Giuseppe Flashcards
Context
Set in Italy ww2
Allegory
In Italy, many people starved and died during the war - caused people to commit crimes
Themes
Duality of human nature
Evil, cruelty and dehumanization
Guilt, shame
Duality of human nature theme
- the poem explores how bad times make people do awful, cruel things, which is juxtaposed by the guilt afterwards and the small things they do to try and convince themselves that their actions aren’t that evil
Evilness and cruelty theme
Explores how humans have a darker and evil side to them
The atrocities people do out of selfishness or because they were suffering
People create fantasies to cover up the atrocities - despite this it always comes out to light
Limit to the atrocities a person can commit
Guilt theme
The second part of human nature: how human empathise and feel shame for their actions afterwards but try to bury those feelings
Also how external people feel guilt for things they didn’t do
Guilt is inevitable
Allegory / extended metaphor
The mermaid: could represent a young woman who is raped, killed and made into food to feed the soldiers or just a normal person who was killed for food.
Effect of war theme
- people commit atrocities out of pain
- shame and guilt of war
- them hiding their feelings and concealing things a from the world
Form
Uneven, free verse
Raw and unrehearsed created emphasis on the extent of the crimes and guilt
Puts attention on the story rather than the form
Tone
Conversational and confessional
- creates a sense of normality - this happens all the time
My uncle giuseppe told me
That in Sicily in ww2,
In the country yard behind the aquarium,
Where the bougainvillea grow so well,
The only captive mermaid in the world
Was butchered on the dry and dusty ground
By a doctor, a fishmonger and certain others.
Detached narration: removal of blame and confessional
Behind: connotes hidden - how all these atrocities were never talked abt during war
Bougainvillea: corrupted beauty and the double nature of human duality (beauty and thorn)
Mermaid choice: sexualises women which was normal at the time
Butchered: violence - rape, cannibalism ? They take away who she is
Plosive of dry and dusty: harshness and violence of war crimes
On the ground: no appreciation for women - seen as a toy (dehumanization)
Doctor: you’re supposed to trust him
Plural others: emphasis on horror and disgust
The roles suggest that they’ve done this before and is reoccurring
She, it, had never learned to speak
Because she was simple, or so they said,
But the priest who held one of her hands
While her throat was cut
Said she was only a fish , and fish can’t speak.
But she screamed like a woman in terrible fear.
It: dehumanization - they see her as meat - they try to cover up the crime but the guilt is consuming, and they can’t forget that they did this to a poor woman. May also reflect second hand guilt from the niece.
Never learned to speak: the way women are silenced in society - they have a voice but it is seen as unimportant
Or so they said: manipulating the narrative to try and reduce the guilt - idea that in human duality guilt is inevitable
Priest: trying to humanise men and make them not look heartless - only trying to convince themselves which is juxtaposed with the violence of next line (trying to rationalise)
She was only a fish: the objectification of women and idea that they are only there to reproduce
Constant use of But: can’t hide the reality - despite them trying to make it look less awful, it is still a crime and can’t hide the fact that they hurt a woman
Ironic: she cried like a woman in fear because she was e
And when they took a ripe golden roe
From her side, the doctor said
This was proof she was just a fish
And anyway an egg is not a child,
But refused when some was offered to him.
Ripe: suggests she was young - they took away her innocence and youth
Golden. Made her lifeless and took her life
Maybe she was pregnant? Emphasis on horror
An egg is not a child: ironic bc Catholicism in Sicily would say abortion is awful and eggs are babies but when it comes to their crime it is fine
Last line: hiding their guilt - their actions are consuming them and disgusting them (inevitability)
Then they put her head and her hands
In a box for burial
And someone tried to take her wedding ring,
But the others stopped him,
And the ring stayed put.
Pronoun change to her: unable to hide the truth
Box for burial: trying to act as if they have any human decency after what they did for their own pleasure - war makes people lose morality
Last three lines: there’s always a limit to the atrocities a man can commit, only left their woman’s sign of ownership by a man (objectification)
Whole stanza: them trying to satisfy their guilt and excuse their actions
The rest they cooked and fed to the troops.
They said a large fish had been found on the beach.
Rest: left nothing of her - robbed her from the world
Troops: justifying that it was for a good cause (troops) and a reminded that in war anything can happen
Idea of covering up crimes durian war
Starvation forgives men many things,
My uncle, the aquarium keeper, said,
But couldn’t look me in the eye,
For which i thank god.
Philosophical ending: war cause suffering, which causes more suffering through crimes
Aquarium keeper: was he supposed to protect her?
Third line: he can’t bring himself to believe it - can’t forgive himself for the events.
Idea of guilt always coming back and it haunting him to this day - he had to make upon a mythical story to cope with the horrors he either committed or witnessed.
