The Recycling Plant Symbol Analysis

The recycling plant that towers over National City symbolizes the dual nature of personal identity. Like personal identity, which is both fixed and in flux, the recycling plant is  both a permanent fixture and constantly changing. Uno tells Danny that he wants to watch the sunrise over the recycling plant because Uno’s father once did it. Later, Danny reflects that the recycling plant is like “a permanent record” even though “everything inside is recycled.” The walls of the building are painted and re-painted by different people all the time, in the same way that a person’s identity changes depending on their environments and who they’re around. On the other hand, the plant reuses the same material that has existed forever, like the parts of people that are inherited from their family. Many characters deal with reconciling this dual nature of identity, and it is central to Danny’s development. His self-image changes depending on whether he’s in National City or Leucadia, and he feels both fortunate and restricted by his cultural and genetic heritage. Danny finds that, like the recycling plant, personal identity is both stable and ever-shifting, and as such, it has both beautiful and ugly aspects.