Pleasure of Writing: Critical Essays on Dacia Maraini

La lunga vita di Marianna Ucr

Maria Ornella Marotti La 'lunga vita di Marianna Uerla A Feminist Revisiting of the Eighteenth Century In his introduction to Tropics ofDiscourse (1978), Hayden White writes: "When wemake sense of such problematical topics as human nature, culture, society, and history . .. our discourse always tends to slip away from our data towards the structures of consciousness with which we are trying to grasp them" (1). In her 1990 novel, Dacia Maraini purposely slips away from data to embrace a method of interpretatIon based on the imaginative reconstruction of consciousness. La lunga vita di Marianna Verla (The Silent Duchess) can indeed be read as an attempt "to create a cultural and social history "of the Sicilian eighteenth century from the perspective of a female consciousness who is, at the same time, centred and marginal, inside and outside language, \ Because of the way in which she deals with every institution ofthe Sicilian society ofthe time, Maraini's project is reminiscent of Michel Foucault. Like Foucault, Maraini unmasks the game of power embedded in institutions. Her scope is allencompassing . The tenuous plot of the novel leads the reader from the aristocratic palace to the prison and the gallows, from the country mansion to the peasants' huts, from the wedding party to the convent, from the kitchen to the fashion tailor's atelier, and so on. Her project is informed by an awareness" of not only the game and strategies of power at work in Sicilian society, but also the resistance opposed by the objects of that power. In this respect, Maraini's perspective seems to be equally under the influence ofthe practice ofcu~turalhistory and reminds one' especially of Michel de Certeau's and Carlo Ginzburg's works. In the Sicilian society that Maraini describes, the arrogance of power is countered by the ability to survive expressed by both the plebeian characters and the aristocratic protagonist. 165 Maria Omella Marotti Like several contemporary historical novels, La lunga vita di Marianna Verla tries to fill the void left by historical narration by encompassing the lives of people who are not historically representative. Although Maraini's re-reading of eighteenthcentury Sicilian history does not stray from factual evidence recorded by official historical records, it is based on a subjective point of view that validates individual experience. Notes to Marianna, written in a spoken language filled with Sicilian idioms, comment on the turbulent events ofthose decades, while the protagonist's observations of everyday reality and her own notes-her only verbal vehicle ofcommunication--create a web of relations and social customs. For the reader of Maraini, it is clear that her reconstruction of the Sicilian eighteenth century is not solely dictated by an .archeological interest for its own sake. Her political commitment to the cause of feminism in Italy dates back over thirty years and this is so well known to any student of Italian culture that it seems legitimate to ask: Why the eighteenth century ? Which aspects of that century serve Maraini's feminist theory? And why does she choose the duchess Marianna Vcrla as protagonist and center ofconsciousness ofher semihistorical novel? Throughout the novel, Maraini makes it clear for the reader that the choice of the time setting of the novel is part of a conscious discourse on the cultural period. Marianna V crla sees herself as the product of her century and often contrasts her way ofreasoning with that ofher husband, thirty years her senior. Per molti nobili della sua eta, vissuti e maturati nel secolo passato, i pensieri sistematici hanno. qualcosa di ignobile, di volgare. II confronto con altre intelligenze, altre idee, e considerato per principio una resa. I plebei pensano come gruppo 0 come folIa; un nobile esolo e di questa solitudine ecostituita la sua gloria e il suo ardimento. Marianna sa che lui non la considera sua pari per quanto la rispetti come moglie. Per lui la moglie euna bambina di un secolo nuovo, incomprensibile, con qualcosa di triviale nella sua ansia per i mutamenti, per fare, il costruire. (53) For many of the noblemen ofhis age, who grew up and lived in the prev.ious century, logical thought has something ignoble , even vulgar about it. To confront other minds, other 166 Marianna Verla: A Feminist Revisiting ideas, is considered in principle an act of perfidy. The common people, with their crowd mentality, behave like flocks of sheep; only the nobleman stands alone, and out of this aloofness come...