Family and Communal Bonds in Literature

The institution of the family is a special one; it can act as a powerful healing agent for the individual, as well as an equally powerful destructive one. The institution of the community is similarly an influential one; it possesses the resources to both resolve the individual’s isolation and amplify his/her pain. The novels Lives of the Saints and My Name is Seepeetza

follow the lives of two families in which opposing communal and familial forces are often a source of turmoil and emotional deprivation for the characters. The characters Christina, Vitto, and Seepeetza are especially vulnerable to these competing forces and yet they are unable to either balance or escape them. In these novels, overshadowing communal bonds become an agent for the characters’ separation from, and ultimately loss of, the family. This is demonstrated by the lack of effective communication within the family, separation from the physical home, and the imposition of foreign religious values, all of which emerge from overpowering communal bonds and ultimately lead to the dissociation of familial ones.

For Christina and Seepeetza, overpowering communal bonds undermine and increasingly eliminate effective communication within the family, gradually leading to a loss of familial bonds. In Lives of the Saints, Vitto’s grandfather is continually subjected to the village community’s expectations as the mayor. In fact, the atmosphere of the home is controlled by the grandfather’s communal dealings as the village elder. The reader observes that when the villagers shun Vitto’s family, including his grandfather, familial issues are silenced and there is very little, if any, communication within the home. However, when the family’s presence at the church is seen as an act of repentance, the villagers resume their communication with the family, which further resumes communication between Christina and Vitto’s grandfather, breaking the deafening silence that had previously overtaken the home. However, issues that trouble the family, such as the grandfather’s alienation from the village, are never brought to the family table for dialogue. At one point, when Christina mentions to Vitto that she isn’t feeling well and would prefer to stay home, Vitto’s grandfather exclaims:

“ ‘Fool!’ my grandfather said suddenly, wheeling around in his chair. “You might as well make an announcement!”

My mother shifted in her chair, but did not turn towards him.

‘Like you did last night?’ she said finally.

‘What I do is my own business.’

‘And what I do,’ my mother said softly, staring into the fire as if sharing a secret with it, “is my business.” ” (Ricci 92)

This exchange between Christina and her father suggests a severed emotional connection between them and a general distrust in their ability to heal each other; troubling issues are repressed within and unshared. Overpowering communal bonds eventually overtake the atmosphere of the home and silence the need for communication within the family. This increasingly becomes a source of emotional separation between Christina and her grandfather.

Vitto’s grandfather also places communal values on a pedestal, with which familial bonds are compared and judged. This further leads to a lack of communication between Christina and Vitto’s grandfather and deepens their emotional barrier. Consider when Vitto’s grandfather is infuriated with Christina and exclaims: “For my sake! Was it for my sake you behaved like a common whore? Do you think you’re better than those people? They are my people, not you, not someone who could do what you’re done. I’ve suffered every day of my life, per l’amore di Cristo, in shame. Now people come to my house like thy go to the circus, to laugh at the clowns!” (Ricci 149) Here, Vitto’s grandfather measures his familial relationship with Christina by her ability to assimilate with the villagers’ communal expectations. Communal values dominate the grandfather and he is unable to effectively communicate with Christina and understand her act of rebellion.

Seepeetza’s subjection to overwhelming communal values also leads to a lack of familial communication and ultimately separates her from her Indian family. Nuns at the residential school subject the students to a multicultural selection of dances, but conspicuously missing is the Indian dance. This bleeding of foreign culture in the students’ lives mirrors itself in their Indian homes, where Western songs and dances overtake the familial atmosphere. Similarly restrictive is the school’s prohibition of Indian languages in the school. Although Seepeetza continually expresses her attraction to the Indian languages, her parents refuse to teach them, in fear of persecution. When Seepeetza camps with her family, she observes: “Usually other Indian families come berry-picking too, and camp nearby. They tell us all the news of their families and some funny stories. They discuss serious business sometimes too, but they talk in Indian so I don’t understand what they are talking about. But you can tell it’s important by their voices, the serious looks and the quietness of the people listening.” (Sterling 91) Here, Seepeetza’s inability to understand what they are saying suggests a familial divide with her elders. This lack of communication between the younger and older generations forms a barrier against cultural continuity and ultimately separates the children from their Indian family. The possible extinction of Indian languages, forced by the imposition of the government’s foreign values and culture, becomes a source of familial loss for Seepeetza.

The residential school’s communal restrictions also discourage students from communicating freely amongst each other, depriving them of familial bonds among themselves. Consider when Seepeetza expresses her desire to communicate with her sisters: “One of the Sisters watches us eat, but not when we walk back to our recs. That’s when my sisters Dorothy and Missy and I sometimes hold hands as we walk down the hall. It’s the happiest part of my day.” (Sterling 12) Here, the nuns continually watch over the students to ensure that familial bonds do not override the school’s communal ones. This constant eye guards against the danger that students’ Indian values may be revived. This prohibition of emotional expression also presents itself in the students’ identical uniforms and haircuts. The common attire enforces a common identity in the school; everyone shares the values of the school and no one is exempt from it. It also discourages free thought, expression, or personal interpretation of their experiences at the school. At one point, Seepeetza explains: “Sister Theo checks our letters home. We’re not allowed to say anything about the school. I might get the strap, or worse.” (Sterling 12) Writing is an uninhibited mode of expression; by preventing students from writing about the residential school, students are not given the chance to analyze the school’s twisted values. This further allows the school to enforce their values on the students with blind acceptance. A disregard for individuality ensures that a single person’s rebellion will not deter other students’ conjoined identity with the school’s values. Hence, overpowering communal bonds with the residential school inhibits effective familial communication and ultimately leads to a loss of family bonds.

In both novels, overwhelming communal bonds also separate characters from their physical home and hence their familial identity, ultimately leading to a loss of family. In Lives of the Saints, Vitto’s father is overtaken by the communal values associated with America, which he ultimately succumbs to by departing from his family. Communal American ideals eventually override family bonds, which leaves Vitto separated from his father. Vitto muses about America: “America. How many dreams and fears and contradictions were tied up in that single word, a word which conjured up a world, like a name uttered at the dawn of creation, even while it broke another, the one of village and home and family.” (Ricci 165) Here, Vitto recognizes the irony of the America dream; despite the numerous stories of failure and back-breaking labour in America, it is still deemed more desirable than the familiarities of the home and family. Vitto’s physical separation from his father becomes a source of emotional separation from him.

Vitto’s alienation from his father also contributes to his separation from his mother. When Vitto attempts to uncover the reason he is being put in a different bed than his mother, he wonders: “I decided finally it had been my father now who’d made me move out of my mother’s bed, as if in some strange way he was able to control my life and see into it from whatever world he lived in across the sea, the way God could see into my thoughts. It did not surprise me that he had that power, because in my mind my father was like a phantom, some dim ghost or presence…” (Ricci 31) Here, although Vitto’s father is physically absent, he still influences Vitto’s thoughts significantly. His thoughts about his father are unpleasant and ghastly; yet he is unable to escape them. Vitto compares his father to a phantom with omnipresent qualities, suggesting his desire to escape his father, which he seems unable to do. He also appears to blame his father for separating him from his mother’s bed. Hence, the father’s physical leave, due to overpowering foreign values, severs Vitto’s familial connection with his father and, in his belief, contributes to his separation from his mother.

Vitto’s loss of familial bonds with his father due to his physical absence also emerges when Christina dies on the ship after delivery. When guests come to visit Vitto, he observes:

“It was the second visitor, who came after the first, that I had not expected to see: a stranger who was my father, and after all not the black-haired ogre I had imagined but a tired-eyed man whose hair had begun to grey and whose burly shoulders and limbs seemed to fit him awkwardly, like the Sunday clothes the peasants in Valle del Sole wore to mass. He cried without shame when the nurse brought him to my bed.” (Ricci 243)

Vitto describes this event briefly, and without the emotion that can be expected from a familial reunion. This suggests a lingering emotional distance from his father, even after his mother’s death. Vitto does not share his grief with his father, nor does he appear to expect comfort and familial connection with him. When Vitto climbs aboard the ship’s deck, he notices: “My mother’s grey-eyed German friend has just come onto the sun deck with a young woman; but they eased themselves into deck chairs without noticing me, laughing and talking in a language I couldn’t understand.” (Ricci 248) Vitto’s expectation that the grey-eyed stranger may notice him strongly contrasts with his surprise in meeting his father, whom he earlier referred to as a stranger. At the end of the novel, Vitto also lets his lucky one lira coin drop into the sea, declaring his loss of trust in luck, after his mother’s death. These events imply Vitto’s familial estrangement from his father during his physical absence and suggest that Vitto has, perhaps, been effectively orphaned after his mother’s death.

Seepeetza’s physical separation from her family due to overpowering communal bonds also leads to her loss of family. Seepeetza’s association of her physical space with her identity is demonstrated by two maps illustrated by her, which are depicted at the beginning of the novel. The map of Joyasaka Ranch bears her Indian name Seepeetza, whereas the map of the residential school bears her foreign name Martha Stone. This implies her emotional association with these two physical institutions; the Joyasaka Ranch embodies her familial Indian bonds, while the school imposes a foreign identity. However, the school is unable to completely separate Seepeetza from the physical objects that comprise her home. For example, Seepeetza often draws pictures of horses in school: “I love horses. They are so free. I draw pictures of the all the time, in my notebooks, in art class, on scrap paper, even once for the class bulletin board. Mostly my horses are galloping headlong somewhere, or rearing up.” (Sterling 69) Horses are a physical symbol of Seepeetza’s home; she often recounts stories of her adventures with the family horse, Baldy. Her uninhibited drawings of horses unsuspectingly connect her emotionally to her home and Indian family. The horses embody the experience of freedom, of which she is most deprived at the school. Drawing horses is also a minor act of rebellion on Seepeetza’s part; she is expressing her individuality and interpreting the school’s values as restrictive. Hence, Seepeetza’s separation from her physical home is strongly linked to her loss of familial identity.

For Christina and Seepeetza, the imposition of communal religious values is perhaps the strongest source of separation from their family. Christina is first estranged from her village community, due to her defiant disbelief in the village’s superstitions. This estrangement further separates her from her father, who had served as the mayor for the village and shares the village’s beliefs. When Christina’s father is sick, he tells Vitto: “…Who complained when the school was built, when money came from the government to buy land? All my life I’ve been surrounded by traitors and fools. Even my own daughter has betrayed me.” (Ricci 182) Here, when Christina rebels against the villagers’ hypocrisies, embedded in their double standards and superstitions, her father despises her revolt against his spiritual values, which mirror the values of the village. This spiritual difference between Christina and the villagers’ imposed values on her father result in familial alienation from each other.

The imposition of the villagers’ religious values on Vitto also creates a spiritual divide between Vitto and his mother. Vitto’s naïve character is quickly influenced by the superstitious beliefs of the village community. When Giussippina visits Christina and advises her to perform a sacrificial ritual in repentance of her snake bite, she quickly dismisses the advice as foolish. However, when Christina leaves for the hospital, Vitto performs the sacrificial ritual secretly. This suggests that communal forces overtake familial ones in shaping his spiritual beliefs. After performing the ritual, Vitto falls asleep and dreams of his mother: “Strange images troubled me: my mother squatting in a field as if taking a pee, but getting up to reveal a large blue egg; Father Nick standing solemnly before a coffin in the church, reciting a mass for a Mr. Mario Gallino; some great black jaw stretching open in front of me, ready to swallow me like the whale that swallowed Jonah.” (Ricci 120) All of the images in Vitto’s dream are negative; his mother is portrayed as a dirty creature, the priest implies a death, and Vitto fears he will be swallowed alive. These images seem to represent his guilty conscience; he implies a belief that his mother, and perhaps he too, has sinned. The image of his mother alongside the other two disconcerting images suggests that Vitto sees his mother in a sinful light, holding the villagers’ superstitions against her.

Vitto also refers to a demon in his mother when she is vomiting during her pregnancy: “Not long after my mother’s fight, some new demon took possession of her. I found her in the stable, leaning against the low wall of the pig’s stall, the pigs squealing wildly and a pool of vomit, a pale unearthly blue, sitting viscous on the stall floor.” (Ricci 113) Here, Vitto parallels the superstitious reaction of the villagers, in response to her pregnancy. At this point, it seems Christina has lost touch with Vitto’s beliefs and is unable to restrict the villagers’ influence on his spirituality. However, when Fabrizio remarks that his troubles are his mother’s fault, Vitto violently opposes it and flings himself on Fabrizio, remarking that his troubles are only the snake’s fault. Vitto’s violent reaction suggests that he is not completely influenced by the villagers’ imposed superstitions and that he struggles to maintain his emotional connection with his mother. Nonetheless, the village’s overpowering religious beliefs create a spiritual and emotional barrier between Vitto and his mother.

The residential school’s imposition of foreign religious values is also a source of Seepeetza’s separation from and loss of her family. Seepeetza is first subjected to these foreign beliefs when she observes that a church is built right in the middle of the school. This demonstrates the importance of religion in stripping students from their Indian family and community. The nuns are often depicted as imposing organized religion on the students; the nuns teach the girls to pray with their hands folded, as a Catholic would do. At one point, Seepeetza attempts to convert her father: “There, I told Dad, look at Jesus. He died on the cross for you, for all of us. Pray, and stop your drinking. Stop cussing. Stop fighting with Mum. Dad, bad people go to hell.” (Sterling 117) Seepeetza’s influence from the nuns resembles Vitto’s influence from the villagers. Seepeetza believes the nuns and views her father in a sinful light, which mirrors Vitto’s vision of a sinner in his mother. Her attempt to convert her father also parallels Vitto’s effort to repent on behalf of his mother by performing a sacrificial ritual. Seepeetza’s uncle and father both condemn priests for their hypocrisies; her father once remarks that Jesus was born poor, but the priests drive fancy new cars. However, Seepeetza and her father’s beliefs are so opposing that she has to lock him up to avoid embarrassment when a priest visits their home. This suggests that the school’s foreign values override the students’ familial ones so much so that the family bears little influence, if at all, in shaping these students’ religious beliefs.

Although Seepeetza is highly influenced by the nuns’ religious beliefs, her emotional connection to her Indian family is demonstrated in her dream of St. Joseph. She recalls her dream: “I saw St. Joseph last night. I think it was him because he wore a brown robe like St. Joseph…but the one I talked to last night had long dark hair and looked younger…He smiled and said my real name, Seepeetza…his hand was calloused like my dad’s.” (Sterling 83-84) Here, St. Joseph embodies the Indian qualities of which Seepeetza is most deprived. This resembles Vitto, who considers his mother as sinful, yet associates her with the bravery of St. Cristina. That St. Joseph refers to Seepeetza by her Indian name suggests her resistance to the foreign values imposed on her and the devaluation of her Indian culture. However, although Seepeetza struggles to resist the imposition of foreign values, the spiritual division between Seepeetza and her father continues to be a powerful source of emotional separation from her Indian family.

In the novels Lives of the Saints and My Name is Seepeetza, overpowering communal bonds eventually lead to the characters’ separation from, and ultimately the loss of, the family. The lack of effective communication within the family, separation from the physical home, and the imposition of foreign religious values demonstrate the loss of family when communal bonds override familial ones. The characters Christina, Vitto, and Seepeetza, in particular, serve as a model of how an inharmonious relationship between competing familial and communal institutions can become a source of emotional turmoil for the individual. They also suggest that these institutions are perhaps the most powerful in influencing the human psyche and shaping one’s perspective of the world.