Corrado Alvaro's Broken Toys Summary

Alvaro begins this story by discussing transportation between the northern and southern halves of the Italian peninsula. The rail line had been cut off during World War II and travel was difficult anyway before. After the liberation, a new express line was built, allowing an ease of travel previously unknown by Italians.

On one such train, traveling from Rome to the South, are gathered an assortment of people bickering over seats, yelling, tricking one another, and scheming. One man—a stocky man—observes the train and sees the people, mainly southern Italians, as reflections of people he had known and even himself in various stages of his past. He had once lived in the South, but had moved to the North when he was relatively young. He wonders what would have come of him had...