Read Tortilla Curtain, then you'll understand...

      If there was one word I would use to describe the character Delaney, from T.C. Boyle’s book, “Tortilla Curtain,” it would be pusillanimous.  I had to look up this word when I was in the 7^th grade, and I have been waiting for the perfect time to use it, and here it is: “Pusillanimous:  lacking courage and resolution : marked by contemptible timidity.”  Delaney’s constantly timid in dealing with his peers, and his lack of courage to stand up for himself astounds me.  He didn’t really start out that way.  In the beginning, Delaney was about tolerance and all things nature and connected.  However, as instances started happening, he let the prejudices and fears of those around him, influence his way of thinking.  Suddenly, he was noticing bad omens all around him. Mexicans who only wanted to steal things, and dirty things, and make everything worse.  I call him pusillanimous because, as the word states, he knows his thoughts are wrong, he knows his neighbors are wrong, and yet he has not the courage to really stand up and do something about it.  He is perfectly okay with living his life in his little bubble.  Each passing chapter I read, his inner monologue tells of his struggles with the racism and blame going on, and yet, his outward actions and words prove him to be nothing more than whatever people want him to be.

      For example; he never wanted the gate to be put up, and he made a half hearted, barely perceived argument against it.  In his mind he was dead-set about that gate.  Yet, when he sees a car drive by slowly with loud music, his first decree is that yes, the gate might be good after all.  He has no idea who is in the car, or why they are there in the neighborhood.  He doesn’t see the driver or any passengers, but he feels because of what Jack said, that in all likelihood, they are Mexican and up to no good. Delaney never considers that the threat could be from teenagers already living in Arroyo Blanco or any other situation that could account for the car.  Simply taking in all the racist rhetoric Jack and his cronies have been spouting, is enough to create doubt and suspicion in Delaney’s mind.  It is my opinion that Delaney embodies the word pusillanimous simply because he is weak where others are concerned.

     When Kyra states that she made an effort to get rid of the labor stand, Delaney feels that was a step too far.  Does he say anything to her about his actual thoughts? Nope.  Before that, he sees the man he ran over getting beat up in the parking lot of a store.  Does he help? No, once again, he pushes his good conscious aside and instead attributes Candido’s beat down to a “serves him right for begging,” mentality.  In the beginning of the book, you would think that maybe, just maybe he would have tried to stop the fight, or intervened in some way.  By that chapter, however, you learn that he has accepted this outward way of thinking to the point where he is just fine with letting a fellow human being get beat up. Trash, animals, plants, and all  nature be saved, but to Delaney, Mexicans be damned.