Ryan George CCQC 2

Boyle uses many juxtapositions in this book to support the themes.  Boyle uses the Rincon’s and the Mossbacher’s different occupations together to support the theme.  Boyle uses the Arroyo Blanco Estates and the Immigrants together to support the theme.  But the one that Boyle uses the best throughout the entire plot so far, is the entire life of the Rincon’s and the Mossbacher’s.  The way Boyle dances back and forth between the two families helps the reader understand the drastic difference between the two.  By doing this it makes the Mossbacher’s situation seem like heaven while at the same time making the Rincon’s situation seem to get worse and worse.  “He staggered past the post office, his feet like lead, past the storefronts, the bright windows, the cars lined up like ciphers of the wealth that bloomed all around him, unattainable as the moon.  And what was it all about?  Work, that was all.  The right to work, to have a job, earn your daily bread and a roof over your head.”(200)  This shows what situation the Rincon’s are in and how they are taking things day by day, trying to find any place they can get.  “All I’m saying is what’s the sense of living up here if you can’t see fifty feet beyond the windows—we might as well be living in a condo or something.”(220)  This quote emphasizes the situation of the Mossbacher’s, complaining about living in a “beautiful exclusive private highly desirable location”.(221)  The two quotes represent the juxtaposition Boyle uses with the two families throughout the whole book and how it influences the theme of greedy, blind, ignorant Americans.

Boyle evokes many emotions and controversial situations in the Tortilla Curtain.  With that said, I think his overlying argument is that the upper-middle class and many Americans are already and are continuously becoming more and more naive and blind to what is going on around them every day.  We seem to take things for granted, and when educated about the atrocities and prejudice things that happen every day to immigrants, we often brush them off or forget that anything even happened.  “This was not a good situation.  There were too many of them here and that was the sort of thing that scared buyers away from the area.”(157)  This quote just goes to show that Americans are all about business and profit, and that when they see things like this, it’s a problem because it’s costing THEM money.  The real problem here is that there are 50 Mexicans gathered on the street, gladly looking for any work, to put food on the table.  Kyra just sees them as animals, scaring away her customers.  This is a perfect example of Americans being blinded by greed, and not being able to see any of the real problems.  We need to make a change, and no law is going to do that, we have to do that.  We need to not turn a blind eye on everything that’s happening and stop pretending that people aren’t going hungry everyday.