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Content THE SICILIAN MICROCOSM AS REFLECTED IN
SELECTED EARLY WORKS OF PIRANDELLO
by
Joseph Louis Asciutto
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Communications-Drama)
January 1977
UMI Num ber: DP22914
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U N IV E R S ITY O F S O U T H E R N C A L IF O R N IA
T H E G R A D U A TE SCHO O L
U N IV E R S IT Y PARK
LOS A N G E LE S, C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7 P h
D
' 7 7
AS 13
This dissertation, w ritten by j j JZ
Joseph Louis Asciutto
under the direction of A . A . ? . . . Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The Graduate
School, in p a rtia l fu lfillm e n t of requirements of
the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y
Dean
Date., . . ? . 4 . i.. . 1. ^ . 7. 7.
DISSERTATION. COMMITTEE
Chairman
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study is dedicated to Dr. Herbert M.
Stahl--teacher and friend.
Thanks are due to Dr. Walter R. Fisher
and Dr. James H. McBath for their courteous
suggestions.
And thanks are due to my wife, Bonnie,
without whose help X would never have completed
this task.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM . . 1
II. OVERVIEW OF ITALIAN HISTORY AND SICILIAN
CUSTOMS AND FOLKWAYS.................... 33
Part A: The Risorgimento and Its Aftermath 33
Part B: The Ideology of Fascism...... 46
Part C: The Sicilian Macrocosm...... 58
III. EARLY SICILIAN INFLUENCES IN PIRANDELLO'S LIFE 74
IV. PIRANDELLO'S MELANCHOLY AS REFLECTED IN AN
EARLY POEM AND OTHER SHORT STORIES..... 86
V. OTHER SIGNIFICANT WORKS ILLUMINATING THE
SICILIAN MICROCOSM ............ 124
VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.................... 162
APPENDICES
A. Professor G. Ferroglio--Census, 1901 . . . 173
B. Economic Statistics.under Fascism .... 175
C. Important Dates in Recent Italian History 176
D. Author's Translation of Sections 1
through 10 of Mai Giocondo............. 178
BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................... 189
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The purpose of this study is to establish the
aesthetic foundations of Pirandello's art as it developed
out of the historical and social framework of his Sicilian
background.
In dealing with Pirandello’s works, it may prove
useful to be aware that the existing body of knowledge
about Pirandello tends to deal mainly with his later
successful plays. In so doing, many critics very often
gloss over his earlier short stories and one-act plays and
do not deal with Pirandello as a product of his Sicilian
environment. This may be a gross error, because in order
to understand Pirandello's obsessive preoccupation with the
inability of man to escape his torment, one must know
Sicily, its history, and its people.
When we think of Pirandello, we must think of
Sicily because it is where his origin lies. He was moulded
by his family and the Agrigento, the city of his birth.
His father and his father-in-law both participated in
Garibaldi's campaigns that led to unification in 1867.
Pirandello heard tales of the Risorgimento unification as
a boy, not only from his father but from his Sicilian
1
neighbors as well. His earlier works should be more deeply
investigated with this in mind, because it seems that it is
here where the basic foundations of his art and his
aesthetic ideas were formulated.
In his earlier short stories, novels, and one-act
plays, he developed portraits of a suffering humanity long
before he became a playwright. Some critics seem to have
taken the point of view that Pirandello’s earlier works do
reflect his Sicilian background, and that this influence
seems to have remained an important factor in the later
works as well. Thomas A. Erhard, in his dissertation,
writes that despite the abundant amount of criticism about
Pirandello, "a great part of this is either broadly gener
alized or is scattered throughout a mass of periodicals.’1^
This difficulty is compounded because a complete
set of English translations of Pirandello's plays, essays,
one-act plays, and translations of recent European criti
cism of his works is lacking.
Eric Bentley states that Pirandello's essay on
Humor (L’Umorismo), which contains all his principal ideas,
2
has not been translated into English. However, this
difficulty can now be overcome because Teresa Novel has
■^Thomas A. Erhard, "The Dramatic Technique of Luigi
Pirandello" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico,
1960), p. 200.
2
Eric Bentley (ed.), Naked Masks--Five Plays by
Luigi Pirandello (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.,
1952), p. vii.
2
published a fourteen-page excerpt of this essay in the
3
Spring, 1966 issue of the Tulane Drama Review. Excerpts
of this essay can also be found in the Appendixes of
Charles J. Gattnig, Jr.'s dissertation on Pirandello, i.e.,
Part I, Section II, and Part II. These sections are
considered to be the most important part of this essay.
In 1970, William Murray published his translation
of thirteen one-act plays by Pirandello, six of which were
written before Pirandello gained international fame with
Six Characters in Search of an Author in 1922. Eric
Bentley published his translation of five major plays by
Pirandello under the title, Naked Masks. Six English
volumes of translated short stories written by Pirandello
are now available; the most recent one is entitled, Short
Stories by Luigi Pirandello. The translator is Lily
Duplaix and it contains twenty-two short stories. These
translations of short stories and plays were not available
to other critics in the past.
Pirandello's two-volume historical novel, The Old
and the Young, written in 1913, was translated into English
by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff in 1928. English critics before
this time overlooked the significance of the novel, because
they did not have access to an English translation. This
novel deals with the meeting of three generations in Sicily
3
Charles J. Gattnig, Jr.,"Pirandello, Umorismo and
Beckett" (Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Illinois University,
1967), p. 12, footnote 3.
3
during the nineteenth century. Recently, Professor Olga
Ragusa of Columbia University rated this early novel very
highly, emphasizing that "it can hardly be overlooked today
by anyone truly interested in reconstructing Pirandello's
thought in its entirety."^ Glauco Cambon holds a similar
view.’ ’ Eric Bentley, in his translations, leads us to a
consideration of Pirandello's "Sicilian folk-comedies.
Erhard’s dissertation also provides us with similar clues.^
A study of these earlier works may help us to show how
Pirandello's art grew out of the disillusionment that
permeated Italian society after the Risorgimento and
accelerated after World War I.
Sicilians in Pirandello's time, and perhaps even
today, seem to react to their environment out of deep
despair and helplessness, a helplessness that seems to have
been a part of their daily lives for centuries. When seen
in this historical and social context, past criticism of
Pirandello, which may have overly stressed the purely
philosophical aspects of his work, can be reevaluated.
Perhaps Pirandello's characterizations will then be viewed
^Olga Ragusa, Luigi Pirandello (New York and
London: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 20.
^Glauco Cambon (ed.), Pirandello--A Collection of
Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1967), p. 5.
f i
Bentley, Naked Masks, p. 379 (Appendix 11).
^Erhard, "The Dramatic Technique of Luigi
Pirandello," p. 201.
4
as the artistic creations of a writer who could not discard
his earlier Sicilian background. This study will attempt
to support critics such as Cambon who believe that what
Pirandello expressed in his works "was first his irreduc-
8
ibly Sicilian self." Many critics do not emphasize this
point strongly enough, and Olga Ragusa reminds us that
Pirandello perhaps converted his observations of his
Sicilian environment into an art form which "seeks expres-
9
sion through images. ..." This study will deal with
these images.
Significance of Study
An understanding of the historical and cultural
history of Sicily since the disillusionment that followed
unification in 1867 will provide the background material
necessary to better understand Pirandello's works. Also,
it will help us "to understand his origins as a novelist
and dramatist. . . . it will help us also to understand
the profound sources behind his origin.^ It will try to
justify Heffner's contention that modem criticism places
8
Cambon, Pirandello--A Collection of Critical
Essays, p. 4.
9
Ragusa, Luigi Pirandello, p. 44.
"^Walter Starkie, Litt.D., Luigi Pirandello, 1867-
1936 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1965), p. 51.
11
Cambon, Pirandello--A Collection of Critical
Essays, p. 17.
___________________________________________________________________________________________5_
Pirandello in the forefront of twentieth-century drama-
12
tists. It will try to show that his art has significance
13
for present-day dramatists. It will attempt to discover
if his earlier works grew out of the disorientation of his
14
time. It will seek to illustrate that the torment of his
characters reflected a Europe that had changed its values
15
abruptly. It will attempt to point out that Pirandello
himself was perhaps a victim of this confusion and bewil
derment. Also, it will deal with the profound effects on
Pirandello who had to live for fourteen years with a wife
who had suffered a severe case of paranoia after the
family's sulphur mine went into bankruptcy. Hopefully, it
will correct those critics who tend to view Pirandello's
characters as puppets created as mouthpieces for his philo
sophical views. Finally, it will attempt to understand why
Pirandello felt that in man's battle for dignity in life he
16
cannot seem to gain his liberty.
1 o
Hubert C. Heffner, "Pirandello and the Nature of
Man," Tulane Drama Review 1 (June 1957): 25.
13
Renate Matthaei, Luigi Pirandello, trans. Simon
and Erika Young (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing
Co., 1973), p. 26.
^Achille Fiocco, "The Heritage of Pirandello,"
World Theatre 3 (Winter 1953): 24
1 5
Thomas Bishop, Pirandello and the French Theatre
(New York: New York University Press, 1960), p. 47.
1 f i
Cambon, Pirandello--A Collection of Critical
Essays, p. 26.
6
Limitation of the Study
This study will be limited to the earlier works of
Pirandello, because of the critical belief that he had
worked out his artistic point of view by the time he was
thirty years old, which, according to Lander MacClintock,
’’did not change thereafter radically.
Methodology
This study will begin with a brief survey of
Italian history, including the time period in which Piran
dello lived (1867-1936). Because many critics concentrate
mainly on his later works, this historical survey, combined
with a content analysis of Pirandello's early artistic
effort, may help to reveal the aesthetic foundation of his
work.
Mai Giocondo, written in 1889, has never been
translated into English. A content analysis will be made,
hoping to assess Pirandello's mentality when he was only
twenty-two years old. The main question to be answered is,
What do the poetic images reveal about the young man?
Following this analysis of Mai Giocondo, three
early short stories, Fumes, The Annuity, and The Wax
Madonna, will be analyzed because they contain autobio
graphical material. How much of the Sicilian microcosm
17
Lander MacClintock, The Age of Pirandello
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1951), p^ 179.
7
will be discovered in these early stories?
The Old and the Young was written in 1913 by
Pirandello. It is a two-volume historical novel and it
will be analyzed in the same manner as the short stories.
Three early plays will be analyzed for content
material: The Vise (1910), Sicilian Limes (1910), and The
Doctor's Duty (1913).
This analysis of his early poem, short stories,
novel, and early plays hopefully should provide evidence
that Pirandello's early works established his artistic
point of view before he gained international fame with Six
Characters in Search of an Author (1921).
Pirandello's essay, Humor (1913), will be analyzed
because it contains his beliefs concerning reality. This
essay should provide some clues of Pirandello's artistic
beliefs.
Some brief comments will be made concerning Six
Characters in Search of an Author (1921) and Henry IV
(1922) in order to determine how much of his early thinking
remained a part of his later works.
Because some critics confuse Pirandello's artistic
efforts with his brief participation in the Fascist party,
a brief analysis will be made of his last play, The Moun
tain Giants (1936), which is considered to be an anti-
Fascist play.
8
Hopefully, this approach will help to make up for
the neglect of his early works by most critics. Also, it
will help to assess his creative mentality from his early
poem, Mai Giocondo (1889), to his last play, The Mountain
Giants (1936).
If Pirandello remained rooted to his Sicilian
heritage as some critics claim, then an analysis such as
the one being proposed for this study should reveal a
reflection of the values, emotions, passions, and the
cultural ways of the Sicilian people.
Definitions of Terms
In reviewing the dramatic criticism of Pirandello's
works, many difficult terms are encountered. They are
difficult because each term can mean many different things.
These terms need to be defined in the manner in which
Pirandello used them. Specifically, the terms most often
encountered are: grotesque, humor, pessimism and absurdity,
and reality and illusion.
Grotesque
Gattnig, writing about the grotesque in literature
and dramatic art, believes that it concerns the discovery
of an alien world. Namely, that sensitive and tormented
men realize, at some moment in their lives, how temporary
and fragile their position in this world really is. This
9
creates a feeling of shock or horror. Pirandello seems to
have been such a man. In his continual obsession with the
state of his own being, Pirandello created artistic images
that developed the theme of man's helplessness and fragil
ity. It never left Pirandello and his works show that he
remained continually obsessed with this aspect of man's
being.
The grotesque for Pirandello represented the absurd
position that man finds himself in a world he did not
create nor willfully enter. This grotesqueness or horror
is derived from man's awareness of his basic helplessness
in controlling nature. Accordingly, man is forced to cope
with the mysteries of his own existence which he only
barely understands. He lives very much a stranger to him
self in a world which is at times hostile and threatening
to him. Ultimately, he must resign himself to the harsh
reality that he has no control over the rapid movement of
time and the changes it brings to him.
Gattnig looks at the grotesque in another way,
personifying it as the "demonic aspect" operating in the
18
world. This aspect of the grotesque acquires meaning
when it is placed within the mentality of the medieval
world that believed in the presence of "evil forces" that
could overtake and possess man. Understood in this light,
18
Gattnig, Jr., "Pirandello--Umorismo and Beckett,"
p. 186.
10
the grotesque can be interpreted to mean that man is in a
constant struggle to ward off these unseen and demonic
forces, which in literature and painting were always
portrayed in a grotesque and distorted manner which was«
meant to evoke horror. The grotesque, for Pirandello,
seems to be the result of man’s awareness of his basic
loneliness, his changing reality, his own inability to cope
with the multiplicity of his personality and the relative
nature of reality. If this is so, an analysis of his
essay, Humor (1908), which will be discussed in a forth
coming chapter, should provide evidence of the truth of
this statement.
Pirandello's characters seem to be torn by all
these factors that torment and disturb them. Is their
self-torment and self-abasement the result of their aware
ness that there is no escape or salvation for them? It
seems that Pirandello believed that not even death could
liberate either his characters or himself from loneliness--
death being the ultimate loneliness. It is not a pleasant
thought, and to dwell on it strikes terror in the human
heart more horrifying than all the grotesque "demons"
combined that the history of art has created.
Another way to interpret the grotesque in art and
literature is to see it in the manner in which the Italian
writers of the grotesque theatre developed it during the
first World War. These writers included Luigi Chiarelli,
11
Luigi Antonelli, Ernesto Cavacchioli, and Rosso di San
Secondo. For them, the grotesque in art meant the distor
tion and combination of the aspects of human personality
never found in nature. This distortion was used not only
for the sake of laughter or to provoke fear, but also
mainly to strip from their created characters their masks
(outer countenances) in order to reveal the hidden human
passions behind them. These passions often broke through
in their characters in an attempt to strike back at the
artificiality of the outer world that passes for true
reality. In turning reality around, the grotesque writers
ridiculed the outer reality as a mere sham and the inner
passions of human character as the true nature of man.
This aspect of the grotesque as developed by the
Grotesque Theatre is more useful in understanding Piran
dello’s work than Gattnig's "demonic aspect of the world.”
It is more useful because Pirandello used a technique of
distortion that paralleled what the writers of the
Grotesque Theatre were doing. Pirandello was the artist
who developed the concepts of the Theatre of the Grotesque
further by changing the very nature of the presentation of
the plays themselves. It was Pirandello who distorted, not
only his characters, but also the very art form of the
theatre itself in order to demonstrate that not even art
can capture ultimate and true reality.
12
Humor
Gattnig views Pirandello's concept of humor as not
being unique, and claims that it "contains elements of
19
earlier theories, especially those of Kierkegaard."
Existentially, humor is not to be understood as laughter,
but rather as an ironic smile with which man is able to
resign himself to the strangeness of his position in this
world. Oscar Biidel analyzes Pirandello's humor as an
"anti-rational aspect" with which he reacts against the
20
"constructed organized form." By form is meant that
which in art is taken to represent or "mirror” the outer
reality of the world.
Pirandello did not believe that art could do this,
because he did not believe that reality could ever be fully
grasped or understood. For Pirandello, man is caught, as
Cambon views it, in a conflict "of contrast, determined by
21
the perennial clash of experience and thought." This
"perennial clash of experience and thought" was, for Henri
Bergson, the comic element in human character "by which the
22
person unwittingly betrays himself. ..." Teresa Novel
19
Gattnig, Jr., "Pirandello--Umorismo and Beckett,"
p. 186.
20
Oscar Biidel, Pirandello (London: Bowes & Bowes,
1966), p. 69.
21
Cambon, Pirandello--A Collection of Critical
Essays, p. 3.
22
Barrett H. Clark, European Theories of the Drama,
newly rev. ed. (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1965),
p. 392.
translated a section of Pirandello's essay, L'Umorismo
(Humor), which can help us to understand Pirandello's
concept of humor as it was developed from Bergson and
23
others.
From his earlier works until his last, Pirandello's
characters seem constantly tom between the conflict of the
mask and the face. Gattnig explains this as "the design of
incongruity.. . ." represented by the contradictions
between the mask and the face and the contradictions
between man's ideal thought and his true biologic and
o /
psychic nature. Stated in another way, this represents
the contradictions between man's irrational and rational
nature. Which is the true reality? This question was
Pirandello's main artistic preoccupation. He was persis
tently aware of and concerned for the suffering of men for
whom he never lost compassion. It would seem unfair to
characterize him as an artist who was solely interested in
being a "philosophical writer."
Pirandello's concept of humor is not synonymous
with the common sense meaning of that term. Rather, for
him it was his way of resigning himself to the human
struggle to reconcile the forces of the inner self with
23
Teresa Novel (trans.), "On Humor--Luigi
Pirandello," Tulane Drama Review 10 (Spring 1966): 59.
^Gattnig, Jr., "Pirandello--Umorismo and Beckett,"
p. 186.
14
those of the-outer self. At times, this struggle appears
exaggerated and comic, but the intellect that perceives
this struggle comes to sense the irony in trying to recon
cile it. This sense of irony was Pirandello’s sardonic or
perhaps compassionate smile of resignation.
Pessimism and Absurdity
Pirandello is consistently classified by most
critics as a pessimist, because he did not see a way out of
man’s dilemma as he understood it. In this respect, he is
related to the existentialists, such as Kirkegaard, who
maintained that man's position in the world is absurd.
What does this mean? For Pirandello and the existential
ists, absurdity means that man's life is deprived of any
significant meaning.
Pirandello's pessimism seems to have grown out of
and had relevance for the era in which he lived. He
reacted to the social and historical problems in his own
country where democracy after the Risorgimento (1867)
disintegrated. In his own native Sicily and in the indus
trialized areas of the north, many social and economic
problems were left unresolved. Corruption became rampant
in the central government, and the danger of extreme
nationalism spread throughout Italy during and after World
War I. Pirandello witnessed the waste of manpower and
natural resources in his own country which were squandered
15
away on this political illusion which eventually led to the
rise of Fascism. This political absurdity led to the
inevitable disgrace of the invasion of Selassie’s innocent
Ethiopia in 1935.
Pirandello lived in this time frame. It is this
writer’s opinion that Pirandello's pessimism and absurdity,
expressed in his works, was his reaction to the time in
which he lived. His novel, The Old and the Ybung (1913),
deals directly with corruption in the Italian government
prior to World War I. In his youth, Pirandello was sympa
thetic to and believed in political liberalism. Toward his
middle years, he supported the Fascists, but before his
death he renounced them. His own life seems to be an
absurd search to find a place in the world. Rejected by
the Italian stage, Pirandello formed his own company, The
Rome Art Theatre (1925), which only lasted about three
years. His productions received more acclaim in France and
Germany than in Italy. He seems to have felt this rejec
tion deeply.
Pirandello's marriage was an unhappy one. He
suffered the agonizing accusations of his paranoid wife,
whom he kept at home for fourteen years before institution
alizing her. Although he wrote prolifically and abundantly,
his work did not bring him international fame until he was
fifty-four years of age. The era in which he lived and the
tragedy of his own personal life perhaps helped to
16
formulate his pessimistic and absurd view of life. Bishop
declares that Pirandello's pessimism and sense of absurdity
25
"struck a responsive chord in his contemporaries."
Perhaps it struck this responsive chord because it vibrated
in Pirandello's own being and remained a consistent artis
tic preoccupation throughout his writing career.
Gattnig concludes that "the absurd is similar to
the grotesque." Perhaps he makes this analogy because he
learned from Pirandello that they both shock a man's sensi
bilities into an awesome sense of aloneness and vulnerabil
ity .
Reality
The probing question behind most of Pirandello’s
works is: What is reality? His most famous later plays,
such as Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IV,
Right You Are if You Think You Are, and Tonight We Impro
vise , all confront this question directly. Pirandello, as
Aristotle before him, recognized "the enormous complexity
27
of the concept of being."
As early as 1892, Pirandello incorporated intohis
writing the idea, which was not uniquely his, "that the
25
Bishop, Pirandello and the French Theater, p. 11.
26
Gattnig, Jr., Pirandello--Umorismo and Beckett,
p. 186. :
27
Salvador Gomez Nogales, S.J., "The Meaning of
'Being* in Aristotle," International Philosophical Quarterly
12 (September 1972): 318"
__________________________________ 17
human personality is by no means a unity. . . ."28
Combining the thought of existentialist thinkers such as
Heidegger and Kirkegaard, and Henri Bergson's observation
that man's motion in time and space presents him with a
constantly changing reality, Pirandello gave these thoughts
artistic expression. In addition, he accepted Nietzsche's
concept of human masks:
. . . According to Nietzsche it is only with masks that
a profound fact of human uniqueness can be preserved.
And only he who loves masks can ever discover that
fact; for he alone has the strength to look behind a
mask [the outer appearance of personality] to discover
man, the courage to mask himself is his individuality,
and the playful innocence to choose a mask which not
only hides but which represents him to the world. The
lover of masks knows that his disguise is also the mark
of his presence in the world, and he chooses his mask
carefully lest he be too easily recognized.29
Pirandello added to this his own clarification of
the process he termed "costruirsi," explained by MacClin
tock as the manner by which "a man or woman who flees from
unbearable problems into a world of illusion, does what
30
Pirandello calls 'costruirsi* (to build oneself up)." In
this process, the individual fabricates a social role that
allows him to hide those facets of his character that are
threatening to him. It does not mean egoism. On the
^Biidel, Pirandello, p. 11.
29
Harold Alderman (Sonoma State College,
California), "Nietzsche's Masks," International Philosoph-
ical Quarterly 12 (September 1972)1 365’ ~
MacClintock, The Age of Pirandello, p. 177.
18
contrary, the end result of this process is, for Piran
dello, a form of self-rejection. Bishop believes that this
process, in which the character acquires a new personality,
enables the individual "to live with himself.He is
32
able to do so because he submerges the rejected self.
Pirandello presented this process most forcefully
in Henry IV (1922), but he had demonstrated it in an
earlier novel, The Late Mattia Pascal (1904). In. both
works, the central characters assume another identity in
which they eventually become trapped. These characters,
like many of Pirandello's characters, try to stabilize
themselves in the motion of time which forced changes upon
them. This can only end up as an illusion, because, as
Pirandello learned from Henri Bergson's philosophy, "strict
inertia, 'solidity,' and what can be called a 'thingistic'
33
substance are simply not real." Briefly stated, nobody
can fix reality in any form for themselves or for others.
Pirandello seems to have remained faithful to this view
throughout his life.
Where art was concerned, Pirandello believed that
it possessed its own reality which tries to fix man in a
31
Bishop, Pirandello and the French Theater, p. 28.
E. C. Knowlton, "Metaphysics and Pirandello,"
The South Atlantic Quarterly 34 (1935): 54.
^William C. May, "The Reality of Matter in the
Metaphysics of Bergson, An International Index to Philo
sophical Periodicals, Cumulative Index, 1971, p. 612.
19
stable and knowledgeable form. But life, unlike art, is
forever fleeting and changing, and therefore it is impos
sible to capture reality in art. Pirandello believed that
reality eludes us and that all that art can do is to try to
be true in representing the forces present in life--it can
never be life. Art represents one moment or a series of
moments of this changing reality fixed forever and forever
repeatable. For example, Michaelangelo's "Pieta," Leonardo
da Vinci's "Last Supper," and Pirandello's plays are fixed
forever in the gestures which their creators have given
them. This is very unlike life because poor, lonely man in
his existence cannot be fixed in any gesture. He must
struggle eternally with his existence, which is always
changing and always remains a persistent mystery to him.
Pirandello, as Aristotle before him, tried in his art to
34
understand reality. Ragusa places Pirandello in the
company of writers such as Proust, Joyce, Kafka, Musil, and
Thomas Mann, who, at the early part of the century, "were
concerned with fixing the dimensions of the human condi-
^Nogales, "The Meaning of 'Being' in Aristotle,”
p. 327.
35
Ragusa, Luigi Pirandello, p. 3.
20
Review of the Literature
Pirandello is considered by most critics to have
been a relativist. In turning his back away from any
absolutes where truth and reality were concerned, Piran
dello believed that what most men learn from their life
experiences is that nothing is permanent. MacGowan and
Melnitz write that, for Pirandello, ’'Nothing is objective;
all is relative. Experience is useless. The sense of the
individual disappears, and psychic bewilderment and frus-
36
tration take its place." For an understanding of this,
we must evaluate Pirandello in his historical context,
which is predominantly his Sicilian heritage. Artisti
cally, in his earlier works he dealt with Sicily, its past
and present, and expressed in his works his love for his
native Island, which he never lost. Moore confirms that
Pirandello's dramas, including those of his later period,
are embedded in the "all-pervading Sicilian atmosphere
which suffuses the environment in which the vivid dramas
are played.
A study of these earlier works will show that "the
early stage of Pirandello’s work draws thematically to a
great extent on his Sicilian environment . . . it betrays
Kenneth MacGowan and William Melnitz, The Living
Stage (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1955;,
pT 582.
~^M. J. Moore, "Sicily in the 'Novelle' of Luigi
Pirandello," The Modem Language Review 40 (1945): 174.
21
38
naturalist tendencies." These naturalistic tendencies
can be traced back to the Sicilian writers Verga and
Capuana, who were part of the verist (realistic) movement
in Sicily. Pirandello was an admirer of both writers and
he adopted, in his early stages, their naturalistic style.
His interest in Verga led him to adopt, for the Italian
cinema, Verga's story, Cavalieria Rusticanna. However,
from the start, Pirandello's early naturalism was stamped
with his own unique style.
At first, Pirandello, as did the other naturalistic
writers, wanted to capture the folklore and characteristics
of the Sicilian people. The Sicilians are a mixture of
Greek, Carthaginian, Phoenician, Saracen, Norman, and
Arabic people. They are proud of their Island home and
possess an intense local patriotism. Democratically
minded, they have a passion for discussion and a "passion-
39
ate love for independence. ..." It was for this reason
that Garibaldi found it easy to raise a volunteer army from
Sicily in 1867. Pirandello deals with the struggle for
unification in his novel, The Old and the Young, and of the
hope Sicilians had for a new freedom that would improve
their lives. Unfortunately, this never materialized and
^Budel, Pirandello, p. 8.
■^"United Italy," The Cambridge Modem History,
vol. 12 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1920),
p. 238.
22
Sicily was left destitute. A grim hardship remained, and
"over vast tracts of the South how grievous the reality
40
is." The tragedy and suffering of the Sicilian people
seem to be immortalized in all of Pirandello's characters.
As an example of the suffering of the Sicilian
people, the educational conditions can be cited where, even
though educational laws were in effect for a quarter of a
century, "75.4 per cent of the population were illiterates
as compared with 17.7 in Piedmont [northern Italy]."4^ The
Sicilians themselves were usually blamed for this shameful
neglect by the newly organized central government. Piran
dello was aware of this neglect as well as the division
between the North and South and the contempt with which the
Northerner looked down upon the Sicilian. It is part of
Pirandello's "rabbia" (rage) and that of his characters.
The critical literature on Pirandello is extensive.
Most of his works have been collected in a definitive
edition published by Mondadori in Milan, 1956-60.4^ These
works present the intense suffering of his characters and
also reveal the personal forces operating within Pirandello
himself, who was helpless in dealing with his wife's
paranoia. Vittorini reveals to us "that his family life
40Ibid., pp. 236-37.
41Ibid., p. 237.
4^Biidel, Pirandello, p. 114.
23
/ Q
became the oppressive weight. ..." This suffering,
personally experienced, found its way into the lives of his
fictional characters. He bore his suffering alone and
tried to convince his wife that her accusations against him
of infidelity and incest with his own daughter, Lietta,
were false. To convince her, he stayed home every night
after his teaching day, but it did not help to dissuade her
suspicions. Eventually, his daughter had to leave home.
It was a tragic experience and Pirandello carried this
weight on his shoulders for fourteen years.
Perhaps because of this personal family experience,
Pirandello's works usually "turn upon a question which
cannot be resolved ..." and which illustrates the diffi-
44
culty of communication in interpersonal relationships.
His fictional characters never resolve their conflicts,
because eactt of them has his or her own version of the
truth. This subjectivity of truth he learned from his wife
who, in her pathological illness, reflected an extreme form
of illusion which he believed was a part of himself, and of
others to a lesser degree.
Pirandello's characters are hard to understand
because they burst forth with their torment and externalize
/ o
Domenico Vittorini, The Drama of Luigi Pirandello
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1935; now
reprinted by Dover Books), p. 20.
A A
Oscar H. Brockett, History of the Theatre
(Boston: Allyn & Bacon, Inc A 1968), ; p~! 608.
______________ 24
their sense of guilt and their need for self-justification.
In criticizing Six Characters, Gassner wrote: "When the
play is over, Pirandello has shattered our complacent
45
belief that we can really know and understand people."
In Six Characters, Pirandello gave his characters an exis
tence in a powerful and strange play that is considered
anti-theatre. Who are these characters? In his preface,
Pirandello says that they were bom in his fantasy and that
he was not able to find a story for them, and therefore he
cast them in a play in which they are in search of an
author. This troubled Gassner, who asked, "Why is he
afraid to commit himself to his characters? Do they wound
him that much?"^
Completely exposed, Pirandello presents his charac
ters with their masks ripped off and reveals their intense
self-abasement and suffering. Do Pirandello's characters
show love? Bentley answers this question in an article
about Pirandello's play, Henry IV, and decides that "with
Pirandello love is absent; present are self-hatred, self-
abasement, self-mockery."^ These characteristics seem to
^John Gassner (ed.), A Treasury of the Theatre,
vol. 3 (Modem Drama from Oscar Wilde to Eugene Ionesco)
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963), pp. 385-86.
46
John Gassner, The Theatre in Our Times (A Survey
of the Men, Materials, and Movements in the Modem Theatre),
5th printing (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1966),
p. 195.
^Eric Bentley, "II Tragico Imperatore," Tulane
Drama Review 10 (Spring 1966): 73.
25
be rooted in his beloved Sicilians, who have suffered
centuries of oppression, discrimination, social abuse, and
neglect. But this writer disagrees that Pirandello and
the characters he created are devoid of love even though
they turn this rage against themselves. They seem to do so
because after centuries of oppression, they seem to have
come to feel helpless and deserted and often hopeless. The
verist writers were content to present a slice of life that
combined the beauty, joy, anger, hatred, and violence of a
typical Sicilian village. Pirandello added to this the
technique of distortion and, like the writers of the
Theatre of the Grotesque, he fashioned stories and plays
that were calculated to strip away the outer mask to reveal
the intensity of the torment that was hidden behind it.
Whiting, who considers Pirandello the greatest
Italian playwright since Plautus, declares that he "was a
product of the disillusionment and loss of faith and hope
48
that were so general after World War I." Other twentieth
century writers in other countries reacted to this disillu
sionment, but their characters do not seem to behave in the
same manner as Pirandello’s. In Bernard Shaw’s plays there
is hope because he believed that through reason man can
fashion a new society in which men can live a full and
Frank M. Whiting, An Introduction to the Theatre
(New York, Evanston, and London: Harper & Row, 1954),
p. 96.
26
happy life. Pirandello appears not to have had any such
hope.
Pirandello wrote approximately three hundred thirty
short stories, several essays, and seven novels, but he
49
gained recognition only when he began to write plays. He
adapted himself easily to the theatre because he wrote
dialogue with great facility and easily adapted his talents
for the theatre. Even in his short stories, the dialogue
is used to create the character, and description is used
very effectively not only in describing character and
environment but also in setting the mood. In MacClintock’s
point of view, Pirandello’s best work was done "in the
50
novel rather than the drama." It is of no importance to
debate this point. What is important is to recognize that
Pirandello’s plays were derived from his short stories, and
in his entire body of work he remained thematically consis
tent. Pirandello persisted from the very beginning to the
end of his career in demonstrating the difficulty in
assessing the truth about reality. Sympathetic to man's
loneliness in an alien world, he created plays that chal
lenged the conventional theatre.
49
John N. Alley, "French Periodical Criticism of
Pirandello's Plays," Italica 25 (June 1948): 138.
^Lander MacClintock, The Contemporary Drama of
Italy (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1920), pt 220.
27
Pirandello remained productive throughout his life,
and as for his pessimism, this much can be said: it did
not defeat him. In his own way he remained faithful to
Bergson's concept of creative evolution, "according to
which an instinctive urge within man seeks to move him
51
toward a higher being."
Gattnig's dissertation discusses Pirandello’s
concept of humor and shows the relationship of Samuel
Beckett to Pirandello. His main thrust is that both
writers are concerned with human suffering.
Alba-Marie Fazia has a similar objective. The
52
study links Anouilh’s work to Pirandello. Anouilh was
bora in 1910, which means that he was twelve years old when
Pirandello had completed both Six Characters in Search of
an Author and Henry IV. Like Charles J. Gattnig, Alba-
Marie Fazia demonstrates Pirandello's influence on the
French theater, focusing on Anouilh as one of the early
French writers who incorporated Pirandello's ideas in his
plays.
Thelma Springer Canale-Parola is concerned in her
study with the narrative style in Pirandello's short
51
Oscar G. Brockett and Robert R. Findlay, Century
of Innovation (A History of European and American Theatre
and Drama Since 1870) (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-
Hall, Inc., 1973), p. 355.
52
Alba-Marie Fazia, "Luigi Pirandello and Jean
Anouilh" (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1960).
28
53
stories. Her analysis points out that the third person
narrative predominates.
Sarah D'Alberti deals with Pirandello’s seven
novels: L 1 esclusa [The Outcast], II Tumo [The Turn],
I vecchi e i giovanni [The Old and the Young], Suo Marito
[Her Husband], Si gira [Shoot], Uno, Nessuno, centomila
[One, Nobody, a Hundred Thousand], il fu Mattia Pascal
[The Late Mattia Pascal], The study emphasizes the poetic
quality of his novels and the richness of his descriptive
passages.The study insists that Pirandello's novels
have an aesthetic and rare beauty.
Erhard looks at Pirandello's dramatic technique.
His study points out Hegel's influence in Pirandello's
philosophical outlook and his theory of comedy. The study
is of value because three new translations of Think It
Over, Giacomo!, Cap and Bells, and But It's Only a Joke
can be found in the appendix. It also restates what can be
found in other works on Pirandello--that his plays evolved
55
out of his short stories.
53
Thelma Springer Canale-Parola, "The Proem in
Pirandello's Short Stories" (Ph.D. dissertation, University
of Illinois, 1962).
■^Sarah D'Alberti, "Pirandello Romanziere" (Ph.D.
dissertation, New York University, 1966).
55
Erhard, "The Dramatic Technique of Luigi
Pirandello."
29
Illiano studies in depth Pirandello’s essay
L 'umorismo [Humor] and the critical essays on Pirandello.
The periods are divided from 1901-1921, 1924-1937, 1937-
1951, 1951-1966. The study also considers the importance
56
of Pirandello as a poet.
Neglia, in his dissertation, pays tribute to
Pirandello's influence in the development of Uruguayan and
Argentinean dramatists. Pirandello's Six Characters in
Search of an Author is cited as the work that was most
influential in the development of the Avant Garde Theatre
57
of Argentina and Uruguay.
Nulf, in his dissertation, is concerned with
Pirandello's involvement in Cinema. It shows that Piran
dello's novel, Si Gira [Shoot], indicates that he had
personal knowledge of the film industry, and that twenty-
nine films have been made from his stories and plays.
Pirandello wrote scenarios. As a novelist, he was one of
the first to use the cinematic technique in writing his
novels. The author of this study claims that this was a
significant factor in Pirandello's development as a
5 8
dramatist.
56Antonio Illiano, "Pirandello e la Critica" (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of California, 1966).
Erminio Giuseppe Neglia, "Pirandello Y La
Dramatica Rioplatense" (Ph.D. dissertation, Washington
University, 1969).
58Frank Allen Nulf, Jr., "Luigi Pirandello and the
Cinema: A Study of His Relationship to Motion Pictures and
30
Finally, in Pirandello's earlier works, one can
find some measure of idealism and joy, and in his later
plays even some hope. In this respect, Pirandello can be
separated from the writers of the modern Theatre of the
Absurd, which is an outgrowth of his thematic ideas. Gino
Rizzo, who interviewed Luigi Squarzina, director and play
wright at the Teatro Stabile de Genova, records this:
Rizzo.- By and large though, wouldn't you say
that Pirandello's logical paradox
differs from the non-sense of the
Theatre of the Absurd?
Squarzina: Yes, because he was not confronted with
a mass society. For Pirandello the
problem was still an epistemological
[search for knowledge] one; it had not
become social. . . . The Theatre after
Pirandello had to deal with problems
posed by a new social context. . . .59
The Italian theatre, which did not understand the
focus of his work, rejected Pirandello's plays. Silvio
d'Amico personified the Italian theatre as being behind the
times and that the "organization of Italian companies has
remained what it was a century ago, two centuries ago,
6 0
perhaps even three centuries ago." This paradox
the Significance of That Relationship to Selected Examples
of His Prose and Drama" (Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State
University, 1969).
Gino Rizzo, "Directing Pirandello Today--An
Interview with Luigi Squarzina," Tulane Drama Review 10
(Spring 1966): 81.
60
Thomas H. Dickinson, The Theatre in a Changing
Europe (New York: Henry Holt & Co., Inc., 1937), p. 264.
31
confronted Pirandello, who created plays in Italy which did
not have a theatre that could serve him. Despite this
paradox, Pirandello emerged from Italy’s theatrical condi
tion as one of the foremost writers of contemporary drama.
Feasibility
The libraries of the University of Southern
California, the University of California at Los Angeles,
and the Huntington Library have adequate material on
Pirandello. This includes material that covers Piran
dello’s work in poetry, the novel, the theater, essays, and
his plays.
Although Federico Nardelli’s biography of Piran
dello, written in 1932 while Pirandello was still alive,
has not been translated into English, a biography written
in 1963 in Italian by Caspare Giudice, which makes many
references to Nardelli's work, has been translated into
English by Alastair Hamilton in 1975. This is a very rich
and useful source for the study planned for this disserta
tion, as it provides much autobiographical material in
reference to Pirandello's work.
32
CHAPTER II
OVERVIEW OF ITALIAN HISTORY AND
SICILIAN CUSTOMS AND FOLKWAYS
This chapter is divided into three sections: The
Risorgimento and Its Aftermath; an analysis of the Ideology
of Fascism, and Pirandello's brief participation in
Mussolini's Fascist party; and the way of life and charac
ter traits of the Sicilian people.
Part A: The Risorgimento and Its Aftermath
In order to understand the social and economic
problems of a divided nation such as Italy, a brief look
at her past history is necessary to reveal some important
facts.
Italy is an ancient land and its people possess a
national consciousness of their heritage, but despite these
attributes, they had never been able to unite until the
latter part of the nineteenth century. Under the Romans,
Italy's territory served as the geographical center of a
vast empire--a territory which the Romans gutted and
wasted, especially the rich wheat fields of Sicily.'*'
^Muriel Grindrod, Italy (New York and Washington:
Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, 1968), p. 207.
___________33
When Rome fell, Sicily was cut off from the main
land and found herself alone with its resources drained and
2
her forests destroyed. In mainland Italy, the various
sections were divided into separate states with each one
developing its own independence. In the North, commerce
flourished throughout Italy's regions and the activity and
interest in art led to the Renaissance. Contributions were
made in the fields of painting and sculpture, music,
theatre architecture, literature, literary criticism, and
science by men whose names have now become immortalized.
Why is it, then, that Italy never became a unified country
until 1870?
Rend Albrecht-Carrie blames Rome for being more of
a "hindrance than a help in the formation of national
unity." Rome was too busy building its empire and too
preoccupied with the administrative problems of maintaining
its power over an area that encompassed many diverse
cultures. Italy was just another area, and Rome did not
really represent Italy because "there was pride in the
phrase 'civis romanus sum,' but not nationalistic pride."4
2
Bernard Wall, Italian Art, Life, and Landscape
(New York: William Sloane Associates, 1956), p. 225.
3
Rene Albrecht-Carrie, Italy--From Napoleon to
Mussolini (New York: Columbia University Press, 19505",
p. 5.
4Ibid.
34
Rome continued to spread itself out over large
territories, and in so doing became more vulnerable to
enemy military attacks. When these external pressures were
combined with internal weaknesses and moral laxity, the
empire crumbled. When it fell, Italy was left a weak prey
to foreign invasions and dominations. Each of the sections
closed within itself for protection and each became suspi
cious of the other, "jealous of their independence."’*
Sicily, separated from the mainland by the straits
of Messina, stood proud and arrogant despite the punishment
she suffered under the Romans; her previous history had
prepared her for it. The Greeks, who had first arrived in
Sicily in 750 B.C., succeeded in sharing their cultural way
of life with the island. For Anthony Pereira, a student of
Sicilian culture, this was the first time "that the
6
island's history became clearly defined." Other cultures
followed the Greeks and the Romans, giving Sicily a rich
mixture that gave her "a character, ethnic and cultural,
distinct from the rest of Italy.
While Sicily was developing her own unique charac
ter, the northern states of Italy were developing theirs.
The North became rich in trade and commerce. Venice
■*Ibid. , p. 7 .
6
Anthony Pereira, Sicily (New York: Hastings
House Publishers, 1972), p~ 14.
^Albrecht-Carrid, Italy, p. 10.
35
dominated the domain of the eastern Mediterranean and
O
developed "a tightly controlled aristocracy."
During the Renaissance, Machiavelli thought about
the political question of Italian unification. However,
although his intentions were sincere, he cared little about
the political methods to be used in order to bring it
about. For him, "that state is good which is effective or
9
efficient." It was a statement that completely ignored
the diversity of Italy’s character and the morality that
could bring about -unity.
In the fifteenth century, France and Spain gained
dominance over Italy and Sicily. When Spanish rule over
Sicily ceased at the end of the eighteenth century, the
Island again was left destitute. Spain's disrespect for
the integrity of Sicily plunged it into its decline.^
These dominations of Italy took away from her a sense of
personal identity as a nation, and consequently she
"entered into the limbo of history from which she was not
to emerge for some three centuries."^
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Italy was
still a divided nation. Culturally, she had never been
able to sustain her leadership and remained politically and
8Ibid., p. 15. 9Ibid., p. 19.
10
Alfonso Lowe, The Barrier and the Bridge
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1972), p. 102.
■^Albrecht-Carrid, Italy, p. 19.
______________________________________________________________3 . 6 .
economically backward. The revolutions that broke out all
over Europe in 1848 proved to be a decisive turning point
in Italy's political history.
Inspired and patriotic Italians such as Mazzini and
Garibaldi rekindled the dream of unification. Garibaldi,
with his one thousand volunteers, captured Sicily and
Naples, enlisted Sicilian volunteers, sailed for the main-
12
land, and captured Rome. The British Fleet, sympathetic
to the move for Italian independence, kept its warships in
the Mediterranean to prevent any intervention by the
French.
Both Garibaldi and Mazzini share the honors for
Italian unification. Garibaldi's reputation as a freedom
fighter provided the military leadership, while Mazzini's
inspirational ideas supplied the vision of a good society
13
"which was fundamentally religious." Mazzini believed
that nations were destined to be free, that they could work
in harmony once they were free, and that self-determination
was self-evidently good. As he grew older, he became a
firm believer in world unity, and to him "belongs the glory
of having imposed upon Italians an idea force which has
come to dominate their thinking.
■^Pereira, Sicily, p. 23.
■^Albrecht-Carrid, Italy, p. 34.
^Ibid. , p. 36..
_______________________________________________________________________________37
However, the Risorgimento did not materialize in
the manner in which Garibaldi and Mazzini had envisioned
it. Cavour, who became the Prime Minister, set the prece
dent of alliance with foreign powers, and in 1859 he was
able to obtain Louis Napoleon's friendship. After this he
provoked a war against Austria, doing it in such a manner
that Austria appeared to be the aggressor. Napoleon sent
his armies to Italy and the Austrians were defeated. This
victory gave France claim to the northern area of Piedmont.
Garibaldi, who was fighting in the south at this time, was
later to show his anger and dislike of this policy at the
Assembly of the Italian Parliament, at which Cavour pre
sided as the first Prime Minister in 1861 with Victor
Emanuel II selected as the King of Italy.
The political structure of this newly formed
government collapsed. Cavour died in 1861, and the polit
ical problems of unification continued to cause many
political disagreements. To avoid chaos, Italian troops
were sent to Rome on September 20, 1870 as a show of
national strength, and a new government was established.
For some historians, this marks the time of Italian unifi
cation. Garibaldi became disillusioned, and eventually he
was exiled from the government because of his outspoken
attacks against it.
The conditions in Italy remained what they had been
before unification. The division between the North and the
38
South still existed, and the massive unemployment problems
in the southern regions created intolerable hardships.
Between 1880 and the outbreak of World War I, thousands of
southern Italians immigrated to other countries in an
15
attempt "to find better conditions."
Problems existed in the North also, but because the
region was in contact with the economic, social, and
political life of Europe, it was generally more prosperous
than the South, which remained poor and degraded. The
South resented the neglect of the central government and
accused the North of exploitation. The North, in turn,
looked down upon the South, viewing it as a vagabond, a
burden, and a perpetual problem. The North had no real
justification for its attitude because, despite some indus
try and a few railroads, the South remained an agricultural
region and it had its share of economic problems.
In the South, "ninety percent of the people were
16
illiterate as a result of deliberate policy." The
actions of the government were unwarranted and baffling,
and the programs they offered proved inadequate. The
masses remained unemployed, their education was neglected,
and the housing conditions in the South and Sicily were
deplorable. It has been estimated that over the past
■^Grindrod, Italy, p. 207.
■^Albrecht-Carrid, Italy, p. 51.
39
century 25,000,000 Italians have emigrated to other
lands.^ For these millions of people, Italy's programs,
after unification, left them disillusioned and the dream of
a strong, healthy nation became a vanishing dream. Italy
was not able to "find a place in the European nations.
. . . she had very little experience in the role of a
nation in world affairs.
Throughout the reign of the first three govern
ments, growing unrest not only in the South but also in the
industrialized areas of the North continued to plague the
country. Severe problems concerning wages and housing
developed among the workers of the North, and as early as
1898, crowds began to riot--many being suppressed by police
action.
As for the South, its conditions grew worse because
no plans for industrialization or reforestation were formu
lated. Maxwell, a sympathetic writer about Sicily, tells
us that today, as in the past, "the most wretched thing
"^Irving R. Levine, Main Street Italy (Garden-City,
N.Y. : Doubleday & Co. , Inc.^ 1963) , p~! 53. The central
figure of this book is Danilo Dolci, who, since 1952, has
been struggling to rid Western Sicily of its misery and
violence. Dolci is a preacher of non-violence and he has
met resistance in the apathy of political officials and the
pressure of the Mafia. For this dissertation, Chapter 10,
"Easter in Agrigento," is of particular interest because
Pirandello was born and raised in this southern city of
Sicily.
1 R
Albrecht-Carrie, Italy, p. 52.
40
19
about Sicily is unemployment." Men have been leaving
their families for decades to find jobs elsewhere, and many
have never returned.
Being a Catholic country, Italians take their
marriage vows seriously. The institution of marriage
exists for the procreation and care of children. Conse
quently, despite the mass migrations, the growth of large
20
families continued to create overpopulation.
From the years 1903 to 1915, when Giolitti was in
power, programs were instituted to stimulate the growth of
industry, to build trade with other nations, to try to
increase wages of workers, and to expand the educational
opportunities. However, Giolitti was limited by the lack
of Italy’s coal, iron, and other basic materials that were
needed for a full program of industrialization.
The southern areas suffered the most from this
failure, and during this period poverty continued. Housing
was inadequate, the diet of most families was deficient,
and most children did not attend the few schools that were
available. Sicily’s problems were compounded by a scanty
19
Gavin Maxwell, The Ten Pains of Death (New York:
E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. , 1960) , p~! 107.
^Grindrod, Italy, p. 209. This book is divided
into three parts: Sicily; Southern Italy and Sardinia; and
the last part is devoted to classical Italy, which includes
Rome and Northern Italy. It is an excellent view of the
festivals and folkways throughout Italy and offers the
reader a comparison of the various regions and their
diversities.
41
water supply which left the earth parched and infertile.21
Survival on the island became increasingly difficult
because the food supply could not meet the needs of the
population, and "emigration seemed to be the only alterna-
22
tive to starvation." Thousands fled from southern Italy
and Sicily to America. In 1913, 822,000 left to come to
the New World, and in 1925, they were joined by an addi
tional 311,000.23
In 1921 and 1925, political pressures in Washington,
D.C. forced the government to pass new immigration laws
which sharply reduced the number of people who would be
allowed into the country. These restrictions, which were
repeated by other nations, caused the people of southern
2
Italy and Sicily to "sink into deeper poverty."
Giolitti continued to ignore the economic problems
of the South, and instead of helping the people he used the
region as a military power base. Giolitti was responding
to the wishes of the newly organized Nationalist Associa
tion in 1910 which was advocating the conquest of Libya,
and in 1911, Italy and Turkey clashed in a bloody war.
21
Muriel Grindrod, Italy, the Modern World (London:
Amen House, Oxford University Press, 1964) , pp. S^T-87.
99
Albrecht-Carrie, Italy, p. 63.
23
"Italy’s Economic and Social Progress," Survey,
March 1927, p. 755.
2^Herbert Kubly, Italy (New York: Time, Incor
porated, 1964), p. 75.
42
Italy won the war in 1912 but it was a hollow victory,
because the boost in Italy's nationalistic pride had no
effect on the masses of the South and the struggling work
ers of the industrialized North. They openly showed their
opposition to the war, and what is more they lost faith in
and wanted no part of the central government.
Unfortunately, the government continued to side
with the nationalists because "it was a tiger on whose back
25
Giolitti had chosen to ride. ..." This policy caused
Italy to intervene in World War I. It proved to be another
futile and disastrous decision. Most Italians did not want
to participate in the War. The defeat that the Italian
army suffered by the onslaught of the Austrians had further
humiliated and lowered the country's morale..
After the War ended the Italian people lost more
faith in the parliamentary system and the leaders of the
central government. Their economic problems were left
unresolved, many of the youth died on the battlefields, the
country was still not united, and a whole generation of
older Italians, who fought with Garibaldi during the
Risorgimento, suffered from disillusionment and bewilder
ment. It became clear that the making of Italy was not
followed by the unification of Italians, and "the country
25
Alan Cassels, Fascist Italy (New York: Thomas Y.
Crowell Co., 1968), p. I T .
43
26
was more estranged in 1918 than it was in 1861."
After World War I the country was impoverished and
divided. Garibaldi's dream to unify Italy seemed to be
vanishing. Crispi, who had been Prime Minister before
Giolitti and still influential in Italian politics,
separated himself from Mazzini's idealism by forcefully
pronouncing that "the monarchy alone can unite us whilst
27
the Republic would divide us." The villain waiting in
the wings was Mussolini as the political pendulum was
swinging away from a democratic Italy.
In 1901 Professor G. Ferroglio's economic census
28
estimated that the Italian population was 32,000,000. Of
this number, 17,000,000 exercised a profession, 10,000,000
were engaged in agriculture and various industries,
3,300,000 were not engaged in either the professions, agri
culture, or industry, and 500,000 were independent. Men in
military service, at this time, amounted to 200,000.
These statistics (which were rounded off) show that
in the total sum of categories, women who were actively
engaged amounted to only 608,000. Of this total, 270,000
were part of those who were financially independent. Women
26Ibid., p. 27.
27
"Crispi and Italian Unity," Forum, November 1901,
p. 308.
2 8
"The Economic Life of the Italian Population,"
The American Monthly Review of Reviews, September 1904,
p. 369.
44
constituted a small number of those who were involved in
the political, professional, and commercial part of Italian
society. The majority of women accepted their roles as
wives and mothers, often not having the right to choose
their husbands. The marriage customs followed a strict
traditional code in which the parents played the dominant
role in matching the couples and chaperoning them through
the courtship.
Luigi Villari's informative book describes the
habits and customs of Italy. He criticized the depressing
conditions in the South, the unfair taxation, the mean
narrow-mindedness of the Tuscan nobles, and the aloofness
and self-centeredness of the upper classes and their
99
dislike for work.
This was Italy from the Risorgimento up to World
War I. This brief survey has focused on the poverty of the
country, its social and political divisions, and the inept
way in which Italy’s political leaders failed to unify the
country. Also, it has shown that the dream of unification
had led to an unhealthy nationalism that was to lead the
country into Fascism.
OQ
"Italian Life in Town and Country," The Nation,
November 20, 1902. This article is a review of Luigi
Villari's book about Italian life. The book bears the same
title as the article, and was published by G. P. Putnam's
Sons in 1902.
45
Part B: The Ideology of Fascism
Fascism breeds on the divisions of a society that
is in conflict on many levels. After World War I Italy
became the cradle of totalitarianism. Its middle class
felt threatened, and, as the fear of Bolshevism spread
throughout the land, it was instrumental in supporting
Mussolini's drive for power. Many researchers have
inquired into the reasons for this political phenomenon.
Their findings support the contention that no dictator can
rise to power without the consent of the people. Why are
they willing to surrender their freedom?
Barnouw, looking at the psychological factors,
explains that most individuals feel omnipotent when they
are children. In the hands of loving parents, the child
gets all his needs satisfied on demand. However, as the
child grows older, he must adjust himself to the realities
of the world. He learns to accept frustration. However,
according to Barnouw, the feeling of omnipotence that the
child once enjoyed remains in his unconscious as a
repressed wish because in adult life he no longer can have
every need or desire satisfied. This loss "creates a life
30
cycle of impotence-omnipotence. . . ." What Barnouw is
30
Erik Barnouw, Mass Communication: Television,
Radio, Film, Press, the Media and^ Their Practice in the
United States of America (New York: Rinehart & Go., tnc.,
1946) , p~! 63
46
stating here is that in every individual the impotence
factor intensifies with the wish to be omnipotent once
again.
Barnouw uses this theory to explain those "drives
awakened in mass communication . . which demand expres-
31
sion in action. These drives, which have as their goals
the restoration of omnipotence, find their expression in
sports, fiction, intellectual pursuits, politics, and in
idols with whom individuals identify. All of these areas
of activity offer the individual an opportunity to rebuild
his ego and to mould an image of himself that makes him
feel worthy and secure.
When an individual successfully identifies himself
with some group or cause, he feels a sense of belongingness
and enters into interpersonal relationships in which he is
able to sustain the need to feel the same security he once
did as a child. This process of identification seems to be
a crucial factor throughout the lives of most individuals.
In this process a model is usually chosen to help the
32
individual mould his own ego. Every child has as his
first "models" his parents, teachers, friends, and fictional
characters with whom he identifies. As an adult the
"^Ibid. , p. 85 .
32
Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and^ the,Analysis
of the Ego, trans. James Strachey (London: The Hogarth
Press and The Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1948), p. 63.
47
pursuits and models chosen may be more sophisticated, but
the process of identification still has the same goal. For
Barnouw this process exists for the fulfillment of some
33
wish or desire which is conscious or unconscious.
The process is neither an unhealthy nor a destruc
tive force. On the contrary, it can be a very constructive
process. The child who wishes to become a big league base
ball player usually chooses a model, and his wish to be
like him motivates him to practice and learn to play as
well as his idol does. The same holds true for other
pursuits. However, where Fascism is concerned, the process
of identification works in a negative fashion. When
Italians at the turn of the century felt disillusionment
and despair, was this not a sense of national impotence?
Were they not searching for some sense of order that would
restore security to their lives? And after World War I,
were they not then so humiliated that they needed to have
their egos rebuilt? Historically, the answer is most
probably yes.
Benito Mussolini appears to have been a skilled
propagandist. He knew well what was on the minds of his
fellow Italians, and he was able to spread his brand of
nationalism in La Latte di Classe (The Class Struggle), a
local weekly paper he founded. What is more, he succeeded
33
Barnouw, Mass Communication, p. 73.
48
in presenting himself as the idol who could lead Italy out
of its despair.^
Chakotin, analyzing this aspect of Fascist propa
ganda, feels that in order to reach the greater mass of
people the message must be geared to a very simplistic
35
level. This may seem paradoxical when we consider that
in Italy many intellectuals, such as Pirandello and
D'Annunzio, supported Mussolini. But men of this caliber
were not won over by intellectual arguments. Like the
masses, they responded to the emotional content of
Mussolini's message because they, too, felt alienated,
frightened, humiliated, and longed for a strong and united
Italy. Mussolini seems to have become the strong man who
mirrored what they themselves felt. When that happened a
mutuality of exchange took place between his leadership and
the people who chose to identify with him.
Reich maintains that this mutual exchange develops
"when the structure of the fiirher's personality is in
36
harmony with the structures of broad groups." The masses
<5 /
Cassels, Fascist Italy, p. 43.
35
Serge Chakotin, The Rape of the Masses (The
Psychology of Totalitarian Political Propaganda), trans.
E. W. Dick.es (New York: Alliance Book Corporation, 1940),
p. 184.
36
Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism,
trans. Vincent R. Carfagno^ 3rd printing (New York:
Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1971), p. 35.
49
of Italy, and later those of Germany, were willing to enter
into this transaction because the totalitarian system
offers "the atomized individual a new refuge and secur-
37
ity." He is willing to sacrifice his individual freedom
to gain a new sense of security and omnipotence by follow
ing a strong leader. His membership in a mass movement
helps him to rebuild his ego and his self-esteem. While
this process is ongoing, the individual is not aware that
the Fascist propaganda machinery is feeding him illusions
and half-truths because "groups have never thirsted for
truth. They demand illusions and cannot do without
them."38
In Italy, illusions of grandeur were oratorically
fashioned from the lips of Mussolini. He promised his
countrymen that it was time to restore to Italy the
grandeur that was once Rome. Italians wanted and needed to
hear this message. After World War I many felt humiliated,
many mourned the loss of the war dead, many lived in
despair and destitution, and many felt desolate and lonely.
Mussolini’s character and energy served as a rallying point
around which all these individuals could be mobilized, and
his rhetoric effectively reflected their unconscious wish
to feel viable and strong.
37
Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (New York and
Toronto: Rinehart & Co., Inc., 1955), p. 237.
38
Freud, Group Psychology, pp. 19-20.
50
Blumer explains this dynamic force that motivates
each individual to become part of such group behavior as
"his loss of self-concern and critical judgment, the surg
ing forth of impulses and feelings . . which give him a
39
sense of "expansion and greatness." The insecure indi
vidual is willing to surrender his own freedom for the
illusory security that the mobilized action of the Fascist
ideology offers him.
For Weber this surrender of freedom "is replaced in
a complex structure of realities . . ." among which are
"his family, his trade, his region, and above all his
nation, all of which exist prior to him."^ Mussolini
skillfully persuaded his followers to merge themselves into
their families and their nation which he made synonymous.
Emery, Ault, and Agee write that the successful
political leader must convince his followers "that he
represents the viewpoint of the majority, and that his
policies are wise and should be endorsed.When this is
accomplished, the masses surrender to the omnipotence of
39
Herbert Blumer, The Process and Effects of Mass
Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1961), p. 366.
^Eugene Weber, Varieties of Fascism (New.York:
Van Nostrand Reinhold Co~ 1964) , p~i 42.
^Edwin Emery, Phillip H. Ault, and Warren K. Agee,
Introduction to Mass Communications (New York: Dodd, Mead
& Co., Inc., 1970), p. 130.
51
their leaders. Rivers and Shramm observe that "an authori
tarian state always places a man or a few men in a position
^ 2
to lead and be obeyed. . . ." These men form the nucleus
of authoritarian power.
The role of the middle class was mentioned earlier,
and a few words should help to further clarify the role it
plays in the process of Fascism. In Italy and Germany the
middle class seems to have harbored resentment and fear
after World War I in a way that the working classes did
not. Those workers with skilled trades took pride in their
work, and often they made better wages and were free of the
anxieties that burdened the middle class. On the other
hand, the middle class, who were mostly white collar work
ers, had to maintain its identity with authority because it
wanted to maintain the status quo. The status quo meant
stability and security to them and a continuance of their
prestige and social status. The fathers of these families
passed on to their children this class fear.of economic
disaster because the members of the middle class did not
want to fall into the category of the working class with
which they did not identify.
The authoritarian structure of the middle class
seems to have been rigid and emphasized duty, obedience,
^William L. Rivers and Wilbur Schramm, Responsi
bility in Mass Communication, rev. ed. (New York: Harper &
Row^ 1969) , p. 30 .
52
and honor. These are virtues which do not merit disre
spect, but unfortunately analysis shows that it was these
very virtues that the Fascist leaders exploited. Also, the
preoccupation with security of this class made it suscep
tible to Fascist propaganda. Fromm tells us that this had
existed in the middle class long before World War I, and
that the political and social events after it intensified
them. The Fascist ideology made a strong appeal to the
insecurities of this class and its need to identify itself
with those in power.^
Both Mussolini and Hitler used the middle class as
their power base. When the Fascist movement and national
istic pride became stronger in both countries, the working
and upper classes merged with the middle class out of fear,
anxiety, and hope, "not by information and knowledge.
In Italy by 1922 there was hardly "any segment of
the Italian establishment not ready to collaborate with
45
Fascism. . . ." Mussolini was supported by the Queen
Mother, Margheriti, the King's younger brother, Duke
d'Agosta, and King Victor Emmanuel II. Mussolini made a
pact with the Vatican and gave the Holy City its autonomy.
/ Q
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York and
Toronto: Rinehart & Co” Inc., 1941), p. 213.
^Bernard Berelson and Morris Janowitz (eds.),
Reader in Public Opinion and Communication, 2nd ed.
(New York: Free Press, 1966), pp. 465-66.
45
Cassels, Fascist Italy, p. 32.
53
This put him on good terms with Pope Pius XI. The Catholic
faith considered Fascism a lesser evil than Bolshevism, and
Benedetto Croce, an avid nationalist, thought that "Fascism
was necessary and compatible with liberal principles.
. . Many intellectuals followed Croce.
On October 28, 1922, the Fascists marched to Rome
and took over the government after Mussolini had used a
strike in Bologna on August 1, to demonstrate his strength
as "a dike against the red flood."47 Mussolini was confi
dent that the government was too weak to stop him, and he
was aware that the change in social attitudes after World
War I gave him a majority support that cut across social
lines, Mussolini's words during a parliamentary campaign
in the Great Rail of the Consistory, at Palazzo Venezia in
Rome, January 28, 1924, reveals his strategy in mobilizing
the masses. He said;
Fascism represents the concrete negation of all that
democratic and socialist idealists champion. . . .
If I were called upon to express in a simple sentence
the tendency of the age, I should say it consisted
in the denial and renunciation of all that Socialism
teaches. . . .48
Mussolini had succeeded in broadening his base by singling
out a single scapegoat, spreading fear, and personifying
himself as the Saviour.
46Ibid., p. 48. 47Ibid., p. 37.
48
"Mussolini on the Stump," The Living Age, March
8, 1924, p. 438.
54
Before Mussolini marched on Rome, Pirandello had
already written and gained fame with his play, Six Charac
ters in Search of an Author. Mussolini's progress with the
Fascist ideology "coincided with his [Pirandello's] own
49
success and fame."
But Pirandello remained aloof from any active
participation in Fascism, even though he was developing an
identification with Mussolini and favored his program of
action. It cannot he denied, however, that he joined the
party after the Fascists had murdered the Socialist leader
Giacomo Matteotti. Many Italians did not like this, and
Pirandello wrote a letter to Mussolini requesting that he
be permitted to join the Fascist party. He gave a copy of
this letter to "one of the most fanatic papers, L*Impero.
He did this to win back those Italians who were repulsed at
the violent murder of the Socialist leader. Pirandello
continued to write and speak in favor of the Fascist party,
and in 1924 he wanted Mussolini to be "more brutal, speedy,
and self-confident in his elimination of the democratic
51
process." Was the fifty-seven-year-old Nobel Prize
winner truly expressing what he really felt? None of his
artistic works up to 1924 or beyond "openly support
49
Gaspare Giudice, Pirandello, trans. Alastair
Hamilton (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 147.
50Ibid., p. 150. 51Ibid., p. 149.
55
52
Mussolini or reflect an anti-democratic attitude.' In
his plays, as we shall see later, his characters are given
the equal right to stand up and express their personal
53
opinions.
Giudice feels that Pirandello had contradictory
feelings about Fascism, because he disliked the inconsis
tent pattern of behavior that his support of the Fascists
forced upon him. He felt a strong desire to protest
against some of their policies, but he also was opportunis
tic in his desire to further his theatre, the Sala Odescal-
54
chi, which Mussolini supported with 50,000 lire.
When the Fascist party passed new laws which
suppressed the freedom of the press, founded the Fascist
secret police with special tribunals, and renewed the death
penalty, this "must have begun to disturb Pirandello's
conscience and he began to want . . . more and more to
stand on his own and his behaviour toward Fascism became
55
inconsistent."
It cannot be denied that, in the early years of the
ascendancy of Mussolini, Pirandello was one of his most
zealous supporters. In New York he spoke in favor of
Italy's annexation of Abyssinia, and "he gave his Nobel
5 6
medal to be melted down for the Abyssinian campaign."
"^Ibid. , p. 144. "^Ibid.
54Ibid., p. 157. 55Ibid.
"^Bentley, Naked Masks, p. 379.
______________________________________________________________5i?_
But after the month of June of 1926, Pirandello's period of
57
commitment to Fascism ended.
When Pirandello died in 1936 the Fascists wanted to
dress him in the black uniform he once wore. They wanted
to give him a State funeral, but the instructions in his
will clearly show that he did not intend to be used in
death by Mussolini:
When I am dead, do not clothe me. Wrap me naked in a
sheet. No flowers on the bed and no lighted candle.
A pauper's cart. Naked. And let no one accompany me,
neither relatives nor friends. The cart, the horse, eg
the coachman e basta [that is enough] . Bum me. . . .
Pirandello's will speaks for itself. As for
Fascism one last note should be mentioned--that the confed
eration of industry that had come into being before World
War I grew larger after it. It had as its goal the organi
zation of all categories of industry. This need for regi
mentation in industry was another area in which the Fascist
ideology took hold. After World War I, this confederation
was to help Mussolini during the stormy period of the
murder of the Socialist leader Matteotti. This crisis
ended in 1925, and from that point on the totalitarian
59
phase of Italian Fascism began.
“ ^Giudice, Pirandello, p. 157.
CO
Bentley, Naked Masks, pp. 379-80,
59
Roland Sarti, "The General Confederation of
Italian Industry under Fascism: A Study in the Social and
57
Under Fascism, economic and social progress between
the period of 1922-1927 helped to solidify Mussolini’s
60
power.
Part C: The Sicilian Macrocosm
In this section we will look at Sicily and its
people in order to identify and specify the uniqueness of
its character. Macrocosm will be used here to mean "the
61
total or entire complex structure of something." In this
case the entire structure as best can be presented will
mean the way of life of the Sicilian people and their
character traits. When this assessment has been success
fully completed, we can then move on to Pirandello's works
to find if he represents in a microcosmic way the land that
nurtured him. Microcosm will mean "a little world, a world
62
in miniature (opposed to macrocosm)." Hopefully, we
would expect to find the characters in the works of
Economic Conflicts of Fascist Italy" (Ph.D. dissertation,
Rutgers University, 1967). This is an in-depth study of
Italian industry under Fascism. Chapter 4 deals with
Mussolini's march on Rome and the support he received from
the confederation of industries.
fin
"Italy’s Economic and Social Progress," Survey,
March 1927, p. 755. (See the statistics in Appendix B of
this dissertation, which compare the condition of Italy in
1922 to that in 1927.)
f i 1
The^ Random House Dictionary of the English
Language, unabridged ed. (New York; Random-House” Inc. ,
1967), p. 860.
62Ibid,, p. 905.
58
Pirandello as representative types drawn from the larger
world. It is the opinion of this writer that the artist is
in essence a miniaturist. He cannot capture in his work of
art the totality of the world around him. The painter, no
matter how large his canvas, can only portray what the
limitations of his medium allow him. The playwright is
confronted with the same problem. He reacts to his world
both intellectually and emotionally, and when he sits down
to create his world, in which his characters have their
being, it is a world in miniature.
For this dissertation the point of artist as
miniaturist is a crucial premise because this writer dis
agrees with those critics who have emphasized the discur
sive elements of Pirandello1s works, and have, by implica
tion, reduced his characters to mere concepts. However,
for the moment, we will look at Sicily in more depth than
we did in the first section of this chapter, hoping to
describe the land, the folkways of its people, and the
character traits that uniquely identify them from the rest
of the European continent.
Italy, despite the present strong Communist move
ment, is predominantly Catholic. In most Italian homes,
portraits of the Madonna, Saint Francis, Saint Anthony,
Saint Lucy, Mother Cabrini, and scores of others are hung
in bedrooms to bless and adorn their homes. This gives to
the character of their religious worship a sort of paganism
59
that disturbs the Church fathers, who feel that Christ
should be venerated above all others.
Generally, it is the mother who attends to the
erection of little altars in the. home. Christ is not
neglected, but He must share the love and veneration of the
family with the patron Saint of the village, town, or city.
At the end of a hard day's work, prayers are recited by the
lit candies under the statues or portraits of Christ and
the patron Saint. This ritual plays an important part in
the daily life of the family, and its custom goes back
many, many years. Rev. John James Blunt, writing in 1823,
said, "To this day, the shops and houses of Italy and
Sicily are provided with a figure or painting of a Madonna
63
or Saint. . . ." This ritual existed long before those
words were written. This veneration of the Saints and the
Blessed Mother often appears to upstage Jesus, but Italians
have mixed their ancient Roman polytheism into their
Catholic faith.
Sicilian life is a communal life in which religion
plays the central role. The feast of the Saints usually
begins with that of Saint Joseph in early March and
Continues on to September with the feast of Saint Genaro.
Each town, in its turn, tries to outdo the other when it is
time for the feast of its patron Saint, because it is an
6 3
Rev. John James Blunt, Yestiges of Ancient
Manners and Customs (London: John Murray, Albemarle-
Street, 1823), p . 25.
60
important aspect of the structure of the typical Sicilian
village. Much preparation goes into the organization of
the feast, and when the day arrives the streets become
alive with religious processions, supplications, and visits
to miraculous shrines. A large number of Sicilians believe
in miracles. In these processions, long lines of women
march behind the banner of their patron Saint alongside the
images of Christ and Mary, carrying in their hands plaster
images of the organs of the body that ail them. They plead
always to the Blessed Mother, "Santa Maria, help us!"
Blunt speaks about this reverence as being so
intense that it equals that given "to the three persons of
f%l±
the trinity." They are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
These religious feasts and the external nature of their
structure give an inherently theatrical quality to Sicilian
f i 5
life. Each man, woman, and child, young and old, shares
this communal experience. Ordway affectionately recalls
the youthful quality of their worship, work, and play "with
such a persistent and unseemly youth.
The celebration of il Giomo del Morti (The Day of
the Dead) can be cited as an example. At night, after the
children have gone to bed, the parents leave gifts for the
64Ibid., p. 47.
^Donald Ordway, Sicily, Island of Fire (New York:
Robert M. McBride & Co . , 1930), p"! 5"7
66Ibid., p. 5.
61
children to discover them upon awakening the next morning.
They are told that the gifts were brought to them by their
6 7
"closest and dearest deceased relatives." The growing
child develops an active imagination because he experiences
emotionally the spontaneous personal manner in which the
adults around him involve themselves in these feasts and in
ancestor worship. All over Sicily and Italy, each town
takes pride in its religious worship and "paganism reveals
6 8
itself everywhere." It is a healthy catharsis from which
the whole village gains the strength to overcome its hard
ships. The village is close-knit. Every individual feels
he is a part of the other and each is concerned for the
69
welfare of the other.
The religious worship, which in essence is a
celebration, helps to solidify each town and village.
Also, in a personal sense, most individuals establish an
intimate spiritual communion with Jesus, the Blessed
Mother, and the patron Saint of their town. In this rela
tionship, he bargains for alms, rain, a good crop, healthy
children, and so on. It is very much the sort of thing
fs *7
Frances Toor, Festivals and Folkways of Italy
(New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1953), p*. 15.
^Dord Q’Grizek (ed.), Italy (New York: McGraw-
Hill Book Co., Inc., 1950), pp. 42-43.
69
Carlo Levi, Words are Stones--Impressions of
Sicily, trans. Angus Davidson (New York: Farrar, Strauss,
& Cudatty, 1958), pp. 12-13.
62
that primitive rituals tried to accomplish. The Saint;
is yexpected "to come across for their veneration of
him."70
Christ and all the Saints are real beings from whom
the villagers expect help, comfort, and salvation. In
Italy and Sicily, bread is sacred, as it is the symbol of
the Holy Eucharist which stands for the body and blood of
Christ. Any attempt to understand Pirandello without
taking into account his Catholic background, even though he
was anti-clerical, will make it difficult to understand his
last three plays: Lazarus, The New Colony, and The
Mountain Giants.
Like his fellow Sicilians, Pirandello seems to have
developed a stoic resignation to the hardships that came
his way. Two laws that Sicilians seem to live by are "the
law of honour and the law of love."7* ' First, one must have
self-respect and love for oneself. Observers of Sicilian
character have recorded the pride, warmth, quickness in
emotional response, and restlessness. His is not a
72
tranquil soul. Nor is he, despite the sense of community
he enjoys, a trustful soul. His warmth is reserved for his
family and close friends. However, because of Sicily’s
70Jerre Mangione, Reunion in Sicily (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1950), p. 16.
71
Levi, Words are Stones, p. 48.
7^0rdway, Sicily, Island of Fire, p. 5.
63
history, he is wary of strangers. For them, he is reserved
and silent in a courteous manner. He is also wary of
governmental and ecclesiastical authorities. His unpre
dictable character makes the northerners uneasy, and they
are not comfortable in his presence because they are not
73
"at ease sitting astride an active volcano." Ordway sums
up the Sicilian’s southern character as an immediacy of
response in loving, hating, laughing, and crying with "no
middle ground between a shout of joy and a deluge of
tears."74
Green describes them as strong, solitary men, who,
in their powerful individuality, "are their own masters
even in poverty."7' * For them, the police force has never
been the upholders of justice but "the paid bullies of the
7fi
big absentee landlords." The Sicilian is superstitious,
and, like so many countries in the Mediterranean area, he
is afraid of and believes in the evil-eye. This belief in
the evil-eye informs him that anyone can bring disaster to
him by thinking ill of him or looking at him maliciously.
To ward off the spell, amulets against the "evil-eye" are
worn and placed in the home, and on carts or wagons. These
73Ibid., p. 13.
74Ibid., p. 12.
75
Peter Green, The Expanding Eye (New York:
Abelard-Schuman, Ltd., 1957), p. 153.
76Ibid., p. 154.
64
amulets take many forms: a miniature elephant, little
77
human heads, a serpent, or a shoe.
Impressed with this childlike quality, Wall, who
has observed the Sicilian's immediacy of response, tells
us that
. . . in Sicily love, hatred, physical desire, hunger
and so on are expressed as they are felt. Such frank
ness and directness is nearer to the classicism of the
ancient world than to the Romanticism of modern
Europeans.78
This immediacy of response is not always verbal.
It is often communicated with silent gestures in a silent
language all its own which can bewilder strangers.
Southern Italians are experts at sign language, which they
have cultivated in order to survive the long period of
79
foreign rulers. This directness of expression is more
typical of the contadino (peasant) class. Italians from
the mainland "laugh at the swarthy, muscular, Sicilian with
his stark code of honor, his lack of sophistication, his
8Q
peasant directness. ...” However, they respect him
because they are more than a little afraid of him and "they
81
call him terrono [the terror],"
Centuries of invasions seem to have moulded the
Sicilian into a man of action. He does not trust the big
^Toor, Festivals and Folkways of Italy, p. 18.
78
Wall, Italian Art, Life, and Landscape, p. 236.
79
Toor, Festivals and Folkways of Italy, p. 30.
80Ibid., p. 144. 81Ibid.
65
city dweller of the mainland and cares little for his way
of life, which he feels is affected and soft. His history
has nurtured a concern for the family and an allegiance to
it which is second to nothing else. The family is the
institution which enabled the Southern Italian to survive
and to which he feels the loyalty of "sangu du me sangu
[blood of my blood]. . . .
Gambino explains that this strong blood tie is held
together by the "ordine della famiglia [family rule]."83
In the family, each member is expected to live up to the
traditional code of honor and solidarity.84 This strong
85
bond constituted the real sovereignty of the land. The
Sicilian learned to be wary of the powers that ruled over
him and he fought against any invasions into the privacy of
his family rule. The structure of the family defines the
86
individual's rights, wishes, and feelings. The elders
merit the respect of their age and the young, in turn, are
nurtured to uphold the cohesiveness of the family.
The contadino (peasant) has his eye on survival.
Despite his poor education, the members of this class hold
on to the ideal of the dignity of work and loyalty to the
family. Any member of the family who brought disgrace or
82
Richard Gambino, Blood of My Blood--The Dilemma
of the Italian-Americans (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday &
Co., Inc., 1974), p. 4.
83Ibid. 84lbld.
85Ibid. 86Ibid., p„ 8.
66
shame to the family name was disciplined immediately. If,
however, it was felt that he was unjustly treated by the
authorities, he was shielded and protected.
Above all the parents nurtured their children to
conduct themselves with pride and dignity in order to be
well respected and well thought of by their friends. The
Sicilian child learns early in life not to play the fool,
but to realize that life is a serious struggle to survive.
Survival is best attained by being a shrewd observer of the
behavior of others.
Bagot, writing in 1912, affirms that up until that
time, there was a consistency in this tradition of the
87
peasant family in certain districts of Italy. The family
rule has a balance that works exceedingly well when there
is cooperation. The father is the head of the household
who is expected to bring home the bread. He has complete
trust in his wife, to whom he allocates the responsibility
of rearing the children and handling the family finances--
little as they may be. Thus, the mother becomes the center
of the family, which gives it both a patriarchal and a
matriarchal quality.
The working day starts at three in the morning
during the summers, and five in the morning during the
88
winters. The Italian peasant as a rule is a good husband,
8 7
Richard Bagot, The Italians Today (Leipsig:
Bernard Tauchnitz, 1912), p. 43.
88Ibid., p. 57.
a good father, and he is "also invariably a good son."^
At home and among friends, he is spontaneous in his love
for. conversation, especially politics, and he enjoys the
close feelings of community that his family and friends
provide for him.
Speaking of the Italian peasant, Bagot says in
summary that he "represents the best and most virile blood
90
in Italy and perhaps in Europe." Many Italian and
Sicilian writers, such as Giuseppe Verga, Grazia De ledda,
and Ada Negri, and the poets Giacosa, Artuso Grof, Pascoli,
and others have immortalized the peasant. Pirandello has
created two outstanding portraits in Liola and Sicilian
Limes, which will be discussed in a forthcoming chapter.
The ideal of manliness is built on the demeanor or
posture of striving to be "un buon maschio, un bel pezzo
91
d'uomo, a good specimen of a man." This is firmly based
on his psychological commitment to the code of chivalry and
92
honor. This honor demands that he is obligated to
93
protect his family and to advance its security and power.
In order to accomplish this, he quickly learns that in
order to survive, he must be clever, foxy, and shrewd. If
he is pressed too hard by strangers, he will sternly advise
89Ibid., p. 66. 90Ibid., p. 70.
93Gambino, Blood of My Blood, p. 121.
92Ibid., p. 122. 93Ibid.
68
them to have "up poco di pazienza [a little patience]."94
Patience is a virtue most Sicilians seem to .have developed
out of historical necessity.
The woman inherits the veneration of all the family
members, as is the custom in the tradition of the family
rule. She is not a slave. When she marries, she receives
95
"the tribute as the symbolic center of the new family."
She feels deeply and is an active participant in moulding
the attitudes of her children and in perpetuating the rule
of loyalty of the family.
The Southern Italian woman is the subject of a new
book written by Ann Cornelison, which was reviewed by Doris
Grumbach. This book documents that the la via (the old
life) is still pretty much in existence today. The por
trait of a poverty-stricken land is presented and tribute
is paid to the women who suffer in silence. They bear
96
their poverty, loneliness, and desperation with dignity.
The quality of life and its security has depended on the
women who "do whatever no one else has done . . . men work
97
and talk about politics. We do the rest."
94Ibid., p. 121. 95Ibid., p. 146.
96
"La Dura Vita--Women's Lot in South of Italy,"
Los Angeles Times, March 21, 1976, p. 4. This is a book
review of Ann Cornelison's portrayal of the life of
southern Italian women. The book bears the title Women of
the Shadows, and was published by Atlantic-Little, Brown,
T97F!
97Ibid.
69
A discussion of Sicily cannot exclude the Mafia,
since it is once again the topic of what is now a world
famous movie, The Godfather. Barzini discusses the Mafia
on two levels. The first level for him is the visible
pride and code of ornerta (silence) that Sicilians obey and
which he feels is not criminal. The second level is the
highly and more specialized meaning of the word, which
refers to the illegal organization. He writes: ’'Sicily is
the schoolroom of Italy for beginners, (where) every
Italian quality and defect is magnified, exaggerated and
98
brightly coloured."
The obvious defect is not only the poverty which
until this day remains unrelieved, but also the tyranny of
the Mafia. Combined with the Camorra of Naples, another
illegal organization, many sections of southern Italy and
Sicily fall under their domination. These two organiza
tions control labor, agriculture, industry, marketing, and
99
the seaports.
Originally, these organizations grew out of the
need for the southern Italians to protect themselves from
bandits and invaders. The silence Comerta) Qf the southern
Italians stems from their fear of the Mafia. The origin of
this organization, according to Barzini, is traced back to
QO
Luigi Barzini, The Italians (Atheneum: 1964),
p. 252.
99
Maxwell, The Ten Pains of Death, p. 75.
70
landowners who set up private little armies "to defend
1Q0
their families and estates from marauding bandits." But
it lost its original purpose. The Mafia operates outside
of Palermo in western Sicily. It controls the economic
life of Sicily, and although posing as a benevolent form of
order, it is a hindrance to social and economic progress.
The Mafia has its hands in everything which causes "great
suffering among the people, condemns a majority of them to
a private life of shame, squalor, poverty, hunger and
fear."101
The Mafia is an association that extends into all
strata of society. It defies the law, practices extortion
and blackmail, and, unfortunately, its behavior indicts all
Sicilians. It was partially suppressed under Fascism, but
it came back into full force after World War II. In 1962,
a Parliamentary inquiry was set up in Italy in hopes of
102
eradicating it. It is still in business and the
Sicilians still suffer. However, for better or worse, the
South is stirring and a strong Communist movement, with no
ties to Moscow, is trying to overcome the centuries of
poverty and hardship.
100Barzini, The Italians, p. 257.
101Ibid., p. 274.
1 n?
Grindrod, Italy, the Modern World, p. 87.
71
Danilo Dolci came to Sicily to view its ancient
beauty, but he remained in order to help its people out
of their wretched mess. In his Foreword, he writes: "What
/
Keats called the giant misery of the world is more than
averagely gigantic in Sicily--particularly at the western
end of the island.
Dolci records the following figures of the Vigor-
elli report of September, 1953: completely destitute
families, 284,000; semi-destitute families, 243,000; a
total of 2,100,000 people which constitutes 47.1 percent of
the entire Sicilian population of 4,462,000.^^ The effect
on the morale of the people is summed up in this manner:
"There can be no incentive to seek what is manifestly
impossible. What urge can there be to find work when the
people [of Sicily] are aware that industry is non
existent .
At present, the Communist movement has been able to
gain its momentum because of these factors. Where it will
lead no one knows. It could be another disaster, as
Fascism proved to be. Most Sicilians are resisting the new
changes because they are suspicious of anyone who preaches
a new Italy and a better way of life. However, an enlight
ened middle class now holds the attitudes for change that
103
Danilo Dolci, Report from Palermo, trans. P. D.
Cummins (New York: The Viking Press, 1970), p. x.
104x,* a • 105x,
Ibid., p. xix. Ibid.
_______________________________________________Z2_
1 0 fi
"were once the monopoly of intellectuals." They believe
that the old codes must die and that "Sicily has to become
more Americanized.
It seems appropriate to end this section with the
words of Giovanni Florio written in 1591, which Maxwell
used as a Preface in the front cover of his book:
To wait for one who never comes,
To lie in bed and not to sleep,
To serve well and not to please,
To have a horse that will not go,
To be sick and lack the cure,
To be a prisoner without hope,
To lose the way when you would journey,
To stand at a door that none would open,
To have a friend who would betray you,
These are the ten pains of death.108
And this is the Sicily into which Pirandello was
born in 1867 when Italy was trying to unify itself into
nationhood.
Jerre Mangione, A Passion for Sicilians--The
World Around Danilo Dolci (New York: William Morrow & Co.,
Inc., 1968), p. 233.
107Ibid., p. 223.
108
Maxwell, The Ten Pains of Death, front cover
page.
73
CHAPTER III
EARLY SICILIAN INFLUENCES
IN PIRANDELLO'S LIFE
Chapter II covered the coming of nationhood to
Italy. Vital statistics were offered to document the
historical and economic factors. The southern region was
shown to have remained destitute, with the result being low
morale and disillusionment. It was pointed out that the
coming of Fascism was probably due to the strong wish most
Italians had for order and balance within their country.
Luigi Pirandello was born on 28 June 1867 in
Agrigento [Girenti], Sicily. The Sicilian landscape, with
its history of many invaders, was his early environment.
Pirandello's family participated in the Risorgimento; con
sequently he heard many tales about Garibaldi's campaigns.
His family was not religious, but Pirandello was to
get some religious influence from the housemaid, Maria
Stella. The streets of Agrigento were sometimes used by
men to settle their differences by dueling, which Piran
dello witnessed.
In the mines, children worked alongside the men.
Pirandello's father operated a sulphur mine and Pirandello
was to experience the hardships and the weariness of the
mine workers.
74
Sicily is described by Matthaei as an authoritarian
society.'*' Stefano, Pirandello's father, seems to have
embodied in his character this authoritarianism. He was
strong-willed and appeared to be in full control of his
mine operation. Not even the Mafia could scare him away.
Young Pirandello was overwhelmed by this man, who demanded
complete obedience and compliance. The relationship
between father and son was not a positive one, and "the
2
barrier between Luigi and his father was never overcome."
Stefano Pirandello had married Caterina Ricci
3
Gramitto in 1863 and Luigi was their second child.
Pirandello was born during a disastrous cholera epidemic
that "swept across Sicily from October, 1866 to August,
1867, killing 53,000 people."4 Fortunately for the world
of literature and the theatre, Pirandello survived.
Stefano kept busy at his sulphur mine and built a
prosperous and respectable business. He was a practical-
minded man who seems to have had no time for the Church of
San Pietro in Agrigento. Consequently, Pirandello's maid,
a firm believer in Catholicism, took it upon herself to
teach Pirandello. From Maria Stella, Pirandello not only
heard about Christ and the Catholic Church, but he also
^"Matthaei, Luigi Pirandello, p. 9.
2
Giudice, Pirandello, p. 6.
3Ibid., p. 3. 4Ibid.
75
learned of the local peasant superstitious beliefs and
"some of her peasant mystical tendencies."”* From her he
developed a belief in ghosts, and like other Sicilian
children the Day of the Dead (il Giomo dei Morti) was a
very real occurrence.
Father Sparma, of the San Pietro Church, was dis
appointed in the attitude of Pirandello’s parents concern
ing Catholicism. He was, therefore, very happy that Maria
had taken it upon herself to instruct the boy. Eventually,
Maria Stella was able to take Pirandello to Sunday Mass.
Pirandello's experience with Father Sparma is recorded in
his short story, The Wax Madonna, which will be discussed
in the next chapter. - His relationship with Father Sparma
proved to be a negative one, and consequently his stories
are full of priests who, for him, served as symbols of
falsity.^
In his young years, Pirandello seemed to want some
thing to be sure of; "he wanted every truth to be abso
lutely free of compromise; and he wanted his love to be
requited fully, with no half-measures."^ With such high
expectations, Pirandello seemed doomed to feel rejected and
frustrated.
It would appear safe to assert that his father’s
sternness, the strong authoritarian nature of the
~*Ibid. , p. 7. ^Ibid., p. 8.
Ibid. -j r
environment of Agrigento, "proved most decisive in formu
lating his character and outlook."^
Besides the duels he witnessed, the hardships of
the peasants and the workers of the sulphur mines, Piran
dello experienced the frustrations of his middle-class
family. Pirandello’s sensitive nature seems to have
enabled him to react deeply to events which he was to
record in his memory.
Once, while out by himself, he walked up to a bell
tower. He had heard that the bodies of unidentified people
were kept there until arrangements for burial could be
made. The curious young boy walked up to the corpse and
was startled when he heard a sound. In the shadows of the
bell tower, two lovers were engaged in the act of fornica
tion. The experience was never forgotten by Pirandello,
and Giudice feels that it is probably one of the reasons
why in his literary works "love always retains a smell of
death. . . . "9
It appears that the physical and social environment
of Agrigento was a study in contrasts for Pirandello, which
the startling experience in the morgue symbolized. The
port of Empedocles and the sulphur mines printed an
"indelible portrait of sun and sulphur, an inferno oppres
sive and hostile.
8
Giudice, Pirandello, p. 1.
9Ibid., p. 10. 10Ibid., p. 21.
77
Pirandello worked in those mines one summer for
three months when his father needed his assistance. The
harsh reality of the mines seems to have affected him very
deeply. The sight of the haggard boys depressed him, and
the harshness of the working conditions perhaps made him
feel the absurdity of the life the overworked and underpaid
miners were forced to live in order to survive. Perhaps
Pirandello even felt guilty because many of the young boys
looked ill and malnourished. In letters to his sister
Rosalina, in later years when he was at the University of
Palermo, Pirandello expressed his anguished state of
mind.
From his early years, Pirandello began to demon
strate a rebellious nature which he had to willfully
control. Like other Sicilian children, he had to adhere to
a strict code of social behavior. Any infractions were
severely punished. Giudice feels that the young Pirandello
12
was 1 1 caught in a network of conformity." But the youth
learned to conceal his frustrations and his anger and
perhaps this is when he first accepted the idea that "each
13
one must arrange his mask as best as he can. . . ."
Pirandello's relationship to his father was full of
contradictory and opposing feelings. He feared Stefano; he
wanted to trust and love him, but he was overwhelmed by his
1:LIbid. , p. 11. 12Ibid. , p. 27.
■^Matthaei, Luigi Pirandello, p. 5.
78
father's strong personality. When his father had an affair
with his own niece, Pirandello was both shocked and deeply
hurt. He was later to record this experience in his story,
Ritorno (Return), and writes that after the incident "he
never saw his father again.
Perhaps all the pent-up frustrations and anger had
finally found a justification for expression. In his early
teens, Pirandello was beginning to pay a lot of attention
to poetry and literature. According to Giudice, these
poems showed an interest in patriotic subjects, religion,
and continually presented "images and personifications of
15
madness and death."
He had first experienced madness or mental illness
when his younger sister suffered a nervous breakdown.
Also, Pirandello's father, who had always maintained his
self-control, blamed himself for his daughter's illness
because it came shortly after his affair with his niece.
Stefano vehemently proclaimed that it was punishment for
his act of adultery. This, perhaps, confused Pirandello
because his father never had indicated that he had believed
in the "sins of the flesh" that demanded punishment.
Perhaps this is also evidence of the young Pirandello's
observation of the multiplicity of personality in his own
family.
■^Giudice, Pirandello, p. 18.
15Ibid., p. 17.
79
When Pirandello reached the age of twenty, his
father agreed to send him to the University of Palermo.
Pirandello's temper did not help him. He got into constant
heated debates with his professors, and after a turbulent
argument with one professor in particular, Pirandello was
expelled from the University.
Stefano was not pleased, but he arranged for the
young man's transfer to a University in Rome. It is hard
to say exactly what Pirandello was experiencing emotionally
but his letters and early poems indicate, according to
Giudice, that by age twenty Pirandello "already had an
16
inflexible attitude towards the family. . . ."
Notwithstanding this, Pirandello did what he was
told and left for Rome. Perhaps it was for the best,
because his relationship with his father was not a positive
one. Pirandello did not remain at Rome. He decided to
study phonetics and arranged for a transfer to the Univer
sity of Bonn in Germany, where he received his doctorate
degree.
While he was in Rome, he lived with his uncle,
Rocco Ricci Gramitto, who had fought alongside of Garibaldi
during the Risorgimento. His uncle's influence was to
become immortalized in the character of Mauro Montara in
Pirandello's novel, The Old and the Young. Mauro was to
represent "the prototype of the old fighters of the
16Ibid., p. 27.
80
Risorgimento who had been reduced to misery by the polit
ical events of United Italy.
In Rome, Pirandello completed his poem, Mai
Giocondo (Joyful Pain), which "reveals his state of
18
mind." The poem, which will be discussed in the next
chapter, seems to indicate a melancholic foreboding which
Pirandello also expressed in numerous letters to his
sister, Rosalina. Giudice shares with us an excerpt of one
of Pirandello's letters to his sister: "Meditation is a
black abyss, peopled with dark ghosts, guarded by desperate
discomfort. A ray of light never seeps through, and the
desire to have light plunges you more deeply into the
dark. . . ,"19
Was this darkness symbolic of the sense of life's
absurdity that was developing in the mind of the young
Pirandello? Was part of it caused by the shock of his
father's affair? Was some of it due to the hypocrisy of
Father Sparma? Did the young Pirandello begin to ponder
madness and death because of his early experiences? Did
the sharp contrast of what people said and did bewilder
him? And finally, was the strict authoritarian nature of
his upbringing too much for his sensitive nature?
■^Giudice, Pirandello, p. 30.
18Ibid., p. 26.
19Ibid., p. 29.
81
Whatever the truth is concerning the answers to
these questions, Pirandello seems to have needed a refuge
in his early writings that provided an outlet for what
appears to be pent-up anger, shock, and frustration.
Pirandello married Antonietta in Agrigento on 27
January 1894. Tragedy awaited both of them. Stefano's
sulphur mine, which he owned jointly with Antonietta's
father, was flooded with water and collapsed. The shock of
financial ruin caused Antonietta to suffer a mental break
down from which she never recovered.
Pirandello, who was now in his late twenties, was
forced to adjust to her growing paranoia. He took a teach
ing job in a girls' college to keep the family together.
But Antonietta's deranged mind believed he was having
affairs with his students. No matter what he did to
dissuade her of these beliefs, Pirandello remained for her
what she believed him to be.
It was from Antonietta that he was to learn more
deeply the lesson of madness and the thin line that divides
illusion from reality.
If one takes into account the events of Pirandello's
early life, including his marriage, one is struck by the
ironic twists of fate that seem to have been his misfortune
to have experienced. The strict authoritarian environment
of his childhood, the sharp contrasts of Agrigento which
bears the Sicilian word Cstvusu (Chaos) , the violence he
82
witnessed as a boy, and the hard life of the peasants and
the sulphur miners all can have contributed to what appears
to be a growing distaste for the absurdities of life.
Pirandello probably found it difficult, perhaps, to
find order in his early years. This sense of the need for
order or balance, which can afford some measure of happi
ness, will later become an important missing ingredient in
the lives of the characters he was to create. Budel writes
that in his later plays, contrast and chaos "will seem to
be the sole law and sensible expedient.
Is this sense of chaos, that Pirandello strongly
sensed, the result of the many invasions of Sicily and
their effect on its people? Agrigento's heritage passed
from the Greeks to the Romans, and then to the Arabs. The
city of his birth shows an Arabic influence more than any
other region of Sicily. How are the character traits of
the people affected by the constant changeover of rulers?
Is there an inter-mixture of cultural ways? Or is there a
constant search for one's true identity? These are impor
tant questions to ponder in order to fully understand both
Pirandello's personality and the characters he created.
In trying to answer some of these questions, Ragusa
places emphasis on what she terms the Sicilian's Arabic
features, namely, "reticence and secretiveness, a language
^Biidel, Pirandello, p. 7.
83
full of allusions, the blocking of the individual psyche,
21
and the danger of irremediable expression."
It is hard to ascertain if all these factors are
mainly due to the influence of the Arabic culture. How
ever, the factors that Ragusa speaks of may be helpful in
explaining the tendency of Pirandello's characters to
unleash a torrent of words in an effort to relieve them
selves of their anguish, hatred, and guilt. Matthaei
opines "that all the mad characters in his plays suffer
their personality breakup under the pressure of an outside
world that terrorized them, a world always cast in the
mould of Sicilian society."
Giudice believes that the element of Sicilian
upbringing that influenced him and his work the most "was
the formality of the Sicilians, the custom imposed by
others, against which one can only rebel at one's own
23
risk." He excerpts Pirandello's own words: "'No sooner
do you arrive in Sicily than you feel yourself confronted
from all sides by a verdict to which there is no reply.
Everybody judges you. The Sicilian is exposed to many
pressures including the constant domination of his
0 /
compatriots.'"
21
Ragusa, Luigi Pirandello, p. 7.
22
Matthaei, Luigi Pirandello, p. 10.
^Giudice, Pirandello, p. 27.
24Ibid.
84
With these thoughts in mind, let us now turn to
Mai Giocondo, hoping to assess the mentality of the twenty-
two-year-old Pirandello.
85
CHAPTER IV
PIRANDELLO'S MELANCHOLY AS REFLECTED IN
AN EARLY POEM AND OTHER SHORT STORIES
Pirandello arrived in Rome with half of Mai
Giocondo done. He completed and published it in Rome in
1889. It is an important early work because it offers us
an opportunity to assess the early mentality of Pirandello.
Some of Pirandello's influences were discussed in the
previous chapter, and there is ample indication that he
seems to have developed a sense of foreboding and absurdity
because of the contrasts he observed in Sicily.
Mai Giocondo has never been translated into English
and therefore it seems to have been neglected by most
English-speaking critics. Francesco Nuzzaco, an Italian
critic, has included it in his study of Pirandello's
poetry.'*' He verifies that Mai Giocondo contains Piran-
2
dello's memories transformed into sharp poetic images.
Nuzzaco believes that Pirandello's Sicilian heritage
endowed him with the instinct towards dialectics and
^Francesco Nuzzaco, Luigi Pirandello, Poeta
(Stampato della Societa Cooperativa, Arti Grafiche Nobili)
(Temi: Ottobre, 1967).
^Ibid., p . 8.
86
relativity caused, perhaps, by the frequent crises in his
life.3
The title that the twenty-two-year-old Pirandello
gave to this poem seems to be a contradiction in terms,
asserting as it does that pain is joyful. Perhaps, for
Pirandello, poetry offered him a refuge and a means by
which he could relieve himself of, what appears to be, his
pent-up anger and frustration.^
Mai Giocondo begins with a dedication to Electra:
Did you perish? In vain do I recall you from the
sacred pages, oh! pure love of distant times, virgin
goddess among a new generation of men. Do I recall
in vain your clear voice, oh! Greek virgin, on the
Fidian lips of marble on your statue that has been
quiet for centuries?5
Addressing himself to the Greek Virgin, the young
Pirandello seems to be linking himself artistically with
Agrigento*s Greek heritage and past. In so doing, he,
despite his young years, seems to demonstrate a sense of
the passage of time and the vain attempt to recall and
reconstruct it. This flow of time pushes him from within,
"by a strong passion . . . strongly pushing away, out of
life, creating a turbulence."^
3Ibid., p . 9.
^See Appendix D for a partial translation of this
poem.
5
Luigi Pirandello, Mai Giocondo (Verona: Lo
Vecchio Musti, Manlio Bibligraphia di Pirandello, Amaldo
Mondadori, 1952), p. 435.
6Ibid.
87
Sorrowfully he speaks to the virgin of "’the sweet
deceptions that you gave, oh! pious virgin."^ The words
"turbulence and deception" set the tone of Mai Giocondo,
and in Section Four, Agrigento appears to be on his mind:
As if it were a liquid crystal swaying with a light
movement in a lazy way, the powerful wave, like the
wave of time, covers with flexible seaweed the
remains of the Greek port of Agrigenturn [Agrigento].
I come from the ancient temples to dive into the
sea. 8
This passage, which again concerns itself with
time, is completed with a plea to the Mediterranean Sea to
give him oblivion. Pushing on with its memory of ancient
Agrigentum, it speaks of the evils of the world remember
ing, perhaps, scenes of his early years:
I have looked for it for a long time already, trusting
in the vague image which was escorting me. Disap
pointed, I visited many villages, running away I waved
goodbye to many from the distance. And while the day
was melting into night upon their roofs, I always
invoked the peace and the calm deception of the dreams
and the calm oblivion of the peace and the sweet
deception as the day turned into night.9
Again, Pirandello expresses his feelings with the
words "deception" and "oblivion," creating a mood of
disillusion and despair. Further along in this passage the
reader encounters phrases such as: "on uncertain paths,"
"among rocks and thorns," "confronting my misfortunes," and
"the cruel knowledge that neither pitiful lies or the love
^Ibid., p. 435. ^Ibid., p. 441.
^Ibid., p. 443.
88
of a woman or the charity of a friend will ever again
succeed to raise me from the earth on which I lie."
Finally, he surrenders belief in the country of his
latest dreams and writes, "It was in vain to look for you
tinder the sun." This entire passage is used by Nuzzaco to
illustrate Pirandello’s stylistic ability and its literary
influences.^ But just as importantly it reflects the
tonality or feeling that Pirandello reveals. The passage
seems to stem from a melancholy frame of mind, and it might
be asked if it is not the Agrigento of his youth that he
remembers with all its contrasts. Continuing on, we find:
I heard a coarse shepherd not paying attention to his
flock, who was rocking the idleness of his uneducated
soul into the relaxation of a sweet monotoned Arab
song. . . .Oh! Conscious sea, in you who is embraced
by the Agrigentinian coast, with a light curve, Oh,
sea who first gave me the astonishment of the great
visions, here it is, I dive into you; but in you also
the flaming sun lowers itself, solemn like a dying
hero of a Greek tragedy.H
We can visualize the sleepy Sicilian peasant, hear
the melody of his song, and the sounds of the Mediterranean
Sea as it splashes against the Agrigentinian coast. This
vision seems to invoke in Pirandello a sad remembrance
because he calls his vision "solemn like a dying hero of a
Greek tragedy." And this poem, which is the tale of a
young man, fashions its first person narrative on Orlando
Forioso of Ariosto.
■^Nuzzaco, Luigi Pirandello, Poeta, p. 20.
11
Pirandello, Mai Giocondo, pp. 441-42.
89
Pirandello continues to use words and images that
seem to bear the marks of a melancholy bom from the knowl
edge of suffering in a land that has known "the ten pains
of death." In section six, this mood persists:
To you come the daughters of Dream, and for all the
mortals desiring oblivion in you, Oh \ Sacred benign
wave, they have a kiss, a laugh, and an act of love
that consoles. Into the fiery storm of the gloomy
thoughts, bom in the deep hate and in the idleness
of this vain mortal life that futilely runs away,
the gloomy thoughts roar unhealthily in the
heart. . . .12
Gloomy thoughts and a vain mortal life in which
humans desire oblivion is repeated here by Pirandello. His
mind searches and reaches, further on in this section, an
image of harmony. Pirandello, addressing himself to the
voice of harmony, pretends that an unknown virgin is send
ing him white doves, which symbolize love. But he is
already too disappointed in love and, therefore, he disbe
lieves in these messengers of love. He ends section six in
this manner:
. . . I would like to abandon myself to a sleep popu
lated with docile ghosts, abandon myself to a sleep
that may be the last. . . . Or to slowly die choked
by a .cloud of light petals of roses dripping pure dew
and raining on me from above, from your divine lap,
Oh! Harmony.13
It is hard to ascertain what Pirandello is personi
fying in the concept of harmony, but one can perceive,
perhaps, that he is sarcastically mocking this personifica
tion by wishing to die "choked by a cloud of light petals
12Ibid., pp. 445-45. 13Ibid., p. 447.
_____________________ 90
of roses. . . ." The image is sharp and tortured. The
softness of the petals of roses are turned into instruments
of death.
In section seven, Pirandello develops this sense of
foreboding by first beginning with the splendor of spring
and the laughter of a young goddess, and then contrasting
it with:
Saturn, the century without pity renews your cruel
story, on us, his sons already in the new era,
Cibelle, mother of the new victims, gave us bile
instead of milk to drink, born to death without the
difficult trials of fire, that although difficult,
make one feel love for it; we, the sons of Saturn
are devoured by his insatiable appetite.14
Pirandello gives us no clues as to who or what he
has in mind but his thrust is clear in declaiming, "Saturn,
the century without pity renews your cruel story on
us. . . ." In chapter two, the extreme poverty of the
southern region of Italy was documented, along with its
shameful neglect by the central government. Could Piran
dello, perhaps, be releasing his pent-up anger over this
neglect? Pirandello appears troubled. Who are the victims
who drink bile instead of milk? The poor?
In section ten Pirandello, making a literary refer
ence to Alcina from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (Canto VI),
continues his dialogue of rage: "Alcina, cruel and
indifferent Fairy, do not smile at me from the distance,
"^Ibid. , pp. 448-49.
91
not in vain did I scatter the vile crowd blocking the way
and I fight it day and night. ..."
He questions further on in this passage: "Why are
you (Alcina) so beautiful and yet so cruel?" He accuses
her of taking all the strength of his years so that "I may
happily destroy myself in you." The love and death theme
discussed in chapter three appears here and contrasts
abound. Then, the illusion versus reality theme appears:
You are old (Alcina) but hide your true essence from
me with a youthful look, like the old earth at
springtime hides her wrinkles with April flowers.
When I will have enjoyed you for a night, do change
me into a dried twig and do not transform me ever
again. I will tell you with my best greeting, how
ugly you are, oh beautiful Alcina, you. . . .15
What is it we really see? The goddess looks young
but she is old. Pirandello makes her analogous to the
earth. His mind seems to be searching and longing for an
oasis that he cannot find because it always seems to elude,
him. Death, for Pirandello, appears to be a consolation
and he wishes to find repose in it.
In section eleven, Pirandello seems to bring out in
images of nature his deep despair: "Oh proud trees which
line the beautiful paths of the public gardens, almost to
escort the silly citizens or even more the silly mortal
1 f i
vanities. . . . .", .Lashing out with fury, his melancholic
“ ^Pirandello, Mai Giocondo, pp. 451-52.
16Ibid., p. 453.
92
train of thought rises to a fever pitch, "How much pity I
feel, oh proud trees, now that the autumn darkly calls the
rains to whip you. . . The wind is personified as a
"melancholy ornament" for the trees which Pirandello feels
are damned by an "adverse destiny." As for the human
scene, Pirandello observes that when the garden gates open,
"the vain comedy repeats itself . . the comedy of the
crowd or mass of people is described as being: "composed
of midgets; a comedy full of languor and lies— human, human,
human!" This cadence presses forward ending in a death
wish:
Down there among the clouds, the dark red of the sunset
spreads a blood red color over the distant roofs: one
more day dies like this without the smile of a ray of
the sun. I look at you, great trees, and your twisted
branches look like they are giving me, now and then,
in the air, a malicious and evil hint, and my face
whitens, it seems to me that each of you call on me to
coldly end the night, which hovers darkly above, by
hanging myself from the trunk: "Come, you fool, what
do you wish? Peace have the dead down in their
tombs'."17
All these images, which appear to carry strong
emotional tonalities of despair, melancholy, and death, are
indeed very remarkably expressed by the young Pirandello.
Nuzzaco feels that the whole body of Pirandello's work
beginning with Hal Giocondo indicates a strong need for
introspection. His words seem to be "the expressions of a
skeptical, pessimistic, desolate, exasperated state of
"^Pirandello, Mai Giocondo, pp. 453-54.
93
18
mind." This psychological state appears to have been
developed as a result of Pirandello's sense of apprehension
of being surrounded by darkness--a darkness which seemingly
gave him no support. Nuzzaco elaborates that: "This
became for Pirandello a second nature and whatever situa
tion approaches him, he will almost for a self-destructing
desire, try to examine it backwards, examining its clumsy
19
and negative side."
Nuzzaco, quoting from Manlio Lo Vecchio's 1937
publication of L1Opera di Luigi Pirandello, indicates that
the early poems and stories "allowed us to view the first
20
true manifestations of the Pirandellian soul." Piran
dello began his career as a poet and Nuzzaco links this
early work to the literary tradition of Pascoli, Corducci,
21
D'Annunzio, and especially to Leopardi.
Mai Giocondo, in its entirety, contains approxi
mately forty-six sections. Hopefully, this revealing look
at some of the important passages has given some insight
into the introspective nature of the young mind of Piran
dello. Nuzzaco, in reference to this, indicates that
Pirandello seems to observe everything that moves around
him, "ready to portray the most hidden thoughts of his
22
fellow men." It appears on the basis of this brief
18
Nuzzaco, Pirandello, Poeta, p. 11.
19Ibid. 20Ibid., p. 15.
21Ibid. 22Ibid., p. 20.
94
analysis that Nuzzaco is correct. Nuzzaco selects the
following section to illustrate his point:
Here is the crowd of clerics and drunkards, young and
old, women and innkeepers; soldiers, peddlers, and
beggars. You that were born from idleness and lust,
you are not serious men but bellies, happy lovers,
carriage-drivers, news-venders; you are so prim that
you could be called fabric.23
This passage goes on to speak of sold women "who walk
righteously . . . ," of "clumsy nurses and elegant women,"
and with disgust Pirandello writes, "What a strange show
you offer to the tired eye." The twenty-year-old poet ends
this thought sequence with disgust: "What a strange show
you offer so badly put together in a large bunch." The
exasperation of Pirandello, which Nuzzaco speaks of, is
sharply expressed in a lament: "Oh! strange, curious
destiny of innumerable, mortal, silly lives! Oh! What a
bunch of strange dramas are thrown into the streets of the
city." The first streets that Pirandello ever walked on
were the streets of Agrigento in Sicily.
Mai Giocondo ends with the return of the death .
wish:
Time spoils and I hate old people who, bored, miserable
and without hope drag their decadency along; once we
are dead to pleasure, we will rest; and you oh! Flesh,
X will give to the earth so that you may be born again
as a poisonous mushroom.24
The last line speaks for itself.
^Ibid. , pp. 24-25. ^Ibid. , p. 26.
95
Before discussing Fumes, The Annuity, and The Wax
Madonna in detail, it seems appropriate to briefly look at
four other stories which are grouped under the title
25
Sicilian Tales by Lily Duplaix. Hopefully, this will set
the frame of reference within which we can enter Piran
dello's fictional world which perhaps will specifically
help us to further assess Pirandello's mentality.
Duplaix repeats what is already well known: that
Pirandello wrote poetry, short stories, and novels before
he ever wrote for the stage. His thoughts before Six
Characters in Search of an Author and Henry IV were,
according to Duplaix, "clearly foreshadowed in the dramatic
juxtaposition which characterize his short stories, and the
tone of the plays at their best has the thin, pure echo of
„26
poetry.
Lost and Found, Fumes, Bombolo, Who Pays the Piper,
and A Mere Formality are grouped under Sicilian Tales by
Duplaix because they stand alone among his vast number of
stories, which Duplaix estimates at about three hundred
sixty-five. In these stories, the physical atmosphere
[Sicily] is an integral part of the tales, and in Fumes and
A Mere Formality:
^Luigi Pirandello, Short Stories by Pirandello,
trans. Lily Duplaix (New York"! Simon & Schuster, 1959) ,
26
Ibid., Introduction, p. vii.
96
We feel at all times the threatening presence of the
sulphur mines, the acrid stench of the burning stuff
and the peculiar devastation its extraction from the
earth wreaks not only on the land but on the lives
of those who seek to exploit that land.27
Lost and Found tells the story of Anna Cesaro and
her love for Dr. Morgani, which is never to be fulfilled.
Set in the Sicilian town of Vignetta, the reader encounters
descriptions of the loaded sulphur carts screeching their
way along the tracks, and the tired donkey wearily carrying
the sulphur packs at its sides. Vivid portraits are etched
of the toiling men who carry the sulphur sacks on their
backs out to the waiting ships, "barefoot, in duck pants,
they waded in the water up to their waists to transfer
2 8
their loads of sulphur to the waiting boats."
In this setting, Ann Cesaro dies of tuberculosis,
still loving Dr. Morgani and remorsefully knowing that her
best friend, Rita, who has nursed her, loves Dr. Morgani as
much as she does. The good doctor knows of Anna's love for
him and he is appalled at "the injustice of human nature."
He cannot return Anna's love and she, in a desperate
attempt to aggravate her condition, stands by the open
window one night during a heavy rainfall. Her condition
worsens. In pity for Anna, Dr. Morgani offers to marry her
in the hope of reviving her will to live. But Anna knows
27
Ibid., Introduction, p. xi.
28Ibid., p. 4.
97
that Rita, who is in love with Dr. Morgani, anxiously
awaits his visits to Anna's house. Dr. Morgani had at one
time asked Rita to marry him, but she had refused. During
the course of Anna’s illness, Rita comes to know Dr.
Morgani better, and soon Anna realizes that the two have
fallen in love.
The crisis of her illness rapidly approaches, and
when Rita and Dr. Morgani are discussing their innermost
thoughts, Anna, who awakens from her sleep, hears them.
When she can no longer bear it, she lashes out at both of
them: "I suffer--yes, I am the one who suffers. For
pity's sake let me die in peace. Don't either of you come
back again. What joy can you have in loving each other
29
here in the presence of death?"
Two weeks later Anna dies. Pirandello ends his
narrative with a simple eulogy: "For seven years now she
has lain in the high-perched, lonely cemetery of Vignetta,
30
among its bright flowers and its many cypress trees."
The story mingles love with death and the loneliness of the
grave with the loveliness of nature. It is a sad story
imbedded within the environment of sun and sulphur of the
little Sicilian town of Vignetta.
Bombolo is the story of a Sicilian Robin Hood who
has formed a league or confederation among the contadini
29
Pirandello, Short Stories, p. 19.
30Ibid.
______ 98
[peasants] in order to help them extract a decent living
wage from their landowners. Bombolo's scheme is as simple
as it is ingenious. He has the landowners' livestock
stolen by the members of his league and hidden in a secret
place. Then he pretends to go out and find them. When he
comes back, he reports to the landowners that he knows
where their livestock can be found. He tells them that if
they would agree to a wage settlement, he can arrange to
have the livestock returned. Bombolo is married to a woman
whose father is a landowner and the irony of the story is
that Bombolo, to keep his league strong, must allow them to
steal his own father-in-law's livestock. Pirandello
describes him as "a kind of Robin Hood working for justice,
happy in the respect, love and gratitude of all the
peasants, who looked on him as their king. . . . Bombolo
31
meted out justice in his own way. , . .”
But Bombolo‘s happiness is fated not to last. At
the end, he tries to disband the league because it has
taken its demands too far, but discovers that he cannot.
The peasants have learned their lesson too well, and they
relish the power that their organization has given them.
They implore Bombolo to remain with them, but he, not wish
ing to be their king any longer, leaves on a Greek ship
bound for the Levant. Reflected in this story, Duplaix
31Ibid., p. 56.
99
maintains, is Pirandello's observation that the man "who
seeks to bring relief to the peasants is fighting a losing
game, and the reasons why he can't win lie within the
32
distorted nature of the peasants themselves."
Who Pays the Piper is narrated with a grim humor.
It is the story of Uncle Neli, a man of sixty-two years who
is widowed. One night while watching over his mule and two
donkeys, a firefly buzzes around his head. Uncle Neli, who
calls it the "Shepherd's Candle," sees it as an omen, for
it recalls memories of an old flame, Trisuzza, who is also
widowed.
Out of loneliness, Uncle Neli sends a peasant
child, Nicu, to offer his proposal to "Aunt Tresa," as she
is now called. The name becomes an ironic omen to all the
people of the village, for Aunt Tresa has a big sow which
she has overprotected and overfed. The peasants resent the
"sow being fed like that for no reason at all. If it was
not intended for the slaughterhouse, why did she go on
33
fattening it?" As events turn out, Uncle Neli marries
Aunt Tresa. But when the marriage plans of Uncle Neli's
daughter Narda are announced, trouble brews within his
family. His children are infuriated that they cannot
attend the wedding— especially Saru, Uncle Neli's oldest
32
Pirandello, Short Stories, Introduction, p. xii.
33Ibid., p. 63.
100
son who protests vehemently in a heated argument with his
father.
But Uncle Neli pleads with his son and offers him
his excuse:
These are lean years, my son, we are poor. . . . God
knows X would like to have all of you with me and make
a big celebration for your sister Narda's wedding.
But the bells of Raffadali's church chime a single
refrain. They repeat, "With what? With what? With
what?’'34
The night of the celebration of Narda's wedding
finds Saru, knife in hand, crawling towards Aunt Tresa's
sow. With furious thrusts and slashes, he slaughters it
and drags it all the way home. Once there, he cuts it up
and shares the meat with his brothers and sister who have
families of their own. This done, Saru takes out the sow's
liver and places it "whole and quivering" on a plate. He
hands it to his son and instructs him to take it to Aunt
Tresa as a gift. It is a grim tale with a sardonic twist
of justice, for the sow symbolized in its life what the
peasants lacked--food'.
A Mere Formality relates Gabriele Orsani's tragic
tale. He, like many of Pirandello's characters, seems to
be trapped in circumstances too difficult for him to over
come. Forced into the sulphur business after his father's
death, Gabriele does not prove himself capable of operating
his father's mine. He regrets having had to surrender his
34Ibid., p. 65.
10.1
musical education, and now, when he finds himself on the
verge of bankruptcy, he is both despondent and desperate.
His relationship with his wife, Flavia, has not
been a satisfactory one and both of them have lived lonely
lives. Her loneliness leads to illness, which Gabriele's
old friend, Dr. Sarti, tended and "recommended a change to
counteract the nervous depression brought on, it seemed, by
35
a monotonous life."
Gabriele's despondency and remorse is aggravated
by his knowledge that Dr. Sarti, whom he had helped through
medical school, is now a viable man while he is facing
disaster. Intermingled with this jealousy is Gabriele’s
suspicion that his wife, Flavia, and Dr. Sarti are in love
with each other.
One day Flavia enters Gabriele's office on the very
day that he has heard of his approaching financial ruin.
Gabriele suddenly turns on her and begins to question her
angrily, which leads to an altercation: "They faced each
other, trembling with anger, almost frightened by their
deep-rooted hatred which now flared up after smoldering in
secret for so long."3^
Flavia is frightened by Gabriele's questions, and
when he cries out about his poor state of affairs, Flavia
frantically tells him she has had no part in bringing it
35
Pirandello, Short Stories, p. 77.
36Ibid., p. 80.
102
about. But Gabriele's hysteria is too intense to allow him
to listen to her patiently. He rages at her, lamenting the
trick destiny has played on him and cursing the lack of
appreciation for his labors from his wife and children. He
feels he has sacrificed himself in vain.
His eyes are full of suspicion when he begins to
question her about Dr. Sarti, and angrily he releases his
pent-up jealousy, ending with, "You repeat every word he
says. . . . All you need to do is put on his thick-lensed
glasses on your nose!" After this outburst, he collapses
and falls to the floor.
Dr. Sarti is summoned and he rushes to Gabriele's
side. Flavia and Dr. Sarti converse and the secret of
their love is revealed. When Gabriele is revived, he makes
it known that he had heard Dr. Sarti's conversation with
his wife. How far did the love go? No matter. Death is
near and Gabriele, in a quick move for revenge, forces Dr.
Sarti to sign insurance papers. Gabriele gets his revenge,
for when he dies of the aortic valve damage that Dr. Sarti
has diagnosed, a fraud would have been committed.
Gabriele's act will place "an insurmountable obstacle
between his friend and his wife making Sarti an accomplice
to this fraud.1,37
The tragedy of the three characters ends in bitter
37Ibid., p. 33.
103
remorse for all of them. When he dies, Gabriele's revenge
will touch the lovers from his grave.
Fumes
The story, Fumes, opens with a description of the
environment in which Don Mattia Scala will live out the sad
details of his story:
As soon as the miners came out from the bottom of the
pit, dead tired and gasping for breath, their eyes
sought the distant green of that hill which closed
off the wide valley to the west.38
On that hill, farmers tend to their crops and livestock,
and it will be Don Mattia's misfortune to betray his
friends to the greed of the mine owners who want that land.
.
The fertility of the green earth is contrasted with
the ugliness of the sulphur mines, and Pirandello's
thoughts return to its misery:
The little Sicilian boys let their loads fall from
their bruised, skinned backs and sat down on the sacks
for a breath of air. They were caked with slimy clay
from the walls of the tunnels and the sides of the
slippery stairs with their broken steps which led up
from the hole.39
Emerging from that darkness, the young boys fix
their gaze on the freshness of the green hills which, to
them, appear sacred and blessed. The farmers, in turn,
look to the sulphur mines and see the damnation of hell--an
O Q
Pirandello, Short Stories, p. 20.
39Ibid., pp. 20-21.
104
omen lurking there ready to spring at them.
. . . In those devastating fumes they saw the enemy.
When the wind blew in their direction carrying the
stench of burnt sulphur, they gazed helplessly at
their trees and cursed the fools who went on digging
graves to bury their fortune.40
The farmers refuse to sell their lands to the mine
owners to be exploited for sulphur. They do not even allow
any of them to carry out any tests. Each farmer vows his
allegiance and each one reaffirms his pledge at evening
discussions tinder the stars.
When he Was younger, Don Mattia had been in the
sulphur business with Dima Chiarenza, who betrayed him and
brought him to bankruptcy. He left his younger sister,
Iana, with Don Mattia who looked after her as he would his
own daughter.
But when her brother became a rich moneylender,
Iana left Don Mattia and returned to him. In his loneli
ness, Don Mattia worked industriously, cultivating and
improving his land. He had one burning ambition left, and
that was to acquire the land of his aging neighbor, Don
Fillipino. He was a good-hearted eccentric old man who
kept a monkey as a house pet. The two men reached an
agreement, without a written contract, and Don Mattia
invested his money in improving Don Fillipino's land. He
put trust in his neighbor's word that he would soon sell
the land to him.
40Ibid., p. 21.
105
Don Mattia waited patiently, but one day tragedy
struck the home of Don Fillipino. His monkey, who had
grown hysterical from a bad tubercular illness, killed his
master by clawing out his throat. Immediately, Don
Fillipino1s cousin, Trigona, claims the right to the land.
The two men quarrel, and Don Mattia is startled to learn
that his treacherous betrayer, Dima Chiarenza, holds a lien
on Don Fillipino's land. The two men agree to go to
Chiarenza1s house and iron out their difficulties.
Chiarenza’s character is well illustrated by
Pirandello’s description:
Chiarenza wore a shawl over his shoulders, a skullcap
on his head, and wool mitts on his hands which were
cruelly deformed by arthritis. Although he was not
yet forty, he looked more than fifty. His face was
yellow, his hair gray and dry, and it hung down over
his temples like that of an invalid. His glasses
were pushed up on his narrow, wrinkled forehead, and
he gazed before him with almost lifeless eyes shadowed
by heavy lids.41
Pirandello’s intent can hardly be overlooked. The
greed and treachery of Chiarenza is symbolized in the
manner in which Pirandello imagines and describes him. Don
Mattia, who has not seen him for years, is stunned by
Chiarenza’s altered appearance. It is as if all his mis
deeds had distorted his physical appearance.
Don Mattia does not waste any time. He knows his
adversary well. He makes his point clearly and demands a
^Pirandello, Short Stories, p. 45.
106
refund for the money he used to improve Don Fillipino's
property.
Chiarenza's greed and his hatred for Don Mattia is
expressed in his firm refusal to refund Don Mattia's money.
There was no contract, and therefore how is he to know what
Don Mattia had done? But everybody knew in the hill
country and Don Mattia swears on his honor. Chiarenza
shows Don Mattia his ledgers and the liens he has on Don
Fillipino's land, and scornfully tells him that he intends
to possess the land and live on it himself.
This is too much for Don Mattia. He cannot bear
the thought of his old enemy living on the land that he
improved with his own money. He is more infuriated by the
thought that Chiarenza will be his next-door neighbor.
Agitated to the point of desperation, he lashes out at
Chiarenza, bursting forth with all the hatred he has
nurtured for Chiarenza over the years:
Don't give me talk'. . . . You speak of your heirs. You
have no children. Are you thinking of your nephews?
You're a little late. . You never thought of them
before. Tell the truth for once. Say, "I mean to
persecute you forever'." Isn't it enough you ruined me,
caused the death of my wife and caused my only son to
run away out of despair?42
Don Mattia's tirade has no effect on Chiarenza. He
will not budge. Don Mattia has one last resort--to strike
a blow at his old enemy. Reluctantly, he sells his
^Ibid. , p. 48.
107
property to the mine owners, unfortunately breaking his
pledge to his fellow farmers. But he is blinded by his
hatred. He has only one goal, to strike back at Chiarenza.
Knowingly, he has jeopardized all the lands around him just
to get revenge on Chiarenza. The irony for him is that in
order to do so, he had to sell out to the mine owners he
despised. Pirandello very vividly describes Don Mattia's
torment after he sells his property:
When the contract was signed and witnessed Don Mattia
Scala rushed out of the notary's office like a man who
has taken leave of his senses . . . the sun was
setting. An endless string of sulphur carts jolted
along the dusty road toward the railroad station in
endless succession. Astride his mare, Don Mattia
looked with hatred on those springless carts loaded
with sulphur from the far-off mines in the valley.4-3
Men, animals, sulphur, human greed, and hatred are
all combined by Pirandello in this story to tell a grim,
sad tale. As in his early poem and the other stories
reviewed, there seems to be present an obsessive melan
choly. There can be little doubt about Pirandello's feel
ing about the sulphur mines nor of the men who competed and
fought each other for its riches. Chiarenza personifies
the worst of this breed of men. In Don Mattia, Pirandello
portrays an innocent victim whose hatred unfortunately
consumes him. Pirandello does not condemn Don Mattia for
his hatred. He very skillfully presents him as a tortured
human being who has reached the breaking point. How could
^Pirandello, Short Stories, p. 51.
108
Don Mattia live with the ironic thought that Chiarenza
would live as his neighbor on the property he had worked so
hard to improve? His innermost thoughts cry out, "No! No!
Destroy it . . . destroy it! Neither he nor I! Let it
b u m !"
And bum it will when the sulphur mine operators
move in on his land and begin the destruction by the fumes
of all the other lands around. Don Mattia!s friends, who
have not learned of what he has done, are in for a sad end
of all they have worked for. Don Mattia, sitting on his
mare, takes one last look at the land he loves before he
leaves:
He looked around at his trees, his throat gripped in
anguish. The centuries-old olive trees with their
mighty, grey, twisted trunks stood motionless in mys
tical reverie under the moonlight. He imagined those
living leaves, furled by the first biting fumes from
the sulphur mines. They would soon fall. Then the
naked trees would blacken and die, poisoned by the hot
breath of furnaces. Finally, the ax. Firewood . . .
all those trees.4-4
Desolation is the tone upon which Fumes ends, leav
ing the lonely Don Mattia "bowed over the neck of his
mare." A final gesture of despair and emptiness.
h-U
Ibid., p. 52.
109
The Annuity
The story, The Annuity, is set in Girgenti, as
Agrigento was then called. The central character is the
seventy-five-year-old Mardbito, who can no longer take
care of the land he has cultivated for many years.
The simplicity of the life of Mardbito is captured
by Pirandello's description of his house which
was a combination of stable and dwelling house, paved
with pebbles brought from the abundant supply in the
river bed, its white washed walls now black with age.
The old farm exhaled its familiar odour which he was
soon to lose forever. How he would miss that heavy
warm smell of manure and the musty acrid reek of stag
nant smoke, which were the dear familiar breath of his
daily life.45
Like his recently deceased neighbor, Ciuzzo Pace,
Marabito is to surrender his land to the tradesman, Seine,
for a daily allotment for as long as he lives. Secretly,
Marabito wishes that he will not live much longer than
Ciuzzo, who had died six months after he surrendered his
land for an annuity. Thoughts of death come to Mardbito:
"When the Lord orders, death will come knocking at my door
--up there," he thought, raising his eyes towards the town
of Girgenti on the distant heights, looking strangely like
a stage background, the old houses shining a rich gold in
46
the afternoon light.
45
Luigi Pirandello, The Naked Truth, and Eleven
Other Stories, trans. Arthur and Henrie Mayne (New York:
E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1934), p. 1.
^Ibid. , p . 2 .
110
Marabito was alone in the world. The farm, his two
fine mules, and Piro, his golden-bay bullock, meant every
thing to him. It grieved the old man to part with his
land; but on the appointed day, Scind arrives with his wife
Signora Nela and young Grigoli, who is to take care of the
land. Mar&bito humbly greets them and surrenders the land
to Seine, who had become rich by "the practice of usury."
Scind owned the largest shop of the via Atenea (the main
47
street of Girgertti).
During the transaction, Signora Nela remains silent
and when it is completed, Mar&bito feels compelled to say,
"No, I’m not parting with my farm because I don’t like
work, but because, if I kept it, my farm would suffer,
since I'm no longer fit to work it as it ought to be done
and as I’d love to do it."^
Despondently, the seventy-five-year-old Marabito
leaves his beloved farm to go to live in a little cottage
on the Piazza Santa Croce. Soon Marabito is bitterly
complaining to the women of Santa Croce that they have cut
down his apricot tree on his old farm and his old house.
The women try to console him and tell him to enjoy his
retirement and his annuity.
But idleness begins to plague the old man and to
relieve himself of boredom, he walks the streets of
Girgenti to pass the time of day--Porta Di Ponte,
^Ibid. , p. 7. ^Ibid. , p. 12.
Ill
Ravanusella, "and the streets of San Pietro, although it
had a bad name, for many murders had been committed there
and it was an eerie lane to walk along when night was
falling.
Death does not come to Mardbito as quickly as Scind
would have liked. In fact, Mardbito outlives Scind. His
wife, Signora Nela, believes that Maraibito is responsible
for her husband’s death. She accuses him of collaborating
with Donna La Malanotte in sorcery when that women used old
home remedies to cure Marabito of a bad fever. Mardbito
denies any collaboration in sorcery.
Scind's lawyer, Nocio Zagara, now owns Marabito’s
farm and Signora Nela comes to find out that he had been
cheating her husband. Believing in Mardbito’s honesty, she
becomes friendly to the old man and urges him to live to be
a hundred so that Zagara would be forced to pay for him for
as long as he lived. She sends him clothing.
But Mardbito's long life is the very thing that
torments him. He becomes a legend and people come from
everywhere to see him. As he increases in age, even Zagara
no longer wishes for the old man's death, even though he is
losing money paying out the annuity.
When Mardbito becomes ninety-four, Zagara promises
the villagers that he will give a feast in honor of his
birthday, when the old man reaches a hundred. But Mardbito
49
Pirandello, The Naked Truth, p. 15.
112
is oblivious to all this fuss about his old age. All that
matters to him now is to keep weaving baskets and hampers
to save enough money for a dowry to give to the orphaned
girl, Annicchia, when it is time for her to get married.
He had become sympathetic toward her when he first retired
some twenty years ago and he hoped Annicchia would soon
marry.
As for his age, it had now become an obsession he
had to live with. But his conscience bothered him and he
felt guilty because he had already received enough money
to have paid him for his farm. He felt like a parasite, as
if he had been cheating Zagara all these years. He could
not help feeling that, ’’ Death, therefore, by leaving him
among the living, was amusing itself by making him a party
to a swindle. . . ,
Marabito tries to die by exposing himself to chills
and by walking out in the cold rain until he is drenched.
Yet still death does not claim him. Finally, out of
despair and shame, Marabito does not go to Zagara to
collect his daily allotment. The lawyer seeks him out at
the Piazza Santa Croce and demands to know what is wrong.
The old man wearily replies, "I'm not stupid and I’ve not
gone out of my mind. I’ve reckoned it out; the land which
your excellency bought for me has been fully paid for, some
"^Ibid. , p. 54.
113
time back. I'm a poor man, but I'm not dishonest. I won't
take any more money from you.""’* '
Zagara, although he has been paying Mardbito's
annuity for fourteen years, convinces Mardbito that he
still has some money coming to him.
One day, Mardbito's one hundredth birthday arrives
and Zagara announces it as a feast day which he will
sponsor. All the preparations had already been made and
the festivities begin. Unfortunately, during the merry
making, Zagara dies and the land reverts back to Mardbito.
Grigoli, the young man who had been assigned to take care
of Mardbito's land, marries Annicchia. They are blessed
with a little son, whom they name little Nocionello (Little
Nocio) in honor of the lawyer who was good to Mardbito.
The old man is happy to have all of them live with him.
Death has yet to claim him.
The beauty of this story lies in Pirandello's
shrewd observation of personality and the contrasts of
character. Blended with the story are descriptions of the
physical environment, the customs, and way of life of the
townspeople.
A fine example of this observation of character is
when Mardbito becomes ill when Scind is still the one
paying him the annuity. The village women want to keep him
"^Pirandello, The Naked Truth, p. 57.
114
alive to spite Seine. They all argue as to the diagnosis
of Marabito's illness. One woman says it is pneumonia but
La Malanotte, an old woman believed to possess great powers
of sorcery, insists that Marabito is suffering the ill
effects of "mal'occhio" (the evil eye).
Pirandello records very accurately this well-known
Mediterranean folkway belief of the evil eye and the
ritual used to exorcise its power over humans. Here is
Pirandello's description of La Malanotte at work to cure
Mardbito:
She was black as pitch, with wolf-like eyes and an
enormous mouth. Her voice was gruff and masculine.
The witch sent out for a bowl of water and a small
bottle of oil and ordered that the door be shut and
the patient held in a sitting position on the bed.
Then she lighted a candle, placed the bowl on the old
man's head and very carefully let a single drop of oil
fall into the water, exactly in the middle of the bowl.
The women stood round in a circle, watching, holding
their breath. Gazing steadily at the floating drop of
oil, the Malanotte began to mutter unintelligible
exorcisms, while the drop grew larger and larger as the
oil diffused. "There! Do you see?" In the bowl, by
the flickering light of the candle, they could see a
shining, tremulous disc, like a full moon.
The women stood on tip-toe, pale with anxiety.
Some of them beat their breasts with their fists in
horror. Finally, the Malanotte poured away the water
into a basin, remarking, "What an accumulation of
mal'occhio!"
Again, she poured water into the bowl on top of the
old man's head and let another drop of oil fall into
it. This time the drop expanded a little less while
she recited the exorcisms. She went on repeating the
magic performance until at last the drop of oil
remained just as it began, floating in the center of
the bowl. Then the Malanotte announced: "I have set
him free, now I'll attend to the dog [Scind] who did
this."52
52Ibid., pp. 31-32.
____________________: ________________________________115
A little earlier in the story Pirandello describes
the bell towers used as a morgue in which, as was discussed
earlier, he had witnessed a couple fornicating in a dark
ened corner while a man lay in his final repose. Here is
the description:
At intervals were half-dismantled towers, the first of
which was closed, not very securely, by a dilapidated
door no longer hanging from its hinges. The dead
bodies of unknown persons were exposed inside the tower
for identification by the public and, in the case of a
murder, the corpse was taken there for the coroner's
inquiry.53
Besides the infusion of folkways, Sicilian charac
ter types and vivid landscape descriptions, Pirandello
captures and records the essence of peasant character in
Mardbito:
He passed slowly along--a typical peasant, very bent,
his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him, his hands
at the small of his back and the tassel of his black
knitted cap swinging across his neck at each step he
took.54
According to Pirandello's biographer, Giudice,
Pirandello, in The Annuity, recorded many sordid aspects of
Agrigento, along with some of the humorous aspects of the
story because "it made too deep an impression on him to
55
ever disappear."
The memory of Agrigento was to return and be
recorded in many other works.
"^Pirandello, The Naked Truth, p. 16.
54
JHIbid., p. 17.
■^Giudice, Pirandello, p. 14.
116.
Like Giovanni Verga, a renowned Sicilian writer,
Pirandello sees in the donkey a symbol of the peasant's
hard life of toil. In The Annuity, when Marabito learns
that his donkey has died, he simply says, "Poor beast, it
was born for a life of toil. Take good care of the animals
son (Grigoli). You can see from the expression on their
faces that they are resigned to toil and never know what it
is to frolic.
Agrigento, with its sulphur mines, the simplicity
of the peasant's life, their grim humor, the smell of farms
and animals, is vividly presented by Pirandello as he
remembered it.
Marabito's peasant humbleness, characteristic of
this region, is simply expressed with these words when he
is asked to offer a toast at his banquet:
What am I to say? God only knows how ashamed I feel.
I here thank my benefactor [Zagara]. The only thing I
have to say is that notice should be given throughout
the town that when the Angel of Death comes to anyone's
house, the people there should tell him that, at the
Piazza Santa Croce, there's an old man who has been
waiting for him many years--and that he should come and
take him away.57
Ironically, at that very moment, Zagara collapses
and dies. Marabito is stricken with grief.
■^Pirandello, The Naked Truth, p. 36.
■^Ibid. , p. 62.
117
The Wax Madonna
Pirandello develops Marabito's character in The
Annuity in a rather long story that takes about sixty-five
pages. In The Wax Madonna, he briefly sketches an incident
taken from his childhood which reveals his "exceptionally
5 8
precocious moral standards."
In Chapter III, facts were given in reference to
Pirandello's early religious training. It was discovered
that he got it from the housemaid Maria Stella and later
Father Sparma from the San Pietro Church. The Wax Madonna
fictionalizes Pirandello's experience with Father Sparma.
In the story he is called Father Fiorica. Pirandello is
Guiduccio.
At the opening of The Wax Madonna, we learn that
Father Fiorica is grieved because the Greli (Pirandello)
family is not active in the parish. How much parallels
what happened in real life is hard to ascertain. But here
is Pirandello's description of the Greli family, especially
the father:
It was not that they had any actual hostility to
religion, but because, in Signor Greli's opinion, the
Catholic church had taken a position of persistent
hostility to the nation. He was a Genovese Caribineer
who had fought under Garibaldi; served in the campaign
of 1860 and been wounded in the arm of the Battle of
Milazzo. As a patriotic Italian, he was not prepared
"^Giudice, Pirandello, p. 6.
118
to set foot in the church while the Papacy was at
enmity with the government of his country.59
There was nothing poor Father Fiorica could do
about it. He was, however, perplexed at Signor Greli's
attitude toward him because he was not politically oriented.
He tried to please the family, but they stayed away. When
ever he passed Signor Greli on the street, he greeted him
with the utmost courtesy, only to be treated in a cross
manner.
One afternoon, Signor Greli was just about to enjoy
an afternoon nap when, because of the mischievous behavior
of some boys, the bell towers from the San Pietro church
rang out loud and noisily. Infuriated, Signor Greli jumped
out of bed, seized his rifle, and fired at the Holy Bells.
There was an outcry from the parishioners. They
wanted to storm Signor Greli's house and demand an act of
apology. But Father Fiorica calmed them down by telling
them he had already spoken to Signor Greli, who wa:s pre
pared to present San Pietro Church with a new bell. It was
a good act of diplomacy. A bell is a bell in a Sicilian or
Italian village.
Signor Greli delegates the honor to his nine-year-
old son, Guiduccio. The presentation is made and peace
returns to the parish. For Guiduccio, the experience
proves miraculous, for every time he hears the new bell
59
Pirandello, The Naked Truth, p. 210.
119
ring out for the morning services, he implores the maid
servant [Maria Stella] to take him to Mass.
The maid-servant gives in to his wishes, and thus
begins Guiduccio’s relationship with Father Fiorica. The
good priest is pleased to have the young boy represent the
Greli family and becomes very fond of him. Here is
Pirandello’s description of the nine-year-old Guiduccio:
When Father Fiorica saw the pale, intent little face,
with the large bright eyes dilated with wonder, his
heart overflowed with gratitude to God, in that he had
granted him the happiness of seeing that marvelous gg
florescence of faith in the simple mind of the child.
The priest and the boy get on well, but Guiduccio's
quick intelligence perceives that Father Fiorica would
sometimes gloss over certain facts from the Bible stories.
Guiduccio had set high standards for the priest he had
become close to. Father Fiorica in his turn treated the
boy as if he were his own son.
When the month of May arrived, which is dedicated
to the Blessed Virgin, Father Fiorica prepared to hold the
annual raffle among the parishioners. In his heart, he
secretly wished that Guiduccio would win. Perhaps then the
entire Greli family would warm up toward him. It was a
vain thought, but such is the frailty of all humans--
including priests.
60Ibid.., p. 215.
120
What the good priest does not know is that
Guiduccio has used all his money to buy tickets for the
poorer boys of the parish. He has not purchased a raffle
ticket for himself.
The night of the drawing arrives. All the prospec
tive winners are gathered in the church. Father Fiorica,
still wanting with all his heart to pick Guiduccio*s
ticket, succumbs to a tempting thought. Why not read out
the boy*s name? He does, and when Guiduccio hears his
name he is horrified! How in heaven's name can it be when
no ticket was purchased for himself? Here is Pirandello's
description as he probably remembered it from real life:
"But Guiduccio turned as red as fire and then became
intensely pale. His beautiful eyes became clouded over.
He frowned, shivered violently, and hid his face in his
,,61
arms .
There is no mistaken intention here. Pirandello
clearly points to the shock he must have felt at the
priest's hypocritical act.
At home, Guiduccio explains his misery to his
parents and tells them that the prize, The Waix Madonna, is
not his because he did not buy himself a ticket. He goes
to his mother and tearfully falls into her arms. Signor
Greli teasingly cautions his son in an effort to downplay
the incident: "You look out Duccio, my boy. I see you're
^Pirandello, The Naked Truth, p. 218.
121
very thick with the church. You'd better take care! That
62
priest of yours means to get you into his clutches."
Father Fiorica wanted to get the whole Greli family
in his clutches, but now all was lost. Guiduccio's mother
has the Wax Madonna sent back to Father Fiorica, who is
never to see Guiduccio again.
It is a very simple story, but its significance
lies in the details Pirandello recorded about his own
63
childhood. For one, "God was silent" in the home. For
another, Pirandello immortalizes Maria Stella, the house
maid from whom he learned about God. As was mentioned in
Chapter III, Pirandello learned to believe in ghosts from
her beliefs that he was to incorporate into his stories.
In this story the Devil is described as Father Fiorica's
tempter:
Who shall blame Father Fiorica for refusing to believe
that the devil could enter into so idyllic a spot?
Nevertheless, the devil did enter with the greatest
facility and whenever the fancy seized him. He slipped
in, thanks to his power of assuming the form of a godly
man or woman; or at other times he would change himself
into some apparently harmless object. So that it would
be safe to assert that Father Fiorica spent the live
long day in the devil's company, without having the
least inkling of the fact.65
62Ibid., p. 220.
Giudice, Pirandello, p. 7.
64Ibid. , p. 7.
^Pirandello, The Naked Truth, p. 206.
122
This story, according to Giudice, records the
hypocrisy and evil of Father Sparma which "was a catastro
phe for Pirandello.
The Wax Madonna records in fiction Pirandello's
direct experience in the Catholic Church when he was a
little boy.
^Giudice, Pirandello, p. 8,
123
CHAPTER V
OTHER SIGNIFICANT WORKS ILLUMINATING
THE SICILIAN MICROCOSM
Pirandello's The Old and the Young was published in
1913 when he was forty-six years old. It predates his
success with Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921),
but much more importantly it deals with the bitter politics
of the nineteenth century.
The setting is Sicily and Rome, and at the begin
ning of the novel we find this passage:
Rain and wind seemed a ruthless act of cruelty on the
part of the sky that overhung the desolation of those
uttermost tracts of Sicily, upon which Girgenti
[Agrigento], amid the piteous ruins of its primeval
existence, rose a silent and awed survivor in the void
of time that would bring no changes, in the abandonment
of misery beyond repair.1
In these words Pirandello sets the atmosphere for
the political campaign of Roberto Auriti. His goal is to
win the office of representation to the Chamber of Deputies
in Rome. As a Sicilian, Roberto has many grievances he
would like to air in Rome for the people of Girgenti.
Pirandello seems to advance in this novel all his feelings
X
Luigi Pirandello, The Old and the Young, trans.
C. K. Scott-Moncrieff (New York: E . P. Dutton & Co.,
1928), p. 4.
____________________________________________________________124
and thoughts about the Risorgimento and the disillusionment
that followed it. Roberto Auriti, like Pirandello's
father, is represented as having fought with Garibaldi when
he was only twelve years old. He is idealistic, however,
in a way that Pirandello's father appears not to have been
in his later years. It is safe to assume that Pirandello
is remembering his father’s youthful idealism.
In the novel Roberto is opposed by Cappolino, who
is backed by the Catholic Church, and by Faminio Salvo, who
is a powerful owner of coal and sulphur mines in the
district of Girgenti.
Flamino Salvo, wishing to gain political support,
plans to marry off his spinster sister to old Prince
Ippolito Laurentano, who has remained loyal to the Bourbons
who once ruled. Out of loneliness, the old Prince agrees
to the marriage providing that he does not have to submit
to a civil ceremony. His generation was opposed to
Garibaldi and the old Prince does not wish to recognize a
government that was the result of the Risorgimento.
This is bad news for Salvo, who cannot afford to
antagonize the Chamber of Deputies in Rome. Nevertheless,
the marriage plans are'carried out according to the wishes
of the Prince, but his young son, Gherlando, a Socialist,
refuses to attend the ceremony.
Salvo, despite this opposition, succeeds in having
his candidate, Cappolino, elected to the Chamber of
125
Deputies in Rome, but in order to minimize any conflicts,
Cappolino is placed among the minority opposition in the
Chamber by the government.
All does not go well for Salvo*s candidate.
Cappolino*s wife becomes romantically involved with Corrado
Selmi, who had backed Roberto Auriti in the election.
Roberto Auriti*s mother is the sister of Prince
Ippolito Laurentano. She represents the people who felt
the disillusionment most deeply after the first government
failed to alleviate Sicily's poverty. She is opposed to
her son's candidacy, because she does not want to see him
engaged in a ruthless fight for power.
Because of political differences, she has not seen
her brother for over forty years. One of the most touching
scenes in the first volume comes early in the narrative
when she decides to go to him and ask for his help. They
are naturally both deeply moved by the altered physical
changes that forty years have brought to both of them.
Roberto's mother, Donna Caterina, makes her plea: "I wish
you to fight against him with all your force. It would be
the last straw if you too were to support him, and he won
the election by your party's vote." "You know quite
well . . . ," her brother attempted to interpose. "I know,
I know," Donna Caterina promptly silenced him with a wave
of her hand. "But fight him, Ippolito, not knife in hand,
not stealing out to dig up graves [skeletons in the
126
closet], like a hyena, to lay bare sacred tombs from which
2
the dead might rise and make you die of fright.”
Mauro Montara, fashioned in the image of Piran
dello's uncle, Ricci Gramitto, is an aged Garibaldist who
cannot understand the political divisions between the
Laurentano's and the Auriti's. The old man was a comrade
of Gherlando's grandfather, Roberto Auriti's father, and of
Roberto himself. Why are they all not united in support of
a strong Italy? What has gone wrong with the dreams of the
Risorgimento?
Political events grow complicated for Roberto when
his political backer, Corrado Selmi, is accused of mis
appropriation of forty thousand lira of government funds.
Roberto is incriminated with him. The government presses
for the impeachment of Selmi and seeks to bring charges
against Roberto. This grieves Donna Caterina, sickens her,
and leads to her death. Eventually, Selmi commits suicide
and leaves a letter, taking full responsibility for the
crime.
In Sicily, the Socialists plan a workers' strike.
Aurelio Costa, who works as an engineer for Salvo and is in
love with his daughter Dianella, is sent to the district of
Girgenti to try to bring a halt to the strike.
When he arrives there in the company of Cappolino's
wife, he comes to realize the pathetic situation of the
^Pirandello, The Old and the Young, p. 152.
127
strikers and wishes to join them. But before he has a
chance to do so, the strikers, recognizing him as Salvo's
engineer, murder both Costa and Cappolino's wife.
Cappolino, who had suffered the embarrassment of
his wife's affair with Selmi, is now shocked to hear of the
double murder. He rushes to the Salvo home and tells
Dianella of the double murder. Dianella, who had hoped
that one day her father would consent to Costa as her
husband, is shocked into madness, and Mauro Montana, who
had become friendly with her during the election campaign,
is the only one who can comfort her.
Prince Ippolito's son, Gherlando, vengefully
becomes intensely involved in the Socialist movement in
Italy and Sicily. He rushes to the strikers' side, hoping
to determine what the Socialists might benefit from the
strikers' movement.
Gherlando is appalled at the hunger, poverty, and
destitution he sees among the strikers. The Socialists
decide to help them, but the people do not wish to support
any movement for a Socialist government. At their mass
meetings, the strikers show their allegiance to the govern
ment by carrying pictures of the King and Queen and images
of the cross.
It is to no avail. The government dispatches
troops to Sicily. Panic breaks out. Gherlando is forced
to flee because his identity as a Socialist is now known
128
by the government. When he meets Mauro Montara, the old
man expresses his shame that the grandson of a Garibaldist
leader would allow himself to get involved with the Social
ists . Gherlando escapes.
Mauro, perplexed, rushes back to the scene of
bedlam where the government troops are firing at will at
the mass of strikers. The old Garibaldist, who is among
the crowd, is shot.
The dying Mauro lies alone in his thoughts, and he
is struck by the irony that the younger generation had not
been able to secure the peace in Italy any more than his
own revolutionary generation. Just prior to being shot,
Pirandello describes Mauro's state of mind:
He laughed and talked to himself aloud and waved his
arms, without heeding where he was going: he laughed
at the metals of the railway line, at the telegraph
poles, fruits of the revolution, and beat his breast
and said, "What do I care? I . . . I . . . Sicily
. . . oh Marasantissima . . . I tell you Sicily . . .
If it had not been for Sicily . . . If Sicily had not
been chosen . . ." Sicily moved and said to Italy:
"Here I am! I am coming to join you! Do you move from
Piedmont with your King, I shall come up with Gari
baldi, and we shall join forces in Rome! Let us see
who can get there first!" And who would have got there
first? "Oh Marasantissima, I know, Aspromonte, reasons
of State, I know. But Sicily wished to be first, from
here . . . always Sicily . . . and now a handful of
scoundrels have tried to dishonor her. . . . But Sicily
is here, here, here, with me. . . . Sicily who does not
let herself be dishonoured, is here with me!"3
This novel, which is written in two volumes, takes
seven hundred sixty pages to tell its story. It is complex
"^Pirandello, The Old and the Young, pp. 355, 366.
129
and Pirandello has labored hard to line up the opposing
political factions who fight each other for political
power.
Prince Ippolito Laurentano is a Bourbon. His
sister married a Garibaldist. Their father was a General
in the Garibaldean Army. The son of Ippolito, Gherlando,
embraces Socialism. Robert Aurito opposes Salvo's candi
date, Cappolino, who represents the vested interests of the
sulphur and coal mines. Mauro Montara embodies the dream
of the Risorgimento. He is not only perplexed but broken
hearted at the political confusion and destitution that
remains because of it.
For the purpose of this study, let us look at some
descriptive passages that express this disappointment.
And what utter ruin had come to Sicily to all the illu
sions, all the fervid faith by which the torch of
revolt had been kindled! Poor island, treated as a
conquered territory [by the Italian government]! Poor
islanders, treated as savages, who must first be civil
ized. And the continentals [mainland Italians] had
descended upon them to civilize them: down had come
the new soldiery, that infamous column led by the
renegade, the Hungarian Colonel Eberhardt, who had come
to Sicily first with Garibaldi and had then been one of
those who fired upon him at Aspromonte [battlefield on
the mainland], . . . down had come all the offscourings
of the bureaucracy; and disputes and duels and scenes
of savagery; and the Prefecture of media, and the
courts martial, and burglaries, murders, highway
robberies, planned and carried out by the new police in
the name of the King's Government; and falsifications
and suppression of documents and scandalous political
trials: all through the first government by the parlia
mentary right! "4-
^Ibid., p. 123.
130
Pirandello's indictment of the abuse of Sicily by
the first central government after the unification of Italy
is self-evident. He has harsh words also for the leftists:
"And they too had begun special measures for Sicily; and
usurpations and frauds and extortions and scandalous
favouritism and a scandalous waste of public money. . . .
It appears that Pirandello echoes in these passages
the distrust of government that followed the failure of the
first government.
In the character of Donna Caterina Auriti, Piran
dello has her voice this distrust. Her son’s interest in
politics annoys her, and to instill in him the reasons for
this distrust, she rejects his political candidacy. In a
conversation with him, she summarizes thirty years of the
abuse of Sicily by the Italian government.
. . . These are calumnies, the same old calumnies that
our ministers repeat, echoing the Prefects and the
petty tyrants of the local committees; calumnies meant
to cloak thirty years and more of bad government;
calumnies not so much odious, perhaps, as ludicrous!
Here we have famine, my dear Sir, on the farms and in
the sulphur pits; here we have big estates, the feudal
tyranny of the so-called Cappelli; the so-called
gentry, municipal taxes that squeeze the last drop of
blood from people who have not so much as the price of
a crust of bread; here we have all the extortions that
can be made with impunity, by taking advantage of the
appalling ignorance of these poor serfs, beastialized
by their poverty. Do you hold your peace! Hold your
peace!"6
But there was no peace to hold, as was described in
Chapter Two. Those "beastialized" serfs fled to other
5Ibid., pp. 123, 124. 6Ibid., p. 130.
131
countries. As for his own Agrigento, Pirandello's descrip
tion reveals his own feelings:
. . . that struggling village by the sea [Porto
Empedocles] which had grown in a few years at the
expense of the old town of Girgenti and had now become
an independent commune. A score of huts, originally
down there on the beach, with a short loading stage of
flimsy beams, known as old Harbour, and a sea fortress,
four square and frowning, in which convicts were kept
at labor. . . J
And, as in his short stories, he remembers the
sulphur mines and the men
. . . who, barefoot, in canvas trousers, each with a
sack on his shoulders, pulled down over his head in
front and twisted round the back of his neck, plunging
waist-deep into the water, carried out their loads to
the lighters [sailing ships]."8
Pirandello has a minor character, Pigna, say, "Men,
do you call them? Beasts is what they are . . . and if you
tell them that they could become men if they chose, they
9
open their mouths in a fatuous laugh and insult you."
Political separatism is expounded by Mauro Montara
--a separatism that would have given Sicily independence.
Mauro reflects: "This had been the aspiration of all good
old Sicilians . . . in which each state was to conserve its
own liberty and autonomy."^
The strict Sicilian morality as enforced by the
parents is conveyed through Donna Caterina's condemnation
of her son Roberto's relationship with a woman in Rome.
^Pirandello, The Old and the Young, p. 40.
^Ibid., p. 41. ^Ibid. , p. 42.
I0Ibid;, p'. 551
"He could feel the harsh condemnation in the maternal
heart, a fresh bitterness-unjustified to his mind--which
his mother refrained from expressing to him in order not to
11
humiliate him. ..."
At the end of this novel, the old Garibaldist,
Mauro Montara, dies on the spot where he was shot. The
Italian soldiers approach him, and when they reach him a
Captain orders them to turn the body over so that he might
see the face: "When moved, the corpse revealed on its
blood-stained breast four medals [from the Garibaldian
campaign]. The three soldiers stood gazing at one another,
12
stupified and awed. Who was this that they had killed?"
Pirandello, in making Mauro the symbol of the ideals of the
Risorgimento, is perhaps more than implying that they have
killed Sicily again.
The Vise
The early one-act plays, like Pirandello's short
stories, tell their story without interruption of the plot.
The Vise is set in a small provincial town and enfolds the
story of the entangled lives of Andrea Fabbri, Giula, his
wife, and Antonio Serra, his lawyer.
From the very beginning of the play, a feeling of
doom is the dominant mood. Antonio, the lawyer, and Giula
have committed adultery. Andrea knows but he has chosen to
n ibid., p. 126. 12Ibid., p. 369.
133
maintain silence, and this silence becomes his most power
ful weapon.
When the play opens, Antonio and Giula are
together, for he has returned ahead of Andrea from a busi
ness trip they had taken together. Giula, knowing her
husband’s ways, questions Antonio in order to determine how
much Andrea knows. The anxiety-stricken Antonio tells
Giula that her husband’s silence throughout the trip has
terrified him, and that even in their hotel room at night,
Andrea maintained his silence. Occasionally, he broke it
to mutter, "To have to say goodbye on a staircase, by
13
candlelight. . . ." Was he referring to Antonio and
Giula? Antonio is not certain, but he suspects that Andrea
is baiting them. Giula, growing nervous, probes Antonio
intensely, but all that Giula can get from him is that he
is deathly afraid of Andrea. Giula begins to react to
Antonio’s apprehensions and asks, "But he couldn’t have
noticed anything, could he?" Antonio replies, "He may not
1 /
be sure. . . ." Did Andrea see Antonio kiss his wife
before they left? The tension between Antonio and Giula
mounts in intensity, and Pirandello has very skillfully
prepared for Andrea's entrance. We learn from Giula that
13
Luigi Pirandello, Pirandello’s. One-Act ■.Plays,
trans. William Murray (New York! Funk & Wagnalls, 1970),
p. 6.
■^Ibid. , p . 9 .
134
her husband has a violent temper and that he fears nobody.
Giula is bewildered. If he knows about them, why has he
not dealt with the matter directly? What is behind his
silence?
Antonio's guilt begins to overwhelm him and he
turns to Giula and, blaming her, says, "For a foolish whim
--like the one three nights ago . . . you were the one."
15
Giula scornfully retorts, "It's always me, yes." In this
developing tension, Giula tells Antonio that she knows how
much he fears Andrea. This continues on--guilt, blame, and
fear until the feeling of two trapped human beings is very
effectively developed.
Antonio and Giula are both trapped in the guilt of
*-
having committed adultery in Andrea's house. Giula becomes
remorseful because she feels she has betrayed a husband who
had trusted her above everyone else, and therefore she
accepts the blame for their adulterous actions. Antonio,
feeling ashamed of his cowardice, tries to soften his
accusations, but Giula continues on to tell Antonio about
Andrea and how she had forced him to elope.
I never would have gone off with him if I hadn't loved
him. But--but, you see, he felt he had to atone for
what he'd done . . . he'd pay for it, make it up to
everybody. . . . How? By dedicating himself to his
job, by making a rich, comfortable home for me. . . .
There are times when a husband's respect, his trust,
his friendship can seem like insults to a woman.16
15Ibid., p. 10. 16Ibid., pp. 11-12.
135
It seems that Andrea, too, has his guilt to bear
and that Giula grew tired of a relationship in which her
husband's respect for her was more than she could bear.
She confesses to Antonio that she even had to force Andrea
to return her love after they were married.
Andrea approaches the house and Giula begs Antonio
to leave, even though he is now resolved to remain. He
leaves and Giula pretends to be knitting when Andrea
enters. He appears calm, and after some routine questions
about the house and children, he tells Giula that they are
going to move to the city. Giula responds in a matter-of-
fact manner. Andrea continues talking, and gradually he
begins to pour out all his frustrations concerning his
brothers-in-law, business, friendships, and said, "I
worked, yes, I worked all right. And I wasn't afraid
either. And they used to say I was crazy . . . to think
that people used to die like flies from malaria.
Andrea worked hard to drain malaria from that
infested swamp and he made it pay off— now everybody
admires him. Giula listens apprehensively, and Andrea then
relates a story of adultery of a friend by the name of Mr.
Sportini and Giula begins to suspect where he is leading
her. Andrea continues to bait her by telling Giula that
Mr. Sportini was told by a friend to wait until he caught
his wife in the act.
■^Pirandello, Pirandello's One-Act Plays, p. 22.
136
Andrea moves closer to his wife with anger in his
eyes and tells her he knows everything. The play now rises
to its climax as Giula tries to hold Andrea off. "You
think you can frighten me," she says. "What right do you
have to insult me like this?" Andrea grabs her: "Insult
you? You're trembling." His rage breaks out: "You think
I’m that stupid. I tell you I saw you with my own eyes and
you dare to deny it? Whore! You're shaking like a leaf--
18
like1 .ihim--on the trip! Three days I tortured him."
Andrea is despondent and in his furious anger he
is a pathetic creature. What is there left for him to do?
How can he maintain his honor? He turns on Giula, after
she confesses, and orders her to leave the house without
the children. On her bended knees she asks for forgiveness
but Andrea remains resolved. Giula, then, in desperation
asks Andrea to kill her, but he refuses and tells her to do
it herself.
Giula now realizes that there is no way she can
ever repair the harm she has done. Antonio is heard out
side and with scornful hatred Andrea forces Giula to look
out at Antonio; then he pushes her toward the door. His
intention is correctly interpreted by Giula and she begs
Andrea once more. Andrea coldly remarks, "Afraid for him?"
Giula replies, "No! He's a coward!" Andrea smiles and
18Ibid., p. 25.
137
19
says, "Wait for him in there! You’re two of a kind."
Giula rushes out of the room after kissing Andrea
quickly and whispering goodbye. Andrea is bewildered and
stunned, and he buries his head in his hands. Antonio
enters as the shot of a revolver resounds throughout the
room. Andrea whirls around and shouts at Antonio,
"Murderer!"
What had destroyed Andrea’s life with Giula? He
respected her and lost her. He trusted Antonio and was
betrayed. He worked hard and now what was there to work
for?
There can be little doubt that in Andrea, Piran
dello again creates a character tormented by circumstances
he was not able to control. How could he make sense out of
Giula's betrayal? His jealousy drives him to force Giula
to commit suicide and consequently condemning himself to
loneliness.
Walter Starkie met Pirandello in 1934 and ques
tioned him about the theater, but he talked only "of Sicily
. . . of the innate jealousy of Sicilian men, and their
ceaseless warfare. . .
The Vise has its share of jealousy and Andrea has
his revenge on Antonio, for he now must share the guilt of
1 9
Pirandello, Pirandello's One-Act Plays, p. 30.
20
Starkie, Luigi Pirandello, Introduction, p. xii.
138
Giula's death, but there is no victory for Andrea at the
end.
Vittorini praises this play for its tense and tight
portrayal of Andrea's character. According to Vittorini,
it was written when Pirandello "obeyed the dictates of
naturalism in looking upon instinct as an overpowering
force."21
Sicilian Limes
Limes grow abundantly in Sicily, and in Sicilian
Limes they "are taken as the symbol of the purity and
simplicity of Sicilian life as contrasted with the sensual
22
and vulgar life of the continent." Micuccio Bonavino,
the central character, is a good-hearted, down-to-earth
peasant who embodies all the virtues that Pirandello seems
to admire in the contadino [peasant].
At the opening of the play, we learn that Micuccio
has traveled all the way from his Sicilian village to the
northern section of Italy in order to visit his old sweet
heart Teresina. Teresina has gained a considerable amount
of fame as a singer, and Micuccio is confident that she
will be glad to see her old friend and benefactor.
Micuccio?s shabby appearance is a sharp contrast to
the splendor of Teresina's large house. Pirandello
21
Vittorini, The Drama of Luigi Pirandello, p. 67.
22Ibid., p. 59.
139
describes him vividly as ’’evidently a peasant from the look
of him. He wears a rough coat pulled up around his ears,
has heavy knee-length boots, carries a filthy sack in one
23
hand and an old suitcase in the other."
In his sack, Micuccio carries his Sicilian limes
which he intends to give to Teresina to remind her of their
Sicilian village. He has absolutely no way of knowing how
much she has changed from the sweet, innocent girl he had
once known and helped. He speaks to the servants of the
house about Teresina in very intimate terms which baffles
them because they only know of Teresina as Sina the
celebrity.
Ferdinando, a servant, speaking to the house-maid
Dorina, says, "Hear that? He calls her Teresina, no less."
Micuccio retorts quickly, "What's wrong with that? Isn't
she a singer? Isn't that her name? You aren't going to
2 4
try to teach me about her, are you?"
And he is correct. He knows Teresina of the past,
fatherless and poor. She lived with Aunt Marta in poverty.
Micuccio made a living as the piccolo player in the village
band and he generously extended his help to both Teresina
and Aunt Marta. He and others of the village assumed that
a marriage would be consummated and Micuccio was more than
happy to send her to a Conservatory of Music in Naples to
^Pirandello, Pirandello's One-Act Plays, p. 33.
^^Ibid., p. 36.
140
study singing for four years,
Teresina studied hard and eventually became a
success in the professional theater and won an interna
tional reputation. The years went by rapidly and when
Teresina and Aunt Marta heard that Micuccio had taken ill,
they sent money to his family to see him through his
crisis. Now, Micuccio is there to pay back the debt and
to consummate the marriage that was long overdue.
The piccolo player from the town of Palma Monte-
chiaro proudly tells the servants of the house, who treat
him condescendingly, that he had helped Teresina after her
25
father had died. He more than implies that even though
she had no dowry, which his own parents disliked, and
prevented the engagement from ever taking place, he took
his obligation seriously. Proudly he affirms to the
servants, "I broke with everyone, sold the piece of land an
old uncle of mine, a priest, had left me when he died, and
26
1 sent Teresina to Naples, to the conservatory there."
The servants busy themselves in preparing the house
for a reception that is to take place for Teresina that
evening. Micuccio patiently waits to return the one
thousand lira that Teresina sent him and to resume the
relationship that had been interrupted. At this point,
Micuccio is oblivious to the fate that time has dealt his
relationship to Teresina.
25Ibid., p. 39. 26Ibid., p. 43.
141
Aunt Marta is the first one to make her appearance,
and when Micuccio sees her standing there before him after
all those years, he is dumbfounded. Here is Pirandello’s
description of Aunt Marta: "She is wearing a hat and is
all but overwhelmed, poor woman, by a costly, resplendent
i,27
cape.
Micuccio reacts to the artificiality of Aunt
Marta's appearance and she, in turn, reacts to his aston
ishment. Quickly she tells him about the evening's
reception, excuses herself from the room, and then returns
minus the cape which makes both of them feel more comfort
able .
Aunt Marta orders dinner for both of them, and the
two old friends talk about the happy and sad days they had
shared together. She asks about old friends and Micuccio
tells her that one of her old neighbors, Annuzza, and
others, are dead. Aunt Marta is grieved to hear this sad
news and she reflects on her own unhappiness: "Dead or
not, at least they're resting in their own ground, beside
their own people. While I--who knows where I'll rest these
28
poor old bones."
Micuccio and Aunt Marta become more and more
comfortable with each other as their conversation continues
about the blue sky of Sicily, of old friends, and of the
"^Pirandello, Pirandello's One-Act Plays, p. 48.
"^Ibid. , p. 51.
142
destinies of their lives. Micuccio cannot help commenting
on how he felt when Aunt Marta entered the room: "When I
saw you with that velvet thing on--and that hat--" Aunt
Marta, embarrassed, says, "I had to--don't make me think
about it." Micuccio backs off and tries to make her feel
relieved: "X know, you have to put on a show. But if they
could see you dressed like that in Palma, Aunt Marta!"
Aunt Marta becomes startled: "Oh my God, don't make me
think about it. Believe me, if I think about it--I feel
ashamed! I look at myself and I say: 'That's me? Looking
like that?' And it all seems like a game. . . . But what
can I do? X can't help it!"
Micuccio begins to feel the weight of what Aunt
Marta is trying to tell him about Teresina for she has well
perceived how much he still longs for her. He looks at her
and then asks, "So then--so I mean--she's--she's a big
success? Yes, I can see she is! A big success! Do they--
29
do they pay her well, eh?"
Aunt Marta answers affirmatively and tells him that
the money that Teresina makes is spent as fast as it is
earned for clothing, jewels, and all kinds of superfluous
expenses. Suddenly there is a flurry of excited voices and
Teresina appears. Here is how Pirandello describes her
entrance:
^Ibid. , p . 54.
143
Sina [Teresina] enters hurriedly, a vision in rustling
silk, Splendidly bedecked in jewels, her gown cut very
low to reveal her bosom, her naked shoulders and arms.
It's as if the little room were bathed suddenly,
violently in light.30
Micuccio is dazed for what he sees is not the
Teresina he knew, loved, and helped in Palma. He barely is
able to stutter her name and she, in turn, speaks to him
briefly and artificially; and promising to return shortly,
she rushes out of the little ante-room that Aunt Marta had
taken Micuccio into. Was it to hide him from the sight of
Teresina's theatrical friends? Were they ashamed of the
shabby peasant from their old village in Palma?
Micuccio stops eating and asks Aunt Marta what .
Teresina has done to herself: "I can't believe it was her
31
. . . all--all like this. . . Frowning and with hand
gestures, he refers to what is to his sense of values
Teresina's indecent dress. He stands up, realizing how
altered Teresina has become, how artificial and strange she
had appeared to him. Micuccio now knows why Aunt Marta
spoke to him as she has, and it is clear to him that it is
all over between him and Teresina and that it was foolish
of him to have come.
Aunt Marta, feeling great sympathy for Micuccio for
she well remembers his good and gentle heart, directly
tells him to leave and go back to Palma because Teresina is
30
Pirandello, Pirandello's One-Act Plays, p. 55.
31Ibid., p. 56.
144
no longer fit for him any more. She puts her head into her
hand as tears come to her old eyes.
Micuccio tries to comfort Aunt Marta and then he is
about to leave when Teresina returns. He goes to her, and
grabbing her by the shoulders rebukes her for her nakedness.
Feeling relieved, he drops his hold on her and cries out:
"What a fool I was, Aunt Marta! I didn't realize it--don't
cry, don't cry! Anyway, what harm did it do? In fact, I
was lucky! Lucky. "32
Micuccio's heart is full of sadness and humiliation
as he accepts the truth that all there is left for him is
to return to Sicily and leave Teresina in the artificial
life she has created for herself. He opens the sack and
empties it of its limes. At the sight of them, Teresina
goes to pick them up, but Micuccio stops her: "Don't you
touch them! Don't you even look at them."
He picks one up and holds it under Aunt Marta's
nose, telling her to smell the air of Palma. He tells her
that the limes are for her. Micuccio then takes out the
one thousand lira from his pocket, walks over to Teresina,
and stuffs the money into the bosom of her dress as she
breaks into tears.
Vittorini claims that in this play, Pirandello is
"perplexed in choosing between the primitive but neces
sarily limited conditions of life in Sicilian villages and
32Ibid., p. 59.
145
the life of capitols full of movement and splendor. . . .
Pirandello's sympathies are with the quaint peasant and
with his beloved Sicily.
The last part of this statement is probably the
best guide in understanding Pirandello's feelings. He
never felt at home in the mainland himself, and his
thoughts seem to return to Sicily time and again in his
early works.
In Liola, another play that portrays the character
of a Sicilian peasant, Pirandello uses Agrigento as the
setting. The plot concerns itself with Liola's plan to
help Zio Simone's wife, Mita, secure her marriage by
impregnating her. The impotent old man has blamed Mita for
not bearing him a child, and Liola*s intrusion upsets Zia
Croce’s plans to have her daughter Tuzza offer her unborn
child to Zio Simone in return for a place in his household.
When Mita goes to her husband and tells him she is bearing
his child, he believes her and refuses Zia Croce's offer.
Paolucci, in her discussion of Liola, sees it as
the reflection of the Arabic-Sicilian microcosm, and writes:
"When the curtain goes up on Pirandello's Liola, the women
of Arabic-Christian Sicily sing: When Jesus was being
scourged Mary was at the gate. 'Don't strike so hard,' she
33
Vittorini, The Drama of LUigi'Pirandello, p. 62.
146
cried, 'His flesh is delicate. ' She views Liola's
actions as the expression of a free spirit in rebellion
against the norms of traditional Arabic-Sicilian society.
Bentley views Liold as "a dream, if you wish . . .
it is all actual, it is all concrete. Sicily is like
that.
Micuccio and LiolA present two facets of Sicilian
peasantry. Micuccio symbolizes the simply honest virtues
of the Sicilian peasant, whereas Liol& personifies the
Sicilian peasant's shrewd sense of survival. Here, as in
the other works discussed so far, Pirandello's creative
effort seems to be pouring out characters drawn from his
own direct observation in the verist [realistic] style.
Character, plot, and dialogue are woven together to create
a unified story without any interruption. The characters
possess heartfelt emotions which give them credibility and
human in t e re s t.
In The Other Son, Pirandello again returns to a
Sicilian village: this time to the story of Maragrazia,
who has waited for many years for a letter from her son who
has migrated to America from the Village of Farmia.
"^Anne Paolucci, Pirandello's Theater: The
Recovery of the Modern Stage for Dramatic Art (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press; Edwardsville: Feffer &
Simon, Inc., 1973), p. 23.
35
Bentley, Naked Masks, Introduction, p. xi.
147
As stated in Chapter Two of this study, immigration
figures for the year 1913 stood at 800,000. This play is
set in that time period. Pirandello's play sketches the
misery of the women who were left behind, and "life is
presented in its unchanging monotony and in its quaint
• + . ,,36
picturesqueness. . . .
The Doctor's Duty
The play, The Doctor's Duty, is set in a city of
southern Italy and the main character is Tommaso Corsi. It
deals with instinctual forces that overpower Tommaso and
entangle him in a situation that eventually destroys him.
Tommaso's act of adultery with the wife of a friend
resulted in his being shot and wounded when he was discov
ered in bed in the act of fornication. In self-defense,
Tommaso was able to overpower Neri and mortally wounded him
with his own gun. Then he shot himself.
This is the situation that has transpired when the
play opens. Mrs. Reis, Tommaso's mother-in-law, is con
versing with her daughter, Anna, while Tommaso lies in the
bedroom. Mrs. Reis brings up the question of honor and
expresses her disgust for Tommaso and his disgraceful
conduct. Anna, in defense of her husband, says to her
mother, "Oh, mother, you hate him. You won't forgive him."
36
Vittorini, The Drama of Luigi Pirandello, p. 53.
148
The mother does not conceal her feelings. "Yes," she says.
"Yes, I hate him. I hate him for everything he's made you
go through, for the shame he's brought you, your children,
our whole family."3^
Mrs. Reis cannot forgive Tommaso and she persis
tently repeats what he has done. She grieves the death of
Mr. Neri and the meaninglessness of it all. Anna, who
begins to lose her patience with her mother, counters the
charges she makes and then furiously tries to minimize
Tommaso's crime. "You're driving me mad with facts!
Facts!" she screams at her mother. "The facts are that
Neri knew, and not only about Tommaso but also about
everyone else, and he never gave the slightest hint about
,,38
caring.
Then she continues on and gives her mother her view
on how justice could have best been served by telling her
mother that Neri, instead of firing at Tommaso, should have
killed his wife. She is agitated and apprehensive because
the police intend to take Tommaso away when he fully
recovers to stand trial for his crime. Anna knows that
Tommaso will not accept that fact, and she is afraid that
he will try to kill himself again like he tried to do
after he killed Neri.
3 7
Pirandello, Pirandello's One-Act Plays, p. 66.
38Ibid., p. 69.
149
But Mrs. Reis is still adamant, and she demands
that Tommaso should be taken away immediately. Dr. Lecci
and Cimetta, the lawyer, enter the room and after Anna
exits to go to Tommaso, her mother turns to Cimetta and
says, "Get him out of here. Right away! To jail! That
39
murderer! Please, please, for Anna's sake."
Dr. Lecci tries to calm her down because he knows
that if Tommaso is made to feel guilty by anyone, it will
work against his will to recover.
During the brief time that he has been convalesc
ing, Tommaso has expressed a sincere desire to repent for
his actions. He is truly sorry that his friend Neri had to
suffer a tragic death for a woman who was not worth it.
The lawyer, Cimetta, states the same thing, knowing Tommaso
as well as he does. "It's incredible," he says, "it's a
dream, a nightmare! For that woman! . . . poor Tommaso.
We learn that Tommaso is indeed in many respects a
man to be respected, and the tragic thing is that he now
has to suffer for a moment of poor judgment. According to
41
Vittorini, "Tommaso is meant to have our full sympathy."
This is an important factor in this play because
if he were a rake, what significance would his tragic
situation have for us? Anna returns and informs the doctor
39Ibid., p. 72. 40Ibid., p. 73.
4^Vittorini, The Drama of Luigi Pirandello, p. 68.
150
and the lawyer that Tommaso would like to leave his room
for awhile and the doctor cautiously consents.
Dr. Lecci and Cimetta are concerned with how to
break the news to Tommaso that he must face the civil
authorities and that a possible sentence of life imprison
ment faces him.
Tommaso enters the room and consequently he is told
the bad news. He rejects it immediately with a logic that
bewilders Dr. Lecci and the lawyer. Tommaso speaks to the
doctor: "You should have let me die, if you didn't have
the right to dispose of the life X gave up and which you
restored to me."^ But the doctor insists that it was his
duty to save his life and now he cannot in any way prevent
the courts from taking action against him. Again, Tommaso
rejects this reasoning by pointing out that he had
inflicted a graver punishment on himself than the law
provides, and that if Dr. Lecci had not intruded he would
now be dead of the wound he had inflicted on himself. Dr.
Lecci stands by his medical ethics and explains again that
it was his duty to save him. Tommaso presses him--why?
"By what right do you perform your duty as a doctor on a
man who wanted to die, if in exchange society has not
granted you the right to let this man live the life you
gave him back?"^
^Pirandello, Pirandello1s One-Act Plays, p. 82.
^Ibid. , p. 83.
_____________________________________________________________1 . 5 . 1 .
The lawyer intrudes into the conversation and asks
Tommaso what is to be done about the murder of Neri, but
Tommaso insists that he washed himself clean with his own
blood. Becoming impatient with all the argumentation,
Tommaso rips the bandages from his wound which starts to
hemorrhage. Anna cries in terror for the doctor, who
rushes to Tommaso only to be stopped by his threatening
logic. The good doctor watches helplessly as Tommaso
begins to sink into a coma: ' ’ No. No. He's right. Didn't
you hear? I can't. I mustn't.
Tommaso dies and the cycle of crime, guilt, and
punishment, in this case self-inflicted, is brought to a
close. Vittorini praises this play for its concern for
"the humanity of the characters . . . ," and, also, for its
45
"psychological depth and complexity."
The Doctor's Duty and The Vise both present a
tragic situation that is the result of instinctual behav
ior. Pirandello, as in his short stories, is content to
weave the plots of both plays and to allow them to unfold
without any explanations from any of the characters. This
he will do in such later plays as: Right You Are, Six
Characters in Search of an Author, and Tonight We Improvise.
^Ibid. , p. 84.
45
Vittorini, The Drama of Luigi Pirandello, p. 69.
152
Tommaso is willing to pay for his misdeed because
he sincerely feels that Dr. Lecci had no right to intervene
after he had decided to kill himself.
Micuccio saves his honor by rejecting Teresina's
new, and what is to him, artificial life even though he
will bear the pain he feels forever. Andrea must live out
his life knowing that he forced his wife to kill herself
and consequently depriving his two children of the love of
their mother.
In The Other Son, Maragrazia, the old mother, is
condemned to a life of illusion in waiting for news from
her son, who has left for America so many years ago.
They are all tragic stories.
Humor
Because Pirandello's plays and stories appear to be
obsessively sad, a few words about this essay may reveal
Pirandello's outlook. He writes that: "Man's sadness is
often caused by life's sadness, by evils so numerous that
46
not everyone knows how to take them." Pirandello pub
lished this essay in 1908, which began a serious conflict
between him and the philosopher Benedetto Croce. Giudice
writes that Pirandello "dismissed Croce's opinion that
humour was an indefinable psychological state, a
46
Luigi Pirandello, On Humor, trans. Teresa Novel
(Tulane Drama Review 10 [Spring 1966]: 46).
153
pseudo-concept, and not an aesthetic category, and defended
the aesthetic autonomy of humour.
The difference between Pirandello, the artist, and
Benedetto Croce, the philosopher, is that Croce "clung to
48
objective reality as the model or pattern of art."
Pirandello insisted that the inner or the imaginative
reality "is as real as the tangible, solid, and angular
49
reality of the world close at hand."
The essay, Humor, can help us to understand Piran
dello’s outlook and his work up to and beyond 1908. All of
the characters that have been discussed so far illustrate
Pirandello’s concern with inner reality. This aspect of
Pirandello's work separates him from the verist (realist)
school of thought in Italy. Pirandello was concerned with
man’s inner reaction to his environment, and according to
Vittorini, Pirandello believed that "Art had become for him
a medium of expression of the unspeakable loneliness of the
soul."50
From this perspective, it is understandable why
Pirandello views the plight of Micuccio, Tommaso, Andrea
and all the other characters discussed as their shock
reaction to some ironic twist of fate or nature. There is,
^Giudice, Pirandello, p. 77.
48
Domenico Vittorini, High Points in the History of
Italian Literature (New York: David McKay Co,, Inc.,
1958), p 7 271.
49Ibid., p. 271. 50Ibid., p. 272.
154
for Pirandello, no objective truth, for whatever happens
comes about because of some irrationality of human
behavior.
In his essay, Pirandello attempts to explain incon
gruity in the following manner:
. . . It isn't a pre-established condition. Just the
oppiosite: it is characteristic of any humorist,
through his special kind of reflexion, which creates
the feeling of incongruity, of not knowing any more
which side to take amid the perplexities and irresolu
tions of his conscience.51
Pirandello's sense of humor can perhaps be illus
trated in the act of Uncle Neli's son in the story, Who
Pays the Piper. The act is a vengeful one. The sow was
both something to laugh at because it was overfed and
something to be scorned because it ate better than the
peasants. Its slaughter is meant as a cruel joke. But who
would laugh at it? Only the person in whose conscience the
act is perceived as having a humorous aspect. For Uncle
Neli's son, his grim act releases his fury because he is
the one who feels it intensely. Pirandello sums up his
view on humor as: "the feeling of polarity aroused by that
special activity of reflection. . . .
Pirandello's concept of humor allows him to let
each character carry within himself an inner world of
reality. In Six Characters in Search of an Author,
^Pirandello, On Humor, p. 47.
~^Ibid. , p. 59 .
155
Pirandello demonstrates how all the irrational and destruc
tive elements in the lives of the father, the mother, and
53
the step-daughter lead to the tragic ending of the son.
Each character is imprisoned in his own reality. Speaking
of this in Act I, the father states:
We too find ourselves strange to one another. We find
we are living in an atmosphere of mortal desolation
which is the revenge as he [indicating the son] scorn
fully said of the Demon of Experiment, that unfortu
nately hides in me. . . .We try to substitute
ourselves for faith, creating thus for the rest of the
world a reality which we believe. . . .54
In this play, Pirandello allows the father to expound on
the concept of reality. This is the difference between his
early works and some of the plays he wrote after he was
fifty years old. However, the elements of story and
characters still prevail, and the historical sense of what
Richard Gambino calls "La Miseria" [the Misery] of the
55
southern Italian can still be perceived.
In Henry IV, Pirandello returns to the subject of
madness and enfolds the story of a man in the disguise of
the German Emperor of Canossa. During a carnival, he
dressed up as Henry IV and suffered a severe case of
amnesia after falling from his horse. His sister furnished
53
Ragusa, Luigi Pirande11o, p. 38.
54
Bentley, Naked Masks, p. 234.
"^Richard Gambino, "The Case of Ethnicity," I AM
(The National Magazine for Italian-Americans) 1 (November
1976): 29.
156
his house in the period of Henry XV and hired servants to
live with him.
When he regained his memory some years later, he
decided to remain in the role of Henry IV. Now, visitors
from his old days come to see him: Belcredi, his old
enemy; Donna Matilda, his long-lost love; her daughter, and
a psychiatrist. The plan is to use Donna Matilda's
daughter, who is a portrait of her mother when she was
young, in shocking Henry IV back into reality.
The plan goes astray and after killing Belcredi,
Henry IV remains as he was. In the first act, Henry IV
looks at all of them and, turning to the monsignor, he
56
says: "Did you want to be bom Monsignor? I didn't1 ."
He finds life too complicated and too difficult to under
stand. Finding his traumatic life too much to bear, he
"must retreat to a world of madness which alone can afford
57
him protection."
After 1930, Pirandello returned to writing plays in
the conventional style. His eight-year effort, which
produced plays such as Each in His Own Way, Six Characters,
Henry IV, and Tonight We Improvise, aligned him with Max
Reinhardt, Pitoeff, and Stanislavsky. Matthaei writes that
Pirandello's later stage of writing was directed in an
"^Bentley, Naked Masks, p. 169.
57
Bishop, Pirandello and the French Theater, p. 26.
157
effort to transform the play into life and to induce the
5 8
audience to participate in it.
After this period, Pirandello seems to have become
interested in myth. His last three plays, Lazarus, The New
Colony, and The Mountain Giants, sought to develop a
theater that came "closer to the people's imagination and
59
reacquainted them with their own native spirit."
The Mountain Giants
If it is true that Pirandello sought to reawaken in
people their own native spirit in this play, then it
appears that perhaps he was repudiating a growing dictator
ship in which "the artists mythologizing imagination would
have no chance in the new technocratic world of dictator
ship."60
The dramatic action of this play involves Use, an
actress, and her troupe of artists who came to a villa upon
whose mountain the Giants live.
Coltrone, the magician of the villa, meets them
and, trying to induce them to stay, shows them many miracu
lous things. But Use is determined to go to the people
who live under the rule of the Giants and perform her play,
The Tale of the Changed Son. Coltrone warns her of the
■^Matthaei, Luigi Pirandello, p. 147.
59Ibid., p. 155.
6QIbid. . n. 157.___________________________________158
danger that exists and, fearing for the safety of her life,
implores her to stay with him and the people of the villa.
This is as far as Pirandello got in finishing the play, and
it was necessary for his son, Stefano, to finish the last
act in essay form, based on what his father had told him
and from the notes he left behind.
The play was to end with U s e ’s decision to proceed
to the mountain and present her play. At first, some of
the actors are reluctant, but, inspired by her courage,
they agree to go. When they arrive, they do not see the
Giants but are greeted by the inhabitants who are con
trolled by them, and who have not "the slightest idea about
61
theatrical productions. . . ."
The crowd assembles for the performance and the
first actors on the stage are greeted with hostility, which
frightens the whole troupe. The anger of the crowd grows
in intensity, and Use is warned by her husband not to go
out to the crowd. But Use, in her determination, does not
heed his warning and makes her appearance on the stage.
As the angry crowd grows more and more menacing,
Use, growing impatient with their behavior, shouts out to
62
them and calls them beasts. The crowd retaliates by
rushing onto the 'stage And attacks Use. Diamante and
61
Luigi Pirandello, The Mountain Giants and Other
Plays, trans. Marta Abba (New York; Crown Pub1ishers,
Inc., 1958), p. 96.
62Ibid., p. 99. 1Sq
Spizzi, two actors, rush in to try to save her as Use's
husband faints from shock. The fury of the crowd is
described in Stefano's notes:
During the ensuing pandemonium one can see images
reflected against the curtain; they are shadows moving
with gigantic gestures; their enormous bodies are
fighting, their cyclopean arms and fists are raised
to strike.63
U s e ' s back is broken and Spizzi and Diamante are tom to
pieces. What is the meaning of this play which is so
different from Pirandello’s other works? Matthaei writes
that the play is a conflict between the fanatics of Art
and the "incomprehension of the masses who despise them."
Pirandello, perhaps, came to view with deep suspi-
fi s
cion the favor shown to the arts by the Fascist state.
His own interest in Fascism had long been dead, and before
he died his mind seems to have returned to his origins.
His son writes:
Toward the very end, actually during the whole of the
second-last night of his life, my father's imagination
was so occupied by these ghosts that in the morning he
told me that he had had to sustain all the fourth act
in his head, and that now that he had solved every
difficulty, he hoped to be able to rest. . . . What no
one will ever know, is if the material would have
assumed a different appearance during its final concep
tion. . . . All I know from him that morning is this:
that he found a Saracen olive tree. He said to me
smiling, "There is a large Saracen.olive tree in the
63Ibid., p. 100.
^Matthaei, Luigi Pirandello, p. 163.
65Ibid., p. 164.
______________________________________________________________ L6j Q_
middle of the stage; with this tree I have solved
everything,"66
The Saracen olive tree, which grows abundantly in
Sicily, was to be used in the last Act to hang the curtain
of Use's improvised theater. In her sacrifice, Pirandello
perhaps is stating once again his obsessive preoccupation
with the ultimate loneliness of human existence.
Bentley believes that in this play, "The deep
6 7
humanity of man increases his loneliness." Use's
persistence in wanting to bring her art to the masses
antagonizes them and alienates herself from them, which
leads to her destruction. Matthaei concludes that in The
Mountain Giants, Pirandello's own negative influence under
Mussolini had burst forth.^
It is interesting to note that on his deathbed the
image of the Saracen olive tree offered him a solution for
his play. It is hard to interpret its symbolic meaning,
but the image is there for us to recognize and to ponder.
^Pirandello, The Mountain Giants, p. 95.
f i 7
Bentley, Naked Masks, Introduction, p. xxvii.
^Matthaei, Luigi Pirandello, p. 164.
161
CHAPTER VI
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Because Pirandello's early works are so often
neglected by critics, this study has attempted to focus on
his Sicilian background and its reflection in his early
works.
A brief review of Italian history revealed that
despite unification in 1867, the country remained divided
politically, economically, and socially. Vital statistics
sharply illustrated the deplorable poverty in the South,
especially in Sicily where Pirandello was born.
Pirandello did not escape the political and
economic tensions of his time. As a young man he experi
enced at first hand the intolerable working conditions of
the sulphur miners.
Chapter Three briefly reviewed Pirandello's family
and the influences on his early life showed that his
relationship with his father was not a positive one.
Pirandello had to conform to a formal and authoritarian
society which the character of his father embodied. His
father and uncle participated in the Garibaldean campaigns
which gave Pirandello the knowledge of the Risorgimento
162
which he was to deal with directly in his two-volume novel,
The Old and the Young.
One of the early important influences on Pirandello
was his housemaid Maria Stella, who gave him some religious
training which was negated because of his negative experi
ence with Father Sparma of the San Pietro Church. Piran
dello recorded this experience in his short story, The Wax
Madonna. This early story was reviewed along with other
stories grouped by Lily Duplaix under the title, Sicilian
Tales.
Prior to a discussion of his early stories, an
analysis was made of Pirandello’s poem, Mai Glocondo, which
he wrote when he was only twenty-two years old. The
analysis revealed what appears to be a melancholic frame of
mind which Pirandello seems to have carried over into his
early and later works.
Pirandello appears to have been highly sensitive to
those forces in daily life over which people have little
control. All the characters of his early works are over
whelmed by these forces, and the result is a persistent
sadness which his characters are not able to overcome.
The descriptive passages of his stories are rich in
portraits of the Sicilian landscape, customs, folklore, and
conflicts of its people. Writing in a naturalistic style
in his early period, Pirandello faithfully attempted to
record all that he had observed, and he added to this his
163
own unique style of interpreting what he had seen and
experienced.
Unlike Giovanni Verga, another Sicilian naturalis
tic writer, Pirandello was not content to solely record
objective reality. What he did differently was to concern
himself more with the inner reality of his characters which
led to his growing psychological awareness that for him
reality was a relative phenomenon.
It seems safe to assert that because of his experi
ence with his wife, Antonietta, who suffered from paranoia,
Pirandello developed interest in and an obsession with
madness or irrationality. His early stories and plays deal
with the instinctual or unlearned forces of his characters'
personalities which create the crises in their lives.
Pirandello endows his characters with a fierce pride even
though they go down in defeat.
In reference to the above, Tommaso, in the play
The Doctor's Duty, is willing to bleed to death rather than
submit to the legal view and judgment that will be imposed
upon him. Micuccio, in Sicilian Limes, sternly accepts the
change in Teresina's character, fully understanding that he
can never relate to what are for him artificial values. In
Micuccio’s character, Pirandello not only has created one
of the most memorable peasant characters, but he has also
artistically presented the contrast between the northern
and southern sections of Italy.
164
Pirandello's essay, Humor, which he wrote in 1908,
expanded in essay form his belief that objective reality is
difficult to assess because each man carries within himself
his own subjective sense of what it is. His early works
reveal that this is the psychological reason why men are in
conflict with each other, and indicates that Pirandello's
concern was focused more on the plight and misery of his
characters than in developing a work of art solely to
propagate a philosophical point of view.
In the story, Fumes, the conflict of Don Mattia
Scala with his old enemy, Don Chiarenza, culminates in
Scala's betrayal of his own friends in order to prevent
Chiarenza from claiming the land Scala had helped to
improve. Even though Scala is aware that once the miners
move in the land will be destroyed, he is unable to control
the hatred he feels for Chiarenza.
The novel, The Old and the Young, develops in the
character of Mauro Montara a symbolic image of Sicily
itself. Pirandello uses this novel as a vehicle to express
his feelings and thoughts about the Risorgimento and the
disillusionment that followed tonification. He ends this
novel with the death of the old man and Garibaldist, Mauro,
whom he fashioned after the character of his uncle. There
can be no doubt that Pirandello, in this novel, deals
directly with the abuse of Sicily and the failure of the
central government to live up to the goals of the
_____________________________________________________________165_
Risorgimento and improve conditions all over Italy,
especially in the South.
This early novel appears to reveal Pirandello's
concern and love for his beloved Sicily, and can perhaps
explain why he was willing to briefly be a member of the
Fascist party. When they, too, began to infringe on
individual freedom, Pirandello repudiated the Fascist
doctrine, and his last play, The 'Mountain Giants, is seen
by his biographer, Giudice, as an allegorical attack on the
Fascist system.
His later plays, Six Characters in Search of an
Author and Henry XV, were briefly discussed in order to
indicate that even in his later works, Pirandello main
tained his preoccupation with loneliness, despair, and
madness.
The significance of this study lies in its emphasis
on Pirandello's early thought as it evolved out of the
disillusionment and early struggles of a recently unified
nation. He was concerned for the economic, political, and
social strife of his fellow countrymen. Critics who
constantly concentrate on Pirandello’s later works by
emphasizing the discursive elements are depriving them
selves of the emotional richness of the characters he
developed in his early short stories, novels, and plays.
There have been some critics mentioned in this
study who have expressed their awareness of the significance
166
of Pirandello's earlier works. However, they have not
probed as deeply as this study has in order to demonstrate
specifically and clearly what that significance is. This
study, in viewing Pirandello's formative years, has
attempted to focus on the importance of his environment and
the emotional as well as intellectual manner in which
Pirandello responded to it.
While it is a truism that most writers are a
product of their time, the conclusion drawn from this study
is that many critics have not granted Pirandello that
distinction. Also, they have neglected to emphasize his
early development and artistic efforts which so passion
ately express in fictional form Pirandello's sympathy for
his Sicilian people and his disgust for the abuse of
southern Italy by the central government.
Pirandello's novel, The Old and the Young, and the
short stories reviewed bear testimony to his passion and
loyalty to his countrymen. It is evident to the writer of
this study that Pirandello is at his artistic best in
writing short stories and novels, because this medium
allowed him to describe the physical environment and to
express in passionate wording the physical descriptions of
his characters.
Also, it appears that he questioned the difficulty
of assessing reality probably because he was bom in a land
that had experienced many changes of rulers and cultures.
167
The result of this historical experience perhaps condi
tioned his people to Be wary of outside influences and to
question any realities that were imposed upon them by
others.
Critics of Pirandello would profit from an under
standing of Sicily's cultural history, of Pirandello's
family Background, and from an understanding of what he
attempted to express in his early poems, short stories,
novels, and early plays.
This understanding will perhaps enable theatrical
directors to avoid placing the main emphasis on the
discursive elements of Pirandello's plays while neglecting
the strong passions and inner conflicts of his characters.
It is the opinion of this writer that any director
seriously interested in understanding and interpreting
Pirandello should look to his short stories to find in them
a rich and passionate portrayal of characters in conflict
with themselves and others.
Pirandello abstracted from the Sicilian macrocosm
the sincere and honest values of peasant characters such
as Micuccio in Sicilian Limes to make his statement against
what was for him the corrupting influence of the cosmopoli
tan cities of the mainland. Teresina, in Sicilian Limes,
is made to embody this artificiality which Micuccio
rejects.
168
Also, Pirandello appears to examine the conflicts
within the individual which lead to frustration and a fail
ure to establish meaningful and satisfying relationships
with others. Perhaps this inability of his characters to
find meaningful and satisfying relationships is an out
growth of Pirandello's own tragic life in which he was not
able to consummate a satisfactory relationship with his
wife. Also, his relationship with his father, Stefano, was
not a gratifying one because the sensitive youth needed
more love than his father perhaps was capable of giving him.
What Needs to be Done
Much of Pirandello's work remains to be translated
into English. This includes approximately three hundred
stories, early poems, articles, and personal letters.
Without the wealth of this material, English-speaking
critics are at a disadvantage in obtaining a total view of
Pirandello's creative work.
An anthology of Pirandello's work compiled in
English similar to the Italian Mondadori edition would
greatly enhance the feasibility of all of Pirandello's
work. This should include:
(1) His poems and short stories;
(2) All of his plays;
(3) His novels;
(4) His essays;
169
(5) His articles to newspapers and literary
journals--especially his arguments with
Benedetto Croce;
(6) His letters written to his sister, Rosalina,
when he was a young student;
(7) His letters to his son, Stefano, when the young
man was taken prisoner by the Austrian Army
during World War I;
(8) His letters to his daughter, Lietta, after she
was married and left home for South America;
(9) His letters to the Italian leading actress of
his art theater, Marta Abba.
All of the above would greatly help to humanize a
writer who grew tired of being personified as a writer who
was "all head and no heart." In his own words in a letter
he wrote to Vittorini, he expressed his wish to be viewed
first as a human being, and secondly as a writer.
It seems fitting to end this study with that
letter, written in 1935 for Vittorini's book, The Drama of
Luigi Pirandello:
New York 30 VII 1935 XIII
Dear Vittorini:
The world of international literary criticism has
been crowded for a long time with numerous Pirandellos
--lame, deformed, all head and no heart, erratic,
gruff, insane, and obscure--in whom, no matter how hard
I try, I cannot recognize myself, not even in the
slightest degree. (The most senseless of these phan
toms I believe to be the one fashioned by Benedetto
170
Croce.) You too have now decided to present your own
Pirandello, not for the pleasure of maiming me and then
exposing me as I limp along; not for the pleasure of
showing me masked with the head of an elephant and my
heart atrophied by that infernal pump which is the
machine of logic, lost in the clouds or wandering in
the murky bowels of the earth. Indeed, you have done
just the opposite of this, and as is natural and as you
can well imagine, I am very grateful to you, dear
Vittorini. I am very grateful because, among so many
who think they know so well what I am, I, who have no
conception of what I am and have always refrained from
trying to find out for fear of offending all the life
which continually seethes within me, find in you one
who makes me walk upright on my own legs and grants me
as much heart as I need to love and pity this poor
humanity of ours, both when it is rational and when it
is irrational; one who tries to explain that if so many
believe me erratic, it is because I move in my own way
and not as others would like me to; gruff because I
grow indignant with their affectations; incomprehen
sible because they do not yet know how to see, to
think, to feel as I do.
At any rate, dear Vittorini, lame, deformed, all
head and no heart, erratic, gruff, insane and obscure,
I exist and I shall continue to exist, while they will
not. It is true this is not a matter of great impor
tance for me. A man, I have tried to tell something to
other men, without any ambition, except perhaps that of
avenging myself for having been born. And yet life, in
spite of all that it has made me suffer, is so beauti
ful! (And here is another positive statement without
even a shadow of logic, and yet so true and deeply
felt.) Well, I thank you cordially, dear Vittorini,
for the mirror of this book which you place before me,
in which I can behold myself with so much gratifica
tion.
LUIGI PIRANDELLO
171
APPENDICES
172
APPENDIX A
CHAPTER I
Part I
Professor G. Ferroglio
Census--1901
The.information gathered is from an article in The
American Monthly Review of Reviews, September 1904. It is
based on Professor G. Ferroglio1 s' Riforma Sociale (Census
of 1901), pages 368-69.
1. Population of Italy estimated at 32,000,000 people.
2. 16,883,881 exercise a profession.
3. 9,666,467 occupied in agriculture and varied
industries.
4. 3,989,816 are engaged as artisans.
5. 3,227,598 not included in the agricultural and
kindred classes and the varied industries.
6. In this 3,227,598, a total of 1,196,744 make up the
commercial classes, various employees in banks,
insurance companies, hotel-keepers, dealers in real
estate. Men comprise 1,025,839 of this total and
170,905 of them are women.
7. 2,030,854 belong to the classes devoted to intel
lectual and literary pursuits. Also, those engaged
in domestic and other services.
8. 511,279 are people of capital and independent means
of which 272,720 are women and 239,359 are men.
9. The Army and Navy absorbs only 204,012 people.
10. 139,893 are in the service of religion. Of these,
89,329 are men and 40,564 are women.
11. In teaching: 62,873 are women and 39,559 are men.
The majority of women are employed in the elemen
tary schools. A woman is rarely employed in the
institutions of higher learning.
____________________ 173
12. In the medical profession (including nurses and
midwives): there are 69,913 employed. 49,030
are men and 20,833 are women. 13,000 of the
latter are midwives.
13. The legal profession has 33,746 persons.
14. Engineers, land surveyors, and accountants make up
a total of 22,775.
15. The artistic classes:
(a) only 39,877 persons
(b) 33,587 are men
(c) 7,370 are women.
16. Professions of painting and sculpture (artists and
their models) total 13,857 persons.
(a) only 790 are women.
17. The musical and dramatic stage (including circus
performers, etc.) number only 26,030 persons.
(a) 20,420 are men
(b) 5,600 are women.
174
APPENDIX B
CHAPTER II
PART II
Economic Statistics under Fascism
In 1922, the population of Italy was 40,000,000.
Before the Fascists came into power, the country was
plagued by numerous agricultural and industrial strikes.
1. 1920: agricultural strikes caused the loss of
14,000,000 working days.
2. Industrial strikes: 1,267,000 strikers
involved with the loss of about 16,500,000
working days.
3. 1923 (after the Fascists had been in power for
a year): strikes were reduced to a loss of
265,000 days.
4. 1927: strikes ceased to exist.
The Period from 1922-1927:
1. Unemployment: January 1, 1922--541,000
July 1, 1926 -- 28,000
2. 1927: a high level of an industrial and highly
competent working population had been attained.
3. Italian engineering technique surpassed itself.
4. Hydro-electric plants supplied Italian industry
with 6,900,000,000 kilowatt-hours of electric
energy (in 1913, it was only 1,700,000,000).
175
1848:
1860:
1805-
1872:
1810-
1861:
1861:
1866:
1870:
1883-
1945:
10/28
1922:
1928:
APPENDIX C
CHAPTER II
PART II
Important Dates in Recent Italian History
The revolutions that erupted all over Europe
inspired Italians to press for unification.
Garibaldi (1807-1902). Italian patriot and
soldier, hero of the Risorgimento. Led 1,000
volunteer "Redshirts" in a spectacular conquest of
Sicily and Naples.
Mazzini, Giuseppe, Italian patriot and revolution
ist. Key figure in the Risorgimento. Wrote in a
highly idealistic style. Took direct part in the
revolution of Milan (1848). He clashed with
Cavour, who eventually won out.
Cavour, Camilio Benso. Italian statesman. Chief
architect of Italian unification under Victor
Emmanuel II.
RISORGIMENTO: The period of National Unification
(1815-1870).
Victor Emmanuel II proclaimed King of United
Italy.
Venetia (Venice) came to Italy after the Austro-
Prussian War.
The remnant of the Papal States— Rome and Latium--
annexed by Italy.
Mussolini, Benito. Italian dictator, founder and
leader of Fascism.
Fascists marched on Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III
called on Mussolini to form a Cabinet.
Parliamentary government was suspended and replaced
by the Fascist Corporative State.
176
1929:
1935:
1939:
1940:
July
1943:
Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty with the
Papacy.
Mussolini conquered Ethiopia in 1935.
Albania was annexed.
Italy entered the Second World War.
Mussolini replaced by Badoglio after allied inva
sion of Italy. Mussolini established a puppet
government in northern Italy. He was shot and
killed by Italian partisans after the collapse of
the German Army.
177
APPENDIX D
CHAPTER IV
Mai Giocondo (Sections 1-10)
Translation by-
Joseph Louis Asciutto
To the chosen ones:
Did you perish? In vain do I recall you from the sacred
pages, oh pure love of past times, pure goddess among new
men?
Do I recall in vain your clear voice on the Fidian lips of
marble on your statue that has been silent for centuries?
Times have changed, old genius, the old affections already
have been pushed from within by a strong passion and rush
ing out of life, creating a turbulence.
Its strong blows collapse the old headquarters [churches
and palaces] and a violent fury overcomes such recent
destruction.
Like an overwhelming wave of people that breaks and knocks
down, that frets and stirs, it becomes aware of its power
and reclaims its right to live.
The sweet deceptions that you gave, oh pious Virgin, like a
rainfall of dewey roses falls down from the laps of a god
upon human misfortunes.
A severe and rigid new goddess has already taken away any
trace of green; a goddess with falcon-like eyes who is
always stubbornly seeking for truth.
Because of her the old ways, of the world have been changed,
[oh, inestimable triumph and glory of the century], and a
more intense and varied life smiles upon mankind.
Because of her people are corrected by a more just law and
industry has become active, using for one purpose the
treasures of a common mother.
178
Everywhere, in words, in the air, in houses, we feel the
presence of the benefactress goddess.
But you, will you come among us, oh Divine Virgin from
Olympus which was sacred to the Greeks? Will you come
among us, those who invoke you only in idleness, in a
godly gait?
Romanzi [Novels]
I
Like an ancient tenacious charioteer on a fast chariot who
is able to hold the lurching fire of the Arabic horse which
suddenly hunches its back, with a cry the charioteer
excites the animal full of fire to run like lightning, the
dust rises and surrounds him in a gold cloud. Such am I
who gives wings to his fantasy in order to flee from his
strong internal pain and flies into a sky full of fan
tasies; hoping that clouds of dreams will absorb me.
II
Listen. I come to tell you from the immortal pages of the
divine Ferrarese [i.e. Ariosto] a different fairy tale made
of strange verses. I will take you under an ancient vale
so that you may understand a new suffering. Whoever recog
nizes himself in the young man that I represent, surrender.
He races along back roads spurring the fiery horse, which
proudly neighs until it bleeds, running at a full gallop
with snorting nose and erected ears.
He dashes through desolate winter valleys, through
untilled, vast, and lonely plains, crossing mountains and
fording rivers, unaware of his trip.
Neither the bad weather nor the smile of April succeeds in
tiring him or calming his fury. Always, a wish for insane
desires pushes him forward.
He is always hounded by the dark clouds in the sky which
cast upon him a gloomy shadow; and a sacred echo, the
messenger of death, always answers his call.
He, in passing, hears the screams and sighs of poor people
and the deep sadness of the fields offended by the autumn
winds which are enemies to the green fields.
179
His heart, full of anxious suffering, he continues on with
out resting, as if abducted by an alluring ghost whirling
away in front of him.
He rose until the generous animal collapsed under his fury:
then he stopped still full of anticipation and the surprise
of where he was.
He looked all around: on every side a gigantic forest full
of intense mysteries surrounded him and silently denied his
way.
The rays of the sun never pierced that immense entanglement
of twisted branches; the fury of predatory winds never
stripped away the green leaves.
From every side his anxious vision was restricted, but
there was no limit looking at the sky. The ethereal ghost
that he vainly chased for such a long distance had vanished
in it.
The stubborn young man did not despair nor did he cry out
against destiny: he took an ax from the upturned saddle
and moved toward the woods.
After a few strokes against an old oak he heard a dull
clamor of unrecognizable and mysterious voices coming from
within the green horror.
Enraptured in that vision, he did not see the branches of
the magic wood coming quietly upon him like invisible arms.
He did not see the green sharp little snakes firmly wrap
themselves around his legs, neck, chest, and wrists; he did
not see the thousand stems of strange flowers that insidi
ously stretched all about, neither did he feel the sharp
bite of the thorns which covered the stems.
This was the extent of the powerful magic of that traitor
ous feminine face; and the effect of that intense look of
those staring eyes.
He was now enclosed in the immense forest, completely held
by green snakes, the branches, the flowers, his own aston
ishment, and in the awesome, complete power of the thorns.
In the shadows he heard the distant sounds of dancing and
the singing of choirs, it was the sweet concerts of
mysterious instruments and the clear singing of happy
nymphs.
180
And the desire ridden ghost, that atrocious mockery, shines
nearby among the widened branches like a living sun: it
shines and teases him.
Before he can reach him, the great springtime that holds
him must pass or he must leave pieces of his flesh among
the rough knots.
Ill
Jove Speaks
The last sunset looked like a sublime fire of the sky, and
the night stretched a black veil on the enlightened Chris
tians. The dying Jove said: The peasant bound together
the roots with which the turkey oak vigorously clung to the
earth; but the metal tooth of the patient and its rigid
soul had not reached the roots which stretched into the
deep ground: they were cut by the ax. The trunk gave a
dull cry and the turkey oak majestically collapsed.
IV
As if it were a liquid crystal swaying with a light move
ment in a lazy way, the powerful wave, like the wave of
time, covers with flexible seaweed the remains of the Greek
Port of Agrigenturn [Agrigento]. I come from the ancient
temples to dive into the sea.
Oh sea, conscious of so many hegemonies and of so many
fights, oh contested Mediterranean Sea; give me oblivion--
oblivion.
Proud Pallade cleaned the dust from the side of her horse
and the foam from the nostrils. She asked for rest and
peace from those murky waters and discarded the golden
helmet and the bloody weapons [oh idyll of Callimaco!].
I am not received by Greek girls of the sacred baths, I
arrive on a young horse without reigns toward the sea; I am
greeted only by the motley gathering of memories and
regrets on the desolate shore; I enter the cold waves to
forget.
To forget the sad illness of living, and the pleasant
triumphs while the cult of eternal beauty, which was our
divine ideal, dies .
181
I heard that once the Greek crowds used to sing songs to
the Greek Gods among the column of the untouched temple of
the Concordia.
I heard a coarse shepherd not paying attention to his
flock, who was rocking the idleness of his uneducated soul
into the relaxation of a sweet monotoned Arab song. . . .
Oh Conscious Sea, in you who is embraced by the Agrigen-
tinian coast, with a light curve, oh sea who first gave me
the astonishment of the great visions, here it is, I dive
into you; but in you also the flaming sun lowers itself,
solemn like a dying hero of a Greek tragedy.
V
The country of which I once dreamed, innocent of the world
and its evils, I have already searched for it on earth for
a long time, trusting in the vague image which was escort
ing me. Disappointed, I visited many villages, running
away I waved goodbye to many from the distance. And while
the day was melting into night upon their roofs, I always
invoked the peace and the calm deception of the dreams and
the calm oblivion of the peace and the sweet deception as
the day turned into night.
On uncertain paths, among rocks and thorns, while quietly
going enraptured in my burning desire, X left a great part
of my living self! Fool, and X had hoped; Fool, and I had
trusted; and knowing, confronting my misfortunes is only
the cruel knowledge that neither pitiful lies or the love
of a woman or the charity of a friend will ever again
succeed to raise me from the earth on which I lie. Neither
do I believe any longer in you, country of my latest
dreams; it was late, alas, when I understood that it was
vain to look for you under the sun.
If wearily X saw sad storks going by in the darkened sky
among the trees shaken by the first winds of autumn, I used
to say to myself: "They will go down there far away in the
beautiful country of my dreams where spring flowers eter
nally." And I thought that even the leaves torn away from
the branches by the persistent wind, pursued it; the clouds
and the vague illusions which run away from the hearts of
me went to it. . . . Xt was madness, madness for sure but a
sweet one.
VI
A song to harmony; may the image be born like Venus was
born among the foam of the ocean among nymphs and the sea
creatures, while the coastline happily laughed.
182
And you, oh harmony, are really an even clearer and more
pure a wave. Into you, the sovereign and stately white
swan struts dreamingly, into you I was and heal my wounds,
forgetting them.
Jealous of your illustrious brightness, the Virgin daughters
of dream came to your healthy basin throwing their veils
into the moist air, and diving into you smilingly and
naked.
You, oh cool wave, surround the lovely daughters of Dream
with a sweet embrace. From the sky, the moon pours out a
green light over them.
The lively foam quivers in the inlet where now one and then
the other gracefully depart, full to the brim. Together
they resemble two small breasts or two pomegranates still
closed.
The daughters of dream come to you and for all the mortals
desiring oblivion in you, Oh sacred wave, they have a kiss,
a laugh, and a consoling act of love.
Into the fiery storm of gloomy thoughts, born in deep
hatred and in the idleness of this vain mortal life that
runs futilely away, the gloomy thoughts roar sickly in the
heart.
Oh Harmony, your voice vibrates with tender sounds making
one feel serene like a flock of white doves carrying a
small olive tree branch in their beaks.
Then, I pretend to myself that there is an unknown virgin
hidden far away in the lap of night, who sends me the white
doves.
They land on my distressed chest, shoulder and head, flap
ping their wings loudly and unsteadily: "Oh, close more
often the dark and black eyes, oh innocent doves, and on my
burning face make me feel the sweet gentleness of your
feathers like a calm, motherly caress. I can very well see
that the unknown virgin does not send you because of love.
As a magician touching the strings of a strange instrument
during the night, she deceptively attracts mortals and she
offers freely to everyone poison which seems like divine
ambrosia. And she holds within herself thousands of
different desires, hopes and dreams; she emits into the
burning air by her own fever, fantasies full of light; I
invoke her in vain. The indocile ones do not come. I
remain with burning outstretched lips avidly wishing for a
183
bite, a kiss, or a fresh breath that might soothe the fire
for which I quietly burn within; in vain I invoke her,
desire her, alas, the indocile ones do not come.
Toward what shores does my uncertain soul navigate, oh,
feeble disappearing sounds which are similar to words
lightly written on pure, white snows, my soul goes away
with you.
Onward and onward the agile ship cuts through the bright
flatness of the water and the intermittently shimmering
bright ocean. . . .
Onward and onward, oh! isn’t this the narrow archipelago,
almost similar to a crown around the Greek mother penin
sula? These sounds sighed at you Ancient Greek, inspiring
in your different lands the diverse power of the singing
minstrels.
Was that how it happened under the blue, eternal sky of
Homer? Greetings, oh Lesbos, greetings oh, sweet island!
Doesn’t the guilty wave tremble here for the burning and
fatal passion of Saffos?
Doesn’t it tell of the happy banquets and the loves of the
Mitelenian Alceo, poet and warrior. Come, Greek Virgins,
the Zither is inviting you with seven sweet strings to a
nice communal song. And X would like to abandon myself to
a sleep populated with docile ghosts, abandon myself to a
sleep that may be the last. . . . Or to slowly die choked
by a cloud of light petal of roses dripping pure dew and
raining on me from above, from your divine lap, oh Harmony.
VII
With the first ray of an April morning, spring broke into
my room. A young goddess lavished with both hands from her
full lap roses of every color on my bed . . . roses which
opened at the kiss of dawn, roses still dripping with the
night dew . . . roses and more roses.
Unaware of its arrival, a dream of love held me in its
sweet embrace; but Spring, seeing that her lips parted with
a smile, started to tickle my neck and my relaxed forehead
with the stem of a flower.
Then, I jumped still full of the surprise from the dream.
184
She laughed abundantly and frankly at the clumsy awakening
of a mortal, inebriated by the innumerable roses on my bed
--my vision was blurred.
She took my head into her beautiful white hands and leaning
over me she kissed my mouth coolly saying: Arise, and then
she left.
I saw her in a burst of light wandering over the plains,
and I saw a new, benevolent miracle: under her delicate
feet the earth flourished again in bright and different
colors.
The air expanded because of her pure breath, and all around
her were a thousand bees sucking on the new flowers.
Then, far away from me, she turned around once again: her
clear voice vibrated in the sky as the birds became silent.
She said, "Sing me the Sacred Easter of Gea."
VIII
Saturn, the century without pity renews your cruel story,
on us, his sons already in the new era, Cibelle, mother of
the new victims, gave us bile instead of milk to drink,
born to death without the difficult trials of fire, that
though difficult, make one feel love for it; we, the sons
of Saturn are devoured by his insatiable appetite. Because
of him, a kingdom collapsed and he sits on its ruins which
has become a throne to him and he asks his wife for new
victims.
Oh, Cibelle, save the redeeming Jove from death.
XX
Oh, sir, Ludovico, on the cemetery of Orlando, you set a
crow [bird of ill omen] who said, "Be the sword and I will
be your thoughts." And Orlando became Margutte.
He leaves Angelica and Medore to enjoy peacefully the best
age of their lives; in the meantime Brigliadora dashes
without reigns through the terrifying woods.
He goes without reigns and overthrows any daring knight who
tries to jump on his back. Untamable, he dashes forward
without knowing where this mad gallop will lead him.
But X throw myself on its bristly mane. I put my arms
185
around his neck and with my feet I squeeze his sides.
I tame him and I fly like the wind, forgetting every
trouble, the world and myself.
The ancient wood, made of high oaks, feels an intense and
great shiver of horror, and the nymphs, who loved to dream
among the oaks, are awakened by the noise of my running.
The whistling arrow is enough to break their vegetable
sleep. Once awakened, they break through the bank and from
the trunks, they stretch their beautiful nymph-like heads.
Now a thousand quivering voices call me among the spasms of
fiery voluptuousness: "Come . . . kiss me! . . . take me!
. . . hold on! . . . I'm yours . . . ! I want you! .
I love you! . . . I'm burning! . . . Stay! . . ."
Every leaf has a soul and a voice and the air is like a
flame which moves towards me. The fever that is burning my
blood is also burning the wood and keeps me enclosed within
itself.
Go Brigliadoro, bring war to everyone. Step on everything
and advance forward more inebriated by the fighting, knock
down every obstacle, peace was an indolent dream.
Let's leave behind the old problems, the dreams, and the
old loves in the wind, which, whistling through my ears, is
moved by the impetus of your running away. Let us go
towards the future.
Oh country of dreams where the harsh screeching of my
chains does not resound, to you, far away, I fly to you
spurred on by the necessity of oblivion and by the thirst
of my love.
I know you are a fantasy and I search in vain for you; in
this disdainful, strange running of mine I scorn a life,
mocked by destiny.
Away, therefore, go forward to where the trail leads to
that point which we are allowed to touch: I also would
like to see that siren, who with a sweet singing, calms
the ocean. . . .
Alcina, cruel and indifferent fairy, do not smile at me
from the distance: not in vain did I scatter the vile
crowd blocking the way, and I fight it day and night.
You, oh Alcina, a quarrelsome and slanderous woman, spit
ting bile, set the iniquitous crowd on me and without truth
or rest denies my goal.
186
Oh Alcina, may the docile maids come like the day it did
for Ruggiero, it is time; may the maids of peace offer me
their hand with a proud gesture; I will dominate the rough,
vain crowd.
Finally, oh beautiful Alcina, I too am in your arms if this
is not a dream. Make it so that for one solitary night I
will be able to lie down with you; happy and satisfied I
will end my days.
Tell me why are you so beautiful and yet so cruel, tell me
my sweet love . . . you take all the strength of my years
so that I may happily destroy myself in you.
You are old but hide your true essence from me with a
youthful look, like the old earth at springtime hides her
wrinkles with April flowers.
When X will have enjoyed you for a night, do change me into
a dried twig and do not transform me ever again. I will
tell you with my best greeting, "How ugly you are, oh
beautiful Alcina,, you
X
Let's go somewhere here besides these walls. You will hear
the unbeloved bride; the heart is bleeding under the heavy
weight of such a dark memory like the tree which is pressed
into a narrow vase and loses its natural bloom and ceases
to produce either leaves or sprouts and becomes like a
stone under the ash grey bark.
In the same way, enclosed among these sorrowful walls
languished the great love that ties me to you and slowly
comes to an end; the soul no longer tells you things
frankly.
Let's go somewhere besides that resounding cloud of tiny
insects which are specific memories. I can hear them
screaming throughout the deserted rooms, in this calm
which is not made of peace.
Mocking echoes reawaken around us whenever you whisper
sweet love words or kiss me. Quiet. There is no other way
to make the echoes quiet.
The echo insinuates to me that she repeats whatever she has
already told others in a friendly time. X now repeat her
words: here you will never have peace.
187
Let's go somewhere also where there are roofs by the
thousands and where the swallows do not disdain to build
their nests. A more trustworthy roof will take us in as
loved ones.
Oh proud trees which line the beautiful paths of the public
garden's, almost to escort the silly citizens or even more
the silly mortal vanities; how much pity I feel, oh! proud
trees now that the autumn months darkly call the rains to
whip you and the wind to become a melancholy ornament for
you damned by an adverse destiny. In the afternoon, the
garden opens its gate and the vain comedy starts to repeat
itself over again under your naked, twisted branches, the
comedy of a crowd, that surely appears to me composed of
midgets, a comedy full of languor and lies--human, human,
human! Down there among the clouds, the dark red of the
sunset spreads a blood red color over the distant domes and
roofs: one more day dies like this without the smile of a
ray of the sun. I look at you, great trees, and your
twisted branches look like they are giving me, now and
then, a malicious and evil hint, and my face whitens: it
seems to me that each one of you call on me to coldly end
the night, which hovers darkly above, by hanging myself
from the trunk: "Come, you fool, what do you wish? Peace
have the dead down in their tombs!"
1 M
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