Manzanar

So far, I think that Manzanar has been the most interesting character. I think we can read the fractured structure of Tropic of Orange as Yamashita’s attempt to explore society from a variety of perspectives. In other words Yamashita explores the effect of parallax, and investigates its function in describing a space. Thus far, each character seems to be positioned at a different angle. But Manzanar seems to be positioned as part of a distinct space: commenting on and “recycling” from the structure of the other characters, but occupying a completely different realm. We can point to Manzanar’s transition away from society in the description of his leaving work: “One day, he left a resident to sew up a patient, removed his mask, gloves, and gown, strode through the maze of corridors, down the elevator, through patient waiting, to become a statistic under missing persons” (56). The language of this passage places an emphasis on Manzanar’s intentionality. This complicates my idea of the homeless. Manzanar intentionally changes forms, from a surgeon to a statistic. In so doing, Manzanar becomes a “recorder” of society, rather than a piece of it. He recycles the sounds and maps of society, abstracting it, changing its purpose, and assigning it new meaning. Manzanar’s passage also references ridesharing. I read this as part of the practice of consolidation that is critical to society’s functioning. “Ridesharing, when it was practiced in greater proportions, alleviated flow, increased rhythm while enhancing and deepening tone” (55-56). This practice gestures towards a tendency to “alleviate flow” throughout the novel. This ties back to the idea of lines that we have seen repeated. Yamashita seems to suggest that we try to alleviate flow by organizing, assigning and consolidating. I find Manzanar so interesting because he seems to complicate these lines, assigning his own meaning and instead aligning himself with the “artesian rivers” and “web of faults—cracking like mud flats under a desert sun” (57).