Government oppression
The primary aesthetic takeaway the reader gets from Spina's point of view is an overwhelming awareness and indeed paranoia about the Italian government. He has a personality which lends itself to uncomfortable analysis, so he is willing to sit and speculate about the real state of affairs even when other people prefer to remain comfortable, pretending that the news does not matter in daily life. Spina is aware that the government has been changing in the last decades, and he sees the truth about the government and its invasive use of power in the lives of its citizens.
Self-sacrifice and political change
Spina undoubtedly experiences himself as a cause for change. He is a political right-fighter, a true revolutionary. His thirst for political change comes with an unintentional consequence; he must consider the risk of being caught. This makes his life a constant dance of social action and secrecy. He takes a new secret identity as a priest in the town so that his point of view still has an avenue for authority, but in a way that gives him another level of separation from the general public. He is playing the messiah role.
Ignorance and enlightenment
As a political messiah, Spina's point of view is clearly that the people are not ethical enough to sustain the effort it would take for them to attain the world they hope for. He sees that the power is theirs, but in Italy, the scarcity of resources, the general fear of the government, and the imaginations of the people are all real obstacles that make them unlikely to commit the correct actions when moments arise. In other words, he feels the public suffers unnecessarily under the weight of a government that is defeatable, if only the people would become politically enlightened.
Surrender and trust
Instead of focusing on the relationship between Spina and the public he fights to protect, focus instead on his relationship to fate. The imagery of that relationship is undoubtedly one of fatalistic doom and surrender. The question here is, "Does Spina succeed in the novel?" The answer is that he has an avenue for success to the extent that he allows fate to win in his life. This is shown in the symbolic imagery of romance, because the book's surprising ending re-frames his personality in light of romance. He is political to the point of paranoia, but can he have healthy relationships without trusting the people? By trusting others, he surrenders to their influence and opens himself up for disappointment.
