The Tortilla Curtain

Introduction

Southern California is known as a house of millions of immigrants, which includes, both legal as well as illegal. Majority of these immigrants have migrated with the state of mind that they will fruitfully find their “American Dream” through hard work, honesty, and determination. However, the existence, most imagined in America, develops into an impoverished, struggle-filled ordeal. T.C. Boyle's Tortilla Curtain (1995) elaborates to its readers that how, in actuality, well-established Americans intentionally try to suppress the immigrants' “American Dream” into something similar to a frightening dream by creating a division and discriminating them in every walk of life.

Discussion

Themes and motives

The author has taken racism as a theme to depict the reality of the American Dream and the sufferings of those that enter in the land of opportunity to pursue it. The novel is written with a third-person narrator, having the capability to reveal the feelings and thoughts of every member of the two mentioned families, this gives the readers an impartial perspective into the cultural, social, and financial aspects of each member's life. For this reason, readers can carry over events dealing with immigration and the “American Dream,” and equate them to events under the same topics in the real world.

Symbolism

The use of symbolism is evident because he has used symbols to connect the events with reality. The author has tried to relate his work with reality by showing the evils that really exist in the American society today. He uses animals, places and events to symbolize reality so that the reader can comprehend the theme. The author tries to establish his viewpoint that the unlucky taint related to the “American Dream” can be openly accredited to ruthlessly discriminatory, established American citizens. These people tend to feel that the immigrants pollute the land of United States with their illegal lifestyle and readiness to labor on minimal pay, so that they can attempt to force their exile for the purification and goodness of their restive country.

The characters in the novel and transpiration of proceedings will fail to hold any relevance in association to the actual world if it weren't for Boyle's precise depiction of the financial, social and cultural differences between the Mossabachers and the Rincons, giving readers plausibility to associate the Tortilla Curtain to their world.

The respective ideas of the immigrants and the American citizens in the novel can be treated as if they represent the views of their respective groups in reality, so that the Rincons's views are representative of Mexican Immigrants' views and the Mossbachers' views are representative of the views of established American citizens living in Southern California. Boyle shows how their thoughts on immigration and the “American Dream” directly compare to their respective groups they represent and their thoughts in present-day.

Portrayal of families

In this, socially described novel, (The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle), two of the couples from extremely diverse societies, classes, races and cultures are forced together due to an inauspicious set of events. America Rincon and the Candido, who are unlawful immigrants, ...