49 pages • 1 hour read
Pietro Di DonatoChrist in Concrete
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1937A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Annunziata”
The year 1929 comes and the building boom ceases with the stock market collapse and the arrival of the Great Depression. Men are out of work. The hunger—and the fear of hunger—described in earlier chapters returns. The men do not laugh or smile as they used to do. Paul and Annunziata pay another visit to the Cripple. Paul asks her to speak with Geremio about their future. The Cripple tells them that anything in their minds is because Geremio and God planted it there. She emphasizes that Geremio and God have figured things out for the family, so it will be okay. She says that Geremio wants his family to suffer no longer, so they will take a trip to some dairy farms and settle into a new life. She says that one night, Geremio will visit the family while they are seated at the table. Then Geremio will go to the angels in heaven because his family is happy, and Annunziata will rejoin him when she is old and her hair is white.
Nazone seeks Paul’s help in finding work. Nazone desires to return to Italy to be with his wife and children. Paul believes the economic downturn is temporary, but Nazone believes that this change is permanent and that the time for building in America is over. Paul gets a job for Nazone at his work site. They take in the sweet summer air as they walk to work. Nazone suggests they skip work and go to a beach. Paul says he does not know how to swim and also worries about losing money by skipping work, so they continue to Job. Nazone is unable to focus and keeps thinking of a place beyond the harsh concrete and tall buildings where he can find warm sand and women. The boss, Jones, is upset at Nazone’s slow pace of work and rushes over. Jones trips and slams into Nazone, causing Nazone to fall several floors and die. Paul feels sick and calls for his godfather to get up as he makes his way to Nazone.
The narrator describes Nazone’s bloodied and torn-apart body in sickening detail. Despite the gory scene, the site superintendent insists the men must continue working. A voice inside Paul tells him that this dead body is his father: it’s Geremio, and one day, it could be him. Paul runs away from Job in a daze. Paul runs into Gloria on the steps of Tenement, and she invites him to her birthday. He says that he’s seen a man be killed. Annunziata arrives. She is older and has gray hair. Paul tells Annunziata that his godfather is dead. Little Geremino asks if Paul is sick, and Annunziata tells him to play. He compares today’s date—July 28th—to the day his father died: March 30th.
Annunziata tucks Paul into bed, and he continues to dream of Job. In this dream, the foreman pushes a man—Paul’s godfather—off the scaffold. The foreman also pushes Paul off the scaffold, but he floats to safety. Paul says he will find Christ to save his godfather. He asks the people around him for help, but they cannot hear him. Geremio approaches while smoking a cigarette and wearing a checkered suit. Paul wonders why his father has left his family, and Paul wants to bring his father back. Paul and Geremio walk to Job, where his father begins laying bricks. Paul sees Mr. Murdin and shouts “I spy!” (225) over and over while proclaiming that Mr. Murdin is the enemy. Job breaks apart, and Geremio and the other men continue to lay bricks even as the building shatters around him. Paul tries to protect them, but they do not listen. Geremio sings a Good Friday song along with the other men. Concrete pours through Paul and he is unsure whether he is Geremio or Paul until a face like his says that he is Paul. Paul is taken to the Cripple, where his father’s beaten body lies. The Cripples says that his father is happy in paradise. Geremio says that he was cheated—as are his children—and that they are not free, even in Death.
Paul wakes and announces “I am Paul, Paul, Paul, I am Paul” (226) and that he will also die. Paul tells Annunziata that Geremio will never return and their lives are unfair. She weeps and says that they will starve before Paul returns to Job. However, return to Job he must, knowing he could die at any moment. After Nazone’s funeral, they go to Sunday church services. Paul feels sick being there. As Paul goes off to work, Annunziata thinks of her love for her son. He returns home and is silent every day. He stops going to church. Paul eventually shaves for the first time. Annunziata senses he does not pray anymore. She prays for him and wishes she could take on the burden of Job for him. Paul tells Annunziata that God (Dio in Italian) is a lie. Annunziata says that they will find salvation in the next world (heaven), but Paul wants salvation now. Annunziata asks Jesus to save Paul. Paul crushes the crucifix that Annunziata uses to pray. She beats Paul’s face and says her son is dead. Paul leaves the apartment, and Annunziata continues to pray to Jesus. Paul returns and says that they should run away and live in the forest, but she does not answer.
Annunziata dreams of a time when she was 12 and Geremio decided to marry her. The narrator reveals snippets of their wedding and their journey to America and her children’s births. Her fever dream is intertwined with the dance “Tarantella,” which flits her rapidly through different memories, similar to the quick pace of the dance itself. She cries out for Geremio and awakes. Paul cries out for his mother to live. Annunziata brushes his face and says that everything she does, she does for him. She sings a short song about Paul. She tells her children to follow Paul, and the novel ends, implying that Annunziata has died.
Chapter 5 Analysis
Once again, we see how small details and word choices in dialogue add authentic richness to this novel. For example, when the men lose Job due to the Great Depression, they curse in prolific and comedic fashion (merde means “shit” in Italian): “What says that pie-eating coffee-drinking A-merde-can signore the President?” (207). It shows that humans seek out dark humor for levity in grim times. The callback to the Italian “Tarantella”—a form of frenetic dancing used to ward off death after a tarantula bite—is also significant. In the previous chapter, “Tarantella” functioned as a fun backdrop to the wedding festivities and a good folk dance to bring the men and women together. But as this dance interweaves through this final chapter along with Annunziata’s memories of Italy and meeting Geremio, we realize it is more than just an ode to the old country, but also a symbol of the flirtatious relations between men and women and Annunziata’s own fractured love with Geremio. The protective dance fades away, leading Annunziata to a likely death and the reunification with her husband in the afterlife.
This chapter also opens with a surprising role reversal: Nazone asking Paul for help. The godfather who helped his godson get his first job now asks for help. The story has come full circle: the book starts with Paul’s father, Geremio, dying, and it ends with his godfather, Nazone, dying. Both are compared to “Christ in Concrete,” and it’s suggested that Paul, too, will die if he continues Job. Much like a scene from a horror movie, di Donato builds up the suspense in this chapter by having Nazone suggest numerous times that they skip work on this beautiful day, and that Job will always be there waiting for them when they get back. The reader gets the sense that something bad will happen if they proceed to Job. Because Job’s hold on Paul is so strong, he cannot permit himself to believe there is any form of freedom allowed other than Job. And so Nazone reluctantly relents, stating: “If we lose our jobs—it is the fish without water” (214), implying through this metaphor that they will die without Job. Ultimately, it is Job that kills Nazone, leading Paul to realize the falsehood that hard work in America leads to prosperity. This realization, along with his fever dream in which Geremio appears and states that his children have been cheated—likely by the promise of the American dream that so many immigrants follow—leads to a total collapse in Paul’s faith. Louis’s earlier words that there is no God echo in this chapter once more when he tells his mother with reference to Dio(God): “That’s a lie” (229). Once again, the book comes full circle, starting with Paul’s unabashed faith in Jesus and ending with his total abandonment of religion.
We also see one last time the utter lack of empathy for workers in a capitalist system. The workers, naturally, do not want to return to work after witnessing Nazone’s death. But the foreman insists they must trudge on: “Boys…there’s a lotta mortar in the mixer and tubs that’s gotta be used up.” (219). If they don’t continue working at breakneck speed, the wealthy corporations will lose money, thus reducing the gap between the rich and the poor that looms over the novel in the form of massive income inequality. The rich do not want to bear even the slightest loss in profit that could come from providing safe working conditions and better pay. But as history will show, there is a cost to pay for unregulated capitalism run amok, which manifests in the decade-long Great Depression that takes place after the book’s ending.
Annunziata also undergoes a dramatic transformation in this chapter. Once again, the book comes full circle: it starts with Geremio, who perishes in the first chapter. It ends with Geremio’s wife, Annunziata, who is implied to have died in the final chapter. Throughout the novel, she is wracked with grief and continues to think of her dead husband, Geremio. That love switches to Paul by the end of the book. Although she temporarily rejects her son when he challenges her faith, ultimately, her love for her child trumps even her dogmatic faith, as expresses her love for Paul: “My Paul…Paul….” (236). She then urges her children to follow Paul’s guidance. Therefore, it is in this chapter that we understand that Paul’s name is no coincidence. It is a biblical symbol inserted by di Donato. St. Paul the Apostle led some of the first Christians and thereby is considered one of the most influential figures in Christianity—second only to Jesus, perhaps. That is why the fact that Paul breaks with Christianity is so symbolic. For without leaders like Paul, the first generations of Christians would be lost. In telling her children to follow Paul, it is unclear whether Annunziata believes that Paul will return to the path of Christ or that she believes her children should follow in his footsteps, regardless of whether he believes or not.
