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Chapter 29
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Beneath a Scarlet Sky, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
War and Morality
Coming of Age
The Power of Music
Love and Death
Summary
Analysis
Pino is driven nearly insane after Anna’s death. He blames himself for not doing more to save her. In front of the partisan crowd, he starts to cry, and the partisans begin to suspect that he, too, is a Fascist. Realizing that the crowd is about to turn on him, Pino flees. He spends the next several minutes playing a game of cat-and-mouse with the partisans, who seem to want his head. Eventually, Pino makes it to the Duomo where he finds safety. He climbs up to a balcony, miserable, and considers throwing himself off of it.
Although Pino is understandably devastated by Anna's death, he puts himself in serious danger by expressing that fact. The partisans and the mobs forming around Milan are bloodthirsty and want to destroy anyone who made them live in such horrid conditions for the past year. Of course, Pino is not responsible for their suffering, but, like Anna and Dolly, it wouldn’t be hard to implicate him as a Nazi collaborator.
Themes
