A Formalistic Analysis on Maria Aleah Taboclaon short story

“The Little People”

The analysis talks about the story of authors family who are living with the elves. Aleah
the author was only 9 years old when she and her family started living with the elves.
The communication they only got was the banging of the elves from 11PM till 6AM in
the morning. The elves even became their alarm clock, they have settled down to a
coexistence by giving them food before they go to sleep, when morning comes, they’ve
seen the food were gone and the table were cleaned.  One day, the young girl fell down
from a broken Mango tree branch which caused her ankle to break. Pax, the leader and
oldest of the elf tribe decided to help the young girl to recover fast. The girl felt the
healing sensation and was peculiar about this certain situation since it is not what she is
used to see. Since then, she thought elves were nice until she met Bat who helped her
when she had difficulty in finishing her Math exam. They became good friends to each
other and wanted it to to be a secret until Bat confessed his romantic feelings for the
young girl. But then the girl refused because she couldn’t visualize herself being a
princess in the kingdom of elves doing wife duties. She believes that she is not fit to be
in the position. She told Bat that her parents were angry upon knowing that they had
been talking to each other even though it wasn’t true. Bat was frustrated upon hearing
the news and vanished. Even though he wasn’t seen by the naked eye, the young girl
still felt his presence and he always appears in her dreams asking for her to be his wife.
Days passed and different tragedies entered the life of the young girl. Her loved ones
were killed one by one because she broke the trust that Bat gave to her which caused
him to keep a grudge in his heart.
The young girl was devastated and desperate for a solution that is why she decided to
head to meet with Prax and got a spell where she could eliminate Prax from seeing and
controlling her life forever. She got the spell and successfully recited the following
phrases to finally get rid of Bat. She may have won, but it was too late for she was the
only one left in the family.
The setting of the story takes place at the author’s house where elves banging every
day.
“The story introduces a family that is struggling to seek for peace and serenity
because of the viscous elves stomping on an old crib. ---- lines from the story “

The story is narrated by first person point of view because the narrator is the one
narrating her experience. The narrator also uses the pronouns I and we in the story.
The main character in the story is the author or Aleah herself, by the way she thinks you
will understand her you can easily put yourself into her shoes because everybody has
been through being a child. She narrates her experience and how she lost her family.
The author described with the help of Bat, he described Aleah as beautiful, sensitive
and romantic. From what I have read, Aleah also is very adventurous child since she
was seated at the back of their room where no one would attempt to seat, because of
the stories that there were kapres, dwendes and white ladies. 

The story just simply talked about how people were very rash in making decisions
especially when it favors them without thinking what are the consequence of their
choices. Regrets came only after the decision and the bad consequences.
To sum it up, Maria Aleah Taboclaon short story is a reminder to all of us that we should
not be controlled by material things. We should not bargain or put our life at risk for
temporary happiness because that temporarily happiness might change and turn into
sadness and regret.