In Karen Tei Yamashita’s book, The
Tropic of Orange, the seven main characters are all wrapped up their busy
lives one way or another. Gabriel is
wrapped up in his work and house in Mexico, Emi in technology, Bobby in working
and consumerism, the list goes on. It
seems that they are all too busy to see what else is going on around them, and
I feel that this is a metaphor for the United States and the people who live in
it. We are all so wrapped up in
technology and school and making money, that we forget about the people who don’t
have what we have, or we forget to “stop and smell the roses.”
Since media is a big part of the
book, I feel it is also a big reason why we are so caught up in other things
like what Iphone is coming out next, or who said what on Twitter. We are surrounded by media and outside
influence, and this is also the case in The Tropic of Orange. The homeless taking over the freeway is a
metaphor of what would happen if some force all of a sudden “stopped up” our
communication/technology that we use every day.
Just like the people in L.A. use the freeway to bypass and get to where
they need to go fast, we use texting, Facebook, all types of technology to
bypass talking to people face to face and communicate quickly.
Once the freeway was blocked, people started to
use other ways to get to where they needed to go. They started to discover places they were
bypassing every day, “smelling the roses” if you will. People started walking and discovering places
that they would have never discovered otherwise. If we would just put down our technology for
a little bit, walk on foot somewhere, or call someone as opposed to having a Facebook
conversation, we would get more out of our everyday lives. It is so easy to get wrapped up in technology
and everything else around us that it is important to remember that we need to
step outside of our busy lives sometimes and see what else is around us that we
are too busy to notice, and not wait until the freeway is jammed
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