Human Compassion Towards the Helpless and Vulnerable Is Shown to Be Frighteningly Shallow in I’m Not Scared. Do You Agree?

  Human compassion towards the helpless and vulnerable is shown to be frighteningly shallow in I’m Not Scared.  Do you agree?

INTRO:  

Basic human compassion and kindness towards the helpless is rarely seen in the novel “I’m not scared” by Niccolo Ammaniti. Human compassion is only shown by the innocent and curios protagonist, Michele. The rest of the population in Acqua traverse are either devoid of compassion or are just potrayed as selfish. The adults of this small town such as Felice, Sergio and even Pino are only thinking about themselves and how to make ends meet.

PARA 1:

Michele’s compassion and his concern for his sister, Maria is the very first signs that Michele is a very kind and soft-hearted person. He sacrifices his position in the race to make sure that his younger sister was alright, this is one of the many examples of Michele’s tenderness and sympathy. Another example of Michele’s compassion is when Barbara is forced to accept her forfeit, but Michele volunteers to take her place in the punishment. “The forfeit is too harsh”.  However Michele’s kindness is seen in depth mainly when dealing with Filippo, the kidnapped boy. Michele pretended to be a guardian angel to try and get Filippo’s hopes up and to save him from that little hole in the ground. “I’m an angel you’re dead and I’ve got to take you to heaven”. This sense of kindness is only seen amongst the children of Acqua traverse even then only Michele proudly parades it.  On the other hand the adults and role models in this community are completely lacking sympathy and compassion.

PARA 2:

The adults of Acqua Traverse form a criminal group to kidnap a boy no older then Michele and hold him for ransom. They are only selfishly thinking of themselves and their futures, they never once considered the wellbeing of the boy, or the crying mother on television. They do not even supply enough food and drink for Filippo to survive, let alone showing sympathy to Filippo. When Filippo’s mother was pleading on the television for her son back, asking the criminal to be “merciful”, their reaction is the complete opposite, Pino even threatens to “cut both his ears off”. Michele sees this and cannot fathom the lack of compassion in the adults, he wonders why they do not see how distressed Filippo’s mother is, and “she cares a lot about her son”.  Michele cannot believe his father when he wanted to cut off Filippo’s ears, Michele’s childhood and innocence disappeared and slowly was eroding his compassion and kindness. Michelle finally understood what his father had told him earlier that he should be “afraid of men not monsters”, he realises that the adults of Acqua Traverse are the monsters and he should be wary of them and be scared of what they can do.