CCQC 2- Anderson

Boyle juxtaposes the lives of Delaney and Cándido to reinforce the price of the American Dream. As the reader knows, Delaney lives a rather luxurious and comfortable lifestyle alongside Kyra and Jordan. The daily activities of Delaney have been portrayed as preparing Jordan for school, hiking, and writing, all while hardly being employed and living in the Arroyo Blanco community. As shown, "smoke rose from the barbecue in fragrant finer smelling tufts as Delaney basted the tofu kebabs with his special honey ginger marinade... Kyra was stretched out by the pool with her weekly glass of Chardonnay"(183). This quote alone very accuretly describes the world in which the Mossbachs reside, a swell of good fortune and riches. In order to show the opposing side of the American Dream, Boyle continues to illustrate the difficult life of América and Cándido. It seems as though every time something positive happens to the couple, something much worse inevitably follows. As life continues to crumble around them, the relationship between Cándido and América continues to falter. While Cándido lay drunk in the canyon, he thinks, " He knew how it was going to be, now it had to be, knew he would follow her into that hut and slap his pain out of her, and that he was so sick and so bad he wanted nothing more in that moment than to die. But then dead men didn't work either, did they?"(182). This moment precisely shows the loss of hope in Cándido that they will ever reach the American Dream of happiness and accessibility. By closely comparing the lives of these two characters, Boyle shows the reader just how difficult life can be for those attempting to pursue the American Dream, and how blind those who have already achieved it can be. 

Boyle creates a growing sense of Confusion, Vunerablitly and Powerlessness in both families through trends of bad events. As part one of The Tortilla Curtain ended, América was raped by the man in the backwards hat and his partner. This event alone caused major emotional damage to América, who in return was aggressively violated. To make matters worse, she is too afraid to tell Cándido, the only person she has in this new life. As stated, "And so she waited there in her little nook in the woods like some princess, protected by a moat and the sharp twisted talons of a wrecked car, only this princess had been violated and her pee burned and she jumped at every sound"(177). In addition to this, Cándido later looses his only source of work, and begins to take his anger of feeling powerless out through alcohol. As Cándido and América's lives continue to struggle under the harsh reality of society, both grow increasingly confused regarding their future in this country. On the other side of the story, the Mossbachs being to face a series of unfortunate events which results in similar emotions. As part two of the novel beings, Delaney is dealing with the loss of his car. After this event occurred, Delaney began to feel insecure, as though the place he considered home was really a dangerous environment full of thieves. As the narrator put it, "He felt violated, taken, ripped off - and nobody batted an eyelash, happens all the time"(146). Things for the Mossbachs only continued to worsen. Kyra had a close encounter with the backwards hat man and his partner on a property she was trying to sell. In return, vulgar words were spray painted on the side of he the house, leaving Kyra dumbfounded and scared. In addition to this, the second family dog, Osbert, was killed by a coyote even after the family added two extra feet of fence around their yard. By continually making life more difficult for both families, Boyle reminds the reader that life, no matter your background, can throw you vicious curve balls. By creating this horrible trend of events, Boyle will be able to show the reader how different class levels of people deal with the feelings of Confuison, Vunerablitly and powerlessness.