LITERATURES OF THE WORLD

CRITICAL PAPER

The Taximan’s Story

From the book “Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore”

Written by Catherine Lim

Agtarap, Jacob Altair

Agcaoili, Juneleen Ruth

Vicente, Joyce

Yabis, Reizel Mae

 Catherine Lim Poh Imm or popularly known as Catherine Lim is said to be the doyenne
or the leading figure of Singapore stories. She is best known for her collections of short stories.
One of the books she wrote is the “Little Ironies: Short Stories of Singapore” which is actually
her first book. In the book, one of the short stories included is titled “The Taximan’s Story”
which is about a taxi driver and his life story. The structure of the story is a one-way
conversation wherein the taxi driver who is the speaker and the passenger whom he called
Madam but the passenger’s replay was excluded. The story begun in Singapore, specifically
inside the taxi or public vehicle, wherein a passenger is going to her meeting. The driver then
tells stories about his life, his children and the condition of Singapore in the past and the present.
And as he goes on, he then tackles about the differences of today’s youth and the youth in the
past. The younger generations now are much bolder in a way, their behavior and attitudes, unlike
in his generation were youths were conservative and disciplined because of how strict their
parents are.

In the short story, it is in a monologue type wherein the taxi driver is speaking to his
passenger but there are no replies coming from the passenger. It can be said that the author
omitted the replies of the passenger in order for the readers to understand or feel the passenger’s
perspective while listening to the taximan’s life story. In addition, the author was once a teacher
before being a writer and the passenger in the story is also a teacher thus, we can assume that the
author wanted her readers to experience what she had experienced at one point when riding a
taxi. Moreover, the grammar usage of the author is bad. Well, this is to represent the uneducated

In the scenario wherein he talks about the issues about his daughter, who apparently one
of the young school girls who lies to their parents and go to different places with their foreign
boyfriends to have fun and make money, it is surprising in the sense that the driver tells about his
private matters to a stranger in a public circumstance. This is an unusual thing to talk about with
a complete stranger nonetheless more importantly it concerns with his family. Also, his daughter
is found to be one of these girls thus, this shows his concerns more because he is speaking
negatively to these girls but his daughter is also one of these girls. In addition, the youths the he
speaks negatively of are actually one of his sources to make a living because they give more
money. He is actually the one who drive them to their destinations and receive sum of money
from it. He also became a factor that lead the youth to the places they went instead of warning
them for what they are doing because he is a father himself and he also has a daughter like them.

Parents are very much willing to spend blood, sweat and tears in order to provide for their
offspring. They sacrifice literally everything for the sake of their children. However, with the
lack of proper monitoring and guidance, teenagers may have the tendency to be prone to
wrongdoings. Parents need to instill strong guiding principles on their children in order for them
not go astray. They have to constantly participate in honing their children to be better at
decision-making. Parents must never fail to teach the importance between the value of money
and hard work – that money easily earned would easily vanish.

One way to look at this one is that the driver never blamed himself for what he has done.
The fact that his source of income comes from those who he talks negatively is merely a
hypocrisy on his part. Well yes. Hypocrisy in a way that he hates or condemns prostitution but he
himself allows this type of actions to continue, such as letting this type of individuals ride in his
taxi. But what can he do? It's his job and source of income. But we can't call him a hypocrite
because he still follows and believes that prostitution is bad. Just look how he beats her daughter
when comparing with her daughter and other people. The father has a closer relationship with her
daughter and he really doesn't have a say in other people's lives (I mean he can't just punch the
high schooler prostitutes that ride in his taxi). In terms of her daughter however, he thinks he has
the duty to educate her that's why he thinks it's ok to harm her. Another thing is also his
parenting. It is an authoritarian way of parenting wherein it is very strict that is why it is too early
to judge the daughter of the driver about being a prostitute. It happens to a lot of women. It could
be a coping mechanism because of strict the strictness of her father. Yes, she knows its bad. She
is smart as we can see in her grades. It is just that we never really got to see her side of the story
because of patriarchy.

The daughter of the driver and other female youths are presented in the story as weak
because of being prostitute and also the daughter is getting beaten by his father after knowing
that she is a prostitute. This may be seen as patriarchal society wherein the male dominates the
female but it is ironic that the male here is predominant than female because of the author of the
story is female herself. It is as if women are being presented in the story as an object. The
perception of female in millennial time has already changed since the previous times because of
the feminism movement. This might be assumed that the author despite being a female has
observed the society before or probably that some women around her time when she wrote the
story is doing the same thing.

Final thoughts. This story might talk about the youth lying and doing bad things, and
saying that their generation is bad. But we think, what is really being portrayed here is addressed
towards parents or adults not properly handling their children. It is an eye opener not in a way
that a lot of youth is doing these things but more or less saying we have failed to educate our
children. This however does not support the acts of the father as it is literally physical abuse. It
wouldn't even have happened in the first place if they were able to talk things out with her
daughter. Nevertheless, we really don't know the situation of their father and daughter
relationship. Like was it bad, was the daughter deprived of doing things she want, was the father
overly strict, is it because she had no money, etc. So we can't really know for sure why the
daughter did those actions. This is the flaw of the way this story is written as it is only showing
the side of the driver. It is up for the readers to interpret what the bigger picture is. Perhaps it is
just an overthinking for our part. It might just be the writer trying to subtly imply patriarchal
issues, of how men are far superior and the abuse of women is still aparent. The way the author
made use of wrong grammar to stereotype uneducated individuals or perhaps for the story to be
more realistic. Or it is what it is and just saying that a lot of youth are lying to their parents.