Tangerine Conclusion

In our last class discussion of Tangerine, we discussed two questions:
1) Discuss whether Tangerine is an accurate depiction of the ills of U.S. society
2) Paul wants to enter St. Anthony's as a kid with a reputation. What can you as a teacher/student, learn about teaching and learning from Paul?

I found our first question to be an imporatant consideration for both our class and the students at Freddie Thomas. Trying to grasp how much Edward Bloor drew an accurate picture of American social reality is an important consideration. Our class came to a consensus that, due to class disparity and the gap between rich and poor in our country, Tangerine was largely an accurate picture of the ills of U.S. society. The class expressed some doubts about how polarized and either/or Bloor made class seperation seem. Bloor uses the surreal Florida setting with the developments, muck fires, and Tangerine farms to paint a surreal picture of the two social settings. However, we should not forget that this story is about Paul's personal struggle with identity and family but also about class seperation and the inequity of American life.

The other question that came up in our discussion was how realistic Bloor made Erik and Arthur's characters. In a lot of ways, I hoped for more depth in Erik's character, but it wasn't part of Bloor's intention. Making Erik into a simple, absolute villian was, in some ways, easy for Bloor. Although the story was very powerful, I think it could have brought up even more controversy if Erik wasn't as absolute a villian and was presented as more human. A flawed human who makes terrible mistakes is harder to deal with as a reader than a monster who commits unspeakable evils.