The Social Space and Mobility of the Freeway In Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange, space is a crucial element to the novel that affects the major characters throughout the plot. Space is constantly changing in the novel, especially with the magic realism in the novel. Social space in particular is a key aspect of the plot and influences the events in the story. In the social space of the freeway in the novel, the freeway offers mobility to each of the characters, however, not all the characters are able to achieve that mobility that the freeway is to offer every person. Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange uses the social space and the mobility of the freeway to demonstrate colonization with the homeless community living on the freeway and the transformations
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For majority of the novel, the main characters are essentially trapped and find it difficult to move place to place. Just as Vint noted about Tropic of Orange, “Tropic of Orange traces the obscured networks of globalization: the imaginary lines of borders that allow capital and commodities but not people to pass” (Vint 405).As seen with one the main characters, Bobby, he struggles to find Sol and Rafaela and to get to them is extremely difficult. This lack of mobility for these characters shows the lack of control these characters have over their own situations, despite the efforts they put forth to try to change certain aspects of their lives. Sarah Wald, author of “Refusing to halt” wrote in about the freeway system, “By representing the consequences of Los Angeles’ freeway system, the novels convey the unevenness of experiences of globalization as well as flows of migration, capital, goods, and services across borders and within the unstated borders of specific communities” (Wald 70). The freeway in the novel represents the mobility that exists but as Wald stated, it shows the unevenness of actual mobility across the borders for these characters. By this difficulty in moving, the characters are able to see this freeway for the freedom it is supposed to grant and yet, never be able to use it to leave their
For majority of the novel, the main characters are essentially trapped and find it difficult to move place to place. Just as Vint noted about Tropic of Orange, “Tropic of Orange traces the obscured networks of globalization: the imaginary lines of borders that allow capital and commodities but not people to pass” (Vint 405).As seen with one the main characters, Bobby, he struggles to find Sol and Rafaela and to get to them is extremely difficult. This lack of mobility for these characters shows the lack of control these characters have over their own situations, despite the efforts they put forth to try to change certain aspects of their lives. Sarah Wald, author of “Refusing to halt” wrote in about the freeway system, “By representing the consequences of Los Angeles’ freeway system, the novels convey the unevenness of experiences of globalization as well as flows of migration, capital, goods, and services across borders and within the unstated borders of specific communities” (Wald 70). The freeway in the novel represents the mobility that exists but as Wald stated, it shows the unevenness of actual mobility across the borders for these characters. By this difficulty in moving, the characters are able to see this freeway for the freedom it is supposed to grant and yet, never be able to use it to leave their