Week 5- Agostino
Agostino by Alberto Moravia was a very interesting read. This young boy who is completely infatuated by his mother’s presence and longs so dearly for her love becomes evident in the rest few pages of the book. Right at the beginning of the book, Agostino states how much it means to spend time with his mother. Going boating every day, laying on the beach, and being in her presence fills his pride and identity but when her presence is shared with others he becomes jealous.
An interesting theme that came up in this text would be jealousy. Like Proust, the boy wishes for his mother to love him deeply and gets jealous when others receive it. It seems the attention must solely be on them and it greatly annoys the boy when his mothers shares this. This is seen in the first couple of scenes when a young man asks his mother to go boating. At this time he is completely jealous and loses pride as it was “their thing.” He states how annoyed and disappointed he feels. This sense of attachment is greatly emphasized and centered in this book and can be seen as even abnormal. His identity is so greatly intertwined with this mother’s that he feels abandoned every time she leaves. Furthermore, this tension is observed with his mother’s lover. Agostino is clearly jealous and annoyed at the man who is taking his mother away from him. At the same time as a reader, I start to understand his resentment. His mother who used to go out on these daily outings with him seems no longer interested. She stops going with him completely, giving him constant disappointment.
As Agostino is introduced to other boys his age he is made fun go for being so attached to his mother. For Agostino, it is normal so he does not understand why they make fun of him. When he sees his mother undress he starts to almost sexualize her and see her completely differently. Initially, he sees her as a beautiful mother and then she sees her simply as a woman and nothing more. This change in perspective is influenced by the other boys he starts to hang around. When they start to spread these sexualized jokes and form attitudes about women. I feel this culture of objectification in groups of young men is common but Agonstino applying this perspective to his mother seems tainted by the resentment he has in the early scenes.
My question for this week is how might the mother’s behavior influence Agonstino’s perspective of women?
Hi Jasmeen. I really resonated with your thought on how objectification of women in groups of young boys is very common. I am unsure whether the mom played a role in how Agostino views women. She may have lacked some boundaries with her son but she never portrayed views that would cause Agostino to view women as nothing more than objects of desire.
“being in her presence fills his pride and identity but when her presence is shared with others he becomes jealous.”
Yes, though it strikes me that “others” are important from the start… as even when things are going well, and he’s confident about his relationship with his mother, he measures that confidence in terms of how he think they are viewed as they walk down the beach towards the sea. It’s almost as though it’s the spectacle that counts… which again, relies on others, but as spectators, rather than actors. Isn’t it sharing the stage (and when he becomes relegated to spectator) that is really a blow to his self-esteem?