T. C. Boyle - A digital scrap-book about "The Tortilla Curtain"
Delaney Mossbacher
In my opinion the most interesting character is Delaney Mossbacher.
At the beginning the reader gets to know Delaney‘s totally organized everyday-life.
He lives with his second wife Kyra and her son Jordan in a wealthy suburb of LA called Arroyo Blanco Estates.
His life consists of rituals, he takes breakfast together with his family every morning, writes for his monthly column everyday and every evening they drive to one of the houses Kyra is to sell and lock. They are more or less rich or well-to-do because they are able to live in this subdivision. They have two dogs, live healthy and are members of different clubs like for example: Save the children or National Wildlife Federation.
I would say they are a typical prosperous family in LA including the fact that Kyra as a powerful business lady earns the money while Delaney writes his column called "Wide Open Spaces". Delaney loves nature, he likes going for a walk through the beautiful hills next to his house. Apart from that, Delaney cares for everything around him: His family, his house, his car with a personalized licence plate and of course nature. Calling himself a liberal humanist, he defends immigrants, for example in a discussion with his friend Jack, as to be seen on p. 101, "Immigrants are the live-blood of this country – we’re a nation of immigrants."
But then the car-accident with the Mexican Cándido disrupts his organized daily routine:
He is helpless and confused and because of his guilty conscience he gives the victim money. From this point on Delaney realizes that there are many Mexicans around him and that makes him nervous. While he is thinking about the man's life his guilt turns into anger: This camping Mexican pollutes his beloved nature.
In this situation he shows his racist traits for the first time by calling the Mexican a "poor son of the bitch". But here he is still thinking about what he says and asks himself how this sqares with his liberal-humanist ideas (p.13). Nevertheless, he tells his wife that he "only" knocked down a Mexican as you can see on page 15.
The next thing that disturbes his life is his dog killed by a coyote in his garden. Delaney is in a way driving crazy: He is running around with the leg of the dog in his jacket and later puts it into the freezer. After calming down he writes his first column called Pilgrim at Topanga Creek describing all the beautiful countryside.
Later on page 101 he shows his liberal-humanist ideas again: He approaches Jack, who wants a gated entryway, to be racist. He tries to convince him of the immigrants' importance for the country by telling him they are the lifeblood and that everybody is an immigrant from somewhere. This can be found on pages 101+102. Afterwards there are troubles with a Mexican on the parking-lot. Seeing these troubles and recognizing the Mexican he knocked down makes him feel guilty again.
To calm himself down he drives to the canyon, but instead of beautiful nature he discovers sleeping-bags and gets angry again.
He wants the Sherriff to get these people and their garbage out of the canyon and back to the slums as to be seen on page 112.
When Delaney gets angry he always forgets about the liberal-humanist ideals and instead of this he reveals a racist attitude.
When he gets back to where he parked his car he must recognize that it has been stolen. The new car he buys hasn’t got a personalized licence plate and that makes him feel he’s losing control of his life. Everywhere he looks he sees Mexicans and that makes him feel bad but as to be seen on p. 149 he still feels "a deep shameful stab of racist resentment".
The following point shows up Delaney’s racist traits in his second column: It’s a
simile which compares coyotes with Mexicans who overcrowd his city. Then in a discussion with Kyra he is the liberal humanist again. He forbids her to work on the wall committee because it is racist.
Both want security but he doesn’t want his son to learn or to get a racist attitude so he’s against the wall. Although he on the one hand approaches the ones who want the wall to be racist on the other hand he doesn‘t help Todd Sweet who wants to fight against it.
During the Thanksgiving party Delaney has to listen to some criticism on his column, here the reader gets to know that the column was meant to provoke. Delaney thinks the humans are to blame, not the coyotes.
It’s like there are two Delaneys: The liberal humanist who is against racism when there are discussions. And the other one who is shown when Delaney gets angry and utters racist comments. (A comment on this can be read here)
After the fire only the racist Delaney seems to exist! He is sure the Mexicans are responsible for it and he kicks up two of them.
He also blames them for the graffiti on the wall of the Estate. He tries to catch the sprayer by taking photos in the wall area. On one of them, the Mexican he knocked down with his car, is shown, on another one there's the son of his friend Jack, but Delaney only blames the Mexican.
So he drives mad, takes his gun and goes looking for Càndido.
When he finds him there is another catastrophe: The rain causes a landslide which takes Delaney, the Mexicans and their baby with it.
The baby dies but the Mexicans have the strength to help Delaney.
So you can clearly see how the accident changes Delaney’s life, the accident was the point from which it got out of control.
by Gitta
