How do you think imprisonment affects Giuseppe?

Giuseppe wonders, "What if confino has remade him into a person that his wife and daughter will not recognize, a person only at home in San Lorenzo?" How do you think imprisonment affects him?

Once a powerful, respected lawyer who saved wrongly imprisoned men, Giuseppe is now stripped of his family, his role as a father, and his meaningful life's work.Now he has to rely on the kindness of others, and his education to have a place to sleep and eat. He is diminished professional but also now kinder as well as more present. He has to learn to survive and somehow thrive in his new circumstances. Still, I think he manages to make a life for himself.

I admired Guiseppi for how he worked to find meaning in his confinement. He gave up trying to escape to give Nino the chance to do it. I think he was worried that he might be recognized by his wife and daughter if they returned because he was not the same man both by the experiences of his confinement and by the loss of his previous status. I really hoped at the end everyone could be united.

Giuseppe lost the life he had built-his wife and daughter and his career as a lawyer. He lost weight because of the horrible food and "...the worst torture wasn't the darkness but the brutal introspection the darkness imposed." After twelve long years an opportunity to escape arises, but the plan goes awry and Giuseppe chooses to sacrifice his freedom for young Nino, the boy he saved from drowning so long ago. Why would he give up the chance to reunite with his family? I feel there are two main reasons. One is that he is still a man of honor and integrity who will fight for the unjustly persecuted (just as he did in his career) and the other is that he fears the reunion with Maria and Annunziata would not go well since so much time has passed and they are too different now.

Giuseppe made a life for himself while being imprisoned by finding kindness within himself and from others and unlike when he was a successful lawyer which relied on being on being resilient now he must find comfort within himself and manage to survive in the dark prison. Of course he has not forgotten his wife and daughter but questions how they would respond to the changed man he has become. Plus as lawyer he fought for the wrongly imprisoned so perhaps that one reason he allowed Nino to escape.

Imprisonment probably changes every person with varying degrees of intensity. Giuseppe had both mental and physical changes, but I feel the biggest change was what seemed to be discarding his hope or desire hope for being a family once again. Maybe he felt like a broken person that could not effectively step back into his previous role.

Giuseppe adapted to imprisonment, developing a close relationship with Nino, searching for coins & other valuables, and writing letters to Maria. He became a "smaller," more docile version of his once-fiery self. He submitted to authority because he had no choice and, although he no longer was a rebel, he did not sacrifice his beliefs. And when the time came, he protected Nino and ensure that he escaped to freedom. Giuseppe atoned for his past mistakes by sacrificing his own chance at an unconfined life so that Nino could make his way to America. What ultimately happened to him? Did he die of natural causes? Or was he killed trying to make his own escape later? I wish Marra had given us the answer.