Plot and Characters
The novel is written in a diary form as told by Enrico Bottini, a 9-year old primary school student in Turin with an upper class background who is surrounded by classmates of working class origin. The entire chronological setting corresponds to the third-grade season.
Enrico's parents and older sibling interact with him as written in his diary. As well as his teacher who assigns him with homework that deals with several different stories of children throughout the Italian states who should be seen as role models – these stories are then given in the book as Enrico comes upon reading them. Every story revolves around a different moral value, the most prominent of which are helping those in need, having great love and respect for family and friends, and patriotism.
Read more about this topic: Heart (novel)
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“There comes a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.”
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