Owasa

Wolves in the novel are a recurring image that links Marco Carrera’s suppressed gambling appetite with a distinction he ultimately makes between misfortune and weakness. Their howl marks the return of a pleasure he had sacrificed to family life; later, Marco uses the image to challenge Duccio’s understanding of who is vulnerable.

The Wolf Howl and Gambling

For years, Marco keeps gambling out of his life, but the passion never disappears. Its return is described through the image of wolves howling at the end of a Joni Mitchell song, a sound that persists after more respectable pursuits have been placed over the desire. The image makes gambling less a new temptation than an appetite waiting beneath the life Marco has chosen.

When Marco resumes gambling, the novel identifies it as his real rebellion and the pleasure that saves him. The wolves’ howl gives that return a force beyond calculation or social respectability: Marco is not seeking a win that will put his life in order, but a reason to continue living. The animal image therefore accompanies a change in what he is willing to accept about himself.

The Gambling Den

The clandestine games organized by Dami Tamburini provide the setting for this recovered appetite. Players use assumed names, and the evenings bring together people willing to wager beyond what they can afford to lose. Marco accepts the den’s concealed, disorderly character and the circumstances by which he gained access to it; its distance from polished social life suits the surrender of self-image he seeks in play.

Even in that environment, Miraijin remains central to Marco’s conduct. He leaves her sleeping in a hammock in the study, checks on her, and rocks her back to sleep if she wakes before returning to the game. Whether he wins or loses, her presence gives him a reason to leave at the right time. The wolf imagery thus belongs to a return to gambling, but the scene also shows that Marco’s renewed pleasure is bounded by his care for the child.

Misfortune and Weakness

Later, Marco addresses Duccio directly with the wolf comparison: wolves do not kill unfortunate deer, he says; they kill weak ones. The statement turns the recurring image into a judgment about vulnerability. It rejects the idea that bad fortune alone makes someone prey and instead emphasizes weakness as the condition that exposes a person to danger.

Read beside the earlier howl, the remark gives the wolves a double role. They first represent the force of an appetite Marco had tried to suppress; later, they provide the terms for distinguishing suffering from susceptibility. The image does not erase the pain and loss in Marco’s life. It marks his insistence that misfortune need not be the same as defeat.