Eyes Shut - Frederigo Tozzi

In the novel, Eyes Shut, Frederigo Tozzi tells his life story with some distortions. His character, Pietro, feels inferior and is lost and conflicted in finding his identity because of his controlling father, Domenico. Domenico is a seemingly powerful man in his field and tries to control everyone around him. His desire to dominate has an effect on his son, whom he barely has a relationship with, because his son constantly yields to his demands and tolerates his insults. Pietro thus lacked self confidence yet had developed a desire for superiority and domination. Besides his condescending father, Pietro’s struggle to identify his individuality is affected by his sick mother, Anna, who cannot take care of her only surviving child, Pietro, as she would like to. Anna eventually dies in her feeble attempts to take care of and have a motherly relationship with Pietro who, because of his subjection to his father, couldn’t return her attempted affection. "Pietro always avoided showing her he loved her in case he became too submissive" (Tozzi, 50). This leaves Pietro with a constant atmosphere of neglect and loneliness surrounding him. These insecurities inflicted on Pietro by his parents’ actions and behaviour surface in his relationship with Ghisola, the woman he loves. His love for Ghisola made him feel like she overpowered him, a feeling his father had made very familiar to him so he equally disliked this feeling. In order to display that he still had power, he resorted to violence. He would “stab” (27) and “push” (38) Ghisola in his attempts to prove that she had no power or control over him.