Hi guys here comes the second installment of many essays to come. I hope I have improved at least a very little bit. I tried to focus on the 'Why?' component as most of you were telling me to do. I really tried to adhere to all the advice, so if you could all please take a look at this one. I would really appreciate it. This one is a little bit longer too.
Sergio’s initial outburst directed at the television set creates a setting of tension and a schism between the rich and poor. Ammatini’s use of parallelism ‘And they all started shouting again,’ suggests the tension to be a prevalent issue affecting Michele.
Ammatini uses an insecure tone, ‘slipped back…’ to paint the portrait of a fumbling apprehensive boy, who’s stance is undetermined. Omnipresent throughout the text is Michele’s changing views, suggesting Michele to be a character without prejudice and open to the notion that he may be wrong, a symbol of an effective moral judicial system.
Michele’s response to his mother’s warning of bogeymen, one of vested interest suggests that his mother is a symbol of truth. His conclusion, that his father ‘is the bogeyman’ highlights that he is an opposite to his father as a bogeyman is a symbol of a kidnapper, Michele himself being a kid. Therefore, the logical conclusion that Michele has derived is that he must ‘fight’ his opposer. The sentence, ‘by day he was good, but at night he was bad’ is a metaphor describing the father as a cunning man whose wrong doings are not seen by others, or ‘at night.’ Michele’s views begin to skew and border on paranoia, under the misinterpretation that everyone is like papa, he falsely perceives Barbara to be killing her dog.
Michele briefly questions his father and is apprehensive when doing so. His questions are irascible and portray an immature thinker. Though Michele is able to distinguish right from wrong, his short sharp conclusion, ‘and papa wanted to cut off his ears’ highlights his lack of empathy. He does not begin to realise that his father may be doing this for his own benefit. Ammatini is portraying a myopic child who’s immature thinking has not fully developed yet, not realising that his father’s ‘ Frautian bargain’ may be necessary to ‘put food on the table’ to use a cliché.
The very first sentence of the second passage encapsulates an eerie setting, the fact that ‘the one lighted windows were at my house,’ suggests to Michele that something sets his house apart from the rest. The personification of the darkness ‘wrapping’ Acqua traverse shows the apparent ‘evil’ surrounding the town and an almost inescapable feeling that has come upon Michele. His now mature thinking realizes the magnitude of what he is attempting to do as opposed to his earlier rash thinking in his declaration of his father being the bogeyman. This serves to augment the progress he has made and that his reactions are more thought out when facing adversity. In the wider context of the text, Michele looks far more likely to succeed.
Ammatini’s association of moral-thinking and self-giving with Michele, highlights that these values are prevailing, just as Michele is. Ammatini is conveying that ‘good’ will always win out.
Michele’s likening of himself to ‘Tiger jack’ and the repetition of the term ‘Tiger jack’ suggests this to have a profound effect on Michele. His choice of the Indian-liberator contains double-meaning. Firstly and fore mostly, it represents an oppressed figure that will ultimately come to victory. Secondly, it is a distant figure (American) to highlight Michele’s distaste for Acqua traverse. Our protagonist has made the important decision that he does not want to grow to be like the other adults of Acqua traverse. Michele chooses the ‘old crock’ over the ‘red dragon.’ Metaphorically, vanity is concealing the truth. This is a turning point within the text. He has judged his father’s gifts to be the derivative of crime. Michele’s dangerously close mistake of nearly taking the ‘Red Dragon’ highlights to the reader that he is not perfect and can make mistakes. That every good can lose out.
Michele’s immaturity has developed and his thinking has gone from being speculative to intelligent. Importantly, Ammatini’s use of Michele as a symbol of ‘all that is good’ is starting to win out suggesting the values associated with Michele are the ones people should hold to be successful. Michele’s decision against the old crock is particularly important as it highlights his choice against crime. The ‘red crock’ being metaphoric of crime in that it’s disadvantages are hidden by the ‘red paint’ or ‘sugar coated’ to use a cliché.
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