Being on the Bottom of Society
A Comparative Analysis of Women of the Shadows and The Broken Fountain
by Dorte Eide Liebe
Introduction
This paper is the final assignment for the class "Introduction to Cultural Anthropology" offered in the fall semester of 2001 at the Pasadena City College. In the paper Ann Cornelisen's ethnography "Woman of the Shadows" and Thomas Belmonte's "The Broken Fountain" have been compared and contrasted.
The ethnography "Women of the Shadows" by Ann Cornelisen gives a very emotional description of the secluded and harsh lives of the women of southern Italy during a time of great poverty. Most of the women are married but their husbands have left for work in factories in Germany or in Milan and they are left behind to take care of the children and work in the fields. The everyday life of these women is described as a struggle for survival. They never know what the next day will bring and they have learned not to expect anything. In Women of the Shadows we follow the lives of five women, whom the author came to know very well during the years she spent in the region.
One of the women we hear about is Peppina who is 25 years old (although she appears to be 40). Peppina has no education and is married to Minguccio with whom she has three children. Peppina struggles under the weight of a lifelong sadness. Her husband works in Germany as a construction carpenter and Peppina takes care of the children, work in the field and besides that does any work she can find such as cleaning hallways and working as a maid. During tough times Peppina's family live off of garlic pizza made from dough, garlic and oil. When Peppina's husband gets sick and no longer is able to work in Germany, she becomes the sole provider for the family, which then consists of seven children (and would have counted twelve had she not secretly had several abortions). To provide for the family Peppina decides to become a wet nurse for an army officer and his wife. Being a wet nurse is a very dishonorable job, and when Minguccio finds out that his wife has to use a milking machine which makes her breasts sore and hurt so much that she is crying every time she uses it, he won't let her keep the job. Peppina gives up the job and move with her family to Germany, where her husband finds work at night in a café and Peppina cleans schools and shops for other women.
The life of Ninetta is similarly harsh. Ninetta works hard to ensure the survival of her four children (one of whom is disabled and requires expensive medical attention) and she struggles with a jealous husband who drinks too much. Teresa and Pinuccia (mothers of five and three children respectively) hope that their children never will have to stoop to the physical labor that has been their families' curse. They pray that their children will become doctors, lawyers, bookkeepers, nursery teachers or government clerks. They will rather support their children all their lives than see them struggle in the same way as they have done themselves.
Cettina (the last woman described in the book) is almost a generation younger than the previous women are. Although the situation for the lower class has improved somewhat during the 20 years that Cornelisen lived in the area, life is still a battle for Cettina. Cettina goes to school, but she never passes the 8th grade in the middle school, and has no professional skills. She leaves school and holds a number of unsatisfactory jobs. After a failed premeditated attempt to marry a carabinieri, who belongs to a higher social class than she does, she marries Anthony from her own social class . Women living in southern Italy in the 1970's generally have more rights than their mothers had twenty years earlier. Through Cettina we discover how women have learned to work the system and squeeze the most out of their maternity. Cettina is being paid both prenatal and postnatal maternity leave although she has no plans to return to her job when the baby gets older. But despite the increased awareness, young women in the 70's seem more frustrated with their situation than their mothers did in the 50's. They don't think their lives have improved much and they have a harder time accepting their situation, which they blame on the society. However, they haven't lost every hope. They are still determined that their children will have everything they never had.
The Broken Fountain (1979) by Thomas Belmonte is an ethnography that focuses on the family life of the people of Fontana del Re in Southern Italy. After arriving in Fontana del Re in the spring of 1974 Belmonte gradually gets access to the lives of the people in the district. He describes their lives, which are dominated by poverty and violence.
One family that the author comes to know very well is the family of Stefano, his wife Elena and their six children. Stefano is the owner of a small junk depository and his wife is home taking care of the children. Sharing a great deal of time with this family Belmonte witnesses the chaotic character of family life among the poor in Naples. He witnesses aggression, explosive violence, fearful child-beatings, conflicts, fights and shouting during dinner, exchange of insults and sibling rivalry etc. However, Belmonte also experiences the closeness of the family and the family's apparent need and love for each other. Belmonte also socializes with the young men in the area, many of whom are thieves. Through his acquaintance with these criminals, he is able to give a very detailed description of the illegal activity that thrives in the district.
Field research experiences and methods
Cornelisen first came to Torregreca (in the district Lucania) in southern Italy in the summer of 1954 as an assistant for a British funded organization to save the children. She had only planned to work there for a couple of months, but then she became involved in the construction of a nursery, and she returned to Torregreca to work in the nursery when it was opened a few years later. This first connection sparked her interest in the people, especially in the lives of the women of the area, and she ended up being in contact with the region and studying its people for more than 20 years, sometimes staying in the area for long periods (years) at a time.
The district of Lucania (with a population of about 12000 people) is one of the poorest and most isolated districts in southern Italy. The research method that Cornelisen used for her fieldwork was participant observation, living among and sharing the experiences of the poor people in the area. During her years in Lucania she came to know five different women and their families especially well and in her book she shares with us the lives of these women (using invented names for the women and their families to protect their privacy).
Belmonte's approach to his study of the lives of the poor in the lower class district Fontana del Re in Naples was also to use participant observation. He spent about a year in Fontana del Re (from the spring of 1974 to the spring of 1975) during which he got to know and described the lives of the people with whom he lived and shared his daily existence.
Belmonte and Cornelisen both describe how it initially was hard to get access to the lives of the poor and gain their trust. Belmonte depicts how he felt like an intruder. The people of Fontana del Re were very suspicious of him and thought he was a disguised spy or police agent and they wouldn't let him infiltrate their society. Belmonte, who moved into a tiny apartment in Fontana del Re, was at some point threatened with beating if he persisted in his attempt to live in the area. He became very discouraged, but met a young well-educated man, Carlo, who promised to help him and serve him as a diplomatic intermediary. Carlo had friends in the lower-class zone and with his help Belmonte was eventually able to make friends among the poor as people gradually came to trust him. Cornelisen had the same experience with people finding her presence questionable. A peasant that she met thought she was spying with her camera, for the police or for the land reform, and treated her very unfriendly and with a lot of suspicion at first. However she managed to convince him that she worked for the nursery and simply was interested in how the people of the area lived their lives, and he slowly loosened up and conveyed information to her.
Belmonte and Cornelisen use the same research method to study the poor people of southern Italy. However, their research differs because the majority of the informants that Belmonte used for his ethnography were male whereas Cornelisen put most effort into understanding the situation of women that she came to know. Neither Belmonte nor Cornelisen claim to be objective. The fact that they chose to concentrate their studies on the lives of people of their own gender probably have biased the way they described specific experiences and their personal opinions may have influenced the way they perceived particular situations. Both anthropologists recognize the fact that the people they studied may not have been representative of the norm.
When Belmonte arrived in Italy he only knew very little Italian. Fortunately he met Carlo who helped him with his language barrier in the beginning. Carlo became his primary field assistant and was of great help both as friend, assistant and teacher. Cornelisen was familiar with Italian and did not use a field assistant, but did her research on her own.
Both Cornelisen and Belmonte describe how they after living among the poor for some time would feel an urge to get out of the poor district. Cornelisen would go on a trip to Rome and Belmonte would flee to either Rome or Florence to get temporary relief from the harsh life in the south. However after being gone for just a few days both anthropologists would feel that the big city didn't live up to their expectations. Then they would feel an impulsive urge to return to the south, a place they both came to love despite the poor circumstances. They both report how they had the feeling of betrayal when leaving the south for a couple of days comfort in the city. Once when Cornelisen went to the nearest city to take a bath and watch a movie she felt so guilty that she had to invent an official errand to explain her absence to her neighbors.
Occasionally Belmonte's research would lead him into compromising situations. Some of Belmonte's informants were young men who had turned into thievery. They were so confident in Belmonte's company that they would use Belmonte's apartment as a "social club" and Belmonte experienced more than once that a man called Lorenzo wanted him to hide stolen merchandise! Sometimes when Belmonte would spend leisure time with one or more of these young men, they would go swimming or fishing together. However, if high-end cars were parked near the shore a "catch" from the cars would be more interesting than catching a fish. Eventually Belmonte felt so uneasy about socializing with the thieves that he had to back off and gradually became a stranger to them.
Belmonte also describes his difficulties obtaining genealogies from people at Fontana del Re. Very few people would reveal the names of their family members because that also involved revealing the names of imprisoned relatives a situation that caused a lot of anger and great embarrassment. Belmonte soon learned that a family's honor is very important and that high values are placed on facades. When Stefano's son Pasquale (in the Broken Fountain) tries to commit suicide, his family is greatly concerned about their son's well being, but they are equally concerned about the local publicity, disgrace and shame he has put on the family.
Later Belmonte asks a local housewife to enumerate the people in each apartment and write their occupations down for him. However this approach doesn't work either because the housewife confide in him that she would rather tell a lie than tell the truth about a dishonorable person (this way she would reclassify a prostitute as being a housewife).
Authors' findings
Cornelisen and Belmonte come to very different findings with respect to the way they think the society of southern Italy is organized. Cornelisen is convinced that the society is organized on a matriarchal pattern, i.e. a society that is ruled by women. She supports this assertion by the observations that the mother typically is the primary provider, she is the one who makes the large decisions, and who holds a strong hold over her sons (even when they have left home and started their own families). Furthermore all of the households Cornelisen studied were matrifocal (that is with no resident husband/father). Although Cornelisen believes that the society is matriarchal she acknowledges that the matriarchy is camouflaged by the fact that the women will go to great lengths not to mar the picture a husband has given of himself and his supremacy within the family.
Contrary to this, Belmonte thinks that the society of southern Italy is organized on a patriarchal pattern. He argues that based on his studies he has found that the father is the family's main provider (although he may be temporarily unemployed) and that the family generally is father-ruled (although the father may be gone for work for long time periods). Belmonte declares that children fear their father (whose love is achieved) much more than their mother (whose love is ascribed) and that he hasn't met any females that were fully accepted as the equal of any male.
Cornelisen and Belmonte both acknowledge the fact that southern Italian mothers favor sons. A mother in southern Italy is willing to go to great lengths helping their sons, but she doesn't feel obligated to help a daughter in the same way. A son will give her full attention. He will retaliate if she is wronged, care for her, protect her, and let her live in his house, when she gets old (often to great disapproval and annoyance for her daughter-in-law).
Cornelisen and Belmonte have the same findings with respect to the way children are raised not having great expectations for themselves and their lives. Both anthropologists experience situations where they are told not to encourage children to hope and dream for a better life because that will just make the children restless, confused and troubled when they realize the futility of their hopes and dreams. In general people accept that those who are born poor die poor and that no man can expect to rise above his assigned station in life a harsh reality of life that they have come to know.
Areas for further research
As described earlier Cornelisen and Belmonte come to a very different conclusion with respect to the organization of the southern Italian society. Cornelisen concludes that the society is matriarchal and Belmonte concludes that it is patriarchal. How can two anthropologists studying similar people in similar areas come to so different findings? Is there any way to find out who is right and who is wrong and forever settle the "dispute"? I think it would be interesting to gather more information (additional ethnographies) from the area to investigate this subject further.
One topic that I (as a woman with a western European background) find hard to come to terms with is that there, in the very recent past, was an apparent lack of equal opportunity for men and women in southern Italy. Cornelisen reports that education was reserved for boys among the lower class people 40 years ago. At that time, girls did not even attend a few years of primary school. According to Cornelisen schooling opportunities for girls improved during the twenty years she had contact to the area, but Cornelisen nevertheless found that the better education didn't change the lifestyles of the women significantly. I think it could be interesting to follow up on Cornelisen's research and investigate whether the lifestyles of women, now, almost 30 years since Cornelisen left the area, finally have started to change (hopefully to the better).
Another interesting fact is that women were being excluded from public places in southern Italy. Both Cornelisen and Belmonte report that women, as little as 25 years ago, were excluded from visiting cinemas, cafés, wine shops and the famous Italian Piazza, places that were reserved solely for the socialization of men. I find gender-division of the society to be an interesting topic and I would like to investigate to which extent the society still has this division and/or whether new divisions have replaced the old.
Bibliography
Belmonte, Thomas
1979 The Broken Fountain
New York: Columbia University Press
Cornelisen, Ann
1976 Women of the Shadows
Vermont: Steerforth Press