49 pages • 1 hour read
Lives of the Saints
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 27-33Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 27 Summary
Vittorio and Cristina settle into Room 213. Cristina changes in the bathroom, which has running water and a toilet—a novelty for Vittorio. Suddenly, a woman pounds on the door and yells for her to open it. Cristina opens the door in her slip. An older woman is standing there. The woman is shocked when she sees Vittorio and that Cristina is pregnant. She begins to cry, thinking that Cristina is the captain’s mistress. Cristina assures the woman that she is not and that she will talk to the captain about it. The foghorn sounds, announcing that the boat is about to leave the dock.
The woman leaves and Cristina and Vittorio go up on the deck. There are people on the dock waving and calling to the departing passengers. Vittorio thinks he sees Fabrizio, but it is an old man. As the ship leaves the port, Cristina cries. Vittorio asks her if his grandfather is going to die while they are in America. She replies that she doesn’t know. He asks if they will live with Mario, his father, and Cristina asks him if he wants to. Vittorio isn’t sure. They return to their cabin once the ship is out to sea.
Chapter 28 Summary
Cristina makes friends with people on the boat and begins spending time with Antonio Darcangelo. Antonio leaves her gifts of chocolate. When he takes her to see the engine room, the workers tease them. Antonio hurries her away, even though Cristina does not mind, and he insinuates that she is used to men like that because she doesn’t take things seriously. Cristina walks away, angry, but the next day Antonio gives her more gifts of chocolate and wine and they continue to spend time together.
Chapter 29 Summary
After a week or so on the ship, Antonio tells Cristina they have been invited to eat at the captain’s table for dinner to “make amends—for the little incident which occurred at Naples” (212). That evening, they go to the captain’s quarters for dinner. The captain apologizes to Cristina.
Antonio introduces them to the ship’s doctor, Cosabene, who shows signs of long-term alcohol use disorder. The lavish meal is eaten silently until Cristina asks the captain if he is certain that he has as much power at home as on a ship. He replies that he does. Cristina says he is lucky that for as much time as he spends at sea, all of his children (who are shown in pictures on the wall) look like him. This breaks the tension and the party becomes livelier. Dr. Cosabene asks Cristina when her due date is and why she is traveling so late in her pregnancy. She answers evasively.
At the end of the dinner, a crewman arrives with a message about an incoming storm. The crewmen all leave to handle the storm. The doctor spills some wine on Cristina and then goes to lay down on the captain’s couch. Antonio escorts Cristina and Vittorio out while the doctor begs them to stay and keep drinking with him. Antonio takes them to their cabin. He says they will be safe but warns them not to leave the cabin and to keep a bucket nearby.
The storm hits and the ship pitches wildly. Vittorio and Cristina become seasick and vomit into the toilet. After some time, Cristina begins to groan. She tells Vittorio to find the doctor and tell him that “the pains are only a few minutes apart” (223). She has gone into labor.
Chapter 30 Summary
Vittorio goes to the infirmary, but the nurse on duty is also seasick and does not help him. She tells him the doctor is sick as well. Vittorio realizes he can find the doctor in the captain’s quarters. He goes out on the deck to get to the captain’s quarters and is immediately hit with a wave that knocks him out.
When he comes to, he is close to being swept overboard. Clutching the railing, he makes it into the captain’s quarters, where the doctor is asleep. Vittorio wakes the doctor up. The doctor doesn’t understand why Cristina needs him, because he assumes that she is just seasick like everyone else on board. The doctor escorts Vittorio to the infirmary where he wakes the nurse, Luisa. He gives Vittorio some pills for his mother. Vittorio, distraught, says the doctor has to come see to her because she is having “the pains” (230). The doctor finally understands Cristina is in labor. The doctor, Luisa, and Vittorio rush to the cabin.
Chapter 31 Summary
When they get to the cabin, Cristina says her water broke a few minutes before and that the baby is about a month early. The doctor administers ether, a form of anesthesia, to relieve her pain, even though Cristina says she does not want it. The baby is stuck, and the doctor cannot find his forceps. He tells Vittorio to go find them in his examining room. Vittorio rushes off, but he cannot find the forceps anywhere and he breaks a bottle of iodine in his haste.
He returns to room 213 to find Luisa holding his new baby sister. The doctor is impatient for the afterbirth so he can be finished and so he “g[ives] a small tug” (237) between Cristina’s legs to make it come out. Cristina is sleeping. The doctor tells Vittorio to take a bath and go to bed, and he will return in the morning to check on Cristina. Vittorio crawls into bed with his mother. He tells her she has had a baby girl.
They fall asleep together. Vittorio wakes up to find he is soaked in blood and leaves to look for help. Mr. D’Amico, who is staying across the hall, sees Vittorio and tells him to wait in his room. Mr. D’Amico returns with the doctor, the nurse, and Antonio, who go into room 213. Mr. D’Amico washes Vittorio’s clothes and then tells him that Cristina is dead.
Chapter 32 Summary
Vittorio has pneumonia and a high fever. He does not remember much about the rest of the voyage. After several weeks, he realizes he is in a hospital ward where he sees briefly the man who was in the stable with his mother, although he is not certain he didn’t imagine the man in his delirium. Later, his father comes and watches over him until his fever breaks and they leave the hospital together.
Before disembarking, the day after his mother’s death, Vittorio goes to her funeral on board the ship. Mr. D’Amico cries. Antonio gives a eulogy. Then, Antonio pulls a lever and her body, in a canvas bag, drops into the ocean.
Chapter 33 Summary
That evening, after his mother’s funeral, Vittorio is in the infirmary with a high fever. A nurse, Maria, has given him some chicken soup to eat. The baby is also in the infirmary, in an incubator.
Feeling somewhat better after the soup, Vittorio goes out on the deck. He sings to himself. Then, he pulls out his lucky lira. While he is looking at it, it slips through his fingers, falls onto the deck, and then rolls past the rails into the ocean.
Chapters 27-33 Analysis
Throughout Lives of the Saints, Cristina is forced to reckon with her poor treatment at the hands of men due to misogyny and sexism, highlighting her battle of Traditional Values Versus Personal Freedom. This treatment is overall characterized by what is known as the “Madonna/Whore” dichotomy. The Madonna is a reference to the Virgin Mary, referring to when women are, like the literal statue of the Madonna in Valle del Sole, placed on a pedestal through idealization. However, once these women figuratively “fall” off the pedestal through defying patriarchal norms, they are treated as if any man who wants them sexually can have them. This is alluded to when Di Lucci says, in response to Maria Maiale’s comment that perhaps Cristina’s pregnancy is a “virgin birth,” that “Maybe it’s the other Mary, Magdalena, you’re thinking about” (61). Mary Magdalene was a sex worker; in subtly comparing Cristina to Mary Magdalene, Di Lucci is hinting at the fact that her pregnancy is the result of an extramarital affair.
Cristina’s struggle to navigate the world as an unconventional, independent woman continues on board the ship. When the third mate, Antonio, begins courting Cristina, despite his affection for her, he jealously expresses a similar feeling after the workers in the engine room make passes at her: “Maybe you know all about men like those down there” (210). The doctor onboard the ship likewise expresses sexual desire for her and, when she rejects him, treats her carelessly. It is this carelessness and impatience during his attendance during her childbirth that leads to her death. The doctor gives her ether against her will, tries to rush the delivery by using forceps, “g[ives] a slight tug” (237) to make the afterbirth come out rather than waiting for it to do so on its own, and then leaves her without monitoring her to see how she recovers. By the time Vittorio notices that she is hemorrhaging, it is too late—she is dead. Cristina’s death on her voyage to a new life suggests that Cristina’s attempts to assert her own agency have proven futile, as the oppressive norms of her society have still managed to haunt her until the very end.
The final section of Lives of the Saints also illustrates Vittorio’s final Loss of Childhood Innocence. As is typical of the bildungsroman genre, this loss is precipitated by leaving his hometown, Valle del Sole. When his mother goes into labor during a violent storm, he shows his growth and maturity when he bravely goes out onto the deck to get to the infirmary and summon the doctor. He even attempts to assist the doctor during the birth itself. After his mother dies, he goes out onto the deck and his “lucky” lira (See: Symbols & Motifs) slips from his hand. The loss of this lira emphasizes that Vittorio is no longer a child who believes in myth and superstition. He is now forced to reckon with the real cruelty and capriciousness of the world on his own. He looks in vain for the coin to “send [him] some final secret message, some magic consolation” (248), but it falls into the ocean, and he is left alone on the deck. The novel’s ending is open-ended, with Vittorio reuniting with his father in Canada, thus paving the way for the next novel in the trilogy.
Unlock all 49 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: