Im Not Scared

I’m Not Scared is a coming of age text, written by Niccolo Ammaniti, and it is based on the journey of a young Michele Amitrano moving from childhood innocence to experience. Initially he is naïve and ignorant towards things that has no impact to his ‘perfect little world’, however, after encountering several events he changes his perspective. This takes form through the influences of his peers, adults and a reflection of himself.

Among Michele’s peers there are several whom that mould the journey of his increasing sense of morality and maturity. Skull, the tyrant leader of the children’s gang, is corrupted. He takes joy from tormenting and bullying others, he also enjoys giving orders but if they are not fulfilled he can ‘turn nasty.’
Michele’s initial awakening of his morals comes from one of Skull’s cruel punishments. Skull forces Barbara to unbutton her shirt and show her ‘tits’ to everyone by threatening her saying that, ‘If you don’t, you can forget about coming with us anymore.’ Obviously living in such a small, rural and secluded town like Acqua Traverse, that would seem like the end of the world to a 9 year old and hence against her wishes she reluctantly obeys. Out of curiosity Michele takes a peek, however he immediately feels regret like he has committed a crime. Barbara then takes her bottled up frustrations out on the small helpless and innocent dog, Togo. She pushes the dog under the mud in order to drown him, but when confronted by Michele, who witnesses everything. She immediately denies it all and produces excuses to try and explain her actions. ‘He’s crawling with ticks and fleas. That’s why I was giving him a bath.’ As she tries to kill Togo, she actually sings the song called ‘The Beautiful Goodbye’ implying that this was the final farewell for the powerless dog. His best friend Salvatore is not any better he is manipulative and corrupted by greed. He ridicules Michele’s ‘Judas secret’ to later use it to his advantage and betrays Michele’s trust for the opportunity to gain driving lessons from their nemesis Felice.

Felice Natale, who is Skull’s older brother, is the result of their brute of a father. With no moral sense at all, he is unaware of the consequences of his actions, such as the unnecessary lustful attack on Teresa right in front of Michele. He is forced to take care of Fillipo, who nicknames Felice as the “lord of the worms”, because he often threatens to squash him like a worm. As Michele learns more about the truth of the corrupted evil adult world, he changes his perception on everything. The pure image of his father whom he worshipped like an idol becomes tainted and shatters after he overhears his father threatening to cut off Fillipo’s ears. It was his comment “Two ears we’ll cut off. Two.” That makes him doubt every little thing he once knew. The representation of his father warps into the bogeyman. ‘Papa was the bogeyman. By day he was good, but at night he was bad.’ Through this experience of betrayal his wisdom increases and learns to accept the harsh reality. That monsters exist within people rather than imaginary figures. Michele’s mother Teresa is an admirable character that tries to protect Michele. She understands the consequences of actions long before the kidnapping of Fillipo, but as a woman in a male-dominated society, she is powerless to voice her opinions. Thus, she warns Michele “When you grow up you must go away from here and never come back.” So that he does not become corrupted and influenced to be involved in criminal acts like all the adults in Acqua Traverse.

At the beginning of the story Michele already displays a strong sense of justice which aids his maturity.
His innate sense subconsciously prevails at times of need. The first signs of awakening morality are already evident at the beginning of the text, when he resists Skull’s second attempt to force Barbara to do another forfeit which consisted of showing her ‘slit’. Regardless of the consequences he takes responsibility because of his sense of morality. He intuitively volunteers to do it in her place because of the guilt he felt from the first forfeit. “There was something dirty, something..I don’t know.” Although Michele is righteous he allows his greed to provoke him into revealing Fillipo’s whereabouts to Salvatore in order to gain the jinxed plastic football team that he does not really like. Yet upon reflection he immediately feels horrible and realizes that what he has done was bad, as he says ‘I was worse than Judas who had bartered Jesus for thirty pieces of silver”. Another similar challenge that Michele confronts is when his parents bribe him with a new bike to not see Fillipo. However, after his first encounter of being overcome by greed he knows better and decides to go against his father’s oath in order to save Fillipo which compensates for the ‘Judas
secret’.

The turning point for Michele when he loses his innocence and advances to maturity is when he realizes that he too is not perfect. He learns that he is capable of committing heinous crimes just like the adults did, because at the end of the day he too is human. “What was in my nature? What could I do?” was what he thought to himself. After all the blood of his father, who is a criminal, runs through his veins. However despite Michele’s age his ethics, compassion and innate sense of what is right are guides he uses to do the right thing. He gains wisdom through the experiences and events that occur throughout the text which result in a loss of naivety in order to become an adolescent.