Name : Intan Kartika Sari

Std Numb : 0808517

Class : Nondik 5A
Subject : Literary Theory
Social Ideological essay of the novel
“Tangerine” by Edward Bloor

Tangerine: A Little Box of Bloor’s Thought

The novel Tangerine tells the story about a visual impaired 12 year old boy named Paul Fisher. He
plays soccer and he is good at it. His eye condition forces him to wear thick glasses that are more
like goggles. He can’t remember very well what the cause so that he is legally blind, but his family
says that he blinded himself by staring at a solar eclipse for an hour, so now he can’t see very well.
Actually, this reason is not acceptable for him. He tells himself that he is not that stupid blinded
himself, although the accident happened when he was five. Therefore, he doesn’t mind whether the
glasses make him look so weird as long as he can see well. With his goggles he can see what his
parents can’t see about Erik, his mean brother. Erik is a football star and his parents were so proud
about it. Actually, Erik is a psycho. Paul doesn’t know whether his parents know about that or not.

“I can see everything. I can see things that Mom and Dad can’t. Or won’t” (p.4)

But Erik’s fake then will be covered up until Fisher move to Tangerine, a small county in Florida.
First they live in Texas and for some reason they have to move to Tangerine. Dad says that
Tangerine was ‘Booming Area’. It is where great things are waiting for them. Every fisher has their
own hope in this new place. For Erik, Tangerine is a place where he is going to change the football
season at Lake Windsor High school. For Dad, Tangerine is place where he is going to change how
things are done in the Civil Engineering Department in Tangerine County. For mom it is place
where she will change the Homeowner’s Association in Lake Windsor Downs. And for Paul, it is
place where new live begin. He wandered whether he will make any changes in his life, will he
became winning or loser for the middle school’s soccer team”

Tangerine is place where something weird is normal. All strange things happen. Everyday at 4:00,
lightning strikes the football field and underground fires burn for years. Then a huge sinkhole
swallows Paul's school, so he is transferred to a new school called Tangerine Middle School.

Tangerine also suddenly becomes the new place where anything is possible. In Tangerine, suddenly
the blind can see, geeks can be cool, in his school Paul find himself adopted into the toughest group-
around the soccer team of his middle school. The most important is a twelve-year-old child can
finally face up to his terrifying older brother, Erik. He finally has some courage to tell the truth
about Erik to his parents.

The novel written by Edward Bloor contains some Ideologies. It is true that texts are written within
a certain ideology, and readers read within their own ideology. It is set in the past where a different
ideology to that of the writer was dominant. The writer’s attempt at representation of that ideology
can be affected by the writer’s ideology at the time of writing. The reading of the text is a creative
process where the reading is the product of the three spheres of influence: the implied writer’s
ideology, the reader’s ideology and the ideology of the historical context of the text.

The ideologies I find within a text are influenced by the context of the text – the circumstances
surrounding its production. In other words they are influenced by the ideologies of the society in
which the text was produced. The social ideologies:

Human trend to destruct world nature, took only it benefits.

What first impression did Paul get when he arrive in Florida. How does the Florida landscape look
like to Paul?

In his first journey to Florida he found himself carried away with the beautiful green field’s scenery.
His mom explained to him that Florida was a huge place and there were still a lot of farms around.
However, his opinion about Florida changed soon after he heard that what will his dad a developer
would do to Florida. Developer creates jobs-construction jobs, teaching jobs, civil engineering jobs.
Developer won’t be hesitating to burn trees to clear the land for them to build buildings. It was fact
that we can’t deny. By looking at the setting of the story and relating it to the historical background
of the author Edward Bloor. We can sum up that Bloor put his ideology into his writing. The idea of
his first novel Tangerine while committing to work on Florida’s back roads west of Orlando. As he
once remember his past ”To my dismay, I watched the daily construction of the citrus grooves along
this route. This is how it happens. The citrus trees are uprooted and bulldozed into the piles, and
the piles are set in the fire, the charred remains of the trees and buried, and tons of white sand are
dumped over their graves. After that, a completely different place is created, a place as fictional as
any novel. A developer erects a wall, thinks of theme, and gives the place a name. Then the place
fills up with large houses and with people whose only common bond is that they qualified for the
same amount of mortgage money” Upset by changing landscape. Bloor asked himself:”who are the
people who used to make a go of it here? who are the people making their exit while we’re making
our entrance? and how do they feel about all this?”

Native usually allow his land to be sold to the other only for amount of money.
In Tangerine, Most of citrus growers sell land to a developer. Only few of them who stand still to
choose to be farmer. They who mindlessly loathly sold their land to the developer set apart from
their own land. This phenomenon also happens in our country. Native backs down their land to new
comers. In the end they have no bread and butter to live their family.

To be an athlete is Kind of Dream of western kids

To find Indonesian novel told the story about sport is quite rare. Sport theme is not popular in
Indonesia. In the opposite Edward Bloor write the story with the theme sport. Actually this is
influenced by the historical background of the author. Born in 1950, Bloor was raised in Trenton,
New Jersey, and recalled that, during his childhood, soccer reigned supreme. “Different ethnic
communities-Poles, Italians, Germans, Ukrainans all had their soccer clubs. Parents of the children
on these teams raged and howled at the games as if their national pride was at stake. I was one of
those little kids trying desperately to kick a soccer ball amidst the multilingual howling. I continued
my soccer playing through high school, on a really good team, and into the college, on really bad
team.” Bloor’s memories of the game eventually found their way into his fiction
Parents sometimes do something not fair to their children
Paul was the boy who had not listened. What did Mr. Fisher not know about Paul’s soccer playing?
He didn’t know anything about Paul. It is sad situation when Paul wanders into his back yard, he felt
sick in his soul. Paul was jealous to all attention that Mr. Fisher gave to his brother Erik. He is too
obsessed with Erik Fisher Football Dream. Paul had no idea about what he has to do to his dad.
Until he find himself became don’t care to his dad. We can see the way Paul comment to his father,
“Football season and soccer season happen at the same time, Dad. It’s OK with me if you can’t pay
attention to both…” This phenomenon also can we find in our real life.

Turn the back upon someone’s with disability

Equal access for someone with disability is one of human right issue of Major concern in Tangerine
novel. People with disability often feel negative expression from their own social group. People
sometimes underestimate to them. It is also what Paul felt when Coach Walski kicked Paul off the
soccer team. Bloor seems disagree with that behavior. He normalized his character by create strong
character with disability in the story. Paul is a strong character; As Bloor once explained :”Paul lives
in constant fear of his evil older brother, Erik. Paul also struggles mightily to lead a normal life and to see
things as they really are despite the thick framed glasses that cover his injured eyes” although he can’t
see very well, he never gives in to his dream to be a good soccer player.

Girls are tough divine creature

I woke up this morning with the Idea that woman is strong god creature. Betty bright, Maya Pandhi,
Shandra, Nita and Dolly are girl characters in the story. Betty bright is a former of professional
athlete who coach Tangerine Middle School soccer team and the rest of the girls I’ve told before is
Paul’s friend in soccer team. They are good soccer player; one of them Maya is kind of stars in their
soccer team. She is one of the two top scorers on the team.

School is miniature of our real life

There are two ideologies that I can see in Paul School’s life. First, the weak loose and the strong win.
You will success if you can adapt to every place where you are living. Likes Paul did, he succeeds in
his old school, Lake Windsor Middle school and his new school Tangerine middle school. Both in
those schools, he always can be accepted as part of the school. He succeeds to make friends to
anyone. Otherwise, his friend Joey who also living those two school decide to go back to his old
school because he felt he didn’t welcome by his people in his new school. The second ideology is
every place has its own policy to the citizen. As you can see Tangerine Middle school allow girl
students to play soccer in the same group of boy, in the opposite Lake Windsor middle school have
no rule like this. Willy nilly you have to obey those rules.

To sum up, there are some ideologies within the story. Bloor succeed in deliver some his beliefs and
ideas regarding social system of Tangerine.