Irrationality in Orange's There There

    Characters in There There are not characterized by their rational behavior. Throughout the novel, I fail to find a single character who behaves remotely as a rational actor, and this is something I have struggled with throughout the novel. As someone who studies science, I find it difficult to relate to characters who appear to be fundamentally irrational actors. As I think about some of these characters, though, I realize that this irrationality is central to the novel because it is necessary to portray these people as broken. These are people who are members of a broken culture, live in a broken city, are broken by addiction, have been historically broken by another people, are burdened by a broken economy, and are living within broken families. For these people who grow up and exist within a hostile environment, Orange makes it a central point of the novel to portray these characters as irrational actors to speak about some of these issues.

    For example, Opal's daily motions revolve around baseless superstition. Throughout her day, she "lives by a superstition she would never admit to... trying to remember which spoon she'd eaten with earlier. She has lucky and unlucky spoons. In order for the lucky ones to work, you have to keep the unlucky ones with them, and you can't look to see what you're getting when you pull one out of the drawer" (Orange 160). Going further, Opal even works lucky and unlucky numbers into her route, making sure to hit the right side of the street at the right time. If she is convinced that the outcome of spoon choice in the morning will have overarching consequences of fate, she is irrationally superstitious. (In fairness, this isn't much less rational than beliefs held by mainstream Western religions, but that's beside the point.) Opal seems to have filled a spiritual void in her life with a superstition of her own creation. Where others may have a culturally fitting religion or flavor of spiritual guidance, Opal has none other than her own superstition because of her rejection of her Native American identity. Orange uses Opal's bizarre beliefs to show the effect of the erasure of a cultural identity on an individual. Without a culture to connect herself to, Opal is lost. It is noteworthy that Opal sees herself as somewhat powerless in her construct of superstition. Where others find empowerment in their spiritual guidance, Opal tries to avert disaster. This is another insight into the Native American mentality that Opal's psychology provides to the reader.

    Another distinctly irrational story is presented later in the novel. Daniel takes care of his severely depressed mother, and he supplies 3D printed guns for Octavio's organizing of the powwow shooting. Unfortunately, Daniel has no father figure, and his brother, Manny, is dead. Daniel, however, is young, and is forced to take responsibility for himself and his mentally absent mother in lieu of the rest of his family. Daniel has developed skill in  a broad spectrum of software engineering tools, namely "JavaScript, SQL, Ruby, C++, HTML, Java, [and] PHP" (Orange 191), a wide range of languages applicable to back-end software engineering, web design, web scripting, and app design. To make money, however, Daniel does not try to employ his skill set in finding a job (one he could even work from home). He instead accepts payment from Octavio to coordinate 3D printing of guns for robbing the powwow. I struggle to rationalize Daniel's motivations here. He is desperate for money, but he possesses an extremely valuable skill set in the labor market. Despite his worry over the robbing going badly (to the reader, it is obvious it will), he still chooses to work with Octavio. With the story of Daniel, Orange is making a point about the effect of self-perpetuating family norms that seem to be pervasive throughout the native community. Daniel has no father figure; he has no one to tell him that his skills are valuable and that he can do better than working with Octavio. Given the money, Daniel blows a huge portion of the money on a drone (which he eventually crashes), showing he has no concept of money management. This is another irrational action that is a result of his broken family home. Without any parental guidance, Danial is lost and is an irrational actor. I figure that without this guidance, Daniel will continue to make poor decisions in his future career and family lives, likely perpetuating home issues for his own children. With the story of Daniel, Orange has identified the repeating nature of the broken home for the Native American culture, and he is angrily speaking out against it.