Water
The Crock/The Red Dragon
The heat of the summer sun The ‘mountain’
The impaled chicken
Melichetti’s pigs
Holes
The harvesting machine
The gravina
Fillippo
Can you think of any others?
Where is it present in the text?

Noticeably absent for most of the novel because of the drought

“We had forgotten that water could fall from the sky.” (174)

Formed the gravina, which has also run dry

Has to be trucked into the town so they can survive

Name of the town: Aqua Traverse (‘Water Crossing’)

“Maybe, sooner or later, he would take us to the seaside for a swim.” (41)

The sea - Michele sees the sea for the first time:

“The air was so clean that far away, beyond the ochre plain, you could see a thin
green strip. The sea. It was the first time I had ever seen it from Acqua Traverse.”
(184)

Thunderstorm – Michele imagines Filippo drowning in the hole
Comments – one interpretation:

Water possibly symbolises compassion, which has run dry in the town.

Without this compassion, the morality espoused by the adults is meaningless.

For Michele, the breaking of the storm symbolises the climax of the crisis but also
the overflowing of his own compassion, which overwhelms his fears (true?)

Afterwards, the air is clearer and he can ‘see’ further than before. In other words:
he has gained a new knowledge of what is right and wrong with respect to his
fellow human beings

His vision of the sea: far away, dirty, but offering a distant prospect of escape, of
another world beyond Aqua Traverse
Water
The Crock/The Red Dragon
The heat of the summer sun The ‘mountain’
The impaled chicken
Melichetti’s pigs
Holes
The harvesting machine
The gravina
Fillippo
Can you think of any others?