Adult Life and Culture through the Eyes of Children
... This familiar theme in contemporary novels stresses the ways in which the victim of abuse can grow and mature to carry similar abusive characteristics in the future, through their dealings with children. ... , the author presents us with a vivid reflection onto a young boys journey into the epiphany of the reality of his parents and his surrounding environment and culture in Dublin in the 1960s. Nino Riccis Life of the Saints also carries a similar theme which encompasses the reality that adult behaviours and their way of conduct observed by the young influences the child and leads to extraordinary, although unknown, consequences in later life. ... Later in the novel, he is seen as a withdrawn or passive person in a sequence which sees the family leaving Dublin for a trip: through several pages, his father only responds to what his wife says or offers to him, remaining detached from his family. ... Culture and convention work to keep respectful relationships in place that might not be chosen, were people acting as individuals outside of these cultures. ... Slowly, we observe young Paddy forming an image of what fathers are like and how they "normally" behave through his daily life experiences of growing up in his neighbourhood. This is indicated through the clear statement, "fathers were like that, all the fathers I knew…all Das sat in a corner of a room and didnt want to be disturbed". (1993, 203) Through a childs perspective, a Dublin working-class Da is supposed to be the person responsible for bringing food to their home and as a consequence who have the right to rest. ... In Doyles culture, apparently, the women are also expected to be diligent, responsible, and able to endure an excessive amount of pressure. This is seen as ordinary, a sign of female decency, and a whole sphere of life with which men need not be concerned. ... (1993, 244) Again, Roddy Doyle is describing a culture in which males do take alcohol, as a frequent aspect of working class family life that can bring terrible results. ... The novel ends after successfully exposing the conventional culture of Dublin together with the adult life from the perspective of children whom are undoubtedly affected. Nino Ricci’s Lives of the Saints also describes a Roman Catholic culture of rural Italy, in which the patriarch possesses special authority, and tends to carry too much authority and responsibility under a veneer that can dissolve to show human frailty, too often expressed in abusiveness towards others. ... Violence is not central to village life, but the people described by Ricci are no strangers to it. ... The figure of the grandmother reinforces the patriarchal culture that prevails. It is not that the abuse of wives or children is accepted but that the roles given to adult males are very narrow, pressurized, and place human beings within straight-jackets of responsibility in which violence or other abuse are likely to come to the surface when opposition or reversals are encountered.