53 pages • 1 hour read
Edward BloorTangerine
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1997A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Tangerines
The novel takes its name from Tangerine County, the once famed “tangerine capital of the world” (148), and, as the reader would expect, tangerines are a potent symbol for various issues throughout the book. While Mom warns Paul that the citrus groves are mostly gone, as soon as they reach Tangerine county, “we did start to see groves of citrus trees, and they were an amazing sight” (8). Immediately, Paul feels refreshed by the sight of the groves, as he will later be revived by their smell; tangerines have the whiff of a fresh start.
Bloor highlights that tangerines symbolize a fresh start through Luis’s innovative hybrid tangerine, called the Golden Dawn. Resistant to the cold, and bred for flavor, this tangerine represents survival and continuity. The Golden Dawn will be Luis’s legacy: “Luis has been advertising the Golden Dawns in all the trade papers. There’s a big response, just like he said there would be. He’s got orders from growers all over Florida, from Texas, from California, even from down in Mexico” (291). Not only will Luis live on through his creation, but his integrity—the soil in which he plants his dreams—triumphs over the fraudulence of the suburban developments built atop the razed groves. As his younger brother proudly announces, “this is a really big deal. It’s like inventing a new kind of medicine or something. Luis is going to be famous for doing this” (149).
The tangerine groves, for Paul, represent an authenticity that he is unable to find in Lake Windsor—or with his own family, for that matter. His identity blossoms alongside the citrus trees. As Luis points out, any new bud can be grafted onto a tree, becoming whatever the grower wishes: “[a] scion can be any kind of citrus that you want—orange, grapefruit, lemon, lime—and they can all be growing on the same tree at the same time!” (160). This “Frankenstein fruit tree” represents Paul’s own experience in discovering his identity, as he grafts himself onto what he sees as the more honest lives of his Tangerine teammates.
Sight and Insight
One of the recurring leitmotifs in the book is the value of sight and its connection to insight: While Paul remains visually impaired, he nevertheless possesses the ability to “see” people and events more clearly than most of the characters. His discernment allows him to notice details that his parents, for example, look through or gloss over. Their willful “blindness” impairs their potential for insight. Perhaps this is why Paul is constantly distressed by having his impairment pointed out to him: “You told them I’m handicapped!” he cries to Mom. “You told them I’m visually impaired!” (62). Her response is straightforward: “Darling, you are. I just told them the truth” (62). However, the truth is more complicated, and Paul’s vision—the uncanny ability to glean significance from every minor event—is unparalleled in the book. As he himself repeatedly emphasizes, “I can see fine” (37).
Among the items and incidents that Paul sees are the counterfeit nature of the suburban neighborhoods; the beauty and authenticity of the tangerine groves; the predatory actions of the osprey against the koi; the absence of Antoine Thomas from the Lake Windsor community; the Tangerine Middle soccer player vandals at the carnival; and, of course, Erik’s fundamentally flawed character, along with many of the specific actions that reveal Erik’s callousness. This contrasts Mom and Dad, who always look the other way, much to Paul’s detriment and chagrin. As he finally confronts Dad regarding the Antoine Thomas eligibility scandal: “I guess it’s about your eyesight, Dad” (268), emphasizing Dad’s unwillingness to see the obvious (268). The irony is that Paul’s impairment allows him to see the truth.
Thunderstorms, Rain, and Lightning
Paul often speculates about the naturally occurring phenomena of Tangerine county, bestowing upon them an anthropomorphized agency that reveals recurring motifs. These natural happenings stand in stark contrast to the artificially constructed surroundings of Lake Windsor and the other suburban communities. In fact, as Paul frequently points out, the natural phenomena that disrupt the neighborhoods have been there all along; it is the new developments that actually intrude on the organic cycles and processes.
For example, Paul argues regarding the frequent rain, “it’s all upside-down, you know? It’s all messed up. The rain clouds show up every day, just like they’re supposed to, but there aren’t any tangerine trees. […] So the clouds go around looking for the tangerine trees. They can’t find them, they get mad, and they start thundering and lightning and dumping the rain on us” (30). This personification of the clouds reveals the underlying truth about Lake Windsor and the surrounding sub-divisions: These are unnatural, fake, and superimposed upon what organically belongs there.
The lightning, too, has its own designs, according to Paul: “This [the Donnelly house] was the highest spot, and it worked like a lightning rod. Now, you could bring back those developers […] and ask them to point out where the highest spot around here used to be. Not one of them would know. But the lightning knows” (44). Again, the suburban dwellers are the interlopers interfering with eons-old natural processes. The Donnelly’s house is struck by lightning not because they are unlucky, not because the lightning is capricious, but because “some fool has stuck a house there” (44).
Indeed, Paul is eventually grateful for these natural phenomena, as they become the ticket out of his soccer exile in Lake Windsor: The excessive thunderstorms open the sinkhole at Lake Windsor Middle, destroying the portable classrooms, which leads to Paul joining the Tangerine War Eagles team. As Paul himself puts it, “[t]he heavens had opened up for me” (92).
