Il protagonista di Entwicklungsroman nella narrativa italiana del XX secolo

Abstract

The starting point of our study consists of three novels, symbols of the Italian literature of Entwicklungsroman: Il garofano rosso by Elio Vittorini, Il diavolo sulle colline by Cesare Pavese and Due di due by Andrea De Carlo. The young protagonists are pursued all through their formation, during the years when fascism appeared, namely not a long time after the Second World War, until the students' upheavals at the end of the 60s. Using a structuralistic approach, one arrives at Propp and the formalists' conclusions: the characters, or better said, the character walks his initiating road helped or prevented by a certain number of actants classified in symmetrical pairs according to the famous functions so that, at the end of the labyrinth of watches and tests, he feels accomplished, i.e. mature. And all this happens by tribulations between the wish to exceed one's condition of inexperienced young man and the nihilistic rage pushing him to self-destruction.