Son of Italy
COMMENT: choose a SMALL DETAIL (but it must be really small, like a word you didn't know, an expression, an image, a hint) that caught your eye and send you mind wondering about bigger questions.
It must be an original detail that has not been discussed by anyone before.
REPLY: pick a comment that helped you see something you had overlooked before and that you recognize has some relevance in the story and for your comprehension of the story.
On page 29 of Son of Italy, Pascal D'Angelo is talking about witchcraft. A word that stood out to me was "stregoneria", which is the Italian word for witchcraft. I was not aware that witchcraft was a big problem in Italy during this time. It made me wonder how long it was a problem for, how it got brought up, and when the scare of it ended. Why was everyone scared of it? Did anyone in the village ever try and stop it?
ReplyDeleteI had initially glossed over this word when reading though the text, and I did not give enough thought to the impact that witchcraft had on Italian culture at the time. I realize now that this is a very relevant concept to the story, in that this magical influence provided Italians in the Early 20th C with a way to explain the things that otherwise could not have been explained; it allowed them to rationalize.
DeleteNina,
DeleteI too, was unaware that witchcraft was such a big problem in the life of Italians. Although I do not know for sure, I imagine much of the hysteria began to dwindle off once modern medicine became introduced to the smaller towns of Italy. Maybe modern medicine could have explained what happened to the boy they believed to have been cursed.
A detail that caught my attention in the text can be found on page 88, in which Matteo has beaten and apprehended the thief. As he drags him to the police station, Matteo repeatedly calls out "Police! Police!";interestingly enough, not one member of law enforcement shows up. What if Matteo was an Anglo-Saxon white man? Would the police have arrived to assist him then?
ReplyDeleteThis detail draws me in because it so closely echoes the Italian lynching instances we have been looking at. Take the Hahnville lynching, for example. When an angry mob broke into the prison to torture and kill three Italian men guilty of being "different" from the mainstream, police were coincidentally nowhere to be found, much like Matteo's case in SON OF ITALY. This reveals the racism embedded in Early 20th C American society towards Italian immigrants, and how it touches facets of the community as far up as that of law enforcement.
Dear Brandon,
DeleteI too was struck when this happened. I remember getting a sense of "No - don't call the police!." I was afraid that they would arrest him instead of help him. I also thought how handy those village days came in - I could just imagine Matteo's mom or wife lovingly stitching his name in his wallet and how lucky he was that they did so!
I was struck by the dream that Pascal had early on in the story on page 13. He describes himself having to climb a mountain much higher than any mountain he has seen before. He says "I did not know why I struggled so hard, but I was being urged onward - an awakened spirit in me was yearning to reach the top."
ReplyDeleteI saw this dream as foreshadowing Pascal's future struggles in America. The tree and birds that he saw once he reached the top could symbolize his hopes and aspirations for his arrival to a new land. However, the eventual tumbling of the mountain could symbolize his struggles and unfulfilled goals once he does reach America.
Hey Yasmin, I also agree with you. The dream struck me as a sense of foreshadowing Pascal's future as an immigrant in America. Like Nina said as well, I do hope he is able to pick himself back up again. A word that struck out to me that I have never heard before was on page 53, the word is "multitudinous". D'Angelo says "with multitudinous tears she steadily refused to do anything for her husband." The word is actually quite simple and it just means "very numerous", so after I realized what the word meant I could imagine the wife hysterically crying.
DeleteThanks Sydney, yes, that was a powerful scene.
DeleteHi Yasmin. I do recall reading about this dream that Pascal had but looked over the fact that it may have been foreshadowing his future struggles in America. I can clearly see where you made connections with the tumbling of the mountains and his struggles and unfulfilled goals in America. I hope he is able to pick himself up after his tumble.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nina - I do too!
DeleteSomething that stood out to me was on page 60- How Pascal thought that "Ave." for Avenue was actually the religious expression "Ave" as in "Ave Maria". This initially made me laugh because I found it humorous. The word Avenue at the corner of every street is such a common thing to us living in the city that we barely think twice of it. However, to someone coming from the countryside in Italy, streets were something seen as very foreign.
ReplyDeleteI found this detail to be funny as well. Usually when we go to a new place, we try to find things that relate to our values and life styles so we feel comfortable in our new surroundings.
Deletehi, Gabriela. I also thought about this. For me it was very familiar, I knew the meaning of the word “Ave”, but the situation when everything is new and had different meaning to it than I thought they were is very funny. In that situation I found him to be very much into his religion, showing that he is a good boy with good thought in his mind.
DeleteI also found this to be comical. This goes to show that Pascal came from a very religious background. This part of the book shows how Pascal uses his religious to make sense of his real life experiences.
DeleteA small detail that caught my attention is on page 18 when he is going into town with his mother. He looks at his mother gazing at the mountains and says that she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. I read this paragraph several times because it really stuck out for me. I love his appreciation for his mother and made me think about my own mother. The first couple of chapters briefly describe his relationship with his mother but this one paragraph shows how much he loves and admires her.
ReplyDeleteThat's really lovely how beautiful he thinks his mother is. I think later in the story when he knows he is leaving for America he understands how much she loves him. It reminds me of the quote, "if you love someone, set them free."
DeleteSmall detail that I paid attention was in page 47, chapter 4. Authors feeling when he heard word America and that his father want to leave there. He described his feelings as a painful ones, he knew that America did not do anything good as of that time, people would go there and never come back. America was not associated with something good, new place that would bring them good life, it was associated with pain and loss of his father. I think this is important part because already at that time Italians knew that living in America not easy, for some of them it will be just lost of a money if they would not be accepted. They already knew that their journey might give them hard time but they kept trying.
ReplyDeleteOne detail that stood out to me was the sentence "Immediately invoking the saints and power of Ovidio..." When I looked up the word Ovidio, I discovered that it was in reference to a Roman poet. I found this interesting because there are other instances in the book when I find a word I do not know it as an Italian significance to it. The questions that came after seeing this word was 1) Is it the name of a saint? 2) Does this saint/ being have powers? 3) why is this person being referenced now? 4) what significance does it have to the story.
ReplyDeleteI did not paid attention to this word, I thought it was some kind of river or something. now I am also interested to get answers for you questions
DeleteIn Son of Italy, one of the details I noticed was the line on page 62 when Angelo describes his new 'family' in America, "who had been thrown together almost by chance became like one family, until a few years later when death and troubles finally separated us."
ReplyDeletePrior to that America has been a land of opportunity and everything in America was great (except for maybe the shack they lived in). His foreshadowing of the future hardships is worth noting because it tells you that the characters who are wide-eyed now will break down soon and their family structure will change for the worse.
1. A small detail that stood out to me in Son of Italy was during the part of the book with the “vampire”. Pascal mentions how he heard her murmuring something about stregoneria. This word really caught my eye and ultimately led to me having to do some research. After researching this term, I found out that stregoneria is an Italian word that is translated into English as the word witchcraft. It can also be defined as a magical practice that can inflict harm or illness.
ReplyDeleteA detail from the book that caught my attention was in the beginning when he was being blamed for the kid that got hurt by the rock, and Angelo was in so much fear that he fled. He mentioned that if the boys parents came into the house and hit him, his own father would not stop them. He was hopeless, and he did not even try to find a way to be heard as if it were impossible, he just fled. I found it interesting how the norms of certain societies were in earlier years. I felt really bad for him.
ReplyDelete