Title Champoon

Author Theb Mahapaorya

When Nai Amnuey began to work for a mining company

near Taimuang, he had made a reputation for himself. He
became popular at Taimuang, and this led to a clash with
one important person of the whole of Bhuket. The man was
Taokae Soon. Their conflict became known all over the area
even though they never met in open battle. Taokae Soon had
a daughter named Champoon. Nai Amnuey and Champoon
met by accident and fell in love with each other. They had
trysts, and soon the talk about their love affair spread in
town and reached the ear of Taokae Soon. Champoon was,
Five sentences then, held like a prisoner in their house. She was accused of
summary of the story not preserving herself and was tortured. Because her father
wouldn’t believe that she was still untouched and was
severely beaten for it, Champoon vowed that she would give
herself to Nai Amnuey. One morning, Nai Amnuey had
woken up to see Champoon, with chains around her ankles
and waist, by the door, but Champoon saw that Nai Amnuey
was with another woman, a courtesan whom a group of his
friends brought to console him. The next moment,
Champoon was gone. Nai Amnuey went out after her, but
she could not be seen anywhere. For the next twenty-four
hours, Nai Amnuey had been searching with the help of his
workmen for Champoon. He even went to Taokae Soon to
ask if Champoon had returned, but the man only laughed at
his face. The way to Nai Amnuey’s house was a river infested
with fierce crocodiles. Later, the boatmen found on a low
branch of a tree a piece of chain tied to a human leg that was
torn away at the knee.

Vocabulary Vocabulary Words

Development
(Definition in the Tryst
context of the short - a private romantic rendezvous between lovers.
story)
Lavish
- generous and extravagant.

Conspicuously
- in a way that attracts notice or attention.

Vaguely
 - in a way that is uncertain, indefinite or unclear; roughly.

Emaciated
- very thin and weak, usually because of illness or extreme
hunger.

Figurative Language Flashback

and/or other -The whole story of Nai Amnuey and Champoon is a
Literary Devices flashback. The present time is that of the narrator visiting
Nai Amnuey in a hospital. Nai Amnuey then tells his story by
retelling his past (the main story) that led to his present
condition.

Irony
-The irony in the story is an example of a situational irony. It
is a situational irony because there had been a discrepancy
between the expected and actual result. Love usually brings
happiness and joy to the lovers, but in the case of Nai
Amnuey and Champoon, love had brought distress to both.
Due also to the circumstances of the two, their love had
been greatly objected and had faced many obstacles until it
finally led to the death of Champoon.

Foreshadowing
-The passages cited above may have hinted on what the plot
perhaps would develop to be. With the author going in such
a detail to describe the two ways that would take one across
the river to the area to the mouth of river, and the emphasis
of there being fierce crocodiles foreshadowed the event that
perhaps one of the characters would come to confront
obstacles that had to do with the crocodiles. Besides, with
Nai Amnuey having an illness but could only associate
Taimuang with that of champoons, crocodiles and iron
chains tells us a lot that the crocodiles would play a great
part in the story.

ELEMENTS
 SETTING
The story opens at a special ward in hospital, but the significant
part of the story takes place in Taimuang, Pangnga. Taimuang
was the center of many mining districts, and this is where Nai
Amnuey had taken a job and where he became very popular. It
is in this place that he had met and known Taokae Soon and
Champoon. The climax of the story takes place at the house of
PLACE Nai Amnuey. It was a roughly built wooden bungalow. Three
rooms opened to the verandah from which steps led to the
ground. The first room was his bedroom. He had his meals in
the second. A passage from his room takes one to the kitchen
and the bathroom. The last room was where he kept his
documents and was always locked. He seldom locked his
bedroom, and this is where the culmination of the story took
place. Towards the resolution of the story, the place setting is
taken to the banks of the river where Nai Amnuey desperately
searched for Champoon.

In the climax of the story, the time setting which is important to

note is that one morning that Nai Amnuey woke up to find the
morning sun glaring right at his face. The effect was great as one
would try to imagine it. The front door was opened, and the
TIME light of the sun came rushing through that open door. It shone
upon the gauzelike and nebulous mosquito net and revealed Nai
Amnuey with Anita. With Champoon standing by the door, and
partly blocking the passage of the morning light of the sun, Nai
Amnuey had, at first, only made out a silhouette before finally
realizing that it was really Champoon who was by the door.

CHARACTERS (Identify: Protagonist or Antagonist; Major or Minor; Characteristics;

Round, Flat, Dynamic, Static)

Champoon (Protagonist)
-Champoon was a bright and attractive girl. She was a girl who
did attract at first sight, but once one takes a second, earnest
look, her beauty is revealed. She was an overpowering,
compelling and unyielding person. When her mind was made
up, nothing in the world could change it. No one could stop her
carrying out what she was determined to do. So that when she
vowed to give herself to Nai Amnuey once she had escaped, she
really fled to him. She enjoyed keeping herself busy with all
kinds of housework and home crafts. She read a great deal, and
she enjoyed excursions to the jungle where she most probably
met Nai Amnuey. With her education and upbringing, she was
also a girl who chooses to suffer than to take the easy way out.
This is evidenced when she refused to elope with Nai Amnuey
and instead met the wrath of Taokae Soon. Champoon is a
consistent character in a way that her actions, attitudes, feelings,
and decisions are what the reader has been led to believe.

Nai Amnuey (Protagonist)

- Nai Amnuey was a good-looking, intelligent young man. He was
well-built. He wore his clothes properly, and he had a manner of
a well-bred man. At sixteen, he was a little wild. At Taimuang, he
became well-known for all vices4women, drinking and
gambling. He was very popular and was a friend of everyone. He
liked to be ahead in other things. He never allowed anyone to be
superior to him. He was always the leader, never the follower. He
loved to spend his time in various clubs at Taimuang. He also
liked to read and to listen to the radio after work. He was also
nationalistic. Also, he was the only man who had dared to stand
up against Taokae Soon in that part of the country. He was
himself a normal young man who was prone to the usual
temptations that when Anita, a courtesan, told him that she
liked him for his looks and good manners, he had accepted her.
Nai Amnuey is the protagonist because he is the central agent in
generating the plot of the story.

Taokae Soon (Antagonist)

-Taokae Soon also known as Big Brother Soon was one
important person of Taimuang, in fact the whole of Bhuket. He
was friend and acquaintance to every man in the region. He was
the father of Champoon. His influence was felt most in
Taimuang, Takuapa, Pangnga, Koakloy and Tungmaprao. He had
the reputation for being the most lavish entertainer. He was
strongly nationalistic and was always sarcastically subtle. He
was also a veteran gambler. He had the same obstinacy and
determination just like his daughter. He was brutal and cold-
hearted in a way that he refused to accept and to understand
Champoon’s explanation of things, rather he resorted to
violence. He lashed, chained, and severely beat his own
daughter. In fact, he had sworn that he would not relent even if
the conflict between them would eventually destroy one of
them. Like Nai Amnuey, he was truly the kind of person who
never allowed anyone to be on top him. So that when people
started to compare Nai Amnuey and his original tactics with that
of Taokae Soon who, as mentioned, was a veteran gambler, the
two became enemies. Taokae Soon really hated Nai Amnuey that
he would rather see his daughter dead than be married to him.
 He is the antagonist in the story as he is the force in conflict with
Nai Amnuey.

Anita (Flat Character)

-Anita was the courtesan from Penang that a group of Nai
Amnuey’s friends brought to console him when his love affair
with Champoon was revealed, and she was kept in the house
and was not allowed to go out. Anita was a Filipina with a raise
of Portuguese, but she could pass for a Thai. She was beautiful
and her personality seemed fascinating. When she was told to
go, she chose to remain with Nai Amnuey because it seemed like
she had taken a liking to him because of his looks and his good
manner.

PLOT

Introduction/Exposition
-At the opening of the story, the narrator is introduced to a patient around twenty-seven
or twenty-eight years old. The patient is Nai Amnuey. He is in the hospital because of a
violent shock that made his consciousness shut off from the world. His brain cannot
accept any other impression except only for the shocking event that happened in his life.
Despite this, his illness does not show in his looks, and he is proper in manners. He then
retells his story from the time he became independent and worked with the Australians
to the time he worked for the Yukon Gold Mining Company near Taimuang, where he
stayed for many years.

Complications
-With his money, Nai Amnuey became a friend of everyone. He became very popular in
Taimuang especially where women, drinking and gambling were concerned. With his
private and original tactics, he managed to weaken veteran gamblers although he was
new in this sort of game. People talked about his strategies. This led to a clash against
Taokae Soon, a veteran gambler and important person of the whole of Bhuket. The two
became enemies even though they had never met in open battle, and their conflict
became known all over the area. Taokae Soon had a daughter named Champoon who
enjoyed excursions to the jungle. Nai Amnuey and Champoon met by accident and fell in
love with each other. They had to keep their relationship a secret, and they had trysts.

Rising Action
-The love affair of Nai Amnuey and Champoon became the talk of the town, and it soon
reached the ear of Taokae Soon. Champoon was kept in the house. She was lashed,
chained, and tortured. Her father accused her of bringing shame to their family with the
several secret meetings she had with Nai Amnuey. She told him that she was still
untouched, but as her father would not believe her and tortured her for it, she vowed to
give herself to Nai Amnuey. Meanwhile, a group of Nai Amnuey’s friends held a party for
him and brought him a courtesan to console him. The woman was Anita, and she went
with Nai Amnuey to his residence.

Climax
Nai Amnuey woke at the sound of the creaking front door. He got up to find a naked
Champoon with an iron chain around her ankles and waist by the door, but Champoon
saw that there was another woman on the bed with him. They were speechless. When he
looked up, Champoon was gone. Nai Amnuey ran after her as soon as he had recovered
his senses from the shock.

Falling Action
-For the next twenty-four hours, Nai Amnuey had been searching for Champoon. He had
ordered his workmen to look for her as well. He even went as far as going to Taokae Soon
to ask if Champoon had returned home safely, but Taokae Soon only laughed at his face.
Nai Amnuey had dozed off and when he woke up, the boatmen had found something on a
low branch of a tree. It was a piece of chain tied around a human leg that was torn away
at the knee.

Plot Technique (Identify: Suspense, Foreshadowing, Flashback, Surprise Ending):

Foreshadowing
-“Hadyai and other such places had women, drinking and gambling. But Taimuang had
champoons, crocodiles and iron chains.”

“The other way was to get a boat that would take you across the river right to the area to
the mouth. Then you trek on foot across the jungle of Taimuang. This would take only
three hours. But there are serious disadvantages traveling this way. You could easily lose
way to the jungle unless you know the paths very well.”

“Yes, the part of the river swarmed with crocodiles, the fiercest that I have ever seen.
When father was governor of Nakom Sritammaraj, I accompanied him during his
crocodile hunting in the Pak Payur district which was believed to be ideal for crocodile
hunting. But really cannot be comparing with the river near our mines. Here the
crocodiles would jump without warming at me in the boat.”

Flashback
-The whole story of Nai Amnuey and Champoon is a flashback. The present time is that of
the narrator visiting Nai Amnuey in a hospital. Nai Amnuey then tells his story by
retelling his past (the main story) that led to his present condition.

POINT OF VIEW (Check which is applicable and identify the specifics)

The vantage point from which the story is told is

third person point of view. The story opens with the
narrator talking to the director of the hospital about
a patient whose symptoms they could not come to
First person POV (singular or any definite conclusion. Then the narrator talks to
plural) the patient, who then retells his story. The point of
view is that of a third person point of view because a
minor character is narrating the story. In here, the
narrator has completely nothing to do with the story
itself. He does not have any part in the main story
itself, but he is only taken to narrate the retelling of
the story of Nai Amnuey.

Conflict of man against man/ Social Conflict

-Nai Amnuey had made a reputation for himself, a
reputation for all the vices4women, drinking and
gambling. He became a friend of everyone and was
very popular at Taimuang. This led to a clash with
one important person of Taimuang and the whole of
Bhuket. The man was Taokae Soon. He was a veteran
External gambler while Nai Amnuey was young and new in
Character vs. Society gambling. Nevertheless, Nai Amnuey managed to
weaken the veterans in gambling using his original
strategies. He was the only man who had dared to
stand up against Taokae Soon in that part of the
country that Taokae Soon had ruled for decades.
Though the two never met in open battle, their
conflict became known all over the area.Taokae Soon
had been the king of the jungle for so long that it was
impossible for him to tolerate the situation. Taokae
Soon hated Nai Amnuey so he greatly objected to his
relationship with his daughter. He would rather
choose to see his daughter dead than to see her be
married with him.

Conflict of man against animal

-There were two ways of traveling from Taimuang to
the mouth of river where the company headquarters
 of Nai Amnuey was. One way was to go upstream in a
boat up to a road on the other bank, then wait for a
bus and then go downstream towards the mouth of
the river. This meant sitting stiff in the boat for six
hours at most. The other way was to get a boat going
across the river right to the area of its mouth and
then trek on foot across the jungle of Taimuang. This
would only take three hours. However, there was this
part of the river that swarmed with the fiercest
crocodiles. This was also the way to the house of Nai
Amnuey. Crocodiles make a meal of a human being
by taking the body on land. It would hold a part of
the body with its mouth and beat the body against a
tree. It would eat whatever part fell off the body each
time. It would go on beating and eating until the
whole thing was in shreds. It is implied at the end of
the story by the piece of chain around a human leg
that was found by the boatmen that Champoon was
eaten by crocodiles.

Conflict of man against circumstances

-The circumstances of Nai Amnuey and Champoon
were factors that contribute to the tragic ending of
their love story. Because Champoon was the
daughter of Taokae Soon, who took Nai Amnuey as
his enemy, their relationship was greatly objected.
Besides, the family of Taokae Soon was Chinese, and
he made a point that he would not allow his daughter
to marry a Thai. When Champoon confessed that she
loved Nai Amnuey and that they had trysts, Taokae
Soon felt betrayed at Champoon loving the man
whom he hated and who was his worst enemy.

The basic idea in the story is betrayal. The story has

also suggested the concept of pride and superiority.
THEME/S The significant part of the story that eventually leads
to culmination of the conflict, however, is betrayal.
The concept of pride and feeling of superiority can
both be referred to Nai Amnuey and Taokae Soon.
Both never allowed anyone to be superior to them.
Taokae Soon himself was always at the head of
everything, and he settled things outside the court,
 may it be legal or illegal cases. High government
officials easily succumbed to the comforts that he
lavishly entertained them with. Nai Amnuey on the
other hand always acted as leader. He was never a
follower himself, and he became popular with all
vices and was eventually being compared with
Taokae Soon who was also a veteran gambler. But as
Nai Amnuey came into the picture, how would a tiger,
the king, allow a strange animal to invade his
territory without doing anything about it? Taokae
Soon hated Nai Amnuey so much that when he had
known that he and his daughter were lovers, he felt
being betrayed by Champoon as she had loved his
worst enemy. He had resorted to great measures just
to separate the two. On the part of Nai Amnuey, his
finding consolation in Anita became the cause of his
betrayal. Champoon had suffered a lot in the hands of
his father because of her relationship with Nai
Amnuey that when she had the chance to escape, she
had fled directly to him only to find him with another
woman. When her father didn’t want to listen to her
explanations, she had vowed to give herself to Nai
Amnuey. She suffered even more considering how
she ever got into his residence with the river being
infested with crocodiles. She must have felt betrayed
after seeing him with another woman.

“Death”
Particularly speaking, the tone of the story is the
death of Champoon. Nai Amnuey, as well as his
workmen, had been searching for Champoon
TONES desperately. They hadn’t found Champoon, but what
they did found was a piece of chain around a human
leg that was torn at the knee. The chain had pointed
that the leg was Champoon’s because Champoon was
chained around her ankles and waist by his father.

Insights/Reflections from the Story

The way Champoon was described as overpowering, compelling and unyielding makes it
apparent that Champoon is a character of strong personality. Before her stubbornness,
even her father would not press obedience whenever it was more convenient to
compromise. It seemed that she inherited his willfulness. So, applying the consistency
principle of characterization, Champoon is not likely the kind who would throw herself
into the river to be purposely eaten by the crocodiles. This kind of personality seems
suicidal and suggests a person of weak character which would be so contradictory to the
character of Champoon. The former does not explain why Champoon ended up being
eaten.

So, if it isn’t the former, then it must have been the latter. Is that it then? To truly answer
this, let us first gather the facts and put up a cogent argument to support our claim. It is
mentioned in the story that Champoon, because of her education and upbringing, refused
to elope with Nai Amnuey. If that is so, what made her decide to risk going to his
residence? Remember that when Champoon made up her mind, nothing in the world
could change it. No one could stop her from carrying out what she was determined to do.
She decided to flee to Nai Amnuey because no matter how she defended herself and tried
to explain that she was never touched by Nai Amnuey, her father, Taokae Soon, wouldn’t
believe her and instead tortured and beat her up severely. Because of that, Champoon
vowed, “I told you I am still untouched, and you don’t believe me. You cursed and beat me.
I will now go to Nai Ammuey and give myself to him, heaven be my witness.” Everyone
knew that Champoon would keep her word for she had not said anything which she did
not carry out. So, unlikely that champoon would swim back to her father to confess that
she loved the wrong man because she would be contradicting herself. It is as good as
going back on her word after she had made a vow. So, taking again into consideration the
attitudes, principles, and ways of Champoon, her character as described in the story does
not justify as why she would swim back to her father to confess that she loved the wrong
man. I fairly think that she neither did the former not the latter. Perhaps, having felt
betrayed, she just might have tried to get as far as possible from the place of Nai Amnuey
to recollect herself, but considering that she was already severely weakened, she might
have run to unfortunate circumstance while trying to get away.

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