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Slavery In Mario Puzo's 'The Fortunate Pilgrim'

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In Mario Puzo's book The Fortunate Pilgrim, he highlights the struggles of Italian immigrants coming to America through one family. Using the Angeluzzi-Corbo family Puzo is able to show the struggles of living in a new country, giving up old ways, and adapting to new customs. He shows the immigrants struggles the best by using Lucia Santa, the mother and the rock of the Angeluzzi-Corbo family. By using Lucia, Puzo is able to make the reader see her struggle of keeping her family safe from the harshness of the outside world. Lucia is mainly concerned that her children do not lose the Italian ways and that she can continue to provide for her family. While reading the book the reader can see how Lucia struggles keeping all six of her children, specifically Larry and Octavia safe from the outside world. Larry and Octavia are at odds with Lucia a lot throughout the book because they are her eldest children, are the least dependent on her, and the most tempted by the outside world. Through an array of problems Lucia Santa struggles to protect her family from the harshness of the new world and make sure her children grow up to be respectable adults with strong old world Italian values. Lucia's goal for her family is to make sure that she can raise them right to survive in the harshness of America. Her biggest struggles come through her oldest children as they will be the first to venture out on their own, but after much strife they end up being two of her biggest success.
Larry

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