{"id":28,"date":"2026-02-01T23:55:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T07:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/?p=28"},"modified":"2026-02-02T00:00:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T08:00:42","slug":"moravia-more-mommy-issues-than-proust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/2026\/02\/01\/moravia-more-mommy-issues-than-proust\/","title":{"rendered":"Moravia \u2013 more mommy issues than Proust"},"content":{"rendered":"

In grade 11, we read the Greek tragedy\u00a0Oedipus Rex<\/em>, and my jaw dropped through every page as the story played out. Then, I learned about the Oedipus and Electra complexes in psych, and felt a mixture of being unsettled and in disbelief. This book gave me that same feeling all over again (\u2565\ufe4f\u2565) and each description of his mother made me physically move further away from the page (\u1d55 \u2014\u2227<\/span>\u2014)<\/p>\n

The main thing I really liked about this book was its portrayal of the corruption (if that’s the right way to call it?) of childhood innocence and familial bonds. At first, since his father was dead, it made sense to me that Agostino would be attached to his mother. To a certain extent, I think many children go through a phase of overly relying on\/be attached to their parent, before having to start figuring out their own individual person. However, within the first few pages, it began feeling more like possessiveness. Still, the jealousy and sulking he does near the beginning seems more petulant (the somersault he did after he was slapped got a surprised laugh out of me).<\/p>\n

Then, he meets the gang of boys. Being from a wealthier social class, the difference in innocence\/maturity (though I wouldn’t call the gang very mature either (\u2565\u2038\u2565)) between Agostino and the gang is striking. It reminded me of when we read Arlt, actually, where Silvio, being in poverty, is thrust into the adult world in his teens and forced to adapt.<\/p>\n

Agostino’s meeting with the gang gives him a chance to spend some time away from his mother, but also exposes him to a lot of things he was probably protected from before. The way he peeked into his mother’s room for the first time after they went home had dread pooling in my stomach, and I gasped out loud when he lied for the first time to the rich man and son who hired him for a boat outing ( \u02f6\u00b0\u3141\u00b0)!! To me, this signalled the transition of him losing his innocence, or maybe naivety?<\/p>\n

(I also think this book portrays peer pressure and conformity really nicely! Changing the way you dress or the way you react to topics feels like a very relatable and common experience for any 13-year-old)<\/p>\n

In the end, his failure to enter the brothel shows how he is still stuck at this stage. I found it very interestingly explained in both the lecture video (as getting stuck at the threshold) and in the conversation video (as a not so radiacal disruption, with similar events to come). When the summer ends and they return to Pisa, how do you think Agostino’s daily life will have changed?<\/p>\n

This was a very fascinating read! I’m super curious to see how the discussion will go (\u1d55 \u2022 \u1d17 \u2022)<\/p>\n

See you tomorrow!<\/p>\n

Julie \u1555( \u141b )\u1557<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In grade 11, we read the Greek tragedy\u00a0Oedipus Rex, and my jaw dropped through every page as the story played out. Then, I learned about the Oedipus and Electra complexes in psych, and felt a mixture of being unsettled and in disbelief. This book gave me that same feeling all over again (\u2565\ufe4f\u2565) and each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107663,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[17,18,19],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moravia","tag-freud","tag-innocence","tag-mother"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}