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Tally's Blood Themes - Coggle Diagram
Tally's Blood Themes
War
Act 1 Scenes 7-13
For Franco, it is a means of escape from the shop and his father.
For Rosinella, the war should have nothing to do with them. 'But it's got nothing to do with us, Massimo. We're Italians, we just live here. It's not our country,'
For Massimo, the outbreak of war is tragic. He is arrested and interned.
Act 2 Scene 1
Luigi has lost most of his belongings; he graphically describes the bombing ‘ I lost my olives, my pigs, my hens, my grapes… They saw the planes lighting up the sky. They heard the bombs falling and the buildings crashing down and they didn’t know if our house would still be there when they came down.
Act 1 Scenes 3-6
Franco doesn't share Massimo's dread of war. 'We cannie let that wee German bastard throw his weight around.'
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Act 2 Scenes 4-9
Luigi says that he could not look after Lucia because of the war. ‘He says he never wanted to be separated from her all these years, but what with the war-’
Family
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Act 2 Scene 3
Bridget warns Hughie of the danger of trying to mix with the Pedreschi family ‘They’ll TREAT you like one of the family, so long as you don’t start thinking like one, or acting like one’.
Act 1 Scenes 14-17
Franco’s letter reveals the depth of his feelings for his family. ‘Tell them they were in my thoughts up till the last’.
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Act 1 Scenes 7-13
Massimo wants to protect Lucia and Rosinella. ‘Let them take what they like. So long as they leave you two alone.’
Act 2 Scenes 4-9
Rosinella is devastated that Luigi has demanded Lucia back after she has raised her from a baby. ‘We brought her up. And I didn’t do it for him. You tell him that. I did it for my sister.’
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Much like her reaction to Bridge asking after Franco, Rosinella is angry when Hughie asks after Lucia. ‘Who does he think he is, asking for news of Lucia, as if he were one of the family?’
Act 1 Scenes 3-6
Bridget doesn’t want Franco to leave his father’s shop because of her. ‘I don’t want to be the cause of any bust up between you & your da.’
Bridget’s father exercises control over her behaviour. ‘My da’ll no let us go to the dancing. /Says lassies just cheapen themselves.’
Act 2 Scenes 10-14
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He already has his sons working for him but he needs a woman, too, to replace his ailing wife. ‘You brought her here to make her work didn’t you?... It’s all too much for your wife now, isn’t it, eh?’
Act 1 Scenes 1-2
Franco feels he ought to stay with his father, even though he would like to escape.
She accepts that it is her duty to help look after her father in law, even cut his toe nails for him.
Rosinella regrets her lack of children. ‘Twelve years I’ve been married - & nothing. Me an Italian as well.’
Work Ethic
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Act 1 Scenes 14-17
Despite the fact they have both been taken from their families and homes both Massimo and Daddy Pedreschi are worried for their businesses. ‘So I tried to keep thinking about my shop. How I was going to fix it up again, back the way it was.’ ‘You know the first thing he says to me? Who’s minding the bloody shop?’
Act 1 Scenes 3-6
Hughie is delighted to be given a job by Massimo: ‘Enthusiastic, he rushes off’.
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Act 1 Scenes 1-2
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Massimo finds it hard to relax because he’s thinking about customers ‘Shh… you two… I’ve got customers out there
Act 2 Scenes 4-9
When Lucia moves to Italy she is forced to work in a way she has never had to in Scotland and she finds this very hard. ‘Ma, she thinks you're lazy. She’s no lazy. She’s just no used to work.’
Racial Prejudice
Act 1 Scenes 14-17
Rosinella cannot accept that Franco has written to Bridget because he loves her ‘I wonder why he sent it to you? It must be because he knows I cannie read’
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Act 1 Scenes 7-13
Lucia acts out extreme anti-Italian prejudice when playing schools with Hughie. ‘Little SCOTTISH boys and girls. I think they deserve some of the teachers time too. A little ruffian like you. A sleekit little, greasy little, smelly little…’
Scottish people are angry at the Italian people who live in Scotland and start looting and destroying their shops. ‘Come out and fight, you bastarding Tally! Get the bastard. Waste the place. Fascist pigs. Greasy Tallies’.
Rosinella says only Italians are prepared to work hard. ‘Italians are good for this country. Who else is prepared to work till eleven o’clock every night, eh?’
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Rosinella thinks of herself as Italian, living in Scotland. She doesn’t feel committed to Scotland, nro regard herself as part of the Scottish nation. ‘We’re Italian, we just live here. It’s not our country.
Act 2 Scene 2
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Rosinella goes on about how hard working Italian men are ‘Because they’re prepared to WORK, that’s why. I don’t know anybody who works so hard as the Italian men.’
Rosinella believes that the bond between Italian families is stronger than anyone else. ‘And the way they love their families. Nobody loves their families like the Italians.’
She is shocked that Hughie has the ‘cheek’ to ask Lucia to go to the wedding with him. ‘The cheek of him! Who does he think he is, anyway?’
Act 1 Scenes 3-6
Lucia has taken to speaking Italian most of the time. It worries her teacher. ‘She says Lucia won’t speak the right English’.
Act 2 Scenes 4-9
Rosinella realises Hughie has fallen in love with Lucia, and that Lucia has feelings for him. ‘Jumped up wee piece of nothing thinks because he works here he can look at you. Him?’
Act 1 Scenes 1-2
She believes that they are only interested in a man for his money. ‘ These Scotch girls, they’re all the same. They just go out with you for one thing. Because your faither’s got a shop & they think you’ve got money.
She assumes all Scots girls have looser morals than Italian girls ‘she must be giving you something you can’t get from an Italian girl’.
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She thinks Scots women make poor mothers. ‘Eight weans! She keeps having them & she cannae even look after them right’.
Act 2 Scenes 10-14
Luigi is determined that Lucia will marry an Italian, but his concern is more financial than racial.
Luigi is contemptuous of the non-Italian Hughie. 'He is quite ugly, right enough… he’s not got much of a build, has he?’
Even Rosinella is prepared now to see some good in Hughie, so she argues his case with Luigi. ‘A good worker, an awfy good worker.’