Analysis of "Evaluations" and "When Done for Thee" by Alfredo Litiatco

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Alfredo Elfren Litiatco was born on July 9, 1908 in Manila to Kapampangan and Tagalog parents. He was a poet, an essayist, a short story writer, a critic and an editor. He discovered such writers as Ligaya Victorio-Reyes and Estrella Alfon-Rivera while he was the literary editor of the Graphic.

He used to be called the "Ariel of Philippine Letters." He was also called by noted writer Manuel Viray as "one of the foremost practitioners of light verse in the Philippines," and Jose Garcia Villa ranked him as "among the best short story writers in the Philippines."

His poem "Evaluations" is about how he had observed his reactions to certain situations. The poem starts with how he would react when he treads upon a worm wherein he squirms, and the next is when he sees dogs handled badly, he curses. The third situation is when he fumes at horses being punished by a rich man or its groom.

As he progressed through the poem, his reactions to these situations are graduated as he went up the biological ladder. But then at the end of the poem, he said he would not cry if some people he knew died. By this time, the reader would have expected that his emotions would be much stronger towards these people who he referred to, but he actually doesn't care a bit for these people. He uses the word "some" to qualify the noun people, to emphasize that he wouldn't feel that way about all people, but only for some. Maybe bad people, criminals, people who don't care about anyone but themselves. Or maybe he had some people in mind who he hated very much. It could have been personal, people he knew very well, or people he had heard about from the...