The Infinity Mirror :: The Infinity Mirror

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.