Christ In Concrete

Christ in Concrete is a powerful and breathtaking narrative of the endeavors that an Italian American immigrant had to endure in the twentieth century. This book emulates the story of the death of the author’s father in a construction accident roughly twelve years ago. Overall, this novel is about the unfortunate death of Paul’s father, Geremio, due to a construction accident on Good Friday. After his father’s demise, Paul is responsible for supporting everyone in his large family. He comes to be an expert bricklayer whom everyone in his society respects and admires. But gaining that respect took a lot of hard work for Paul. Paul views his “Job” as not something delightful, but rather as agonizing and brutal. Through his years working, he questions

For example, he juxtaposes the rich and the poor. Additionally, he utilizes the “capitalism as war” metaphor. Overall, the goal of using such rhetorical techniques is to highlight the collision between Italian and American culture and the problems that Italian immigrants confront when trying to mix into the American mainstream culture. Di Donato also shows what happens when innocent Italian immigrants fall prey to the dangerous and enticing capitalistic system. One way Di Donato achieves this is by presenting the readers with the realistic and horrible life conditions that immigrants had to face back then. Lastly, these techniques also help to make up the major themes of this novel which are the plight of the Italian immigrant and

This metaphor has thoroughly been used in other novels as well to illustrate the fact that capitalism not only creates war through competition but the capitalistic system itself is in a continuous state of war. The author uses this rhetorical technique whenever he depicts the imminent downfall of the paesano construction workers on the “Job.” Essentially, the “Job” is war. As soon as the Italian-American immigrant steps into the world of the capitalistic society, there can be persistent conflicts, tragic consequences, and the struggle to maintain his existence. It’s only on payday when Paul feels content with the lethal capitalistic