FEATURED ESSAYS 1. The Infinity Mirror 2. The Infinity Mirror 3. Zeno Of Elea 4. Bugged 5. The Lady Of Shalott 6. The Mirror By Sylvia Plath 7. Plato Vs Shelley 8. In The Lake Of The Woods 9. Georg Cantor 10. Ameratsu 11. The Camera 12. Thomas Aquinas And The Existence ... 13. The Disproof (and Proof) Of Ev 14. Hubble Space Telescope

The Infinity Mirror

 "Tularecito" is a myth about truth. Tularicito, just a character of that
myth, is the focus for this glossed over fable. Steinbeck draws on this
form of genre to present the idea that we are all a part of what happens
to others, based upon our nature.

The image presented of Tularecito is that of a demon, an idiot savant, a
boy with a gift from God, and that gift's cost. He is a freak, a dangerous
misfit, an innocent who does not need the constraints of reality.
Tularecito is a test. The test is one of moral caliber. It is a test of
the souls of the characters who overshadaow Tularecito.

Pancho is a man that is both holy and sinful. His purfunctory act of
church going becomes true belief as alcohol demons induce him to
halucinate a deformed boy into an outcast from hell. He looks into his
mirror and sees himself, becomes shaken, reforms.

From Pancho's employer, Franklin Gomez, we get a cold hard look into
society. We see a mother, knowing her son is to be hated and feared, and
perhaps possibly killed, cannot face killing her son with her bare hands.
She leaves the killing to exposure to the elements, enying herself a look
into Tularecito.

Franklin adopts Pancho's demon, and Tularecito transforms into a
disadvantaged who has been gifted with talent. Tularecito becomes a man at
the age of six, "The boy grew rapidly, but after the fifth year his brain
did not grow any more," To Franklin, Tularecito is grace, and graceless.
He is talented in all things of any physical strength, and well proficient
in the creation of beauty, and an artist in the care for life of nature.
The touch of Tularecito brings beauty, and life, and love to the world,
until he becomes enraged, (should anyone endanger what came from the touch
of his hand). Franklin looked into Tularecito's mirror and saw what
Tularecito was.

Authority views come from several directions. While one teacher sees
Tularecito as a Pavlovian dog, needing to be trained, the other sees him
as an idiot savant, needing only to be pushed into harmless fantasy. This
leads a third view of Tularecito, one of a simple minded killer that needs
to be locked up for his own good.

Tularecito is viewed as less than human from the start. His name means
"little frog", and his physical disabilities are seen by all, causing fear.
Tularecito is a noble savage. Dangerous to look at but hiding the soul of
God, hf is intimidating, a creator, and dangerously tempermental.

As Steinbeck weaves his tale, it is obviously full of metaphors on the
basic belief of our society that everything must be forced into a
plausable category, fit for inclusion into the human race. Tularecito
should never have gone to school. He would have been happy living at home,
simple as he was. In the end society takes Tularecito and makes him a
monster. Since monsters are not allowed into human society, Tularecito
goes looking for a different society that he does belong to.

Unfortunately this society doen not exist. Tularecito has no control over
his perceptions of reality and fantasy. He searches for a world of fantasy,
and in his efforts, he creates a hole. When this hole is covered up, it
confirms Tularecito's belief in fantasy. Tularecito creates another hole,
and waits for his fantasy to show.

Tularecito has only one flaw. He believes that what he created should not
be destroyed. Whenever this happens, should it be school, work, or fantasy,
Tularecito defends his creations with the only thing he can understand,
violence. It is not like true, calculated violence, but very much like a
motor nerve reaction. He reacts with pure emotion and pain, and eventually
he kills.

Steinbeck tells an interesting story with Tularecito as a mirror. In fact,
all the characters in the story are mirrors. As we look at them we see how
we measure against them. But Tularecito is a mirror with an infinity of
sides. He is a tool for testing human beliefs, one of which is that
sometimes, it is better to leave things alone than to try to force them
into our mirror image of how they should exist.

Word Count: 632