Pessimism in Italian Modernist Fiction

Is it fair to say that Modernist Fiction is pessimistic in tone?

Discuss with reference to all three novels on this course.

There are many themes portrayed in the novels I have studied that indicate a pessimistic tone. Every since the beginning of their literature, Italians have brought special distinction and unusual vitality to the genre of Modernism. Modernist writers do not believe in an absolute reality, but more in people’s perceptions of their own reality. This idea is put simply by the American-born writer Henry James, when he said “One seeing more when the other sees less, one seeing black where the other sees white” These modernist writers know that each reader will perceive the novel differently, and a common unique feature of modernist writing is that the author always draws the attention of the reader back to the fact that they are reading fiction. The writers of the three novels I have studied are no exception to this, and they all draw on impressionism to emphasise this subjectivity of Realism. We experience the feelings self-criticism and the negativity of the protagonists through this technique and are closely subjected to the misery of the characters. I will now illustrate this pessimism with examples from three Italian Modernist works; Il Fu Mattia Pascal, La Coscienza di Zeno and Tre Croci.

The attractiveness of death is an important and gloomy theme displayed in all three texts. Death is inevitable, but also a desirable outcome for the protagonist. Pirandello takes this self-destruction, in Il Fu Mattia Pascal, from the ideas of Sigmund Freud and his concept of the ‘death drive’. He maintains that when life is too crazy, the only way that calm can be sought is through death, which is exactly what Mattia Pascal attempts to achieve. He fakes his own demise hoping to escape “not only his situation of economic catastrophe and family difficulties, but also himself.” Similarly, in Italo Svevo’s view, living itself is an adequate punishment...