“Mom, we finished reading a book in class today!” “What was it about? “It was a very interesting book. It was about friendship,growth, and...death” “Well...that sounds like an very interesting book. What the name of it?” “Tangerine!” Tangerine is a novel by Edward Bloor that tells the story of our protagonist Paul, and his story of his life once he gets to Tangerine, Florida where many strange things happen. He transferred to three schools in total; the first one, Lake Windsor Middle, was a school he did not last long in, due to a sinkhole; the second one, Tangerine Middle, was the school where Paul joins the soccer team, and finds unforgettable relationships. Meanwhile, the antagonist, Erik, Paul’s brother, is planning treacherous things and Paul wants to know what he’s doing and is trying to expose him. He is also trying to figure out what happened to his eyesight, and how he got the coke bottle glasses he has due to continuous flashbacks. But in the novel Tangerine, Edward utilizes symbolism and environment to convey the theme of growth. …show more content…
A way we see this is in p.g.15: “Muck fire ma’am. The field probably got hit by lightning last night. Stirred up the muck fire.” We also see this in p.g. 303: “the scent of golden dawn tangerine.” The author shows this as things repeated throughout the story. The lighting is a trigger and the muck fire are the flashbacks that Paul continuously gets. The golden dawn tangerine represents Paul’s new future at Tangerine. Both of these symbols show growth for Paul as he uncovers new things about him throughout the
The most unforgettable scene is the final moments of the film, just before the "all quiet on the western front" armistice and with all of his comrades gone, soldiers are bailing water out of a dilapidated trench. The faint sound of a harmonica can be heard. Paul is sitting alone, daydreaming inside the trench on a seemingly peaceful, bright day. He is exhausted by terror and boredom. Through the gunhole of his trench, he sees a beautiful lone butterfly that has landed just beyond his reach next to a discarded tin can outside the parapet. He begins to carefully reach out over the protection of his bunker with his hand to grasp it, momentarily forgetting the danger that is ever-present. As he stretches his hand out yearning for its beauty, a distant French sniper prepares to take careful aim through a scope on a rifle. As he leans out closer to the butterfly and extends his hand, suddenly the sharp whining sound of a shot is heard.
Have you ever been affected by a sibling or met someone that has? Weather you have or not, you should know that there are many effects caused by having a sibling. Well in the book Tangerine By Edward Bloor, Paul is affected by his brother Erik on many more occasions than any sibling should be. In this book Eriks choices affect Paul by forcing him to look like a freak, become embarrassed, and feel like a loser.
Everyone has a mentor. Most people look up to their parents, a friend or sibling, but in Paul's case it was a tangerine farmer who was also the brother of his friend his mentor was Luis Cruz. In the novel tangerine Luis Cruz represents the mythological archetype of the mentor by keeping paul motivated, staying positive, and giving advice while acting as Paul's conscience.
In Tangerine Paul may be blind physically but he can see what his parents’ and the townspeople can’t. Paul, a middle school student and the main character, is physically blind and is looking for answers from the past. Erik, Paul's big brother, is a superstar football kicker and bully who is driven by anger and frustration. Their parents are struggling with the secrets from the past and the effect that they have on the family and the families future. Tangerine county in Florida has the well off town of Lake Windsor, where the Fisher family lives, and the poorer town of Tangerine. The author Edward Bloor utilizes blindness to symbolize how Paul may be visually impaired but can see social injustice, while Erik and his
Symbols are one of those most important things to a story. They share the meaning of themselves, as well as the meaning for something else. Symbols usually make the important ideas stick out as well as make the reader have different ideas of what is actually being said. One of the many symbols in “Paul’s Case” is flower’s. From violets to carnations, the flowers Paul talks about are ones of many meanings. The flowers represent a continual motif, expressing Paul’s character.
War destroys Paul and his friends. Those who physically survive the bombing, the bullets and bayonets are annihilated by physical attacks on their sanity.
The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan recounts the events of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lives of two individuals: Dalia, a Bulgarian jew, and Bashir, a Palestinian muslim. The Lemon Tree is a story of persecution , its consequences, and of human nature. In the 1940s the Nazis began the holocaust, a mass extermination of the jewish people and others that the Nazis deemed as “undesirable”, prompting many Jews to flee and seek refuge. Jewish emigration from countries in eastern Europe was met with anti semitic immigration policies in the west, thus leading to the mass migration of Jews to Palestine. The tensions between the jewish and arab Palestinians eventually evolved into the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. Citizens of Palestine were
The Catcher in the rye , a novel by J.D Salinger is about a young teenage boy named Holden who has been kicked out of his current school and leaves earlier than he is supposed to because of a fight with a student. He decides to explore New York before going straight home . During his exploration he has encounters with prostitutes , teachers , nuns , an old girlfriend , and his sister. During his time in New York , the theme alienation for self protection and numbness caught my attention.
Morrison uses color to symbolize the life Paul D desires as he is heading North. When Paul D asks the Cherokee man “how he might get North. Free North. Magical North,” (Morrison 112) he conveys his desire for a free, safe, happy and even somewhat magical life. Equating color with this life, the Cherokee man replies, “Follow the tree flowers.” When one thinks about or describes flowers, their colors are always important. In his journey North, Paul D would “scan the horizon for a flash of pink or white...[or] blossoming plums” (Morrison 113). By having Paul D search for colorful flowers, Morrison illustrates Paul D’s desire for a life full of safety, enjoyment, and freedom.
Many people who have been in wars suffer from PTSD, and Paul has been unable to avoid it, especially after seeing the horrible things he has seen out on the front. On his leave, he was walking along the street, and he describes his experience: “...I have been startled a couple of times in the street by the screaming of the tramcars, which resembles the shriek of a shell coming straight for one…” (Remarque 165). He has linked the sound of the shell with death, thus giving him reason to be frightened. No longer can he relax at home because anything that resembles the sound of the shell will activate his PTSD, an intentional theme that Remarque uses. In the midst of the war, Paul has another episode where he says, “...I see the grey, implacable muzzle of a rifle which moves noiselessly before me whichever way I try to turn my head. The sweat breaks out from every pore” (Remarque 210). Already, Paul is under a lot of stress being out in the tunnels of the front alone, and on top of that, he has to deal with PTSD. Remarque uses this scene to show that PTSD develops much sooner in wars than most thought, and to show its brutal effects. With both PTSD and depression, Paul is spiraling into a world of physical pain and mental
Eleven-year-old David Lear thrives in boarding school, but his family’s lives are a mess. The coming-of-age novel, Leaving Maggie Hope by Anthony Abbott, illustrates the story of David’s obstacle-filled life. His mother's alcoholism causes him to be sent away to boarding school, with his live-saving godmother paying the tuition. At his new school, David faces social challenges, like making friends. Ultimately, he drifts away from his dysfunctional family and focuses more on his academics, winning the Founder’s Medal, the prize for having the highest average at the time of his graduation. Leaving Maggie Hope therefore exemplifies an effective piece of literature because David evolves into
At the beginning of his story, Holden is a student at Pencey Prep School. Having been expelled for failing four out of his five classes, Holden leaves school and spends 72 hours in New York City before returning home. There, Holden encounters new ideas, people, and experiences. Holden's psychological battle within himself serves as the tool that uncovers the coming-of-age novel's underlying themes of teen angst, depression, and the disingenuous nature of society. The novel tackles issues of blatant profanity, teenage sex, and other erratic behavior.
In the beginning of the story, Paul seems to be a typical teenage boy: in trouble for causing problems in the classroom. As the story progresses, the reader can infer that Paul is rather withdrawn. He would rather live in his fantasy world than face reality. Paul dreaded returning home after the Carnegie Hall performances. He loathed his "ugly sleeping chamber with the yellow walls," but most of all, he feared his father. This is the first sign that he has a troubled homelife. Next, the reader learns that Paul has no mother, and that his father holds a neighbor boy up to Paul as "a model" . The lack of affection that Paul received at home caused him to look elsewhere for the attention that he craved.
The idea of “beating back the past” creates an important and symbolic theme within the book. This notion can be seen through many of the characters; however, Morrison highlights this idea by slowly revealing parts of Paul D’s life that depict a crucial part of the story. Paul D beats back the past and buries it “where it belonged in that tobacco tin in his chest where a red heart used to be” (Morrison 86). The black tobacco is the abstract form of the past that seeks to come out, and the red heart within his chest becomes tainted as each day passes and the past locks itself further into his body. One of the reasons the past is treated as such as cancer is because it brings back the memories of the monotonous life slaves had on the plantations;
Over the last decade it has become more visible that the Florida citrus industry has taken a fall. A lack of fruit productions or the suddenly disappearing orange trees, the question arises “what is the cause of the downfall in the citrus industry?” From the time that citrus canker has showed up in Florida in 2005, it has done nothing but damage and hurt all citrus growers as well as the industry as a whole. Though citrus canker is a large topic only the cause and effects of canker in Florida as well as cure and preventatives will be discussed.