Luigi Pirandello's two short stories La verita and Certi obblighi and the play derived from them Il berretto a sonagli seem to be, at least on the surface, about adultery. The three male protagonists' dilemmas come about as a result of their wives' sexual transgressions, which consequently impose certain "obligations" upon them. The themes of adultery and betrayal, however, are merely surface elements, used to explore the theatrical nature of identity and of all social experience. Specifically, the three works show how role-playing-within-roles safeguards the identity of the betrayed husbands, by protecting them from social humiliation. / Since all Pirandellian characters role-play, and as a consequence portray and assume multiple identities, this thesis examines the function and significance of this technique in both narrative and theatrical contexts. It attempts to show that while the device is a feature common to all three works, it is in the dramatic adaptation that role-playing in relation to identity acquires its more visible and effective treatment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.68118 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Mastrogianakos, John |
| Contributors | Kroha, L. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Italian.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001403462, proquestno: AAIMM94370, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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