The most merciless aspect of life is that it continues on even in the lives of significant others even after the death of the loved ones. In the novella ‘Kitchen’, the theme of alleviating the pain of losing family members is well illustrated by the author, Banana Yoshimoto. The novella, written in 1988, tells a story about a young girl, Mikage, who heals from the grief of her grandmother’s death, through, and by helping her friend, Yuichi, to recover. The author seamlesslyseemlessly expresses significant changes in the characters, from despair to restoration, by depicting how people may look for comfort in such unusual ways.

PeoplePeople in desperate situations search for comfort whenever and wherever they can, regardless of whether that comfort is condoned by their culture. In the novella Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto, characters heal in unconventional ways that the vast majority of people would find difficult. The characters in Kitchen avoid loneliness by looking for similarities to create a sense of culture. The culturesCultures changed in the 1980s and continue to change. Thus, events that once were shocking have become normal in the modern day. Fortunately, people are better learning to adapt to modern urban cultures.

(Introduction and Conclusion)