🌴 Tropical quality 📚 Tropical image in culture

tropicality

9.0

How people imagine places near the equator, often making them seem exotic and simple

noun
/ˌtrɒpɪˈkælɪti/

Literature

: tropicalidad cultural

Scholars have criticized the use of tropicality in travel writing for reinforcing stereotypes.

Examples

The novel explores how tropicality shapes Western perceptions of Caribbean islands.
Museums sometimes display artifacts in ways that reflect outdated ideas of tropicality.
The novel captures the tropicality of the Caribbean beautifully.
Many artists explore tropicality in their works.
The documentary highlights the impact of tropicality on how tourists perceive local cultures.
Critics argue that the movie oversimplifies the concept of tropicality by presenting cliches about island life.
In her essay, she examines how tropicality influences Western literature and its portrayal of nature.

Surface Forms

tropicality singular

tropicalities plural

Morphology

tropicality = tropical (semi-transparent) = tropical + ity

Built from 'tropical' + '-ity', but used here in an extended, representational sense (cultural/literary tropes) that is an abstracted extension of the literal meaning.

Etymology

Tropicality comes from tropic, from the Greek tropos meaning 'turn', but in culture the word often means the way people imagine the tropics, the hot or exotic picture you see in books and films. So tropicality in this sense is about those images and ideas rather than the real place.