"I'm Not Scared" Notes
Notes:
Page Text Response
Epigraph That much he knew. He had fallen into darkness. And at the instant he knew, he ceased to know.
-Jack London This interesting quotation begins the novel, I’m Not Scared. Ammaniti choses this quotation because it matches the book both literally and figuratively. Literally, there is a boy that “has fallen into darkness” literally as he is in a hole. However, the “fallen” boy can matches the subtle religious undertones of the novel. The fallen boy can represent the fallen people of Michele’s town and Michele, being the “guardian angel” of the boy is thus the guardian angel and savior of the people.
3 Maybe because once he had stuck a skull on his arm, one of those transfers you bought at the tobacconist’s and fixed on with water. This passage is interesting because it shows that the novel was not translated into “American English” but into “British English.” This is apparent through the use of the word “transfer” which, without context clues, to most Americans means nothing. In context however, the word “transfers” refers to a fake tattoo that one puts on oneself using water. Another interesting word to note is “tobacconist” which is a translation of the Italian “tobiaccino.” The word is not used in English as in America a tobacconist would be very difficult to find. These words add to the foreign feel of the novel as a whole and make it more interesting.
13 I looked at the horizon. A milky haze veiled things. You couldn’t see the sea. But you could see the other, lower hills, and Melichetti’s farm with its pigsties and the gravina…” The setting created in this passage is dark and a bit mysterious. It is written that as Michele looked over the horizon he could not see much because it was “veiled” by “a milky haze.” This is interesting in two key aspects. Firstly, it implies that the future (looking over the horizon) is dark and unknown (veiled). This adds to the mysteriousness of what will happen in the later chapters of the novel. Also, the fog covering the horizon is described as a “milky haze.” Milk is produced for children by their mothers. With that being said, can the connection between “milky haze” and Michele’s mother or parents be connected? Are they what make his future so uncertain and dark?
18 Skull slapped her across the face.
Barbara opened her mouth like a trout and rubbed her cheek. She still wasn’t crying. She turned towards us.
“Haven’t you lot got anything to say?” she whimpered. “You’re just as bad as him!”
…
“Wait! I came last,” I heard my voice saying.
Everyone turned.
“Yes,” I gulped. “I want to do it.” This passage marks the first time that anyone in the group of children has stood up to Skull. Skull intimidates the others into subordination through his physical and mental attacks. Since the narration is through Michele’s point of view and is limited omniscense, we can only read about his thoughts and feelings. Michele makes it clear that he knows that “something [is] wrong” with what Skull forces Barbara to do but he does not speak up at first. However, as Barbara almost does her forfeit, Michele speaks up and is the only one to do so. This establishes him as a moral leader for the group of friends, he is the only one that feels strongly enough about what is right to stand up to Skull and save Barbara.
21 About ten years later I happened to go skiing on the Gran Sasso… I was really excited and I didn’t care if everybody said it was dangerous, I wanted to ski. In this passage the author, Niccolo Ammaniti, shows the readers that the story of young Michele is being told by the older Michele, in a sort of flash-back. This is interesting because technically, the narrator knows all of the events to come in the story but does not share them yet. Also, the character Michele here is portrayed as a bit of a risk taker. He chooses to ski because he wants to despite the fact that “everybody said it was dangerous.” This physical bravery can be connected to Michele’s moral courage in standing up to Skull and others. He doesn’t care about others, only about what he feels he needs to do.
23 I landed face down on the branch. I tried to grip it, but it was big. I used my legs but there was nothing to get hold of. I started to slip. I tried to claw onto the bark.
Salvation was right in front of me… I steeled myself and with a sudden lunge grabbed it with both hands.
It was dry. It snapped.
I landed on my back. I lay still, with my eyes closed, certain I had broken my neck. I couldn’t feel any pain… The syntax of this passage is very interesting. Ammaniti uses very short sentences, some even two words each. The sentences, for the most part, are simple in structure and strung together without any unnecessary words. It is evident that Ammaniti (or the translator) put in effort to take out unnecessary words. I believe that this is done for the effect of creating suspense. In this part of the novel, young Michele has just completed his death-defying forfeit and needs to now get down from the house. This, of course, is a dangerous act and through the suspense created by the short simple sentences, the reader becomes unsure if Michele will get out “with his neck.”
31 Mama was too happy that papa was home again. When papa went away her stomach hurt, and the more time passed the less she talked. After a month she went completely mute. Michele recognizes the love that his mother has towards his father. In this passage, he depicts his mother as having physical pain because she missed her husband, which is unusual since psychological pain is more expected than physical pain. Michele also tells the reader that “after a month she went completely mute.” This could be interpreted three ways. Firstly, maybe the physical pain of her husband being away causes Michele’s mother to not want to speak. Secondly, maybe Michele’s mother does not have anything to say when her husband is not around. And thirdly, maybe in Michele’s society women are not expected to speak without their husbands and are not allowed to express themselves.
34 I woke up during the night. I had had a nightmare.
Jesus was telling Lazurus to rise and walk. But Lazarus didn’t rise. Rise and walk, Jesus repeated. Lazarus just wouldn’t come abck to life. Jesus, who looked like Severino, the man who drove the water tanker, lost his temper. He was being made to look a fool… So Jesus started shaking him like a doll and Lazarus finally rose up and bit him in the throat. Leave the dead alone, he said with blood-smeared lips. In this passage, Michele is dreaming on the night of the day that he discovered the boy in the hole. At this time, Michele believes the boy is dead and has this dream. The dream uses religious register to convey the message of “leave the dead alone.” The dream itself is rather gruesome and ironic. One would not expect Jesus to get “bitten in the neck” because he was trying to resurrect someone, but he does. One would expect that people would be willing and wanting to rise from the dead. However, that is not the case and instead Jesus gets punished for his resuracting act. This dream could be applied to the rest of the novel and may be foreshadign an end. Perhaps Michele will try to rescue the “dead” boy from the hole and in doing so will be severly hurt by either the boy himself or by others. The dream tells Michele to leave the boy alone, but I do not think he will do that because of his character.
47 I took off my T-shirt, rested my back against the wood, my head in my hands, and looked at the hill where the boy was. It was far away, at the end of the plain, and the sun was setting beside it. It was an orange disc that faded to pink against the clouds and the sky. Again, setting is infused with beautiful imagery to create a marvelous scene for the reader. When I originally read this passage I pictured meadows of crops with an orange to pink sun in the sky slowly setting. Ammaniti (and the translator) does a very good job throughout the novel in creating a scene that is both fantastic and fitting of a small southern Italian town. The setting also plays a role in foreshadowing events though, and the sun setting over the boy’s hole can either mean that life for the boy is coming close to an end or that his imprisonment in the hole is coming close to an end.
52 I wished I could turn into a bat and fly over the house. Or put on the old suit of armour that Salvatore’s father kept by the front door and go up onto the hill. Wearing that I would be safe from the witches. In this passage, the reader learns more about Michele’s intentions to rescue the boy in the hole. Throughout the book Michele has been wanting to rescue the people in his life (Barbara from Skull, his mother from herself and now the boy from the hole) but he feels too weak or scared. Even though the title of the book is “I’m Not Scared” it is apparent throughout the novel that Michele is in fact scared of many things in his life. I believe that the title is used as a sort of mantra a little child would repeat to himself while doing something that they are in fact scared of.
I’m Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti [Second-Third]
Page Text Response
53 I stayed in bed for a while, with my eyes closed, listening to the birds. Then I started seeing the boy rising up and stretching out his arms again.
“Help!” I said.
What an idiot I was! That’s why he had sat up. He had been asking me for help and I had run away. Michele feels guilt over running away from the boy’s hole in this passage. Originally, Michele had been terrified by the boy in the hole that popped out at him and had closed the opening and ran away. The day after though, after no dreams that night, he realizes that the boy had not meant to frighten him but only wanted to gesture for help from Michele. The immense amount of guilt shown here depicts how much Michele really cares for others. He feels very bad after not doing everything he could to help his friend in the hole. While those around him are doing evil acts and not feeling any guilt (such as putting the boy in the hole in the first place) Michele feels guilt for not rescuing him. He truly is the moral leader in his town and in our novel.
61 Before supper I had opened the fridge and the meat wasn’t there any more.
“Mama, wher’s that slice of meat?”
She looked at me in amazement. “Do you like meat now?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not there anymore. Your father’s eaten it.”
No he hadn’t. He had taken it for the boy.
Because the boy was my brother…
Maybe the boy in the hole was my brother, and he had been born mad like Nunzio and papa had hidden him there, so as not to frighten my sister and me. Not to frighten the children of Acqua Traverse. This passage was very shocking at first! Michele’s narration states “the boy was my brother” in an assertive and certain tone. Obviously at this point the reader is going to have many questions in his mind and think of how Michele knows for sure and where he got this information from. However, as the narration goes on to explain, Michele does not really know that the boy is his brother but instead theorizes that it is a possible explanation for why he is in the hole.
Also, Michele’s father in this passage is characterized in a very flattering light and made out to be a Saint while his mother is made out to be the more evil of the two. This is very interesting because in actuality, as the reader discovers towards the end of this chapter, it is Michele’s father that has kidnapped the boy and put him in the hole. However, Michele at this point theorizes that his mother had told his father to kill the child in the field because it had bitten her. In reality, the boy is not Michele’s brother and his mother is the one that is against killing the child.
64 Felice Natale was Skull’s big brother. If Skull was bad, Felice was a thousand times worse…
He had put the boy in the hole. That was who had put him there. “Skull’s big brother’s” name is very ironic. He is described by Michele to be extremely bad, much worse than Skull who we have already seen trying to do some very messed up things. The irony lies in Skull’s brother’s name: Felice Natale. The translation of the name from Italian to English means: “Happy Christmas.” Christmas is supposed to be a holy and happy time of the year while Felice Natale seems to be anything but.
75-76 I looked at the old man, who was taking a cigarette from a packet of Dunhills.
I later found out that his name was Segio Materia… he came from Rome, where he had achieved notoriety, twenty years earlier, as a result of a robbery at a fur shop on Monte Mario and a raid on the central branch of the Banca dell’ Agricoltura. The description of Sergio Materia in this passage is one that may foreshadow future events. Though the reader knows in the next couple of pages that Michele’s father and the rest of the adults in the town are the ones who have kidnapped and imprisoned the boy, it is still uncertain why. One can hypothesize that it is Sergio Materia’s evil influence on the families that causes them to abandon all morality and commit the crime. Sergio is even descried as snake like at a point which can be connected to the snake’s temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. Acqua Taversa truly is a small Garden of Eden in the middle of nowhere and now this city man, who has traveled the world and committed many crimes, has come in to corrupt it.
78 Papa made the scissors sign with his fingers. ‘Two ears we’ll cut off. Two.’
The old man added: ‘Yeah, that’ll teach you to talk on TV, you tramp!’
And they all started shouting again.
It had been papa and the others who had taken the boy away from that lady on television.
…
‘Be careful, Michele, you mustn’t go out at night,’ mama always said. ‘When it’s dark the bogeyman comes out and takes the children away and sells them to the gypsies.’
Papa was the boogeyman.
By day he was good, but at night he was bad.
All of the others were gypsies. Gypsies disguised as people. And that old man was the king of the gypsies and papa was his servant. Mama wasn’t, though. Wow! Now the reader has a completely different view of Michele’s father along with Michele. After a heart wrenching plead by Filippo’s mother on TV to please not cut off her son’s ear as the men of the town had threatened to do, Michele’s father is offended and states that now he will cut off both of the boy’s ears. This is ridiculous as we have been under the impression that Michele’s father was mostly just and Michele literally described him as being a good man that wanted to save the boy in the hole. However, we come to learn that, unlike his son, Michele’s father shows no morality and only looks to prosper from the immediate financial situation, and under any means possible.
Togo squirmed but Barbara held him fast by his scruff and his collar. She pushed him under. I saw him disappear in the mud.
She started singing again. ‘One fine morning I woke early. O bella ciao! Bella ciao! Bella ciao ciao ciao!’
She didn’t pull him out again.
She wanted to kill him.
I shouted. “What are you doing? Let him go!” Once more Michele shows to the reader his true nobel self. Michele sees that Barbara, one of his close friends, is trying to drown her puppy and jumps out of a tree he is sitting in to save the dog. Michele tries to preserve all life possible. This strongly hints to the fact that Michele will jump out of a metaphorical tree and tell the people of the town to stop drowning the boy in the hole. It is a very interesting connection, will it happen? Throughout the novel we have been shown repeatedly Michele’s bravery in the face of hardship and peer pressure. What about when the pressure isn’t coming from his peers but instead his parents?
94 And if you said anything he would start shoving you. One way or another he always won. Even with dolls he would have found a way of winning. This is the description Michele gives of Skull. He is very tough, arrogant and stubborn. This is fitting for his name “skull” as a skull is quite literally hard headed. Is this intentional or is something from the name lost in translation. Also, why is the name Skull translated but his brother’s name Felice Natale is not. (Probably because it would sound much too awkward to have a character named “Merry Christmas.”
108 ‘… One shove and he’s gone. Murdered.’
‘But why?’
‘Good question. Why? I don’t know. He didn’t have a lira. I just don’t know. I can’t sleep at nights. But that bitch paid for it … I have her… Well, never mind that, it’s late. Good night.” This is Sergio’s response to why he believes his son was murdered by his wife. Sergio tells Michele that he strongly believes that his favorite son was thrown off a cliff by his wife and tells him that he is the only one that sees it that way. At the end of this passage, Sergio hints that he “took care” (or murdered) his son’s wife for doing what she did. This shows how little Sergio respects life. Even after his son’s wife was released from charges he held a terrible grudge and killed her. It foreshadows what is to come for the boy.
113 At the bottom of the suitcase there was a rolled-up towel. I opened it and inside there was a pistol. I stared at it. It was big, it had a wooden butt and it was black. I lifted it. It was very heavy. Maybe it was loaded. I put it back. The gun in the suitcase is there because Michele’s father is planning on shooting Filippo. This is interesting however how little though Michele gives to putting the gun back. He does not think about what he could do were he to take the gun and hide it from his parents and their friends. Also, Ammaniti uses short and simple sentences again to both exaggerate the point of how little thought Michele puts into it and to create suspense, both of which are successful.
Page Text Response
Epigraph That much he knew. He had fallen into darkness. And at the instant he knew, he ceased to know.
-Jack London This interesting quotation begins the novel, I’m Not Scared. Ammaniti choses this quotation because it matches the book both literally and figuratively. Literally, there is a boy that “has fallen into darkness” literally as he is in a hole. However, the “fallen” boy can matches the subtle religious undertones of the novel. The fallen boy can represent the fallen people of Michele’s town and Michele, being the “guardian angel” of the boy is thus the guardian angel and savior of the people.
3 Maybe because once he had stuck a skull on his arm, one of those transfers you bought at the tobacconist’s and fixed on with water. This passage is interesting because it shows that the novel was not translated into “American English” but into “British English.” This is apparent through the use of the word “transfer” which, without context clues, to most Americans means nothing. In context however, the word “transfers” refers to a fake tattoo that one puts on oneself using water. Another interesting word to note is “tobacconist” which is a translation of the Italian “tobiaccino.” The word is not used in English as in America a tobacconist would be very difficult to find. These words add to the foreign feel of the novel as a whole and make it more interesting.
13 I looked at the horizon. A milky haze veiled things. You couldn’t see the sea. But you could see the other, lower hills, and Melichetti’s farm with its pigsties and the gravina…” The setting created in this passage is dark and a bit mysterious. It is written that as Michele looked over the horizon he could not see much because it was “veiled” by “a milky haze.” This is interesting in two key aspects. Firstly, it implies that the future (looking over the horizon) is dark and unknown (veiled). This adds to the mysteriousness of what will happen in the later chapters of the novel. Also, the fog covering the horizon is described as a “milky haze.” Milk is produced for children by their mothers. With that being said, can the connection between “milky haze” and Michele’s mother or parents be connected? Are they what make his future so uncertain and dark?
18 Skull slapped her across the face.
Barbara opened her mouth like a trout and rubbed her cheek. She still wasn’t crying. She turned towards us.
“Haven’t you lot got anything to say?” she whimpered. “You’re just as bad as him!”
…
“Wait! I came last,” I heard my voice saying.
Everyone turned.
“Yes,” I gulped. “I want to do it.” This passage marks the first time that anyone in the group of children has stood up to Skull. Skull intimidates the others into subordination through his physical and mental attacks. Since the narration is through Michele’s point of view and is limited omniscense, we can only read about his thoughts and feelings. Michele makes it clear that he knows that “something [is] wrong” with what Skull forces Barbara to do but he does not speak up at first. However, as Barbara almost does her forfeit, Michele speaks up and is the only one to do so. This establishes him as a moral leader for the group of friends, he is the only one that feels strongly enough about what is right to stand up to Skull and save Barbara.
21 About ten years later I happened to go skiing on the Gran Sasso… I was really excited and I didn’t care if everybody said it was dangerous, I wanted to ski. In this passage the author, Niccolo Ammaniti, shows the readers that the story of young Michele is being told by the older Michele, in a sort of flash-back. This is interesting because technically, the narrator knows all of the events to come in the story but does not share them yet. Also, the character Michele here is portrayed as a bit of a risk taker. He chooses to ski because he wants to despite the fact that “everybody said it was dangerous.” This physical bravery can be connected to Michele’s moral courage in standing up to Skull and others. He doesn’t care about others, only about what he feels he needs to do.
23 I landed face down on the branch. I tried to grip it, but it was big. I used my legs but there was nothing to get hold of. I started to slip. I tried to claw onto the bark.
Salvation was right in front of me… I steeled myself and with a sudden lunge grabbed it with both hands.
It was dry. It snapped.
I landed on my back. I lay still, with my eyes closed, certain I had broken my neck. I couldn’t feel any pain… The syntax of this passage is very interesting. Ammaniti uses very short sentences, some even two words each. The sentences, for the most part, are simple in structure and strung together without any unnecessary words. It is evident that Ammaniti (or the translator) put in effort to take out unnecessary words. I believe that this is done for the effect of creating suspense. In this part of the novel, young Michele has just completed his death-defying forfeit and needs to now get down from the house. This, of course, is a dangerous act and through the suspense created by the short simple sentences, the reader becomes unsure if Michele will get out “with his neck.”
31 Mama was too happy that papa was home again. When papa went away her stomach hurt, and the more time passed the less she talked. After a month she went completely mute. Michele recognizes the love that his mother has towards his father. In this passage, he depicts his mother as having physical pain because she missed her husband, which is unusual since psychological pain is more expected than physical pain. Michele also tells the reader that “after a month she went completely mute.” This could be interpreted three ways. Firstly, maybe the physical pain of her husband being away causes Michele’s mother to not want to speak. Secondly, maybe Michele’s mother does not have anything to say when her husband is not around. And thirdly, maybe in Michele’s society women are not expected to speak without their husbands and are not allowed to express themselves.
34 I woke up during the night. I had had a nightmare.
Jesus was telling Lazurus to rise and walk. But Lazarus didn’t rise. Rise and walk, Jesus repeated. Lazarus just wouldn’t come abck to life. Jesus, who looked like Severino, the man who drove the water tanker, lost his temper. He was being made to look a fool… So Jesus started shaking him like a doll and Lazarus finally rose up and bit him in the throat. Leave the dead alone, he said with blood-smeared lips. In this passage, Michele is dreaming on the night of the day that he discovered the boy in the hole. At this time, Michele believes the boy is dead and has this dream. The dream uses religious register to convey the message of “leave the dead alone.” The dream itself is rather gruesome and ironic. One would not expect Jesus to get “bitten in the neck” because he was trying to resurrect someone, but he does. One would expect that people would be willing and wanting to rise from the dead. However, that is not the case and instead Jesus gets punished for his resuracting act. This dream could be applied to the rest of the novel and may be foreshadign an end. Perhaps Michele will try to rescue the “dead” boy from the hole and in doing so will be severly hurt by either the boy himself or by others. The dream tells Michele to leave the boy alone, but I do not think he will do that because of his character.
47 I took off my T-shirt, rested my back against the wood, my head in my hands, and looked at the hill where the boy was. It was far away, at the end of the plain, and the sun was setting beside it. It was an orange disc that faded to pink against the clouds and the sky. Again, setting is infused with beautiful imagery to create a marvelous scene for the reader. When I originally read this passage I pictured meadows of crops with an orange to pink sun in the sky slowly setting. Ammaniti (and the translator) does a very good job throughout the novel in creating a scene that is both fantastic and fitting of a small southern Italian town. The setting also plays a role in foreshadowing events though, and the sun setting over the boy’s hole can either mean that life for the boy is coming close to an end or that his imprisonment in the hole is coming close to an end.
52 I wished I could turn into a bat and fly over the house. Or put on the old suit of armour that Salvatore’s father kept by the front door and go up onto the hill. Wearing that I would be safe from the witches. In this passage, the reader learns more about Michele’s intentions to rescue the boy in the hole. Throughout the book Michele has been wanting to rescue the people in his life (Barbara from Skull, his mother from herself and now the boy from the hole) but he feels too weak or scared. Even though the title of the book is “I’m Not Scared” it is apparent throughout the novel that Michele is in fact scared of many things in his life. I believe that the title is used as a sort of mantra a little child would repeat to himself while doing something that they are in fact scared of.
I’m Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti [Second-Third]
Page Text Response
53 I stayed in bed for a while, with my eyes closed, listening to the birds. Then I started seeing the boy rising up and stretching out his arms again.
“Help!” I said.
What an idiot I was! That’s why he had sat up. He had been asking me for help and I had run away. Michele feels guilt over running away from the boy’s hole in this passage. Originally, Michele had been terrified by the boy in the hole that popped out at him and had closed the opening and ran away. The day after though, after no dreams that night, he realizes that the boy had not meant to frighten him but only wanted to gesture for help from Michele. The immense amount of guilt shown here depicts how much Michele really cares for others. He feels very bad after not doing everything he could to help his friend in the hole. While those around him are doing evil acts and not feeling any guilt (such as putting the boy in the hole in the first place) Michele feels guilt for not rescuing him. He truly is the moral leader in his town and in our novel.
61 Before supper I had opened the fridge and the meat wasn’t there any more.
“Mama, wher’s that slice of meat?”
She looked at me in amazement. “Do you like meat now?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not there anymore. Your father’s eaten it.”
No he hadn’t. He had taken it for the boy.
Because the boy was my brother…
Maybe the boy in the hole was my brother, and he had been born mad like Nunzio and papa had hidden him there, so as not to frighten my sister and me. Not to frighten the children of Acqua Traverse. This passage was very shocking at first! Michele’s narration states “the boy was my brother” in an assertive and certain tone. Obviously at this point the reader is going to have many questions in his mind and think of how Michele knows for sure and where he got this information from. However, as the narration goes on to explain, Michele does not really know that the boy is his brother but instead theorizes that it is a possible explanation for why he is in the hole.
Also, Michele’s father in this passage is characterized in a very flattering light and made out to be a Saint while his mother is made out to be the more evil of the two. This is very interesting because in actuality, as the reader discovers towards the end of this chapter, it is Michele’s father that has kidnapped the boy and put him in the hole. However, Michele at this point theorizes that his mother had told his father to kill the child in the field because it had bitten her. In reality, the boy is not Michele’s brother and his mother is the one that is against killing the child.
64 Felice Natale was Skull’s big brother. If Skull was bad, Felice was a thousand times worse…
He had put the boy in the hole. That was who had put him there. “Skull’s big brother’s” name is very ironic. He is described by Michele to be extremely bad, much worse than Skull who we have already seen trying to do some very messed up things. The irony lies in Skull’s brother’s name: Felice Natale. The translation of the name from Italian to English means: “Happy Christmas.” Christmas is supposed to be a holy and happy time of the year while Felice Natale seems to be anything but.
75-76 I looked at the old man, who was taking a cigarette from a packet of Dunhills.
I later found out that his name was Segio Materia… he came from Rome, where he had achieved notoriety, twenty years earlier, as a result of a robbery at a fur shop on Monte Mario and a raid on the central branch of the Banca dell’ Agricoltura. The description of Sergio Materia in this passage is one that may foreshadow future events. Though the reader knows in the next couple of pages that Michele’s father and the rest of the adults in the town are the ones who have kidnapped and imprisoned the boy, it is still uncertain why. One can hypothesize that it is Sergio Materia’s evil influence on the families that causes them to abandon all morality and commit the crime. Sergio is even descried as snake like at a point which can be connected to the snake’s temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. Acqua Taversa truly is a small Garden of Eden in the middle of nowhere and now this city man, who has traveled the world and committed many crimes, has come in to corrupt it.
78 Papa made the scissors sign with his fingers. ‘Two ears we’ll cut off. Two.’
The old man added: ‘Yeah, that’ll teach you to talk on TV, you tramp!’
And they all started shouting again.
It had been papa and the others who had taken the boy away from that lady on television.
…
‘Be careful, Michele, you mustn’t go out at night,’ mama always said. ‘When it’s dark the bogeyman comes out and takes the children away and sells them to the gypsies.’
Papa was the boogeyman.
By day he was good, but at night he was bad.
All of the others were gypsies. Gypsies disguised as people. And that old man was the king of the gypsies and papa was his servant. Mama wasn’t, though. Wow! Now the reader has a completely different view of Michele’s father along with Michele. After a heart wrenching plead by Filippo’s mother on TV to please not cut off her son’s ear as the men of the town had threatened to do, Michele’s father is offended and states that now he will cut off both of the boy’s ears. This is ridiculous as we have been under the impression that Michele’s father was mostly just and Michele literally described him as being a good man that wanted to save the boy in the hole. However, we come to learn that, unlike his son, Michele’s father shows no morality and only looks to prosper from the immediate financial situation, and under any means possible.
Togo squirmed but Barbara held him fast by his scruff and his collar. She pushed him under. I saw him disappear in the mud.
She started singing again. ‘One fine morning I woke early. O bella ciao! Bella ciao! Bella ciao ciao ciao!’
She didn’t pull him out again.
She wanted to kill him.
I shouted. “What are you doing? Let him go!” Once more Michele shows to the reader his true nobel self. Michele sees that Barbara, one of his close friends, is trying to drown her puppy and jumps out of a tree he is sitting in to save the dog. Michele tries to preserve all life possible. This strongly hints to the fact that Michele will jump out of a metaphorical tree and tell the people of the town to stop drowning the boy in the hole. It is a very interesting connection, will it happen? Throughout the novel we have been shown repeatedly Michele’s bravery in the face of hardship and peer pressure. What about when the pressure isn’t coming from his peers but instead his parents?
94 And if you said anything he would start shoving you. One way or another he always won. Even with dolls he would have found a way of winning. This is the description Michele gives of Skull. He is very tough, arrogant and stubborn. This is fitting for his name “skull” as a skull is quite literally hard headed. Is this intentional or is something from the name lost in translation. Also, why is the name Skull translated but his brother’s name Felice Natale is not. (Probably because it would sound much too awkward to have a character named “Merry Christmas.”
108 ‘… One shove and he’s gone. Murdered.’
‘But why?’
‘Good question. Why? I don’t know. He didn’t have a lira. I just don’t know. I can’t sleep at nights. But that bitch paid for it … I have her… Well, never mind that, it’s late. Good night.” This is Sergio’s response to why he believes his son was murdered by his wife. Sergio tells Michele that he strongly believes that his favorite son was thrown off a cliff by his wife and tells him that he is the only one that sees it that way. At the end of this passage, Sergio hints that he “took care” (or murdered) his son’s wife for doing what she did. This shows how little Sergio respects life. Even after his son’s wife was released from charges he held a terrible grudge and killed her. It foreshadows what is to come for the boy.
113 At the bottom of the suitcase there was a rolled-up towel. I opened it and inside there was a pistol. I stared at it. It was big, it had a wooden butt and it was black. I lifted it. It was very heavy. Maybe it was loaded. I put it back. The gun in the suitcase is there because Michele’s father is planning on shooting Filippo. This is interesting however how little though Michele gives to putting the gun back. He does not think about what he could do were he to take the gun and hide it from his parents and their friends. Also, Ammaniti uses short and simple sentences again to both exaggerate the point of how little thought Michele puts into it and to create suspense, both of which are successful.
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