Amy Bronk Professor May/ Ann Koci EDCI 311 19 October 2007 Donna Jo Napoli’s Layers The emotions and feelings that Donna Jo Napoli uses in her book The King of Mulberry Street,shows realism in this novel through the realistic characterization of the protagonist. She uses many different layers within her writing to shape her interesting character development and clear plot structure to help understand how this story of historical fiction can be recreated for new audiences. Throughout The King of Mulberry Street, Napoli develops many layers to create Dom’s character. From the beginning she creates these ideals and teachings that Dom learns from his family members that he takes with him throughout his journey. “And Nonna had taught me not to be jealous of children with fathers. –Whoever has a mother doesn’t cry. A proverb. That’s all I needed, all anyone needed: a mother” (Napoli 15). Dom is now stuck in another land that is unfamiliar to him but finds out that others aren’t as fortunate as he is to have a mother and he remembers the respect that he had for her. Jane parish Yang talks about the Neo-Confucian practice and states “It was assumed that having learned proper behavior at home, one would know how to relate to superior and inferiors in the wider realm outside the family. Yet even so, one’s primary loyalty and interest lay within the family” (87). This statement shows the respect of superiors and family that Dom has brought with him from his homeland of Napoli. He knows that even through his family isn’t there, he will show the respect and honesty as if they were. Dom says “Mamma had to put up with insults because of me all the time. And it dawned on me: right now, wherever she was, she didn’t have to. Anyone new who met her didn’t have to know that she had a child” (Napoli 61). This shows that Dom is a very unselfish child in the fact that he knew that his mother could not get a better job because of him. Dom’s character is then brought out through...