The Conformist (Masterplots II: World Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Alberto Moravia
- First Published: 1951
- Type of Work: Social realism
- Time of Work: 1920-1945
- Setting: Rome and Paris
- Principal Characters: Marcello Clerici, Giulia, Lino, Professor Quadri, Lina, Orlando
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Politics, Homosexuality or homosexuals, Sex or sexuality, Paris, Lesbianism or lesbians, Assassination, Cruelty, Espionage or spies, Fascism, Rome
- Locales: Paris, France, Rome, Italy
The Novel
The Conformist is an attempt to trace the origins of the impulse toward Fascism in an individual mind. The novel portrays the life of Marcello Clerici from his childhood in the home of wealthy bourgeois Romans to his death in a random air raid at the end of World War II.
Marcello’s father, an ex-military man, ignores his son, and his mother alternately spoils and neglects him. He gets off to a bad start by deriving most of his childhood pleasures from destroying plant and animal life in the overgrown garden of his parents’ villa. Because of...
[The entire page is 1667 words long]
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