Tamahere Alo

Kyle Malashewski

IB English

11/22/23

Formal Literary Analysis

Question:

James Baldwin once wrote, “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in

them.” How does Tommy Orange’s novel, especially at the beginning and at the end, embody

this idea? In other words, why do you think he chose to begin and end the novel in the

perspective of Tony Loneman?

Tommy Orange’s choice to start and end the novel with Tony Loneman’s perspective is a

perfect example of James Baldwin’s quote because Tony is a victim of circumstances in the way

that he was born deformed by fetal alcohol poisoning, a syndrome that would impact him

throughout his life. Tony is a complicated character who deals with many struggles such as

difficulty with learning and leading a thuggish lifestyle later in life, contributing to his

character’s depth and complexity. Tony is a modern-day or “Urban Indian” trying to survive like

the rest of his contemporaries in Oakland, California; however, his grandmother keeps him

connected to his traditional heritage. “ Urban Indians were the generation born in the city. We’ve

been moving for a long time, but the land moves with you like memory.” (Orange 11) This quote

describes how history is trapped in Tony. No matter where Native Americans end up, their

culture and history will always be a part of them. It moves with them. This is a fitting description

of Native Americans because historically they were nomadic tribes that moved around North

America either to follow the herds of animals or for weather reasons. Their physical movement
gave them a different relationship with the land and cultural practices. Tony’s city life is

reshaping his Native American identity, but the memory of the past and the old ways remain to

keep Tony rooted in his ancestry. As mentioned, Tony has fetal alcohol syndrome, what he calls

the “Drome.” “The Drome is my mom and why she drank, it’s the way history lands on a face,

and all the ways I made it so far despite how it has fucked with me since the day I found it there

on the TV, staring back at me like a fucking villain.” (Orange 16). This quote shows how Tony is

trapped in the history of his people, from the massacres, to reservations, to his mother’s

alcoholism, and finally him being trapped in his “mask” of the “Drome.”

Tony already stood apart due to being born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, an example of

“marked for greatness” in How to Read Literature like a Professor. This ties in with the history

of his mother’s drinking. Tony is marked by this historical trauma because he can’t change the

way he looks, and that has affected him ever since childhood. “THE DROME FIRST CAME to

me in the mirror when i was six. Earlier that day my friend Mario, while hanging from the

monkey bars in the sand park, said, “Why’s your face look like that?” I don’t remember what I

did. I still don’t know. I remember smears of blood on the metal and the taste of metal in my

mouth.” (Orange 15) The very first page of the book illustrates how Tony’s history affects his

life.

“There is an anchor, something he’s been rooted to all this time, as if in each hole there is

a hook attached to a line pulling him down. A wind from the bay sweeps through the stadium,

moves through him. Tony hears a bird. Not outside. From where he’s anchored, to the bottom of

the bottom, the middle of the middle of him. The center’s center.” (Orange 290) This quote is

from the ending of the book, after Tony’s been shot and death is near. At first I thought the title

of the book referenced a condolence for something terrible that has happened to Native
Americans. “There, there, poor thing.” But this quote and a few others brought forth another

meaning: referring instead to a place and being completely “there” focused in that present

moment in time and space. When you are “There, there” completely centered with yourself in

that moment, you become one with everything, all of your history and that of your ancestors. As

a Native Hawaiian, I know exactly what Tommy Orange is talking about. When I dance Hula, or

visit sacred places, I can feel the history of my Hawaiian culture, not trapped in me, but with me,

flowing through me, and I can feel what he is writing about.

“Tony hears Maxine singing in the kitchen again and then he’s there. He’s There and he’s

four years old, the summer before going into kindergarten. He’s in the kitchen with Maxine. He’s

not twenty-one-year-old Tony thinking about his four-year-old self—remembering. He’s just

there again, all the way back to being four-year-old Tony.” (Orange 288). In that moment, when

Tony is dying, he is brought back to his childhood and completely at peace. Content with his

situation. Another example of Tony being “There, there.” In that place, completely there.

The last example of how history is trapped in a person is in the ending of the book. “Tony plays

with his Transformers on the floor of his bedroom. He makes them fight in slow motion. He gets lost

in the story he works out for them. It’s always the same. There is a battle, then a betrayal, then a

sacrifice. The good guys end up winning, but one of them dies, like Optimus Prime had to in

Transformers.” (Orange 289) In the final scene of the book, during the shoot-out, when Tony is

“There”, not laying in the grass but back in his childhood home, he remembers playing with his toys

and remembers specifically how his make believe stories would always go and it’s exactly the same as his

last moments. That memory is part of his history and that history shapes the way Tony decided to live

the rest of his life. Tony had the chance to run away from the powwow to safety, instead he chose to
stay. He sacrificed himself to stop Calvin from shooting more innocent people, because he was

influenced by his culture, it was embedded within him. “Charles keeps shooting at him and missing.

Tony knows this means he might be hitting other people behind him, and his face gets hot.” (Orange

286), this shows how Tony’s choices were affected by his childhood self. He is still the same as that boy

in his grandma's kitchen.

In the end Tommy Orange's decision to use Tony Loneman to begin and conclude his

novel perfectly embodies the idea that “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in

them.” – James Baldwin. Tony talks a lot about his childhood and his history. I think this is what

James Baldwin meant by his quote. How history shapes a person. How history travels with a

person who values their culture. How Tony’s Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and rough upbringing

affected him all throughout his life. How that history stayed with Tony up until the bitter end.