions in the modern times. 

     The scenes in the story are still seen in the present times, though it has been written in 

the past. This makes the story eternal and timeless; from being in love at a young age, to 

the issues of fixed marriage, up to the societal issues such as bribery. 

Characters   

 

Lucio Soliman

 Lucio Soliman- He is a protagonist. He is a slender and well-built 

with brown hair, dark clear eyes and a gay and graceful demeanor.

His face was oval and handsome in a truly manly fashion. He is a 

calm, pensive and poetic.

Pancho Ismael

Pancho Ismael- He is a corrupt governor. He is a father of Rosa.

Rosa Ismael

Rosa- She is the prettiest woman in the Merrytown.

Camillo David

Camillo David- He is a friend of Lucio Soliman.

 

Oscar Ramirez

Oscar Ramirez- He is a friend of Lucio, the one who raped Rosa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plot

     The story was set one summer when Lucio Soliman decided to accompany his friend 

Camilo in the beautiful town of Merry Town, Camillo's hometown. Lucio was a very poetic 

man who'd prefer sitting all day just to read. But because his friend was to eager to show his

friend reality, he insisted that Lucio must take a vacation in their town.

     Their she met a young, innocent, and delicate maiden that made Lucio's heart beat by 

the name of Rosa Garcia.  He felt in love with her. And as Lucio describe the love he felt 

towards this girl, he said it will make Apollo's lyre play. He was madly in love. Rosa felt the 

same towards Lucio.

      Until the end of summer vacation drew near and they knew they have to be temporarily 

apart. Lucio has to pursue his dreams, he studied. Known for his intelligence, he became a 

popular person. He became very busy, but still he misses the company of his dearest loved. 

He became sorrowful. Not until Rosa wrote a letter to make him bliss. Then he regained his 

strength. They have not forgotten the love that empowers both of them.  Until a celebration 

in merry Town paved way for the lovers to reunite. Lucio was invited to speak in the public. 

But the Governor ( Rosa's Father) was not please and her has this ill feeling towards Lucio. 

He instantly asked Oscar ( His most trusted man and Rosa's persistent suitor) who is the 

man speaking. When he found out that it was her child's fiancee, he was not happy. 

      Days, week, and months had passed they were surprise of the news that Rosa will be 

married not to his fiancee, but to Oscar. But because Lucio was to obedient to his parent, he

permitted Rosa to marry Oscar which made both of them sorrowful .It was hard for him 

though. But he just wanted Rosa to follow her mother.  Though Rosa  does  not want to 

marry Oscar, she was forced to because he was raped. For the sake of her " delicadesa"  

she was betrothed to Oscar. 
 

      Later had passed Lucio's father died, and after several weeks his love, Rosa died. This 

made Lucio felt a lot more of sorrow.

 Art and Delivery 

 

      The way the author writes the order of scenes, I can say that some of the scenes can be

a little bit predictable, which can also be manifested in teleseryes in the modern times. This 

somehow set the standards or techniques of Filipino authors. To add to it, the author made 

the sequence of scenes organized, and often uses flashbacks, which can still be seen in 

modern Filipino Tele novelas.

  

Conclusion

 

     The story tells us about the feeling of being in love. In loving a person, you must be 

prepared to face the ups and downs,  and the twist and turns of life. Couple with the feeling 

of love and happiness, there is always sorrow. You must learn to sacrifice and be hurt in the 

thing called LOVE.

 

      It also tells us the fact that in the world of politics, politician use there powers in order to 

conceive what they wanted whatever it takes. Which Don Ismael represents.    

     Another representation are of Rosa and Lucio. Rosa represents the true nature of a 

Filipina. A demure, moral and beautiful inside and out. Lucio represents the author, who 

addicted to books. This made him experience life in a second hand way.

     In totality, the story conveys the reality that life is a series of challenges. Life is not all 

about being happy. In order to truly experience life,  you must bravely encounter both the 

happiness and sorrows.  This serves as an inspiration to all.

                       

Magnifecence By: Estrella Alfon

Settings:

The Story happened at the house of the two children

Characters: 

• Vicente- the bus conductor who teaches the two children
• Mother- the parent of the two children.
• Oscar- the little boy
• Little girl

Plot

       This story  Magnificence is written by Estrella Alfon, was born in San Nicolas Cebu City on March 17, 1917. Alfon was a writer who unashamedly drew from her own real-life experiences. In some stories, the first person narrator is "Estrella" or "Esther". She is just not a writer, but one who consciously refers to her act of writing the stories. Alfon is still easily identifiable in her first-person reminiscences of the past: evacuation during the Japanese occupation; estrangement from a husband; life after the war.In the Espeleta stories, Alfon was editorial "we" to indicate that as a member of community, she shares their feelings and responses towards the incidents in the story. But she sometimes slips back being a narrator. The impression is that although she shares the sentiments of her neighbors, she is still a distinct personality who detaches herself from the scene in order to understand it better. This device of separating herself as narrator from the other characters is contained within the larger strategy of... distantiation? that of the writer from her strongly autobiographical material.
       
       This story  portrays a family who has trusted someone and at the end was betrayed by the very same person. It is a common experience of everybody that after having trusted someone, a person would soon lose his or her trust on that person because, in the end, the person betrayed them.

       There is couple with a son and a daughter. Their parents have a good job.  They go to school. Their mother is a president in their village. In a meeting the man volunteered to be their tutor because he doesn’t do anything in the evening also for an extra job. His name is Vicente. He is a bus conductor. So he went to the house every night to teach the kids.

       He promised the kids to give them 2 pencils each.  One night he gives the pencil to the kids. That time it was the "it". The children in this time want pencils. Vincent is nice to the children. He knows their wants. But when he gave the pencil, he gives 3 pencils for the girl and 2 for the boy. Their mother said to say thank you. The boy kissed Vicente but Vicente told him that boys don't kiss boys. Then the girl goes to Vicente to say thank you. He hugs her so tight and the girl started to get out of his too tight hug. The girl looks at Vicente with a little wonder on his face. The next day they were so proud and happy with their new pencils. They showed it to their friends in class. They also thought of asking Vicente for new pencils. 

     In dinner they talked a little about Vicente but the father is busy reading something. He did not listen to what the mother said. The mother thinks that Vicente is fond of the children with the way he is treating them. That evening Vicente arrived earlier. The children are proud of the pencil. Their classmates are jealous with their new pencils given by Vicente. He asked the little boy to get him a glass of water. Then he put the girl on his lap. Then he let the girl write her homework. The little girl told him not to carry her because she is heavy. Vicente is perspiring, and his eyes are strange. Then the girl jumped out of his lap because she became afraid. Then their mom arrived. She rubs the girls back and told them to go upstairs. The mother slapped the man repeatedly.  Vicente just accepts the entire slap that the mother gave him. Then he went out of the house. The mother closed the door. She gives a bath to the girl. Then she asked them to throw the pencil. Then she put her to sleep.

Art and Delivery

        This time, the author combined language and point of view. The language was kind of confusing because the narrations include the dialogues  of the charaters and the point of view was no one in the story. in the past, this story is really unthinkable. But now, who wouldn't have taught that this kind of story could happen in our generation.

Conclusion

       
       Alfon's story is artful and graceful in dealing with a disturbing subject. Indeed, it shows how the mother fight when it comes to the abuses of her children and I must say it shows also the empowerment of a woman, to the right of every woman especially to the mother who fights their of being a mother to their children.

Love in The Corn Husks by By: Aida Rivera Ford

                                                    A Short Story: Love in the Corn husks

                                                        LOVE IN THE CORN HUSKS

                                                        Aida L. Rivera-Ford

                                                         

  Tinang stopped and waited before the Seňora’s gate. The dog’s came to bark at her and her baby cried out loud. Not so long, Tito, the young master, had seen and approached her while calling to his mother. Tito warded the dogs and let Tinang to enter.

    Tinang passed quickly up the veranda stairs lined with ferns and many-colored bougainville. On the landing, she paused to wipe her shoes carefully. About her, the Seňora’s white and lavender butterfly orchids fluttered delicately in sunshine. She noticed through that the purple waling-waling that had once been her task to shade from the hot sun.

    “Is no one covering the waling-waling now?" Tinang asked. “It will die.”

“Oh, the maid will come to cover the orchids later.” your baby. Is it a boy?”

“Yes, Ma,” Tito shouted from downstairs.” And the ears are huge!”

“What do you expect,” replied his mother; “the father is a Bagobo. Even Tinang looks like a Bagobo now.”

Tinang laughed and felt warmness for her former mistress and the boy Tito. She sat self-consciously on the sofa, for the first time a visitor. Her eyes clouded. The sight of the Seňora’s flaccidly plump figure and she sighed thinking of the long walk home through the mud, the baby’s legs straddled to her waist, and Inggo, her husband waiting for her, his body stinking of Tuba and sweat, squatting on the floor, clad only in his foul undergarments.

“Ano, Tinang, is it not a good thing to be married?” the Seňora asked, pitying Tinang because her dress gave way at the placket and pressed at her swollen breasts. It was, as a matter a fact, a dress she had given Tinang a long time ago. The Seňora commented and concerned on Tinang’s situation. They went into a cluttered room to sort out some stuff to be donated to Tinang. Tinang asked,” How is Seňor?” “Ay, he is always losing his temper over the tractor drivers. It is not the way it was when Amado was here. You remember what a good driver he was. The tractors were always kept in working condition. But now…I wonder why he left all of a sudden. He said he would be gone for only two days…”

Then the baby began to cry and Tinang tried shushed him. The Seňora told her to go to the kitchen. The maid set down milk for the baby and served her coffee and cake. The Seňora drank coffee with her and lectured about infancy care. Finally, Tinang brought up, haltingly, her purpose, to invite the Seňora to be a madrina in baptism. And the latter assented and would provide the baptismal clothes and the fee for the priest. It was time to go.

Bidding good bye to Tinang, the Seňora recalled and told Tinang she had a letter in the drugstore (post office at the same time). A letter! Tinang’s heart beat violently. She worried that someone might be dead. She hurried to the barrio’s drugstore. The man turned to her and asked if what she needs. She told him of her letter. The asked her name and it was “Constantina Tirol”, he scanned through the box of letters and pulled out one. Upon seeing the letter, her first suspicion was that something bad had happened to her sister. The man offered to read the letter for her. Thinking that she was illiterate for how she look’s like. But she refrained and immediately departed on way toward home.

The rains had made her a deep slough of clay road and Tinang followed the prints left by the men and the carabaos that had gone before her to keep from sinking in mud up to her knees. She was deep in the road before she became conscious of her shoes. In horror, she saw that they were coated with thick, black clay. Gingerly, she pulled off one shoe after the other with the hand still clutching the letter. When she had tied the shoes together with the laces and had slung them on an arm, the baby, the bundle, and the letter were all smeared with mud.

There must be a place to put the baby down, she thought, desperate now about the letter. She walked on until she spotted a corner of a field where cornhusks were scattered under a kamansi tree. She shoved together a pile of husks with her foot and laid the baby down upon it. With a sigh, she drew the letter from the envelope. She stared at the letter which was written in English.

My dearest Tinay,

Hello, how is life getting along? Are you still in good condition? As for myself, the same as usual. But you’re far from my side. It is not easy to be far from our lover.

Tinay, do you still love me? I hope your kind and generous heart will never fade. Somebody or somehow I’ll be there again to fulfill our promise.

Many weeks and months have elapsed. Still I remember our bygone days. Especially when I was suffering with the heat of the tractor under the heat of the sun. I was always in despair until I imagine your personal appearance coming forward bearing the sweetest smile that enabled me to view the distant horizon.

Tinay, I could not return because I found that my mother was very ill. That I was not able to take you as a partner of life. Please respond to my missive at once so that I know whether you still love me or not. I hope you did not love anybody except myself.

I think I am going beyond the limit of your leisure hour, so I close with best wishes to you, my friends Gonding, Serafin, Bondio, etc.

Yours forever,

Amado

       P.S.My mother died last month.

Address your letter:

Mr. Amado Galauran

Binalunan, Cotabato

It was Tinang’s first love letter. A flush spread over her face and crept into her body. She read the letter again. “It is not easy to be far from our lover…Somebody or somehow I’ll be there again to fulfill our promise…” Tinang was intoxicated. She pressed herself against the kamansi tree.

And she cried, remembering the young girl she was less than two years ago when she would take food to the Seňor in the field and the laborers would eye her furtively. Before she went away to work, she had gone to school and had reached the sixth grade. Her skin too, was not as dark as those of the girls who worked in the fields weeding around the clumps of abaca. Her lower lip jutted out disdainfully when the farm hands spoke to her with many flattering words. She laughed when a Bagobo with two hectares of land asked her to marry him. It was only Amado, the tractor driver who could look to at her and make her lower her eyes. He was very dark and wore filthy and torn clothes on the farm but on Saturdays when he came up to the house for his week’s salary, his hair was slicked down and he would be dressed as well as Mr. Jacinto, the schoolteacher. Once he told her that he would study in the city night schools and take up mechanical engineering someday. He had not said much more to her but one afternoon when she was bidden to take some bolts and tools to him in the field, a great excitement came over her. The shadows moved fitfully in the bamboo grooves she passed and the cool November air edged into her nostrils sharply. He stood unmoving beside the tractor with tools and parts scattered on the ground around him. His eyes a black glow as he watched her draw near. When she held out the bolts, he seized her wrist and said: “Come,” pulling her to the screen of trees beyond. She resisted but his arms were strong. He embraced her roughly and awkwardly, and she trembled and gasped and clung to him….

A little green snake slithered languidly into the tall grass a few yards from the kamansi tree. Tinang started violently and remembered her child. It lay motionless on the mat of husk. With a shriek she grabbed it wildly and hugged it close. The baby awoke from its sleep and cried lustily. Ave Maria Santisima. Do not punish me, she prayed searching the baby’s skin for marks. Among the cornhusks, the letter fell unnoticed.

                                     

”

Constantina "Tinang" Tirol           

                   

Señora (the former employer of Tinang

Tito (son of Señora)

Señorito (Father of Tito and the boss of Amado)

Amado Galuran (Tinang's boyfriend)

A Bagobo

(Tinang‟s husband)

Bagobito (Tinang‟s baby boy)

 

Setting: The story happens in a Barrio.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                               

Climax: Tinang discovers after reading the love letter from her first love,Amado, that she is still loved by him. However, by then, she isalready married to a Bagobo and has a son with him

                                                          




For you to understand easily .  


Here is a photo story. ( No intention to Claim the Picture ) 

original, copyright-protected work is here: 

( https://ryelmedina.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/love-in-the-cornhusks-photo-story/ )

Love in the Cornhusks (Photo Story)

POSTED ON APRIL 23, 2013

This is our creative output in our LITFILI (Philippine Literature in English) class. We made a photo story of Aida Rivera’s Love in the Cornhusks. We hope it helps you in your reading.

Photography and Post-Processing by Ryel Christian M. Medina

Storyboard and Production Head: Junico Mariel Potestad

Models: Jhayzel Pomento, Madel Potestad, Tata Reyes, Gerald Castillo, Kat and Pat Albano and Christian Formales.

Location: Laguna Bel Air 3

We hope you like it! Take Care!

********** Critic of the story  ***********************

Love in the Cornhusks benefits from close reading and is a good example of implied but not stated events and feelings. That said, the story didn't do much for me  . I feel that the major plot point (Amado leaving, which starts the cascade of events which leaves Tinang in her sorry state) is contrived. Why didn't Amado just tell Tinang he would be going away for awhile and to wait for him?

Many students in school are asked to look at this story through a feminist  critism view point and many readers make much of the snake. That's not very interesting though, at least for me. The story does fine with close reading and formal . No need to get fancy with god and biblical allusions and feminists,