ASIAN INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER STUDIES-CEBU

1 SEMESTER SY 2022-2023
ST

SUBJECT: 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES

AND THE WORLD

Lesson 2.2
Elements of a Short Story

BASIC ELEMENTS OF A SHORT STORY

1. Character– A character in a short story is a person, in some stories an animal, who
takes part in the action of the story or other literary work. The way an author develops
the character in a story is very important in making the story appeal to the readers. It
is said that the heart of the story are the characters. The two most important characters
in a short story are the protagonist and the antagonist.

a. The protagonist is considered as the main character or most important of all

the characters. It is the character who learns something or undergoes some changes
throughout the course of the story. Some stories depict the protagonist as the hero of
the story, while in other stories the protagonist is not considered a hero as he has done
nothing heroic. In any case, the story always revolves around the protagonist.

b. The antagonist is the character that challenges the main character. It has no
concern for the well-being of the main character. The antagonist may be a person, the
nature, the society, or any intangible matter that contends with or creates a problem for
the protagonist.

2. Setting– The place and time when the story happens is called the setting. The setting
may be based on real place and real time or it may also be based on the author’s
imagination. When analyzing the setting of the story, consider where the action is taking
place. Most authors use descriptive words to describe the landscape, scenery, buildings,
season, or weather to provide a strong sense of setting which will help the reader
visualize the story and connect to the story’s plot.

3. Plot– A plot is the actual story. It is what the story is all about. It is also the series
of events and characters’ actions that lead to the highest point of interest in a short
story. The following are the different parts of a story’s structure:

a. Exposition –This is the beginning of the story. This is where the

author introduces the characters, identifies where the story is happening, and
establishes the main conflict.

b. Rising Action–This event occurs as you begin to move throughout the story.
This is where conflicts start to build.

c. Climax– It is the most exciting part of a short story. This is the part in
the story when important decisions are made or important things are discovered.

d. Falling Action– This point occurs after the climax as the problems in
the story start to work themselves out. The excitement becomes less and less as
the conflict is resolved.
e. Resolution/ Denouement– This is the solution to the problem in a story. The
solution may not be what you hoped for but as long as it fits the story in tone and theme,
the conflict has been resolved.

Prepared by: Ms. Rhealyn E. Acop, LPT

 ASIAN INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER STUDIES-CEBU
1 SEMESTER SY 2022-2023
ST

SUBJECT: 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES

AND THE WORLD

4. Conflict– Every story needs to have a problem and this problem is called conflict. The
main character, also called the protagonist, needs to have someone or something to
challenge him. Without conflict, the story will not go anywhere and will not be very
interesting to the readers. The main character may be faced with one of the four different
types of conflict. These four types of conflict are:

• man versus man;

• man versus nature;
• man versus himself; and
• man versus society.

5. Theme- This is the central idea in a short story and a general truth. This
is considered as the author’s message to the readers.
6. Point of View – This is the way the story is told or narrated. It is also known as the
vantage point that a writer uses to narrate the story. The following are the types of point
of view in a short story:

a. First Person – the narrator participates in and tells the story using
the pronoun ‘I’.

b. Limited Third Person – the narrator is not in the story and narrates using
the pronouns ‘she’ or ‘he’. Also, the narrator is unable to see into the minds of the
characters.

c. Omniscient Third Person – the narrator is not in the story and tells the story
using the pronouns ‘she’ or ‘he’. In this point of view, the narrator can tell the thoughts
of the characters as he can see into their minds.

Read the sample short story.

SINIGANG
Marie Aubrey J. Villaceran

“So, what happened?”

She had finally decided to ask the question. I had been wondering how long my
Tita Loleng could contain her curiosity.

I continued to pick out tomatoes for the Sinigang we were to have for dinner. I
wasn’t usually the one who assisted my aunt with the cooking. She preferred
my younger sister, Meg, for I knew far less in this area—not having the aptitude, or
the interest, I guess—for remembering recipes. That didn’t matter today, though.
This time, Tita Loleng wanted more than just an extra pair of hands in the kitchen.

“Nothing much,” I answered offhandedly. “We did what people usually do during
funerals.” I reminded myself to tread carefully with her. Though I did not really feel like
talking, I could not tell her off for she took offense rather easily.

Prepared by: Ms. Rhealyn E. Acop, LPT

 ASIAN INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER STUDIES-CEBU
1 SEMESTER SY 2022-2023
ST

SUBJECT: 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES

AND THE WORLD

I put the tomatoes in the small palanggana, careful not to bruise their delicate
skin, and carried them to the sink.

“Did you meet…her?” Tita Loleng asked.

There came to me a memory of sitting in one of the smaller narra sofas in the
living room in Bulacan. I faced a smooth white coffin whose corners bore gold plated
figures of cherubs framed by elaborate swirls resembling thick, curling vines. Two
golden candelabras, each supporting three rows of high-wattage electric candles,
flanked the coffin and seared the white kalachuchi in the funeral wreaths, causing the
flowers to release more of their heady scent before they wilted prematurely. Through
an open doorway, I could see into the next room where a few unfamiliar faces held
murmured conversations above their coffee cups.
“Are you Liza?” A woman beside me suddenly asked.

I was surprised, for I had not heard anyone approaching. Most of the mourners
preferred to stay out on the veranda for fear that the heat from the lights might also
cause them to wither.

I looked up slowly: long, slim feet with mauve-painted toenails that

peeked through the opening of a pair of scruffy-looking slippers; smooth legs unmarred
by swollen veins or scars—so unlike the spider-veined legs of my mom—encased in
a black, pencil-cut skirt; a white blouse with its sleeves too long for the wearer, causing
the extra fabric to bunch around the cuffs; a slim neck whose skin sagged just a little
bit; and a pale face that seemed like it had not experienced sleep in days. The woman
looked to me like she was in her forties—the same age as my mother.

“Yes,” I had answered that woman—the same answer I now gave to Tita
Loleng.

I gently spilled out all the tomatoes into the sink and turned on the tap. The
water, like agua bendita, cleansed each tomato of the grime from its origins. “What did
she tell you?” Tita Loleng asked.

“Nothing much. She told me who she was.”

“What did she look like?”

“She’s pretty, I guess.”

She was. She looked like she had Indian blood with her sharp nose and deep-
set eyes thickly bordered by long lashes. Just like Mom, she still maintained a slim
figure though she already had children. The woman, upon seeing my curious stare, had
explained, “I am Sylvia.”

Prepared by: Ms. Rhealyn E. Acop, LPT

 ASIAN INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER STUDIES-CEBU
1 SEMESTER SY 2022-2023
ST

SUBJECT: 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES

AND THE WORLD

All my muscles tensed upon hearing her name. It took all my self-control to
outwardly remain calm and simply raise an eyebrow.

My reaction caused a range of emotion to cross the woman’s face before it finally
crumbled and gave way to tears. Suddenly, she grabbed my hand from where it had
been resting on the arm of the sofa. Her own hands were damp and sticky with sweat.
She knelt in front of me—a sinner confessing before a priest so he could wash away the
dirt from her past.

But I was not a priest. I looked down at her and my face remained impassive.
When her weeping had subsided, she raised her head and looked at
me. “Everyone makes mistakes, Liza.” Her eyes begged for understanding.

It was a line straight out of a Filipino soap opera. I had a feeling that the whole
situation was a scene from a very bad melodrama I was watching.

I looked around to see if anyone had witnessed the spectacle unfolding in this
living room, but it was as if an invisible director had banned all but the actors from the
set. Except for us, not a soul could be seen.

I wanted Sylvia to free my hand so I nodded and pretended to

understand. Apparently convinced, she let go and, to my shock, suddenly hugged me
tight. My nose wrinkled as the pungent mix of heavy perfume and sweat assailed me.
I wanted to scream at her to let go but I did not move away.
“Hmm, I think they’re washed enough na.” Tita Loleng said.
Turning off the tap, I placed the tomatoes inside the basin once more. Then, as an
afterthought, I told my Tita, “I don’t think she is as pretty as Mom, though.”

Tita Loleng nodded understandingly. She gestured for me to place the basin on
the table where she already had the knives and chopping board ready.

“Where was your dad when she was talking to you?”

“Oh, he was sleeping in one of the bedrooms. Mom did not want to wake
him up because they told her he had not slept for two nights straight.”

Tita Loleng snorted. “Haay, your mother talaga,” she said, shaking her head.

I had to smile at that before continuing. “When he saw me, Sylvia had already
been called away to entertain some of the visitors.”

“Was he surprised to see you?” Tita knew that I had not wanted to go to
the funeral. Actually, she was one of the few people who respected, and understood, my
decision.

Prepared by: Ms. Rhealyn E. Acop, LPT

 ASIAN INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER STUDIES-CEBU
1 SEMESTER SY 2022-2023
ST

SUBJECT: 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES

AND THE WORLD

“No.” I sliced each of the tomatoes in quarters. The blade of the knife clacked
fiercely against the hard wood of the chopping board. “He requested Mom to make me
go there.” We both knew that I could never have refused my mother once she insisted
that I attend. I had even gone out and gotten drunk with some friends the night before
we were to leave just so I could have an excuse not to go, but my mom was inflexible.
She had ordered my two sisters to wake me up.

Tita Loleng gave me a sympathetic look. “No choice then, huh?” She was forever
baffled at the way my mother could be such a martyr when it came to my father and
such a tyrant to her children.

Clack! Clack! The knife hacked violently against the board.

“Nope.”

When my Dad had come out of the room, I remembered sensing it immediately—
the same way an animal instinctively perceives when it is in danger. I had been looking
at the face of my dead half-brother, searching for any resemblance between us.
Chemotherapy had sunk his cheeks and had made his hair fall out, but even in this
condition, I could see how handsome he must have been before his treatment. His
framed photograph atop the glass covering of the coffin confirmed this. Lem took after
my father so much that Dad could never even hope to deny that he was his son. I, on
the other hand, had taken after my mother.

I knew my father was staring at me but I refused look at him. He approached

and stood next to me. I remained silent.

“I am glad you came,” he said.

I gave him a non-committal nod, not even glancing his way.Tita

Loleng interrupted my thoughts with another one of her questions.

“Did you cry?”

I shook my head vehemently as I answered, “No.”

I took the sliced tomatoes, surprised to find not even a splinter of wood
with them, as well as the onions Tita Loleng had chopped and put them in a pot. “What
next?” I asked her.

“The salt.” Then she went and added a heaping tablespoonful of salt to the pot.

“Is that all?”

Prepared by: Ms. Rhealyn E. Acop, LPT

 ASIAN INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER STUDIES-CEBU
1 SEMESTER SY 2022-2023
ST

SUBJECT: 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES

AND THE WORLD

“Uh-huh. Your Mom and I prefer it a bit saltier, but your Dad likes it this way.”
Then she gestured towards the pot, closing and opening her fist like a baby flexing its
fingers.

I started crushing the onions, tomatoes, and salt together with my hand. “He
was an acolyte in church,” my father had said then, finally splintering the silence I
had adamantly maintained. “Father Mario said that we shouldn’t feel sad because Lem
is assured of going to a better place because he was such a good child.” Good, I
thought, unlike me whom he always called “Sinverguenza”, the shameless daughter.
I finally turned to him. There was only one question I needed to ask. “Why?”

He met my gaze. I waited but he would not—could not— answer me. He looked
away.

My mask of indifference slipped. It felt like a giant hand was rubbing salt into
me, squeezing and mashing, unsatisfied until all of me had been crushed.

“Stop it na, Liza!” Tita Loleng exclaimed. “Anymore of that mashing and you will
be putting bits of your own flesh and bone in there,” my aunt warned. She went to the
refrigerator and took out plastic bags containing vegetables. She placed them in the
sink. “All of these will be needed for the sinigang,” she said. “Prepare them while you’re
softening the meat.” Then she took off her apron, “You go and finish off here. I will just
go to my room and stretch my back out a bit.” With a tender pat on my head, she walked
out of the kitchen.

I breathed a sigh of relief. The questions had stopped, for now.

I poured the hugas bigas into the mass of crushed onions and tomatoes and
added the chunks of beef into the concoction before covering the pot and placing it on
the stove. I turned on the flame. The sinigang needed to simmer for close to an hour to
tenderize the meat.

In the meantime, I started preparing all the other ingredients that will be added
to the pot later on. Taking all the plastic bags, I unloaded their contents into the sink
then washed and drained each vegetable thoroughly before putting them beside my
chopping board.

I reached for the bunch of kangkong and began breaking off choice sections to
be included in the stew. When I was a child, before Tita Loleng had chosen to stay with
us, my mom used to do the cooking and she would have Meg and I sit beside her while
she readied the meals. I remembered that whenever it came to any dish involving
kangkong, I would always insist on preparing it because I loved the crisp popping sound
the vegetable made whenever I broke off a stem. It was on one such occasion, I was in
second year high school by then but still insistent on kangkong preparation, when Mom
had divulged the truth about the boy who kept calling Dad on the phone everyday at
home. Meg had also been there, breaking off string beans into two-inch sections. Neither
of us had reacted much then, but between us, I knew I was more affected by what Mom
had said because right until then, I had always been Daddy’s girl.

Prepared by: Ms. Rhealyn E. Acop, LPT

 ASIAN INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER STUDIES-CEBU
1 SEMESTER SY 2022-2023
ST

SUBJECT: 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES

AND THE WORLD

When the kangkong was done, I threw away the tough, unwanted parts
and reached for the labanos. I used a peeler to strip away the skin—revealing the white,
slightly grainy flesh—and then sliced each root diagonally. Next came the sigarilyas, and
finally, the string beans.
Once, I asked Tita Loleng how she knew what type of vegetable to put into
sinigang and she said, “Well, one never really knows which will taste good until one has
tried it. I mean, some people cook sinigang with guavas, some with kamias. It is a dish
whose recipe would depend mostly on the taste of those who will do the
eating.”

I got a fork and went to the stove where the meat was simmering. I prodded the
chunks to test whether they were tender enough—and they were. After pouring in some
more of the rice washing, I cleared the table and waited for the stew to boil.

A few minutes later, the sound of rapidly popping bubbles declared that it was
now time to add the powdered tamarind mix. I poured in the whole packet and stirred.
Then I took the vegetables and added them, a fistful at a time, to the pot. As I did so, I
remembered the flower petals each of my two sisters and I had thrown, fistful by fistful,
into the freshly dug grave as Lem’s casket was being lowered into it.

My dad was crying beside me and I recalled thinking, would he be the same if I
was the one who had died? I glanced up at him and was surprised to find that he was
looking at me. His hand, heavy with sadness, fell on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he had
told me.

I let the stew boil for a few more minutes before turning off the fire.

The sinigang would be served later during dinner. I pictured myself seated in my
usual place beside my father who is at the head of the table. He would tell Mom about
his day and then he would ask each of us about our own. I would answer, not in the
animated way I would have done when I was still young and his pet, but politely and
without any rancor.
Then, he would compliment me on the way I had cooked his favorite dish and I would give him
a smile that would never quite show, not even in my eyes.

Prepared by: Ms. Rhealyn E. Acop, LPT

 ASIAN INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER STUDIES-CEBU
1 SEMESTER SY 2022-2023
ST

SUBJECT: 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FROM THE PHILIPPINES

AND THE WORLD

Activity 1

Instruction: Study the six elements of a short story and the short story given for our
examination next week.

Prepared by: Ms. Rhealyn E. Acop, LPT