Coming of Age

The book’s primary thematic consideration is defined by, and manifested in, the journey of its young central characters from childhood to young adulthood, an archetypal journey that has its own genre of narrative – coming-of-age. In such narratives, a child (or a child-like person) has experiences that trigger a transformation from naïveté to awareness, one that involves a loss of innocence and a gaining of knowledge, perspective, and a degree of adulthood. Such journeys can relate to a specific experience, such as learning about sex, love, or the lives of parents as human beings, or they can relate to broader experiences of simply learning what it means to be a human being in a complicated world. In Fruit of the Drunken Tree, both its central characters, Chula and Petrona, go through these sorts of experiences, starting the narrative with a degree of innocence...