Political Science

Ignazio Salones celebrated text Bread and Wine is centered on the character Pietro Spina. He is a young revolutionary who disguises as an older priest so that he can escape from being caught by police. We find him living in a pretense throughout the novel. We see Pietro Spina moving to Italy to spread the message of Communism. Disguising as a priest Don Paolo he lives in a small village called Pietrasecca. His casual views were found to be interesting to the villagers as they approach him to listen to their confessions. However we find that the protagonist Pietro Spina later gets disappointed with his communist views. As he learns more about the peasants and their real requirements, his communist ideologies started changing so that Christian socialism became appealing to him. This made him strengthen himself in his role as a priest. Being in Italy during the period of outbreak of attacks on African, Spina encounters the sad reality of invalidity of communism while looking through the mirror of reality. He feels the large distance that divides ideological communism and the harsh realities faced by the unfortunate Italian peasants who struggle for survival. The peasants who face the cruel reality in their difficult struggles are never open to the political rhetoric. Cafoni people simply accepted their blank future that has no hopeful perspectives.

They relied on blind faith and never welcomed any political ideologies. Their survival struggles made them less receptive towards any foreign political theories like communism. Pietro Spina could understand through his experience that ideologies cannot stand independently. He painfully acknowledges that no theories survive in the ground of realities. Spina learns that ideologies are not just sufficient for life, rather element of faith is important. The intellectual mind of Spina starts doubting his role as a communist revolutionary. This makes him concentrate on his role as a priest. We find Petro getting disillusioned with Communism. His identity shifts throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel we find Spina as an individual who is driven by his sheer motivation to seek moral justice rather than a political answer. This makes us assume that Communism is the ideology that suits his best for conscientious intellectuals of those periods embraced communism. However as Spina takes different identity and moves along different roles, both Spina and the readers understand the instability of ideologies like communism.  We find in the novel that Pietro, the priest Don Benedetto and the martyr Murica resist oppression. Each of them resist oppression in their own way.

Their manner of oppression however is a type of passive or dignified resistance which is totally different from that of Communist rebellion. We also find Zabaglia, who was once a socialist orator. He becomes a fascist sympathizer. Moreover we find the peasants who are fed up with the idiocies of all politics as they consider it as a part of life. The government which they had was nothing more than a combination of several natural and historical afflictions. The down-to-earth cynicism of these people made them distrust all political propaganda. Witnessing the distressed life of peasants makes Spina lose his confidence about the practical ability of communism. He loses his grip on communism and settles in his role as a priest. He doubts his role as an advocate of communism. Pietro spends nine months with the peasants of Italy who were fighting for their rights. He sees the difficult life they live and the fights they make for their survival. He compares those struggles to the stand of the communist party in Rome. This erases communist ideologies from his mind. We also find him going through a spiritual time of questioning as the peasants considered him as a priest.

While reading the novel Bread and Wine, we find that Pietro Spina undergoes several transitions as he takes several roles. He shifts from one identity to another. Petro, the idealist, started as a student, desiring to be a priest. He, however, turned out to be a priest. Later he become disillusioned with the church and returns to communism in order to fight fascism and assist common people. His contacts in Rome did not agree with him regarding what they should support and what they should not support. Regarding the participation in war he understands that nobody consents with his opinion. In several stances Pietro gets confused with what he knows and the messy realities of his surroundings. Even though he never wanted to give up his ideologies, he desperately wanted to support the people around him. Even though he resists giving up his principles, he finally agrees to act as the priest, the role that the peasants wanted him to take. He takes different roles and assumes different identities.
Pietro struggles with his role and often undergoes shift in his identity. His ideologies and stand changes as he go through the shocking realities of the difficult life of Cafoni people. His role and identity change throughout the novel. He gains a new understanding of freedom. His position is evident in his vision about freedom. Freedom is not something you get as a present, said Pietro (Salone, 2005). You can live in a dictatorship and be free  on one condition that you fight the dictatorship. The man who thinks with his own mind and keeps it uncorrupted is free. The man who fights for what he thinks is right is free. But you can live in the most democratic country on earth, and if youre lazy, obtuse or servile within yourself, youre not free. Even without any violent coercion, youre a slave. You cant beg your freedom from someone. You have to seize it  everyone as much as he can (Salone, 2005). This very statement shows Spinas changing views.

Pietro Spina struggles to unite equal people in a difficult struggle against fascism. This is a difficult role for Spina for he has to compare two different things. This is compared to the combination of black bread and red wine. He takes different responsibilities for this difficult mission. His ideologies were kept aside for the sake of his new role. He has to keep away many of his personal views so that he can uphold the cause of the negatively privileged people who were struggling for survival. Spina takes different role forgets his beginning for he desperately wanted to help the struggling people. He, who came to Italy as a communist revolutionary, played the role of a priest. This is quite ironic. He moves from one identity to another as the circumstances changes. Though he was a communist revolutionary in his inner heart, he felt not reluctant to change as he understands that his ideologies will not work in the place where he is put up. He therefore settles as a priest and keeps away his principles. Spina thus assumes different roles and identities throughout the novel. He is never reluctant to make a change in his views. He shifts from one role to another. If he is convinced that his ideologies do not fit into a particular circumstance, he moulds himself to adapt to the circumstances. Even though he came to Italy for the spread of communism, he is moved by the difficult plight of the peasants there. Their difficult situation compelled Spina to take a new role. Spina doubts his mission as a communist missionary and decides to fight for the cause of the struggling peasants.

Ignacio Silones Bread and Wine examines the issue of the individual who is caught up in a community. Pietro Spina is caught up in a community where his ideologies never fit in.  His communist ideologies does not fit into the lives of the miserable peasants of the community where he is put up. Only religious theories that encourage blind faith on God only will work out in that society. Spina recognizes that his abstract ideologies are least practical in his new place. People of that land were not in a position to accept the theories of communism. Principles could not catch the mind of those people. Instead, it is the crucial sacraments of life like bread and wine that explains their suffering and their reason to survive. This makes Spina shift his role. He no longer plays the role as the advocate of communism. He rather joins with the struggles of his new people and tries hard to uphold their cause. He forgets his role as a communist revolutionary and takes the role of the savior of the suffering peasants. He became a religious icon for them and plays the role of a priest. He therefore takes a huge turn in his identity and role. Pietro Spina thus takes a strange turn as he assumes the role of a priest leaving his role as a communist revolutionary. He thus doubts his role as a communist revolutionary. He takes several different roles throughout the novel.