Gasoline powers cars, and without this imperative fuel, the purpose of a vehicle vanishes. The car becomes a worthless body of metal taking up space in a yard. It begins to blend into its surroundings, almost invisible. Without the gasoline, the car will, inevitably, become completely unnoticeable. Invisibility and isolation of characters both reside in many pieces of literature. One author, William Stafford, emphasizes how, like cars need gasoline, humans need socialization and relationships with others to thrive. This idea of the desire and need for socialization is especially prominent in Stafford’s short story The Osage Orange Tree. In the story, a paperboy notices a particularly lonely, poor girl at school, Evangeline, and feels instantly drawn to her.…show more content… After their first encounter, she buys the paper from him daily, even though it requires her to steal money from her family. Little does he know, she throws the papers under the bridge by her house and she only purchases them to get to see him. Throughout the story, the invisibility of Evangeline is stressed to show the extreme lengths she would go to for a relationship with the boy. In this short story, Stafford has the goal of depicting how everyone needs socialization and connections with others to be happy. To show this, he utilizes symbolism, which causes the reader to analyze the importance of social relationships in their own life. Throughout The Osage Orange Tree, William Stafford uses the isolated location of Evangeline’s house, the newspapers, and the Osage orange tree as symbols to portray the importance of and desire for human
