I had wanted to post this entry in Italian but, realising that it will reach a wider audience in English, I changed my mind.
I would like to share with you the essence of one of my lectures, Italian Literature in the 20th century. We are currently studying Luigi Pirandello and I realised that his paradoxical philosophy touches the very core of every individuals life.

Pirandello contrasts form and life in an intriguing fashion. He maintains that each and every individual has a multitude of forms. Those are the ways in which people perceive this person. There is also the form that one has of his/her self which could be extremely different from all the other forms that people have.

He also adds that life is forever changing; it never rests at a point. Every minute an individual is different from what he or she was a minute before, and is different from what he or she will become in the next few moments. Then Pirandello asks, if I am not the same person that I was a moment ago and not even the exact replica of myself a minute from now, if I see myself in a way and every other person sees me in a unique way according to his or her reception of me, then who, in reality, am I?
Pirandello is convinced that every choice in life means the loss of another because one can not be everything at the same time. He states that our paths in life decide what we will encounter and even how our life will turn out to be.

I have read La Carriola yesterday, and this short story happens to clearly manifest Pirandellos philosophy of the absurd. It tells the story of a university professor who is at the same time a lawyer, a loyal husband, and a father of four. He is stuck in a vortex of the life he lives, his work, his teaching, his demanding wife and children. Then he suddenly looks at things in a slightly tilted scope, he realises that the forms imposed upon him by the demands of a proper social and professional life are not really his. He sinks in his thoughts as he does his usual legal work in the privacy of his home office, and he loses himself entirely. His line of reasoning leads him to believe that he has never been alive. He takes the back legs of the household pet, and makes the dog walk on the front legs for some 6 steps. He feels that by doing that he has done something he himself really wanted to do, regardless of customs and obligations and labels. Then he resumes his customary work and returns to his previous prison.

Perch ogni forma una morte , for every form is a death. This is one of the deductions that the troubled professor arrives to. Solo si conosce chi che riesca a veder la forma che si data o chi gli altri hanno data, la fortuna, i casi, le condizioni in cui ciascuno nato. Me se possiamo vederla, questa forma, segno che la nostra vita non pi in essa: perhc se fosse, noi non la vederemmo: la viveremmo, questa forma, senza vederla, e morremmo ogni giorno pi in essa, che gi per s una morte, senza conoscerla. Possiamo dunque vedere e conoscere soltanto ci che di noi morto. Conoscersi morire.
Here is a rough translation of the above passage taken from La Carriola:

The only person who knows is he who manages to see the form that others have bestowed upon him, he who understands fortune and chances, and the conditions in which every individual is born. But if we can see this form, then this is a sign that our life is not in it. Since if our life was in this form, we wouldnt be seeing it, we would live this form without seeing it and we would die more and more everyday as we live it. This form is, in itself, a death. Therefore we can only see and know that which is dead from us. Knowing ourselves is dying

Il mio caso anche peggiore. Io vedo non ci che di me morto; vedo che non sono mai stato vivo, vedo la forma che gli altri, non io, mi hanno data, e sento che in questa forma la mia vita, una mia vera vita, non c stata mai. Mi hanno preso come una materia qualunque, hanno preso un cervello, unanima, muscoli, nervi, carne, e li hanno impastati e foggiati a piacer loro, perch compissero un lavoro, facessero atti, obbedissero a obblighi, in cui io mi cerco e non mi trovo. E grido, lanima mia grida dentro questa forma morta che mai non stata mia: — Ma come? Io,questo? Io, cos? Ma quando mai? E ho nausea, orrore, odio di questo che non sono io, che non sono stato mai io: di questa forma morta, in cui sono prigioniero, e da cui non mi posso liberare.

My case is even worse. I see of me that which is dead. I see that I have never been alive; I see the form that others, and not I, have chosen for me. And I feel that in this form my true life has never existed.
They have handled me like any other material, they took a brain, a soul, muscles, nerves, flesh, and they kneaded and molded them as they pleased so they can complete a job, commit acts and abide by obligations in which I search for myself and I never find it.
And I scream, my soul screams inside this dead form that has never been mine: — But how? This is me? This is how I am? When ever did this happen?
I am nauseated and horrified. I abhor that which is not me, that which has never been me, that dead form that imprisons me and from which I can not liberate myself.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!



This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 11th, 2005 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Literature, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.