Throughout Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange, the one theme that has intrigued me most is that of labor/work. Although this novel is saturated with this theme, for the purposes of this short passage, I will mostly concentrate specifically on the alienation of labor in capitalist society. Furthermore I will narrow the reading of this concept to a specific character and only certain passages of the novel. As I think this topic may be expansive enough to carry the weight of a full paper, I am especially encouraging feedback.

When speaking of the concept of alienation from labor, one must, of course, delve into Marxist theory and what he has to say on this subject. Among many interesting ways in which certain labor is presented by Yamashita, especially intriguing is the relationship between the labor of Bobby versus that of Gabriel (lower class vs. middle, that done by hand and that which always seems to be done via proxy), I feel as if an important moment comes from a considerably minor character, Rodriguez. The bizarre moment during the Tuesday, Morning – En Mexico segment seems to parallel the ways in which Marx argues that one becomes separated from their labor. From Marx;

“The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him. It means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien” (Estranged Labor).

What is important to remember right off the bat is that Rodriguez is Gabriel’s hired working hand who, along with Rafaela, takes care of his home while he is away. Rafaela notices him looking “particularly unsettled,” and decides to go speak with this “very industrious man” (Yamashita 62). She likens him to Bobby in that he is so “conscientious, so proud about his work,” recalling how Bobby “loved his work no matter what it was” (Yamashita 64). This would imply a definite connection, not separation with one’s labor. What is most interesting however, is Rodriguez’s inability to explain the crookedness of his fence. “I cannot understand what has happened,” “I have done this work all my life”, he is so perplexed that Rafaela notes, “He looked as if he were about to cry” (Yamashita 63). The product of his labor, in this instance, takes on a “hostile” or “alien” quality, as Marx would say. So much so that Rodriguez not only hypothesizes that the problem may not be his labor, but “this place,” (he also mentions a curandero, a shaman who sometimes deals with spiritual illnesses) and then proceeds to “run off in agitation” (Yamashita 64). Additionally, in line with another Marxist sentiment, Rafaela notes that it is “the way of her country” that “Her relationship to Dona Maria depended on her ability to pay Rodriguez and to get what she paid for,” one of the “American rules” of which there “were so many” she “couldn’t remember anymore” (Yamashita 65). Thus, Rodriguez is placed at the bottom of a hierarchy, with Rafaela, Dona Maria, and Gabriel all higher up. To return to Marx again

“Just as he creates his own production as the loss of his reality, as his punishment; his own product as a loss, as a product not belonging to him; so he creates the domination of the person who does not produce over production and over the product. Just as he estranges his own activity from himself, so he confers upon the stranger an activity which is not his own” (Estranged Labor).

It is no wonder that Rodriguez is having trouble recognizing his own labor when he is three steps removed from the individual who actually owns the product. What I particularly want to expound upon with this sort of inquiry is what just this one instance has to do with the types of labor present throughout the novel, (again, especially between Bobby and Gabriel), and what Yamashita has to say about capitalist labor, specifically as it pertains to conquest (a topic that comes into the picture during Arcangel’s encounter with Rodriguez).