Il marchese-contadino: The Divided Self and the Other in Luigi Capuana'sIl marchese di Roccaverdina

Abstract

The master-slave dialectic that illustrates a step in the process of Hegelian self-consciousness, of the recognition-seeking relationship between the subject and the Other provides a paradigm of social relations. Hegel's primeval tale finds resonance in Luigi Capuana's Il marchese di Roccaverdina, through the marquis's rapport with his servants, Agrippina Solmo and Rocc o Criscione. Capuana's rustics may be construed as representations of the slave insofar as they become exploited objects essential for the landowner's achievement of subjectivity; however, as in the characteristic role reversal of Hegel's dialectic, the marquis cannot escape his sense of dependency on his Others. Subsequently, the slave becomes imbued with agency, for without him the master is nothing. This study examines the power dynamic between the marquis and his servants in order to demonstrate how his socio-psychological crisis greatly depends on his interactions and relations with the principal popular characters of the novel.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 0 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.