What Does Paul Symbolize In Tangerine

It is as if Paul lives in the sun and knowledge of the world, baring that burden while others in society live in darkness with slight sliver of light from the moon believing they know the world to its full extent when in reality they are blind and in the dark. This affects Paul since he possess ideas from another point of view that others have no clue about. This is important because without the knowledge that Paul posses, he would be like his none the wiser parents, which would affect the story a great deal. For example, on page 152, Paul tells his friend, “Don’t do this. Don’t come in here with attitude.” Paul knows how to adapt to the places around him and knows that by accepting the facts and the brunt of the blow, they will accept him begin to

Do you love your mom? I love mine and trust her. I rely on her in many ways. Paul, on the other hand, does not have those luxuries. His mother can be clueless, cruel, and just wrong sometimes. Mrs. Fisher made many choices to impact Paul. They influenced him in both positive and negative ways. Paul’s mom had the greatest impact on Paul because her choices.

As clearly shown in the novel, Paul is insecure about the dullness of the prescription in his glasses and he has to deal with distasteful nicknames and disadvantages because of it. However when Paul finds out the real reason behind him being visually impaired he rants, “... I yanked off my coke-bottle glasses and shook them at him in rage. ‘There are questions that need to be answered about these! Am i such a stupid idiot fool that I stare at a solar eclipse for an hour and blinded myself? Is that who I am? Am I that idiot?’”(264) Being visually handicapped, Paul has to deal with the disadvantages such as not being able to play on the Lake Windsor soccer team and suffering through the thoughts of “being different”. After coming back from an exhibit named “Wonders of The World” that displayed people with different abilities called a freak show, Paul thought, “I could stop trying to be what everyone else is and accept being a freak. They could open a new exhibit starring me”(76). Moving on, for the most part Paul’s family is caught up in the Erik Fisher Football Dream and do not pay much attention to the dreams of their youngest son, Paul. Once settled into their new home in Tangerine, Florida, Paul says, “I thought to myself, ok here we are, how long

“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership”- Harvey S. Firestone. In the book Tangerine, seventh-grader Paul Fisher just recently moved to Tangerine County, Florida because of his dad’s new engineering job. He lives with his two parents and his antagonizing brother, Erik Fisher, who is constantly bullying him. As time flies by, Paul transforms into a new character. Paul Fisher’s choices he made during his development truly shaped who he is now because he finally got the courage to tell the truth about Erik and Arthur, assaulted a staff member, and chose to go to Tangerine Middle School.

One of the cruelest things Erik did in the book was damage Paul’s eyesight. Because of what Erik did, it ruined Paul’s child/teen hood. He couldn’t play on the Lake Windsor soccer team, he got called mean names, and he was seen as “handicapped” by people including his mom. This just shows how much of a sick person Erik is. Erik may be cruel, but Paul is very compassionate. He enjoys helping people. In the story, Paul helped Luis Cruz with his tangerine business. Even though Paul didn’t have to, he chose to fight the freeze and try to save the tangerines with Luis and his family. Paul may have gotten sick and had problems during the freeze, but he fought through it to be with his friends. Based on that, you know that Paul is a true

People who enjoy realistic-fiction novels that include sibling rivalry, sports, making life changes, and the tension of a dysfunctional family environment will be interested in reading this journal writing from the first person perspective of Paul Fisher. This novel includes characteristics of middle school encounters ; therefor, ages 10 and up will appreciate this

To begin with, Bloor uses flashback to convey the theme of growth by giving the reader a look into Paul’s past, and then letting them regard the contrast between Paul before and Paul near the end of the book. For instance, on page 168, Paul describes his flashback, “ Suddenly I felt the hot breath of a predator on my neck. I screamed in terror. Erik laughed and ran over to Mom and Dad. He had snuck up on me from behind, from somewhere back around ten o’clock.” On page 261, Paul describes his encounter with his brother and Arthur, “ I understood that I was supposed to be terrified by this spectacle - these two demonic creatures on this dark, lonely road. But for once in my life, I wasn’t.” After what Erik and Castor did to Paul’s eyes, he was permanently scarred and terrified of his brother. During Paul’s time in Tangerine, he learns from his friends that he has brothers to back him up, and on page 229, Paul’s conversation with Luis, ““I’m just telling you this so you’ll know. You seem kinda scared of Erik and Arthur Bauer.” “Yeah. I am. Who wouldn’t be?” Luis answered simply, “I wouldn’t be. They’re punks.” He pointed one ropelike finger at me. “And you shouldn’t be, either.”” tells Paul that Erik and Arthur are only

“ ‘So you figured it would be better if I just hated myself?’ ” (265). This is important because he hates being blind, especially since he doesn’t know why he was blind. He’s not allowed on his school soccer team and his brother bullies him about it. She had good intentions, but now Paul has to go through the process of finding it out himself.

A choice made by Erik Fisher affected Paul by Making him blind. “...I remembered Erik’s fingers prying my eyelids open while Vincent Castor sprayed white paint into them’’, Page 264 . Erik chose to do this because he thought that Paul snitched on Vincent and Erik, so they gave him “payback”. Paul was told that he looked at a solar eclipse which made him blind but was later revealed to him that it was Erik and his Goon’s Fault, which enraged him.

Fisher paid attention to Erik, even though he had done such a terrible thing to Paul. Overall, Paul’s parents have been telling him a lie his whole life and this made him hate himself. The lie was that he is legally blind because he stared at a Solar Eclipse, but the reason he is legally blind is because Erik and Vincent 's spray painted his eyes. This is emotional for Paul because his whole life he has been led to believe otherwise, but now he hates how his mom, stood up for Erik.

The eclipse represents the veiled truth that his parents have kept from him; the whole book is about receiving flashbacks about his past. And these flashbacks are clues which help Paul figure out how his eyes got damaged. During an eclipse, the moon blocks the sun, just as Paul’s parents hid the ugly truth from him. On page 33, it states, “Erik was telling his friends this story. The reason for the coke-bottle glasses on my eyes was that I had stares at the sun, unprotected during that eclipse. The story puzzles me then and it puzzles me now. Puzzled or not, I went right along with the story.” Paul has

When Paul was five-years-old, Erik and an old friend, Vincent, held Paul’s eyes opened and sprayed them with white paint. Erik chose to do this because he had thought that Paul told on him and Vincent for spray painting the walls. Although everyone else in the family knew, Paul did not find out until seven years later. “We wanted to find a way to keep you from always hating your brother” (Bloor 265). This comment was made by Paul’s dad, when Paul confronted his parents about the situation. Because of this decision Erik made, Paul lost his eyesight and his parent’s trust all in one

He said to his parents, “let me ask you one thing, mom. When you got home from the hospital that day did you see the white paint on Eric’s hands?” Then she said yes, and he got told that they did know the reason of being blind was from the paint that Eric had sprayed into his eyes. Paul was furious and he will now forever pay for what Eric has done to him. Paul then developed and had the courage to tell everyone that Eric was the one to kill Luis and steal all of the things from the houses.

Whether it is to his teacher’s or his music instructor, Paul always has that quirky smile. This offset smile symbolizes all the feelings Paul has inside. It symbolizes the rude ways that Paul does not even know he is doing. It symbolizes that something is wrong. The narrator states, “Older boys than Paul had broken down and shed tears under that ordeal, but his set smile did not once desert him…” (Cather). Paul does not seem to know that he makes people feel uncomfortable under his smile. He makes people feel insecure about themselves, but maybe that is what Paul wants them to feel. Critics say, “Paul is smiling, and his accusers find his appearance—especially the red carnation in his lapel— ‘not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban of suspension’” (Wilson). For Paul being so out of place and unnoticeable in society, he sure gets a lot of attention from teachers. Paul’s smile shows the teacher that he thinks everything they are saying is a complete waste of time because he honestly does not care. Paul’s drawing master added, “I don’t really believe that smile of his comes altogether from insolence; there’s something sort of haunted about it” (Cather). Paul’s drawing teacher see’s through Paul’s know-it-all smile and thinks that there is more to it. That maybe his smile is not out of rudeness, but of something like a disability.

most of the time he doesn’t care about most of the choices he makes, as long as it doesn’t affect him. As a result, Paul was now unable to see clearly, mostly in his peripheral vision, and the only way he can see fine is with his thick glasses. Since Paul was only 5 when his eyesight was damaged due to Erik, he could not remember what happened, and he went to his parents to ask, though they told him again and again that Paul stared into an eclipse, and his eyes were damaged. Paul already knew this could not be true, since he knew he was not that dumb,