Tropic Trappings in Mel Gibson's Apocalypto and Joseph Nicolar's The LIfe and Traditions of the Red Man

Discusses tropes or traditions, the organizing devices societies cohere to, by comparing a book and a movie. As key elements of belief systems, tropes act as powerful mediators between the world and how we experience the world’s meaning . By structuring a shared reality cultures are created, however, sometimes tropes can structure incompatible realities across cultures and distort our ability to understand cultures different from our own.