Nature

This novel personifies nature as alive, beautiful, dangerous, and, in the end, more powerful than humanity, thereby warning its readers to tend to the earth and honor its resources.

This theme is demonstrated in the first place through the novel’s early introduction of the man-made setting of California as a place that has deteriorated due to natural disaster. Luz and Ray are squatting in a starlet’s abandoned mansion, a house that represents the lost glory of Hollywood, the center of the American Dream, the place where man has chased gold, fame, and citrus. Once lush and full of possibility, ultra modern mansions, glamorous parties, and business potential, California has been ravaged by a severe drought. Luz notes that “the prospect of Mother Nature opening her legs and inviting Los Angeles back into her ripeness was, like the disks of water shimmering in the last...