ok first impressions I AM SLIGHTLY TRAUMATIZED?? I knew from the recap in class I would be getting into a surprising book and boy did it deliver! Sometimes Freud just keeps finding his way into my peaceful life…
The main plot of this book is a son’s attraction to his mother and the overlapping emotions that come with it. The special attention Agostino takes to his mother’s body – was really an uncomfortable thing to read about. As a way to cope with this topic I tried to look over the gross stuff and try to connect it into an unfortunate consequence of his upbringing and past. Agostino has this territorial side of him where he unconsciously see’s his mother as “his”. This not a normal emotion that a son usually has towards his mother obviously, where we transform from protective to plain out possessive. This side is further exemplified after he views his mother openess to being with and meeting new men, driving him into road of confused feelings. This dilemma is most likely tied to the unspoken trauma of his father’s death where he has attached himself to his mother, misunderstanding the actions of motherly love into a hint of intimacy, creating one of the backbones for this awakened sexual side of him.
Now, a big transition in Agostinos life is when he meets a group of boys who really just have crude thinking about woman in general (yuck). While Agostino is treated very poorly by them he tolerates it, this held curiosity to me because although he is technically a higher social class than them he is so sheepish that they end up switching social class roles. It was upsetting seeing him relentlessly trying to fit into their group dynamic especially because we know it is just to find an escape from these confused inappropriate feelings he has about his mother (I really wished he picked up a hobby or even better THERAPY instead of picking up these bad influences LMAO).
The one thing that stood out to me was how the boys want to be perceived by others, it seems that the only way to prove masculinity is to be grotesque and degrading to woman. It’s sad to see that Agostino looks up to this behaviour and starts picking up on this, trying to prove himself by copying their behaviour and loosing his innocence forcibly.
Because I want my reflections to be truthful I have to point out that I did not enjoy this book. This is directly because the sexual feelings of Agostino has towards his mother are just so morally wrong to me that I cannot find a way to see this artistically. I guess the book served its purpose to invoke emotion because I am feeling heavily uncomfortable!
Question: Do you think these feelings in Agostino will carry out into his adulthood and affect his ability to form relationships?
Hey Amanda,
I like how you phrased Agostino’s relationship with his mother as moving from “protective” to “possessive”, and I agree that this dynamic is very concerning! And yes, I really wish he picked up some sort of new hobby to address his internal issues instead of choosing to run around with some brutish gang of boys. In response to your question, I think that Agostino’s relations with the gang will absolutely have a detrimental affect in his ability to form deep relationships, as his exposure to such misogynistic characters at such a young age likely resulted in some internalization.
“This dilemma is most likely tied to the unspoken trauma of his father’s death where he has attached himself to his mother, misunderstanding the actions of motherly love into a hint of intimacy, creating one of the backbones for this awakened sexual side of him.”
That dilemma, and the lack of real affect, information and answers that stems from it, can be seen as the key aspect of the novel.
Interest analysis.
See you tomorrow.
Julián.
Hi!! It’s Quizzy 🙂 And bro SAME. I WAS SO ICKED OUT BECAUSE OF THIS BOOK’S LANGUAGE AND WAY OF DESCRIBING HIS MOTHER! I am kind of dreading tomorrow’s discussion… Regarding your question, I do think he is cursed with this uncomfortable battle in his head for a long time, as hinted in the book’s ending. It will be a while until he gets over it and detaches the idea of a sexualized woman and his mother. It might not ruin his potential of finding a lover, and might actually require him to actually experience sex and date a woman to be mature enough to process what the boys had taught him. Without a father, no one can guide him through this awkward phase and it’s even moreso difficult when his mother has been the only woman in his life to make an example of.
Hi, Amanda! Your question is really interesting because I do think that he’ll still struggle with these feelings in adulthood. I think he had a hard time in processing them and I think he can’t fully resolve them unless he goes to therapy. I think he will have a hard time in forming relationships because he might put his mother as a pedestal in terms of a love interest.