Early
life of Paz Latorena:
·
She was born on January 19, 1908. She is the
youngest child of Florencia Manguera and Valentin Latorena.
Education:
·
She studied in St. Scholastica’s College in
Manila and Manila South High School, which is now the Araullo High School.
·
In 1926, she took up Education at the
University of the Philippines (UP) in Manila. There, she also attended a short
story writing class.
·
For her final year of college in
1927, Latorena transferred to University of the Philippines to finish her
Education degree.
·
She shortly earned her master’s
and doctorate degree while teaching literature courses in UST.
Works:
·
In 1927, she was invited by Paz Marquez
Benitez, the literary editor of Philippines Herald Magazine, to write a column
for the said magazine.
·
The same year, she, along with other writers
in the campus, formed the UP Writers’ Club.
·
The UP Writers’ Club publication ran a short
story by Latorena, “A Christmas Tale.”
·
Latorena wrote a poem under the pseudonym,
Mina Lys.
·
Before the year ended, she won the third
prize in Joe Garcia Villa’s Roll of Honor for the Best Stories of 1927 for her
story, “The Small Key.”
·
She became the literary editor of
the Varsitarian and published her poems, “Insight” and “My Last Song,” under
her pseudonym Mina Lys.
·
In 1934, her doctoral
dissertation, “Philippine Literature in English: Old Voices and New,” received
the highest rating of sobresaliente.
The Small Key: Summary
The
story is about a woman named Soledad. She has a husband named, Pedro. Pedro
keeps two keys. One key is big and shiny while the other one is small and
rusty. He keeps them in the pocket of his jacket. He gave the big one to
Soledad and did not remove the other one from his pocket. One day, it was too
hot, so Pedro had to remove his jacket before leaving to the field. When
Soledad folded the jacket, the small key fell.
The small key is for a different trunk. She can’t stop thinking
about it. Eventually, she opened the trunk using the small key and had known
that the trunk contains clothes of the first wife of Pedro. She feared that,
Pedro is still in love with her. What she did was she burned the clothes. Pedro
knew it later on. He became angry about it but still decided to forgive his
wife because he loves her. Still, he was sad about the happening.
The Small Key is one of her works. The story above is the
summary of it. Enjoy!
Moral
of the story: If we know that we love a certain person
and that person also loves us back, we should not doubt it. That could start a
conflict in the relationship.
Sources:
https://www.wattpad.com/87614586-brief-summary-of-the-small-key
Sources of the
photo:
http://johnremar.blogspot.com/2010/08/reflective-essay-small-key.html
It helped me a lot :) Thanks :)
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