54 pages • 1-hour read
The Shoemaker's Wife
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Part 2, Chapters 15-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence.
Part 2: “Manhattan”
Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary: “A Yellow Diamond”
Over the following weeks, Ciro runs the shoe shop’s repair cart in Queens. Meanwhile, he continues spending time with Luigi and seeing Felicitá. He often thinks about Enza but is reluctant to go see her because he’s considering enlisting in the army and joining the war effort. Finally, he decides to write her a letter to buy himself some time.
Enza feels frustrated with Ciro’s letter, which she sees as a series of excuses. She redirects her attention to work and finds joy in the letters she receives from home. She and Laura continue working on their plan to leave Hoboken. One day, a lascivious neighborhood man attacks and assaults Enza. She tries fighting back, but can’t free herself. Laura comes to the rescue, threatening to stab the man with her sewing scissors if he doesn’t release Enza.
Laura tends to Enza’s injuries and then tells her that they should leave Hoboken immediately. Enza packs up her things and defiantly flees the Buffas, making no apology. She and Laura board the ferry to Manhattan.
Part 2, Chapter 16 Summary: “A Chocolate Truffle”
On Christmas morning, Ciro dresses up and ventures to Hoboken to see Enza. Signora Buffa informs him that Enza fled on bad terms and returned to Italy. Feeling defeated, Ciro returns to Mulberry Street.
Enza and Laura discuss their job options at the Automat on Broadway. They’re living at the Y and are on waitlists for various boardinghouses. One day, they take a scullery job at a Fifth Avenue mansion. There, they meet Enrico Caruso and a young girl named Emma, who tells them about her boardinghouse. Enza feels hopeful.
Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary: “A Sewing Needle”
Enza and Laura find a room at the Milbank House in Greenwich Village. Both women feel that their luck is changing.
After closing up the shoe repair cart one day, Ciro runs into Felicitá outside the church where she was just married. She teases him about being in love with Enza. Soon after, Ciro enlists in the army and receives orders to report to New Haven, Connecticut, in July.
Enza responds to job advertisements for her and Laura. She’s most excited about the opportunity to work in costuming at the Metropolitan Opera House. Soon, they get a response to their inquiry and report to the Met, where they meet Miss Kimberly Meier. She and Miss Serafina Ramunni hire them both.
In the following weeks, Enza and Laura complete their training at the Met. Meanwhile, they get to know their coworkers and settle into life at the opera house. One day, Colin Chapin from accounting invites Laura on a date. Laura encourages Enza to start dating, too. Finally, she accepts a date with a baritone singer named Vito Blazek.
Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary: “A Champagne Flute”
Enza tailors Enrico Caruso’s costumes for his upcoming opera. They share a pleasant conversation while Enza works. Caruso is impressed by her and insists that she make gnocchi for the cast. Delighted by this connection to her country, Enza throws herself even more ardently into her work.
Meanwhile, Ciro prepares to leave for the war. He’s consumed by thoughts of his mother, father, and brother, and is overcome with emotion.
Enza starts seeing Vito regularly. She’s unaccustomed to dating but gradually learns to enjoy the things she and Vito do together. With Vito, she realizes that she can think of herself for the first time. She’s unsure how their relationship will develop, but tries to dismiss her concerns.
Part 2, Chapter 19 Summary: “A Calling Card”
Enza, Vito, Laura, and Colin attend one of Caruso’s shows at the opera house. Afterward, Vito stays to visit with Caruso, while Enza heads home alone. In the street, she runs into Ciro, who is wearing an army uniform. He’s shocked that she isn’t in Italy, as her former sponsor informed him. Enza confronts him for putting her off months earlier. She declines his offer to write to each other while he’s overseas because she doubts he’ll keep his promise. Ciro walks her home anyway. He wants to kiss her at the door, but she gives him a peck on the cheek instead and wishes him luck.
Part 2, Chapter 20 Summary: “A Hatbox”
Ciro writes to Eduardo while he’s overseas, providing updates from the front. He befriends a few fellow soldiers and does his best to survive despite his skepticism of the war. Meanwhile, Enza continues seeing Vito and working hard at the opera house.
A few weeks after the war ends, Ciro goes to Rome and seeks out Eduardo, to no avail. Back in his hotel room one night, he feels defeated. Then, Eduardo appears at his door. The brothers catch up, discussing their past, their mother, and their futures. Ciro is still frustrated with Eduardo’s devotion to the church and wishes he had chosen a different path. Eduardo reassures his brother and then gives him a note that Caterina wrote to them explaining her reasons for leaving them years ago. Shortly after bidding Eduardo goodbye, Ciro begins his return voyage to Manhattan.
Vito arranges a fancy dinner for Enza and proposes. Enza enthusiastically accepts. She reflects on her altered circumstances, never having imagined such a free and glamorous life for herself.
Part 2, Chapter 21 Summary: “A Gold Braid”
During the journey home to the US, Ciro reflects on all he has experienced and how he has changed. He decides that the only thing he wants now is Enza. Thinking of her throughout the war kept him alive. As soon as he returns to the city, he seeks her out, running into her outside the church where she’s about to marry Vito. Ciro begs her not to go through with the wedding. Enza argues that she doesn’t owe Ciro anything, but when he professes his love, she realizes that she has always loved him. She takes off Vito’s ring and changes her mind. She can see the future she really wants with Ciro, despite how hurt Vito will be. She kisses Ciro and tells him that they belong together.
Part 2, Chapters 15-21 Analysis
In the latter half of Part 2, Ciro’s and Enza’s parallel life paths further develop the theme of The Journey Toward Self-Discovery, Meaning, and Purpose. Ciro and Enza, both Italian immigrants, work tirelessly to provide for themselves and their families and to establish themselves in New York City. While Ciro discovers a love and talent for shoemaking, he also makes plans to formally vow his loyalty to his new country by enlisting in the US Army. These facets of his storyline convey his attempts to let go of the past and to find meaning, purpose, and autonomy in his developing American identity: “The only way to ever become a permanent part of America’s greatness,” Ciro understands, “would be to defend it” (216). He has had feelings for Enza since he was a teen, but he sets this desire aside to pursue a future as a soldier and to secure his US citizenship. He hopes that following this more prescribed path will afford him security and self-assuredness. Becoming a soldier and joining the war effort also offers Ciro “a chance to become [a man], to see the world and save it” (247): To Ciro, the war is an adventure on his journey toward adulthood.
Meanwhile, Enza develops her own sense of independence and identity via her work at the Metropolitan Opera House and her relationship with Vito. In the former, she’s using her craft skills to participate in an artistic community she believes in. In the latter, she learns to follow her heart and develop her own opinions and desires: “Her first thought was always of her family, her mother’s needs and her father’s health” (273), but in her relationship with Vito, she can think, feel, and make decisions for herself for the first time. Ciro’s and Enza’s concurrent coming-of-age experiences challenge them to follow their hearts and to make wise decisions as they discover their worlds in unprecedented ways.
In addition, Ciro’s and Enza’s evolving circumstances over the latter half of Part 2 contribute to developing the theme of Immigrant Resilience and the Pursuit of the American Dream. Ciro is pursuing his dream by learning a trade and by enlisting in the army, decisions that fuel his ascension of the proverbial ladder to success and stability. When he enlists, it doesn’t “occur to him “that lives [will] be lost, that the world [he is] to defend would shift under [his] feet and never be the same” (247). Rather, the army is just a step along his path to self-actualization, which will prove his resilience and devotion to US values. Meanwhile, Enza gives up her own dreams of a simple family life with her loved ones to pursue “a life of refinement and serenity” (301) with Vito. Enza is “no longer the Hoboken factory girl, but a hardworking American woman of Italian birth who had risen to a new station in life, a climb not to the second floor on the service stairs but to the penthouse via the elevator” (301). Accepting Vito’s marriage proposal, she believes, is emblematic of the American Dream. She began as a lowly immigrant but has changed her circumstances via hard work and determination. Her decision to marry Vito parallels Ciro’s decision to join the army: Both choices usher the characters toward citizenship in their new country.
By the end of the section, Ciro and Enza realize that their historical connection with each other is truer than their more inflated dreams of wealth and prowess. Ciro thought that the war would change his course in life, but it only reminds him of his longing for his country, his family, and, in turn, Enza. Enza, meanwhile, convinces herself that a life of wearing silk and drinking champagne with Vito will offer autonomy and excitement, but upon reconnecting with Ciro, she realizes that she still requires a connection to her homeland and past to be happy: “If Enza was going to create a new life, she had to build it with conviction, on her own truthful terms, with a man who could take her home again” (314). Ciro provides a connection to the mountain they both loved; Enza offers Ciro the same. They decide to devote their lives to each other to preserve this cultural connection amid their ever-changing circumstances.
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