Fisher In The Tangerine Essay

Erik Fisher: Most Influential

Tangerine is a story by Edward Bloor about a 7th grader named Paul. Paul moved to Florida, with his family that consisted of his mom, Mrs, Fisher, his dad, Mr. Fisher, and Paul’s brother Erik, where he experienced a whole new style of life. Paul went through many changes and choices that caused him to develop into who is he was at the end. In the novel, the concept of choice is woven throughout the text. Characters show that whatever choice they make impacts other characters considerably. In books and life, choices, no matter how small or big, impact people’s life in many ways. In the Tangerine, Erik’s choices most greatly impacted Paul’s eyesight, friendships, and strength.

One choice Erik made in Tangerine that greatly impacted Paul’s life was the spray paint incident. Page 263 talks about Paul’s memory of losing his eyesight and why it happened. Apparently, Vincent and Erik had spray painted something on a gray wall and all the kids knew who did it, but no one told the adults. Somehow their parents found out and Vincent was in trouble. Believing it was Paul, Erik decided to “punish” him. On pages 263-264, the novel says,

On page 205, the book shows Paul thoughts by saying, “Immediately, faster than I thought he could, faster than Tino thought he could, Erik lashed out, smashing the back of his hand across Tino’s face, smashing him so hard that Tino spun halfway around in the air and landed on the grass.” As a result of Tino taunting Erik about the “banana-peel-flip”, purposefully provoking Erik because of his comment of “‘...I think it’s great that these farm-labor kids get to spend a day away from the fields.’” (page 204), Erik had hit Tino’s face . By doing this, Erik had caused a rift Paul and his friends. Paul also struggled with whether or not to tell his parents about what happened, and he wonders why he can’t tell them about the actions of