Christ in Concrete

Job is the symbol whose presence dominates the book and shapes the course of all the characters in the book. Di Donato cleverly personifies Job with animalistic traits to make its daily oppression seem more horrific and opens the book with this chilling imagery: “Job loomed up damp shivery gray” (9). Right away, it's clear that Job is not a force for good. Job’s ominous and constant presence throughout the book re-emphasizes how capitalists have made its nature wicked. The author capitalizes Job to show it is not just one job but a systemic force that keeps workers impoverished in a cruel system to feed their family. However, Job is not mysterious, as it is a force that has its roots in the oppressive system of unfettered capitalism that prizes profit over workers’ safety. If Job is evil, then the corporations that set up Job must be evil, too. This is made clear when Paul says this of Geremio’s boss, who pushed the men to work in unsafe conditions: “Father, I know now that Mr. Murdin is our enemy!” (225). 

Geremio means many things to different people in the book. For Annunziata, Geremio is the love of her life and the father to her children. Without him, life is nearly unbearable: “My beautiful Geremio, my round strong arms, my dark twinkle and pressing self…” (23). For Paul, Geremio is his beloved father whose big shoes Paul must fill to become a surrogate father to his younger siblings, even though Paul himself is still a child and misses his father dearly. For Paul’s workers on Job, Geremio is a master bricklayer. Merely by being the son of Geremio, Paul receives respect and job opportunities that he would not otherwise have. 

Paul’s name is no coincidence. It is a biblical symbol inserted by di Donato. St. Paul the Apostle led some of the first Christians and thereby is considered one of the most prominent figures in Christianity—second only to Jesus, perhaps. That is why the fact that Paul breaks with Christianity is so symbolic. For without leaders like Paul, the first generations of Christians would be lost. In telling her children to follow Paul at the book’s end, Annunziata emphasizes Paul as a leader, regardless as to whether or not he returns to the path of Christ.

The presence of hunger, and the fear of it, looms over the entire novel. It is what keeps Geremio—and later, Paul—yoked to the drudgery of Job. Without Job, they will starve. Nothing can be worse than hunger, which comes to symbolize the vulnerability of the poor in America, which offers them little in the way of a social safety net. As the narrator says after Geremio’s death has left the family impoverished: “In the home of Geremio the air has become hunger” (60). There is also a yearning for more than Job—to have a different, better life—that manifests as a kind of psychological hunger among the workers.

Jesus Christ is the foundation of the faith that forms Geremio, Annunziata, Paul, Luigi, and the other Italian characters in the book. He gives them strength when they suffer on Job and when they suffer from the loss of loved ones. He represents salvation—if not in this life, then in the afterlife. However, this symbol of the benevolent protector Christ is slowly eroded throughout the book. First: the failure of Christ to save Geremio despite begging Jesus for his life. Second: the failure of Father John—a servant of God—to provide any aid for Paul despite the fact that the Church is supposed to look out for the needs of the poor. Third: Louis’s assertion that there is no God, which is the first time someone shakes the core faith that holds Paul up. And lastly: when Nazone dies and Geremio visits Paul in his dream. Paul’s realization that life is unfair and that God has done nothing to ease their suffering makes Jesus seem like a symbol of false comfort for the ignorant masses rather than a kind savior. As Paul tells his mother when pointing to the crucifix that she uses to pray: “That’s a lie” (229).

For the men who toil away at Job, the thought of wives offers them some comfort. They adore their wife’s breasts and lovemaking and the pleasant comforts of having a partner who can make the hardships tolerable and worthwhile. The wife comes to be associated as a symbol for home and stability. She functions as an emotional caregiver who melts away the hardships of Job. As one of Paul’s coworkers longingly says: “Ah—the wife—a squishy squid that veritably swallows one whole…!” (158).

Home comes to symbolize a reprieve and escape from the daily toil of Job. As Geremio says: “Home where my broken back will not ache so. Home where […] I will float off to blessed slumber with my feet on the chair and the head on the wife’s soft full breast” (6). For Geremio, home is a place of comfort where he does not need to think of Job. However, Paul isn’t quite able to escape Job at home and constantly worries about Job as he goes to sleep. For Immigrants, the ultimate dream is to own one’s home, which symbolizes a true American success story, yet in this story, that dream comes to a crashing halt with Geremio’s death. It seems unlikely that the family will ever be in a position to afford a house as they work so hard just to provide their daily bread.

There is perhaps no place that better symbolizes the unique ethnic and religious diversity of New York than the tenement buildings on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Here, families live atop each other in a chaotic mess of noises, smells, and sights that blends into a “repulsion followed by a sympathetic human kinship” (103)among these neighbors who live in close proximity to each other. In some ways, this unique living situation enables friendships to form across divides. For example, Louis (a studious Russian Jewish refugee) becomes friends with Paul (the son of a poor uneducated Italian bricklayer) due to the fact that they live nearby one another. 

Di Donato frequently refers to the workers’ sweat as a symbol of their hard work. When this sweat mingles with the lime-mortar brick smells of Job, sweat functions further as a symbol of manhood and pride, particularly to Paul: “Striding along the street he raised his brown hand to his nose and smelled it. It was like a man’s” (170). This sweat also serves a reminder of the daily toils of Job.

The callback to the Italian “Tarantella”—a form of frenetic dancing used to ward off death after a tarantula bite—is also significant. In Chapter 4, “Fiesta,” the song “Tarantella” functions as a fun backdrop to the wedding festivities and a good folk dance to bring the men and women together. However, as this dance interweaves through this final chapter along with Annunziata’s memories of Italy and meeting Geremio, it is evidently more than just an ode to the old country. It also functions as a symbol of the flirtatious relations between men and women and Annunziata’s own fractured love with Geremio. Tarantella’s protective dance fades away—“Tarantell[…]Tarantell[…]Tarantell[…]slowly bearing her blood away […]away[…]away” (234)—leading Annunziata to a likely death and the reunification with her husband in the afterlife.