Little Ironies-- The Taximan's Story

Q1. What is the irony in the story?
At first, the taximan encouraged and did oppose social escorts because of the profit he earned sending them to their destinations. He could cheat them by running the meter and driving round and round while they were "busy" as they would not pay any attention. However, after his daughter became a social escort herself, the taximan opposed strongly of it and almost beat her to death. This is irony as he supported social escorts but did not want his daughter to become one.

Q2. What are the themes raised in the story?
The themes raised in the story are trust and betrayal and human nature. The themes trust and betrayal are raised when Lay Choo betrayed her father's trust in her and became a social escort. The theme human nature is raised when the taximan encouraged social escorts because of money. It is human nature to support something that provides us with money. However, I think that we should not do that.

Q3. How realistic is the story?
This story is quite realistic as even now, there are still many cases of such things happening all ovet the world and most of the cases can be linked to this story.

Q4. What do you think of the taximan? Do you feel sympathy for him?
I think that the taximan should not support social escorts because of the profits he earned. However, I feel a bit sympathy for him as he must really be very heartbroken to see his daughter doing this.

Q5. Do you agree with his lamenting?
I agree with him when he lamented that nowadays there are many social escorts that do not study and cause trouble, play truant, take drugs, and all sorts of bad things. There is a big differnece from the teenagers of the past and the present. The present teenagers are becoming more violent and abusive while the teenagers from the past are meek and always obeyed their parents in fear of being caned or punished.

Q6. What about the other characters in the story? Do you feel sympathy for them?
The other characters in the story includes the teacher that the taximan was fetching, Lay Choo and the rest of the teenagers who have gone astray. Compared to the past, the teachers may be finding it more difficult to understand and control the students from going astray. I feel sympathy for them as they must really be very distressed to see their students turning bad. I sympathise with Lay Choo only if she did this to earn money for her University education but still feel that she should not use this method to earn money. Most of the teenagers that have gone astray have social or emotional problems. Also, their family background may not be very good, thus resulting in a lousy learning environment which would lead to such things happening. I sympathise with them as some of them may not have the money to study like us.