Salvatore La Puma Essay -- Literature, Cakes

Confucius once said, The strength of a nation derives from the fair play of the home. Many people across the world deem family as the almost important aspect of their life. Family is something that often teaches us moral value and helps hurl the individuals we become later in our lives. The values taught by family be not only essential, but will help develop the moral quality of an individual. In the short story, Cakes, Salvatore La Puma conveys the prominence of family values in Italian-American immigrant culture in the 1940s industrial era. La Puma utilizes the firstborn paragraph as mini-ethnography to portray the unity of the Vitale family. The introduction states, That summer he sweated from the humidity which in 1940 everyone in Brooklyn sweated from then he sweated from the hot ovens at Carlo Amatos oldenry shop in Bensonhurst four or quintette nights a week then he sweated from the hot ovens at a pastry shop Downtown every day of the week yet on Sunday, when he usua lly slept until noon. From Downtown, Giovanni Vitale came home at the end of the working day on the BMT subway to his wife, Lisa, to their three kids Anna, Steve, and Johnny. After dinner they would all get word to the Philco. Then Giovanni and the eldest kid, Johnny, eleven, walked three long blocks and two short blocks, past the old people who fanned themselves on the stoops, to Carlos shop on Seventeenth Avenue (4). The first paragraph evokes the normal and typical coordinate of the Italian-American immigrant family in this era. In the Vitale family, everyone has their own role. The father, Giovanni Vitale, has the duty of working long hours to yield for his family. The mother, Lisa, has the role of a homemaker, making dinner for the family, and takin... ...llels the image where mother bloody shame is holding baby Jesus. Although Martina is not related to Johnny, her caring and nurturing behavior illustrates her thoughtful, kind, and hospitable personality. The use of Martin a as a mother-like figure, allows La Puma to convey the vegetable marrow of family values in Italian American culture.Although many families today are dysfunctional and fragmented, Cakes serves to show the splendor of unity within a family. No matter what we do or where we go, family is something that will carry us and plant who we are. Family serves as a building block or blueprint for success. The values that a family instills allow the strength of an individual to prevail. In this short story, La Puma is able to highlight the role of family as an educator, and protector, and depict the importance of family values in Italian-American immigrant culture.