The Sicilian Inheritance

“Our marriage had become merely a bundle of services that neither of us could fulfill enough for the other.”

With a tone of resignation and melancholy, Sara confronts the bitter reality of her relationship and the failure of her marriage and career. By characterizing the relationship as a bundle of services, she underscores the transactional and pragmatic nature that the marriage has deteriorated into. The passage accentuates the loss of emotional and personal connection, suggesting that the marriage is now driven by tasks and obligations rather than love and mutual support, reduced to something insignificant, mechanical, and businesslike.

“The witch’s home smelled like an animal right before slaughter: wild, anxious, clinging to hope.”

Young Serafina, filled with desperation and fear, arrives at the witch’s cave, not fearing the healer but the repercussions of her actions. Using a simile creates a striking, unsettling image, underscoring the young girl’s impending doom. The scent she perceives is her fear. The cave evolves into a symbol throughout the story, representing shelter, hope, and resilience for distressed women. The witch undergoes a profound transformation from a nameless outcast to an empathetic human with healing hands, inspiring Serafina to pursue a career in nursing. This quote emphasizes Women’s Empowerment Across Generations.

“In the end I had wanted too much. I wanted success and love, a career and a child, a marriage and freedom. I’d wanted it all and I’d ended up with nothing.”

The story begins at a low point in the protagonist’s life. Sara describes the plight of many contemporary women in trying to balance the demands of their lives. In attempting to be everything she wanted to be, she failed at all of them, and now she feels her life is falling apart. The motif of women being stretched too far continues in the past timeline with Serafina as she struggles to find contentment and balance in her life.

“The restaurant failed because of me and in spite of me. Both things can be true.”

The passage hinges on a paradox where Sara contradicts herself but reveals a more profound truth. Sara’s reflection highlights the complex nature of failure, suggesting that she played a role in the restaurant’s downfall while acknowledging that factors beyond her control contributed to its failure. This duality emphasizes the complex, often contradictory nature of reality. The passage reveals Sara’s inner conflict and willingness to accept the consequences of her decisions. This is the first step toward redefining her identity and restarting her life.

“Surfaru sugnu. I am just sulfur.”

Maestro Falleti’s proclamation symbolizes how he feels that Italy has dehumanized Sicilians by seeing them as only workers. Reducing himself to an element only known by its chemical components emphasizes the subjugation felt by the Sicilian population. This lack of humanity leads many Sicilian men to emigrate to the US for a better life.

“Everyone comes looking for cousins. What do they hope to find? A missing piece of themselves. Like we are the answer to all their problems.”

Giusy explains to Sara that Sicily has become a tourist destination due to popular culture, which portrays the country as a place full of secrets and fortune. As a citizen, woman, and struggling business owner, she has grown weary of the spectacle. Ironically, Sara initially isn’t looking to find herself in Sicily. Still, through her journey, she solves a century-old family mystery, which also helps her recover a part of herself in the process. This quote highlights The Role of Cultural Identity in Self-Discovery.

“With each of my pregnancies, I felt more and more hollowed out, like another piece of me was being carved away, taking me further from the person I had wanted to be, that girl who would go to school in a city by the sea.”

Pregnancy often symbolizes new life and creation. However, it’s used ironically to represent a loss of Serafina’s identity and aspirations. The simile portrays the sense of loss and depletion associated with motherhood. Each time she gives birth, Serafina experiences another loss of self, and her desired life path, a life of education and freedom, feels increasingly out of reach. The rhetoric, particularly “carving,” suggests a forceful removal, conveying that something is being taken away from Serafina even as she’s given another child.

“[W]hen you stop believing in curses you also stop believing in miracles.”

Curses reflect negativity and misery, whereas miracles represent hope and the strange, and Serafina was nurtured in a culture that strongly believes in the supernatural. The text creates a contradiction, stating that believing in one requires believing in the other, proposing a worldview in which the paranormal exists, and both good and evil forces are at work. However, Serafina’s life experiences have pushed her to reject all forms of spirituality, symbolizing her rejection of aspects of her culture that do not align with her moral compass. This rejection is unacceptable to her community.

“The gnarled shame shifted every day, but the common thread was always my failure at something.”

Shame is an abstract concept, and by comparing it to something gnarled, like a twisted tree branch, the passage creates a vivid image conveying Sara’s sense of deep-rooted and persistent negativity. Shame is personified, emphasizing its lasting effect on her. Its contorted and unpleasant presence affects her ability to function.

“[T]here are some things women know intuitively, impoverished women, the ones who are the most underestimated. We know our bodies better than anyone, but we are often afraid to embrace that knowledge.”

Rosalia imparts her wisdom about women’s intuition and societal expectations to Serafina as she apprentices to be a healer. Ironically, poverty limits women’s access to proper medical care, forcing them to be more in tune with their innate understanding of their physical bodies. Yet, the women hesitate to embrace this truth because trusting their bodies is seen as inappropriate by society.

“I also needed to call my sister so Carla could do her Carla thing where she said all the right words to help shove my anxiety back into a box.”

The passage emphasizes the novel’s focus on the power of women’s connectivity and support. Carla is a calming presence in Sara’s life. The metaphor suggests, however, that Carla can’t permanently solve Sara’s anxiety, as putting it in a box only contains it for a time. Sara must do the work to find peace within herself. This quote highlights Women’s Empowerment Across Generations.

“Men needed to feel useful in a situation they could not control.”

The passage explores the human need for agency and the cultural expectation for men to be the "fixers" or protectors. Feeling useless challenges their sense of masculinity, which is a problem in a patriarchal society like Serafina’s. When faced with a situation outside our control, acting, even small actions, can provide a sense of regaining control or at least mitigating the feeling of helplessness. Men need to feel needed and valuable in the text.

“There are some things that are better left forgotten. There are wounds that stopped bleeding long ago. Now they are bleeding again.”

Fina expresses Caltabellessa’s desire to move on from the past. However, Sara’s appearance resurfaces the pain they have tried to cover. The passage explores the fresh, emotional pain that can come from dealing with the past and the vulnerable place Sara finds herself in as she faces resistance to her inquest. This quote captures the theme of Unraveling Family Secrets.

“It was a bright and radiant thing, this meeting of needs, but also not entirely new.”

Serafina describes the beauty and novelty of “The Ask,” the funeral turned-planning session where the village women ask each other for help. The moment highlights the beauty of women’s empowerment and collaboration where their sole cause isn’t competition but supporting one another physically and emotionally.

“I was Jupiter. Jack was Earth. In this picture, which I couldn’t bear to change, we were smiling like idiots with our arms wrapped around one another, a functioning solar system all our own.”

This passage uses an extended metaphor to describe Sara’s family as it once was—a complete and functioning unit. She misses the harmony of their family as they now live apart, disjointed, and their unity dissolved. Labeling herself as Jupiter and Jack as Earth emphasize her as the more dominant partner in the relationship, contributing to their downfall.

“I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, confronting a pair of Chesire cats, eager to screw with my head.”

Employing a literary allusion to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the passage describes Sara’s confusion and overwhelm as she becomes more entrenched in her family’s history with each passing moment. She also worries that Giusy is hiding something from her and that she and Fina are colluding to exploit her ignorance. Comparing Giusy to the Cheshire Cat emphasizes her cunning deceptiveness, which will ultimately save Sara and Giusy.

“It was as though my brain were split into two parts, the mother and this woman who was being touched and desired.”

After marrying Gio, Serafina loses touch with parts of herself, but being with Marco reawakens her desire. The passage reveals Serafina’s internal conflict in reconciling two aspects of her identity and how she feels torn between her role as a mother and her desire for physical intimacy. The simile and vivid imagery portray the emotional turmoil of a woman experiencing the conflict between societal expectations and her desires. Society expects that motherhood negates a woman’s sexuality and that a woman can’t simultaneously experience both maternal and romantic feelings.

“It is hard to be a historian without becoming a nihilist because you see the worst of history repeat itself over and over again.”

Agata explains the challenges posed by her work in studying Sicily’s history. Historians are exposed to the darkest aspects of humanity’s past by the nature of their profession. This constant awareness of past atrocities is emotionally draining. It leads to a cynical outlook, which for Agata is disheartening and puts her in danger of viewing human existence as meaningless. Seeing how women have banded together over time to support one another is the only thing that keeps her hope alive, highlighting Women’s Empowerment Across Generations.

“It was true that women had lived with bigger secrets, but I worried this one could not be contained.”

This passage speaks to the burden women carry in hiding secrets. In particular, the consequences of forbidden sex are invisible in men, but if a woman becomes pregnant, there is no way to hide, and women suffer alone for an act that involves two people. Serafina can pretend Rosalia is Gio’s daughter, but the baby’s eyes unmistakably belong to Marco.

“Giusy knew that a gun would be useless for me, but a knife in my hand was an extension of my own body.”

Nino underestimates Sara and Giusy’s strength and mental fortitude. Sara compares the knife to an appendage, conveying her powerful connection to her calling as a butcher and chef. Wielding the blade is a reclamation of her power in defending herself and a reminder of her calling.

“Maybe permanency was not the only metric of success.”

This passage displays Sara’s character development throughout the story. Initially, she labels herself as a failure, and her internal monologue is full of negative self-talk. Her journey has taught her that change is inevitable and that she can’t define her success based on remaining in a job, marriage, or any endeavor indefinitely. Sometimes, a willingness to pivot or start over completely is what defines success in life.

“Someone had to hurt me.”

Serafina expresses the bitter truth that the only way to escape her situation is to become a victim. This passage speaks to the vulnerability of women and the ubiquity of violence toward women. Serafina uses this to her advantage in faking her death to escape Sicily.

“I had always worried our greatest sin was our pride in our work.”

In coming together and sharing their collective strengths and talents to run their city, the women of Caltabellessa were erased from history instead of hailed as heroes. Serafina expresses that men are praised for working, but when women go to work at anything other than housekeeping and raising children, they are overstepping their boundaries.