Moravia's 'Agostino'

 Moravia's Agostino was definitely a unique read. The novella managed to pack a rich amount of detail and plot into a hundred pages, and I ever once felt that the writing was rushed. Honestly, it was quite difficult to read some portions of the book, especially when the narrator was discussing Agostino's newfound perspective of viewing his mother. According to the lecture, Moravia's work draws largely from realism. I found this evident in his descriptions of the town and the stereotypes associated with the social classes but was unsure how it applied to Agostino's view of his mother.


The transformation of Agostino's relationship with his mother throughout the book was jarring. It was unsettling to read how he, a thirteen-year-old boy, viewed his mother. It was quite similar to how a grown man would view his lover as his property, as an object that would invoke envy in other men. The depiction of women throughout the book is quite sketchy, and I am not sure how intentional that is. Throughout the book, women mainly serve as objects of desire and do not have any other layers to their identity as the boys do. This influences Agostino's view of his mother and her womanhood. His descriptions of his mother and her wardrobe and body felt highly intrusive and inappropriate, definitely alluding to the Freudian Oedipal complex theory. 


Moreover, we can see how this discomfort (initiated by the boys he meets) fuels his desire to break away from his mother to create his distinct identity from her. He is desperate to hide his naivety from the street-smart boys, but his pampered upbringing doesn't allow him to do so. He allowed them to take advantage of him just so that he could be included. When this starts happening, Moravia points out how "he found that he had lost his original identity without acquiring through his loss another." I found this quote to be quite poignant because of how it relates to the experiences of adolescents in their teen years. 


Overall, I found Agostino's character to be intriguing but unsettling. The realism in the book is definitely one of its winning points, as the descriptions did seem very realistic. The visual imagery made the settings easy to imagine. My question to the class would be: Do you think that the Oedipal complex factor added to the realism Moravia wanted to portray in the book? 

Comments

  1. Maia G.8 February 2022 at 17:58

    Hello! I like that you mention how realism comes out in the text. With Agostino's mother, I wonder if we're meant to see realism in the relationship dynamics more than in the woman herself; maybe this is part of the theme of the "unnameable real."

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  2. dee9 February 2022 at 11:03

    Hi! To answer your question at the end I am mildly disturbed that the Oedipus complex unfortunately seems to add to the realism in this novel. Men proving Freud's theories right happens really weirdly often and I guess this may just be another example of that. I wish I could say otherwise haha.

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