The Tortilla Curtain
2/28/13
3A
In The Tortilla Curtain, T.C. Boyle introduces two completely different families who live in southern California. Striving for their American dream, the Mossbacher’s and the Rincon’s struggle with similar difficulties everyday. But the presence of each other make them do things they would never have done before. They both go to the same grocery store, but they spend their money very different, and their American lifestyles contrast throughout the novel.
The American dream is not limited to the immigrants in trying to better their lives, though it is seen much more often. Candido brought America to the United States with promises of a better life, a nice apartment, and numerous possessions. America explicitly states that she does not want the lavish overly ornate houses that Americans often long for, just a small place to call her own and the ability to live comfortably, similarly to how the Mossbachers do. All immigrants coming into America have the American dream is some shape or form. The ability to come home day after day and spend time with their families, is all they want. However, the day Candido was hit by a car, everything changed. Candido was injured and couldn’t work to help pay for America’s apartment. Now America goes to the labor exchange to find work and gets hit and raped, while the camp gets destroyed. Then, things get even worse when the labor exchange closes altogether. Then, Candido gets mugged then, a fire takes all his savings away. Then, at the end of the novel, Delaney comes after Candido and his family after deciding that he was responsible for graffiti on the newly constructed wall, when the rain and rushing river, take the dirt from underneath their feet and sweep them in the rushing rapid. “She didn’t answer, and he felt the cold seep into his veins, a coldness and weariness like nothing he’d ever known. The dark water was all around him, water as far as he could see, and he wondered in he would ever get warm again. He
3A
In The Tortilla Curtain, T.C. Boyle introduces two completely different families who live in southern California. Striving for their American dream, the Mossbacher’s and the Rincon’s struggle with similar difficulties everyday. But the presence of each other make them do things they would never have done before. They both go to the same grocery store, but they spend their money very different, and their American lifestyles contrast throughout the novel.
The American dream is not limited to the immigrants in trying to better their lives, though it is seen much more often. Candido brought America to the United States with promises of a better life, a nice apartment, and numerous possessions. America explicitly states that she does not want the lavish overly ornate houses that Americans often long for, just a small place to call her own and the ability to live comfortably, similarly to how the Mossbachers do. All immigrants coming into America have the American dream is some shape or form. The ability to come home day after day and spend time with their families, is all they want. However, the day Candido was hit by a car, everything changed. Candido was injured and couldn’t work to help pay for America’s apartment. Now America goes to the labor exchange to find work and gets hit and raped, while the camp gets destroyed. Then, things get even worse when the labor exchange closes altogether. Then, Candido gets mugged then, a fire takes all his savings away. Then, at the end of the novel, Delaney comes after Candido and his family after deciding that he was responsible for graffiti on the newly constructed wall, when the rain and rushing river, take the dirt from underneath their feet and sweep them in the rushing rapid. “She didn’t answer, and he felt the cold seep into his veins, a coldness and weariness like nothing he’d ever known. The dark water was all around him, water as far as he could see, and he wondered in he would ever get warm again. He