LIT 01 PHILIPPINE LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Submitted by:
Mangente, Ma. Lyriana L.
Block A (MT 9:00am – 10:30am)

TOYS BY GEMINO ABAD

Change is one of the most inevitable things in the world. The poem describes how things
transformed with all the events and developments that are taking place around us. We cannot
deny the fact that from one generation to another, things will continue to change according to
their own perspective, influences, and how the environment molds them. The author wants to
tell us that the things we have now is different from what they have before. Clearly, each
generation has its own way of looking at the world of work and life that’s different from prior
and proceeding generations. Our lifetime experiences and subconscious assumptions are
distinct. While each generation has been confused or dismayed by certain characteristics of the
next one, millennials are purported to be the most misunderstood generation.
The message of the poem is that toys of the past were often not really play things but
learning tools geared to children to help them prepare for the adult world. Some of these toys
were rough caricatures of items used by adults and required imagination to get them to look
and operate like the real items they stood in for. Others could injure the child using them if
certain rules were not followed. One good example would be a toy sword. A real sword is often
a thing of beauty in its own right, embellished with precious metals and jewels they can be
works of art. Using a real sword can cause injury or death not only to your opponent but to the
user as well. A toy sword is most often a stick picked up off the ground, it is embellished only in
the imagination of the child. Its use can cause minor injury for the most part but teaches the
most important lesson of sword fighting. If you get hit with thing it hurts, don’t get hit with it.
Modern toys are often designed so that no imagination is needed for the image of the item and
sanitized so that there is no danger of any injury no matter how small and no chance of learning
anything from them. Examples include play stations, Xbox, and PSP’s. Now, kids can kill
themselves in a virtual world and not be hurt. Until of course the real world encroaches upon
them and they discover that they don’t get up after someone shoots them.
Toys are totally different from the past which are very conservative. However, since
innovative minds have become a thing, the economy, technology and the internet, as well as
people’s lives, have made a great influence over toys.