Tommy Orange Essay: The Transformation Of Tony Loneman

My transformation at UCR has been similar to the transformation of Tony Loneman, because I’ve grown to be a better man than I was prior to my attendance at UCR. Tony is a complicated character for a multitude of reasons, but instead of letting those traits consume his life and proceed to define who he is as a person Tommy Orange sought out to give him an evolution. While my life may be drastically different than Tony’s that does not mean either of us chose to live our lives one way as opposed to another, but we instead chose we wanted to be in this world. Tony is a very complicated individual at the start of the story. We come to learn that he lives a depressing life due to his unfortunate condition, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), due to his

I can not sit here and blame Tony, but he chose to go down a path that will only result in continuous despair and anguish. Tony is a very violent man as well as he allows his insecurities to consume him which causes him to partake in very poor choices such as assaulting a classmate for example (Orange). Tony is even self-aware of the kind of man he is as he questions himself if he is viewed as a stereotypical Native villain. Tony is the type of character that audiences resonate with, but are given any avenue to root against because of his poor choices. One can sit here and feel bad for Tony as he was dealt a terrible hand and as such he turned to a life of violence and crime. However, his self-awareness of these terrible life decisions only makes matters worse as he is aware of what he is doing in life and still chooses to delve deeper into this life by going along with a plan to rob a Powwow. He knows this is morally and ethically wrong, but decides to go along with such a plan as this is the only life

However, that does not mean I did not go through some sort of similar transformation. When I first came to this school I told myself that I was going to stick in my own lane and be this anti-social person. That did not last though as experiences here and even outside of my classroom experiences led to this type of change. Since the start of high school, I was this anxiety-riddled anti-social person. I had a very small group of friends and once I left high school for university that small group of friends dwindled drastically. None of my friends chose to attend UCR, so as a result, I was essentially all alone here. With no friends and a huge inability to make friends, I was very depressed in my first year of college. I know it sounds silly and entitled to be sad whilst attending a university, but to leave all my friends and family behind to embark on a new journey into the next chapter of my life was frightening. I had no type of guidance and Zoom classes did not make things easier. However, once the university decided it was safe enough to open up that gave me even more anxiety as now I was on my own to explore and experience college. It was not easy transitioning, and I closed myself off even more as I was not happy and felt like dumping that onto people would not help in the slightest. Things changed though as I met someone very special in my life toward the end of my