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Summary Of Orientation By Daniel Orozco

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The image of the drab, everyday office space conjures different thoughts from different people; some consider it a prison, others a monument to the lack of productivity characteristic of bureaucracy. This such “typical” office setting becomes a playground of deep psychological study in Daniel Orozco's short story Orientation. Through the author's meticulous implementation of tone, irony, and plot structure, he paints a dark and vivid portrait of the underlying truth that looks can be deceiving. While many people maintain a subconscious mindset that their lives are inherently interesting and all other people that they associate with throughout the day are static characters in the story of life, Orientation reminds us that this is most certainly not the case. The tone of the story is crucial to developing the idea of unremarkable people leading interesting lives. The narrator leads the reader through what appears to be an ordinary office by using dull, uninterested language, however interesting the information he or she is relating may be. The same dismissive tone is used to refer to the functionality of the copier machine as well as the serial killer that works in …show more content…

This irony is also an overarching example of the duality of the theme itself. One would not expect people that have an ordinary job and static dispositions to have such intriguing and personal glimpses into their lives revealed to a complete stranger by a neutral party, such as when the narrator describes Amanda Peirce's deeply personal concerns to the reader and insists to “not let on” even though the entire office is already aware of this information. The ironic idiosyncrasies of Gwendolyn Stitch also reinforce this such mindset. While Stitch outwardly appears to be content with the expectations that are placed on her by others, she is internally a nervous wreck that constantly succumbs to the pressure she faces every

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