Orange and History Felt/Carried in the Body

    While I was reading the first half of Tommy Orange’s novel, There There many instances of the question we talk about in class became prevalent, “How is history felt/carried in the body?” In many of the different storylines converging in this book, characters are struggling with their own sense of identity, such as Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield and her grandchildren. When Two Shoes is talking to Opal upon arrival to the island, he says to her, “You gotta know the history of your people. How you got to be here, that’s all based on what people done to get you here… They tried to kill us. But then when you hear them tell it, they make history seem like one big heroic adventure across an empty forest” (51). Opal experiences the real time history of her people on Alcatraz. One of the ironies Tommy Orange is playing with is this irony.  

    While Opal feels and carries the history of Native American suffering, culture, and pain with her, she will not teach her grandchildren about their Native American identity. When Orvil is trying to ask Opal to teach him about “being Indian” she says, “Learning about your heritage is a privilege. A privilege we don’t have. And anyway, anything you hear from me about your heritage does not make you more or less Indian. More or less real Indian. Don’t ever let anyone tell you what being Indian means” (119). While of course this is not laugh out loud irony, Orange is playing with the idea of history felt and carried in the body through the fact that Opal got to experience “being Indian” first-hand, and yet will not teach her grandchildren about their culture. He is asking the reader to figure out why she does not want to teach them. Maybe because she does not want the pain she experienced to be passed down. Maybe as she says “learning about your heritage is a privilege,” she means in order to learn is to experience individually. Because as she says, “don’t ever let anyone tell you what being Indian means.” This notion that history and culture can be whatever one wants it to be, is that true? I think when the boys escape to Powwow they are disbelieving this notion because they want to participate in the traditional ways of Native American culture. As Orvil explains it to Lony saying, “They’re just old ways, Lony. Dancing, singing Indian. We gotta carry it on… If we don’t they might disappear” (131).

 

    The scene where Orvil tells his story to Dene is another example of how history is felt and carried in the body. He remembers a story he wants to tell, and he is simply asked to tell the story by Dene, and Orvil immediately begins telling the story in great detail fully through. He can immediately feel this story in himself, and recite it using his memory. As Orange implies that history is felt and carried through heritage and culture he is also saying it is carried through memory and nostalgia as he described Orvil saying, “As they pass the target sign, Orvil remembers last year when they all got phones at Target on the same day as an early Christmas present. They were the cheapest phones they had, but at least they weren’t flip phones” (126). Orvil can so easily pop back into this setting in the story with his mom, and then see a Target sign and go back to an event. Again, Tommy Orange is showing how not only is culture a way that history is felt and carried, but through memories and nostalgia as well.

 

    On a different note, the girl I tutor, Laila told me she got a 96% on her geometry test last week. I asked her what she did to celebrate, and she said she ate ice cream, as she told me she always does when she gets a good grade. Another example of history and tradition being carried through the body.