ITAL 3005 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Wait Until Spring, Bandini, Venial Sin, Mortal Sin
Lindsay Alfermann
Assignment 3
The passages assigned from “Don’t Tell Mama” were compiled by Regina Barreca for
the purpose of presenting stories written and inspired by Italian Americans. The seemingly
common theme of the stories by Fante, Mangione, and Puzo revolves around religion. In “Wait
Until Spring, Bandini”, the main character Arturo Bandini seems to be very conflicted in terms
of his beliefs regarding life after death. He was confident that he would not end up in Hell
because he had been absolved of his mortal sins through confession. Arturo described, however,
that he would probably end up in Purgatory between Heaven and Hell for a long period of time.
He notes, “The way to shorten time in Purgatory was by good works, by prayer, by fasting and
abstinence.” But, Arturo had not performed any outstanding deeds in his life. His reasoning for
this is because the opportunities were never presented to him and he never went out of his way to
find them. “He had never visited the sick, because he never knew such people… He had never
clothed the naked because he had never seen any naked people… He had never buried the dead
because they had undertakers for that…” These reasons, essentially, are excuses that Arturo
constructed to justify the fact that he never went out of his way to help others. This in turn affects
the way that he interprets the Ten Commandments and the difference between types of sins.
Arturo has struggled throughout his life in determining which sins are mortal and which are
venial. “A mortal sin was a serious offense. A venial sin was a slight offense. Sometimes,
playing baseball, he crossed bats with a fellow player: this was supposed to be a sure way to get
a two base hit. And yet he knew it was superstition. Was it a sin?” Arturo asked himself this
question quite frequently: when he skipped church to listen to the world series, when he longed
for women at a young age, when he took the Lord’s name in vain, etc. “Fear drove him to
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Document Summary
The passages assigned from don"t tell mama were compiled by regina barreca for the purpose of presenting stories written and inspired by italian americans. The seemingly common theme of the stories by fante, mangione, and puzo revolves around religion. Until spring, bandini , the main character arturo bandini seems to be very conflicted in terms of his beliefs regarding life after death. He was confident that he would not end up in hell because he had been absolved of his mortal sins through confession. Arturo described, however, that he would probably end up in purgatory between heaven and hell for a long period of time. He notes, the way to shorten time in purgatory was by good works, by prayer, by fasting and abstinence. but, arturo had not performed any outstanding deeds in his life. His reasoning for this is because the opportunities were never presented to him and he never went out of his way to find them.
