In the novel Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita, while the story is divided into seven parts, the opinions and lifestyles of the seven characters dictate are also. Family is an idea that defines us all. Whether by blood, by choice, the idea of ​​“family” allows us to function, and without it we would wither away. What Yamashita emphasizes in his novel is that family can be found anywhere and often in anything. Each character, especially those of Bobby, Buzzworm, Manzanar, Emi and Rafaela, finds a different meaning in the idea of ​​family or having people to rely on, and just as their lives vaguely intersect, their definition of The unit does the same. At the end of the novel, Yamashita shows that through disastrous times, people show their true nature and overcome distance and boundaries in order to define their love and family. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay. Bobby defines the motley crew of characters as a collective. He is all at once, a big family, a melting pot of ethnic groups, and yet he always only worries about his own immediate world. For him, family is what he can see. It's what he can feel, what he can touch, and what he can buy to keep the rest from disappearing. There are several times throughout the novel where he lists things. He describes what he can see, like Rafaela and what makes her herself, her hair, what she studies, how she takes care of Sol (17). And other times he lists the items he bought for her (80). For him, to start a family requires the foundation of a stable life and he works to the bone to provide for his family because that is how he shows his love. His world of people is small because he only focuses on caring for these people, but in this small world, "Bobby Don't Forget" could never forget these people because they are his responsibility (17). He would never leave his family behind. It's almost ironic because he comes from a world where his blood, heritage, and ethnicity are so undefined because he chose to be, but the most important thing to him is taking care of his blood , his brother and his wife. , child and even the possibility of a cousin who would be related to him is never really confirmed. There is a moment where Bobby remembers his first meeting with Rafaela, that it was his brother who introduced them and he says: “Bobby thought Pepe was his friend. Now he is just a brother-in-law” (78). For Bobby, family is an obligation. For a very long time in the novel, he doesn't recognize love because to him, love is about keeping things whole and together and safe, but he lacks the intimacy that family requires. He looks at a man who is his friend with more external happiness because making him his brother-in-law makes him his responsibility. But what makes Bobby key to the story is that he is the one who, although more often than any other character on the fringes and outside the fray, ends up changing the most. “That’s when he lets go. Let the lines slide around his wrists, between his palms, between his fingers. Let's go. Go figure. (268). By making him the one who abandons the tropic, the boundary between so many people, he subsequently abandons all his preconceived notions of how his family is supposed to be and he will instead embrace his wife and child and embrace love . , rather than a form of physical family filled with objects. Buzzworm is a character who defines his family by choice. The reader does not know anyone whois particularly close in the novel, because he knows a little about everything and everyone. The world is his family, the static and the news he hears on his Walkman, as well as the people he meets in the street. Her interactions with Gabriel and Emi, while more frequent, are by choice. “Little sister” he calls her, Emi, from the moment they were introduced (175). He takes her responsibility, but unlike Bobby, he doesn't consider it an obligation. Instead, he does it according to his choice. Throughout the story, he refers to himself by another name, "Buzzworm". Angel of Mercy. At your service”, one of these introductions, shows how he sees his role in society (92). Where Bobby takes care of the little things, the obligations close to home, Buzzworm takes care of the common good of a bigger, broader world. What anchors him and humanizes him is his affection for those like Emi, his pseudo little sister. And at the same time, he shows a real and unexpected tenderness towards the world around him. “Who was going to make it [the heart in a box]. Who knew the value of a human heart? (218). He cares about the bigger picture, unlike characters like Bobby, and that makes him strong. However, when necessary, he benefits from the support of his little family that he has chosen. Manzanar can be seen as the opposite of Buzzworm in that although Buzzworm sees the entire world, he does not accept it as his own, instead choosing to simply observe it. Manzanar accepts everything and everyone. He identifies with all of this and creates his family by choice, but in a global way. He feels like he’s one with everyone,” a recycler. After all, like the city's other homeless people, he was a bottom-echelon recycler” (56). Even if he doesn't come from the world of the homeless, he believes he is part of it because it has become his world and he takes care of it as if it were still his. There is a moment, at the climax of the highway scene, where he seems to command the whole world: "And Manzanar, loath to waste a moment, writhed with exaltation and christened the whole thing: the greatest jam session that the world has ever known. » (206). He is happy and proud to be on top of the world he belongs to, leading them towards beauty and greatness, but ultimately he chooses to help his blood family, his granddaughter. By choosing to go to the hospital with the dying Emi, he chooses his family again, but narrows it down to the one who needs help the most. Throughout the novel he is the character who represents everyone, who looks at the world as a whole and Yamashita writes him to almost rival Arcangel in the character of God because he embodies everyone around him, but in the end , he is just as human. like the others and chooses to be with his granddaughter. Emi is the complete opposite of almost every character in the story because for the most part, she doesn't define herself as having a family. She does her best to distance herself from anything that expresses a need for commitment. She has family, but for a very long time she doesn't realize it and chooses to isolate herself. She states during a conversation with Gabriel at one point, “Gabe, you are then. I am now. For a journalist, you should be more so now. Let's do it now. (41). She lives in the present moment and does not focus on the past or the future and therefore only needs to focus on herself. Where Buzzworm and Manzanar choose their own family, she chooses to focus on herself. What gets interesting is that by choosing their family, in this case, by choosing her, she learns to let her guard down a little and let them in. Buzzworm in particular isthe first one she lets in because he chooses her and accepts. she with almost no thought; “My little sister took four Triple-A’s out of the glove compartment. “I saved them for you” (189). She shows her love in small things, because in order to accept her new "family", she must take small steps to get there. Manzanar is another thing imposed on him but for the better. She is stubborn, unwilling or too afraid to separate her world, shake things up and express that maybe she is like everyone else and vulnerable and crushes her secrets to try to hide them . “I made love last night… It was on the net,” she declares, followed quickly by “Manzanar, he’s my grandfather” in a confession to Gabriel (180). Although different, these two secrets are synonymous with each other as they both turn her world of what she considers family upside down. Gabriel is the closest thing she has to a family, but she keeps him at arm's length and Manzanar is her family that she thought was abandoned many years ago. Her having sex on the internet creates the possibility of losing Gabe at the same time she might get her grandfather back and those are two terrifying problems. Ultimately, however, with Manzanar's choice to accept her and care for her as his family does, she faces the likelihood of never seeing Gabe again, her problems stabilize, and she may die in peace, but still. with sadness because Manzanar is back in her life. Rafaela is a well-balanced mix of many characters from the novel. While her family is definitely defined by blood, she also chooses her family on large and small scales. Leaving Bobby, she chooses Sol as her one and only. “And maybe Dona Maria thought Rafaela would be alone in this big unfinished house on this big unfinished property, but Rafaela was too relieved to be away from her Bobby problems and too busy to feel alone” (9 & 10) . Leaving Bobby, she focuses entirely on raising Sol because she has understood that there is more to family than the obligations and responsibilities that Bobby sees. She is more in tune with the love that a family requires. But besides choosing Sol, on a larger scale she also chooses people in general and the community, as one of the reasons she left Bobby was her desire to start a union and help other immigrants like her, but all Bobby sees and believes is that it's those close to him who should be worried. This is why Rafaela gets along so well with Arcangel. Like her, he is interested in the bigger picture. However, for her, it also becomes a struggle. She states towards the middle of the novel, when Sol, playfully, has run away from her: "How far must she reach to touch her Sol?" (119). While she is literally talking about grabbing her son, in another way she is also talking about grabbing herself. While running away from her husband, she realizes that she doesn't know herself very well, but through the novel she manages to anchor herself to her family and realizes that she must shrink herself and love Bobby again. At the end of the novel, when she is at her worst, Bobby is the one she seeks out, even mistaking Gabriel, much to her dismay, for himself: “It took him a while to concentrate. 'Policeman?' I guess I wasn’t what she had in mind” (223). He is the thing she returns to again and again and when it comes to the climax of moving to the tropics, he, the one she loves but comes from such a different world, is the one she chooses to have with her - "Rafaela pulled the silk thread around them until they were both covered in a soft blanket of space and..