Ostensibly, T.C. Boyle’s novel The Tortilla Curtain is about how people achieve and protect their American Dream. And it is about the culture clash between white upper-middle class Americans and Mexican illegal immigrants. However, the symbolic undercurrent reveals the animal nature of all people regardless of their class and station in society.
The Epigraph
At the beginning of his novel, Boyle quotes from John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath “They ain’t human. A human being wouldn’t live like they do. A human being couldn’t stand it to be so dirty and miserable.” Boyle’s epigraph sets the tone for the lives and situation of the Mexican protagonists, Candido and America Rincon. Unfortunately, nothing changes for them during the course of the novel.
Boyle’s use of the Steinbeck quote also reveals the stereo-typical attitude of the white people in the novel, including his American protagonists, Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher. Whenever white Americans see a Mexican, they cringe. It doesn’t matter that the Mexicans are at the foundation of their affluence; they do not want to see them.
A Satire
Unfortunately, most readers seem to miss out on the fact that Boyle wrote a satire. If one scans the reviews at Goodreads, one finds irate readers using words like trite, clichéd, and ham fisted when discussing Boyle’s presentation of the characters in this book.
According to Merriam-Webster satire is:
- a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn
- trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly.”
Often, the best way of revealing vice and folly is to hold a mirror up and reflect the stereotypical character to the reader. It is dangerous to hold a mirror with a stereotype or caricature to the reader; too often the reader takes the distortion for reality and misses the purpose of the writer.
A Wrenching Revelation
If the reader can get over expecting the characters in The Tortilla Curtain to act like complex human-beings and accept them as self-centered caricatures of reality, Boyle reveals a thought-provoking theme. None of them are human, throughout the novel all four central characters act like animals. From the very beginning to the final chapters of the novel Boyle repeatedly uses symbolism to reveal how the Rincon’s live like animals fighting to survive. And how the Mossbachers fight to maintain their territory just like animals.
Surprising Salvation
At the end of the novel, Boyle provides one bright moment of salvation. The final segment of the novel is titled “Socorro,” which is the name of America and Candido’s blind infant daughter. Socorro means to provide help or aid. In a sort of Christ-like moment Socorro is lost in the landslide. America and Candido find safety on a rooftop. Delaney’s hand reaches out from the swirling mass around them and Candido grabs his desperately reaching hand and helps him. Salvation is blind. A life is exchanged for a life.
There Is No Escapism
The reader will not find escapism and blind fantasy in T.C. Boyle’s novel, The Tortilla Curtain. However, they will find a thought provoking and surreal portrayal of the harsh truths that are reality in America.
Boyle, T.C. The Tortilla Curtain. Penguin Books. 1995. ISBN 978-0-14-023828-0
Read more about T.C. Boyle and his books at Suite101.
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