Growing Up Process In At The Cafe Lovely By Rattawut Lapcharoensap

Growing up process in “At the Café Lovely” depicted using symbolism and flashbacks On the journey of becoming adults, there is this idea that children venture into the unknown and as they emerge from it, they acquire valuable lessons contributing to their personalities, who they are, or where they belong in the society. For example, a child may face a challenge during his or her teenage years and it may change his or her view of life. Exploring the characters’ growing up process has always been a common subject matter in many works of literature. To illustrate, there are countless works which focus both particularly and partially on themes related to growing up. One such is the short story “At the Café Lovely” by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (1979 - present). In the short story, the author conveys that a child’s growing up process is influenced by the people as depicted by using the techniques of symbolism and flashbacks. Taking place in the slums of modern-day Bangkok at its industrial height, the story introduces two characters, the narrator who is a boy of …show more content…
However, these objects represents things that are abstract, namely, ideas or messages the author tries to convey. One example of the use of symbolism is “The Café Lovely” representing the concept of leaving childhood. In the story, the café is a karaoke night club that allows grownups, particularly men, to enjoy themselves by singing, dancing, drinking, and being with prostitutes. In the story, the narrator, seeing his brother going to the club frequently, asks to go with him one day not knowing how it really is. This represents the innocent curiosity about adulthood of a boy on the verge of becoming a teenager. This could be caused by the boy’s desire to become like his brother and the fact that his mature brother visits it