SOURCE: Katz, Giuliana Sanguinetti. “Sagittarius: A Psychoanalytic Reading.” In Natalia Ginzburg: A Voice of the Twentieth Century, edited by Angela M. Jeannet and Giuliana Sanguinetti Katz, pp. 122-52. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.

[In the following essay, Katz offers a psychoanalytic interpretation of Sagittarius and asserts that the novella is a story about the difficulties women experience in developing a sense of individual identity.]

The short novel Sagittarius has often played the part of the unwanted child among Ginzburg's books. It was bitterly criticized by the author herself in the introduction she wrote to the 1964 Einaudi edition of Cinque romanzi brevi (Five Short Novels), where she republished the novel that had first appeared in 1957 in Valentino. In this introduction Ginzburg complained that Sagittarius had two main defects: its plot was too thick and tight and its story too contrived. Ginzburg remembered that she had to work and think too hard in order to compose the story, which therefore lacked the necessary spontaneity (Opere I [Opere, raccolte e ordinate dall'autore], 1131). She concluded by stating: ‘E' necessario scrivere e pensare col cuore e col corpo, e non già con la testa e col pensiero’ (‘It is necessary to write and think with heart and body and not with head and mind’).¹ Even though the novel received some good reviews in the newspapers when it first appeared in 1957 and when it was republished in 1964, many of the critics were negative and often echoed Ginzburg's comments.²

It is my purpose in this article to show that both Ginzburg and her critics have been too harsh with Sagittarius and that the complex interweaving of characters, events, and imagery creates a surrealistic and poetic effect of deep psychological significance. Ginzburg explores in her novel basic relationships among relatives and friends: first and foremost between mothers and daughters and between sisters and girlfriends, then between fathers and daughters and between mothers-in-law and sons-in-law. These relationships, of course, are not clearly divided, but derive their richness from the fact that they are interchangeable: relationships between friends often mirror family dependencies, whereas family ties sometimes strive towards the more independent status of friendships among equals. Most of all, Ginzburg explores from many angles the complexities of female sexual development and the difficulties that women experience in finding their own identity, both as individuals and as members of society. And it is this psychological element of the story, up to now largely disregarded by critics, that I intend to analyse in this article.³

The story is narrated in the past tense by a young woman, a university student, who writes poetry and works as a secretary in a publishing firm (therefore duplicating some of Ginzburg's own activities). It centres on the figure of the narrator's mother, who vainly attempts to make herself at home in the world of the big city by opening an art gallery or a store and, most of all, by sharing her life with a congenial girlfriend and business partner. The fascinating character of the mother is a mixture of adolescent dreams and conventional middle-class ambitions: like the heroine of Fellini's movie The White Sheik, she moves from a narrow, provincial environment into the tempting life of the big city, dreams of wonderful adventures, and is duped by those who take advantage of her naïvety. But, whereas the protagonist's hopes in Fellini's movie are very simple and centre around the man of her dreams, in Ginzburg's novel, the mother's desires are more complicated and reflect various stages and needs in her life. The mother's adventures in the big city and her reactions to her new encounters not only provide us with a humorous criticism of middle-class society, but also give us a psychological insight into the problems and complexities of female sexuality.

The mother's wish to open a successful art gallery or a store in the city is an example of the many fantasies that she has had throughout her life and reflects different stages of her development. She wishes to assert her independence, give up her household routine, and move aggressively, like a man, into the new environment of the city; and she wishes to compete with her sisters and their profitable store; she wishes to gain the interest and admiration of the artistic and intellectual milieu of the city; and ultimately she wishes to be fed and taken care of by her business partner and by her gallery's future patrons, who would act as parental figures. That is, the mother regresses from her adolescent dreams of independence and success to her earliest stages of total dependence on parental figures.

As the symbolism of the art gallery develops, further and further layers of the mother's characters are revealed, until in the end she is left completely helpless and naked to confront death and despair. This emotional striptease proceeds rapidly, through a dizzying sequence of funny, grotesque, and melodramatic situations that accompany the mother's frantic search for identity and happiness. Ginzburg alternates melodrama with mystery, adventure with romance. She entertains us with her absurd tales, until in the end she slows down and suddenly confronts us with the tragedy of death and the sadness of irreparable loss.⁴

Ginzburg achieves a surrealistic effect by presenting to us a series of images and situations rich in symbolic meaning. The mechanisms of displacement and condensation (typical of the dream world) give the story its profound significance.⁵ As happens in dreams, the deep-seated meaning of these images is concealed behind a more realistic one and is expressed indirectly, through the recurrence of certain key words and objects, which acquire a more and more condensed meaning. In the same way, the general meaning of the story is displaced, since the accent of the story falls on the grotesque elements of the novel rather than on the underlying feeling of anxiety and despair that is revealed only in the final scene. Ginzburg in her novel also adopts the dream mechanism of splitting the various sides of the same person into different characters, a technique which is typical of the psychological novel.⁶ For instance, as we will see in the course of the article, the contrasting elements in the character of the mother are embodied in her two daughters and are also reflected in all the other female characters, by similarity or by contrast.

The protagonist, a mature, middle-class widow, has many grotesque characteristics that will be repeated in Elsa's mother, Matilde, in Ginzburg's next novel Le voci della sera (Voices in the Evening). However, she is also given a truly human dimension as she takes flight from loneliness and isolation into her dreams of glory and her pursuit of an impossible happiness. She is as domineering, controlling, and aggressive as Matilde in Le voci della sera. She charges into her sisters' china shop like a bull, to ask for money or to run the shop. She paces impatiently around the store, until she inevitably breaks one of the objects on sale, a figurine of a serenading Pierrot. Her bristling grey hair, her impulsive movements, and her mangy fur coat make her look like a wild animal.⁷

She is avaricious and uses her money to control her daughters and tell them what to do. She tells her adult daughters how to dress, how to comb their hair, what to eat, and she would also like, of course, to control their love lives. The reaction that the mother gets from her relatives to her intrusive and domineering behaviour is one of rejection: daughters, sisters, and cousins try to avoid her and her insistent demands so as to preserve their independence. Her beautiful, married older daughter, who still lives with her, accepts her attentions in a passive way and withdraws behind a meaningless sequence of empty smiles and shrugs. Her ugly, intellectual younger daughter, the narrator of the story, fiercely defends her independent life as a student and worker and does not confide in her mother.

The mother's aggressive and domineering behaviour towards the rest of her family in reality covers a fundamental weakness and dependence. Her constant attempts at finding companionship and understanding show her desperate need for love and reassurance, which is a result of early losses and deprivations. Ginzburg underlines the mother's needs by showing her aimless wandering from coffee bar to coffee bar, in search of physical and spiritual nourishment. The protagonist hopes to find around her some congenial intellectual and artistic people who will befriend her and provide her with the appreciative environment she has always desired. While she eats one coffee granita with cream after another in the various coffee bars of the city, she eavesdrops eagerly on the conversations at the tables next to her in the hope of catching some interesting discussions to which she may be able to contribute. Needless to say, she only overhears fatuous dialogues and is continually disappointed. From this point of view, she is like a baby crying in vain for her mother's breast.

The protagonist's need for a mother figure is clear in her relationship with her sisters, a situation which is stressed at the very beginning of the novel. She is jealous and aggressive towards her two unmarried sisters, who live happily together in the city. They lead a quiet and contented life together, selling china and household ornaments to old-fashioned ladies like them. The protagonist would like to become part of their successful business store and be included in their serene life, but instead she feels excluded by them and consequently tries to seize by violence what she cannot obtain through love.

The mother buys a house in the city where her sisters live by compelling them to lend her a sum of money she has no intention of repaying. As soon as she arrives in the city, she immediately descends upon her timid sisters and takes over their business. She deals aggressively with the customers who come into the store, while the poor sisters withdraw into the back room, looking at each other with dismay. The mother is rivalrous with her sisters but, at the same time, nourishes the hope of being taken into their business. Their genteel way of life, looking back to the past, their quiet existence in the shadows, and especially their mutual understanding represent for the mother a happiness and a companionship for which she longs in vain. In fact, the perfect unity of the two sisters reminds one of the symbiotic unity of the mother and child during the first months of the child's life, and it is that type of unity which the mother tries to establish with her two daughters.

At this point it might be useful to look very briefly at the main points of psychoanalytic theories on female sexuality in order to understand the character of the mother in Sagittarius. In his two essays ‘Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes’ (1925) and ‘Female Sexuality’ (1931) and in his chapter on ‘Femininity’ in New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Freud states that the little girl is conditioned in her psychological development by a lack of a clear sense of her sexuality, by an early clinging to her clitoris, and most of all by an unfavourable comparison of that organ with the boy's penis. This comparison leads in turn to penis envy, to castration anxiety, and to the turning of the little girl from her original prolonged attachment to mother to an Oedipal attachment to father. During her Oedipal period she gives up her previous masculinity complex and assumes a more passive and feminine position by replacing the wish for a penis with the wish for a baby by father.

In terms of family relationships, the little girl originally has a long attachment to her mother, during which she is first the passive recipient of her cares, and then feels intense active impulses towards her, wants her all for herself, and is jealous of her father and her siblings. At the end of the anal period, when the little girl discovers the difference between the sexes and believes herself to be a castrated being, she blames her mother for her mutilated condition and also often complains of not having been fed enough (loved) by her. At this point she takes her father as her love object, assumes a passive position towards him, and competes with the rest of his family for his attention. Only with the overcoming of the Oedipus complex, and the surrendering of the incestuous attachment to father, does the girl identify again with her mother and achieve feminine maturity.

Freud's theories on female sexuality were questioned from the beginning by his colleagues and followers and gave rise to several modifications of his opinions. Shahla Chehrazy, in a recent article on ‘Female Psychology,’ aptly summarizes the main differences between Freud's thought and current psychoanalytic views. In contrast with Freud's belief that the little girl has no vaginal awareness until puberty, present views stress the fact that the little girl has a preoedipal awareness of her vagina as early as the age of two and three, however vague that awareness may be, and has therefore an ‘early sense of femaleness’ (144). Whereas Freud sees penis envy as crucial to the little girl's development and more important than her subsequent awareness of her sexuality, current views hold that penis envy is ‘a phase-specific developmental phenomenon’ and that ‘the little girl will soon come to value what she herself has, and relinquish the envy of what she does not have’ (144). That is, the girl, who already has a sense of her femaleness, wants to possess a penis as well, as a result of the little boy's pride in his organ and because of the importance that family and society place on the masculine role. However, in subsequent reworkings of her penis envy, she comes to appreciate her own genitals and their capacity to bear children (145). Finally, whereas Freud believes that her entry into the oedipal phase is a reaction to the castration complex, modern theories hold that it is in fact an ‘innately feminine process’ and that the wish for baby ‘is not necessarily a substitute for penis envy [as Freud suggested]’ but is ‘observed preoedipally as part of identification with mother’ (150).⁸

In the light of this developmental theory, the little girl first identifies with mother and takes her as her exclusive love object during the oral and anal periods, competing with the other members of the family for her attention. During the oedipal period the girl turns away from mother to father and wants him as her exclusive love object. In subsequent years (especially in puberty and adolescence), the girl overcomes her Oedipus complex by identifying with mother and by turning her affectionate current towards father and her sexual current towards men outside the family circle. If earlier traumatic events create obstacles in this development, the little girl may regress from the positive Oedipus complex (taking father as exclusive love object) to a negative one (taking mother as exclusive love object) and may be unable to overcome penis envy and castration anxiety. Penis envy in this case does not represent the true desire to become a man, but stands for the impossible wish of acquiring the ‘magic wand’ that will heal the narcissistic wounds endured in previous years and bring strength, happiness, and fulfilment. It also represents the anger of the girl who wants to rebel against her mother, perceived as too authoritarian or not available, and who wants to stand up against her father, perceived as sadistic and destructive (Chehrazy, 150).

In the case of the mother in Ginzburg's novel, the aggressive, masculine stance that the protagonist takes towards her sisters might represent the particular oedipal development described above in which the little girl, instead of identifying with mother and having father as her love object (positive Oedipus complex), identifies with father and wants mother all for herself (negative Oedipus complex). The protagonist's behaviour towards her sisters might be due to her desire to move away from her original passive, dependent position from a domineering mother and to regain by force the good things present in the body of her mother (attack on the sisters' store). It might signify at the same time her anger at her mother for depriving her of love in earlier years and her wish to castrate father and to take over his strength (destruction of the statuette of the serenading Pierrot). It might also have a defensive purpose against a mother and father seen as domineering and destructive.

In Sagittarius the particular psychological development of the protagonist and the early traumatic events in her life become clear as the novel develops and the present becomes a mirror of the past. The protagonist's fantasies, fears, and desires are progressively illustrated to us by her past and present relationships with her family and by her friendship with a mysterious woman she meets by chance in the city. This strange woman, Antonietta Grossi, alias Scilla Fontana, seems to be the ideal companion for whom the mother has always been looking: a companion with whom to start a new life and make up for old disappointments. Scilla is an enterprising and domineering woman, a mirror image and an ideal self of the protagonist. Scilla, in fact, represents all the things the mother has ever wanted to be. She portrays herself as being an artist, a painter, and clothes designer: as a girl she studied ballet and lived a spoilt and easy life, and then, when her family lost all its money, she was compelled to support herself with all types of jobs:

Aveva fatto parte di una compagnia di filodrammatici; era stata nel giornalismo; era stata segretaria d'un deputato, e siccome era un vedovo, lei doveva anche fargli da direttrice di casa: c'erano pranzi ufficiali dove stava seduta al fianco di ambasciatori e ministri. Aveva conosciuto ogni specie di persone; la sua vita era tutta un romanzo; e forse, prima di morire, avrebbe scritto le sue memorie.

(614)

She had been a member of an amateur theatrical company; she had worked in journalism; she had been secretary to a politician and as he was a widower she had also run his household and acted as hostess at his dinners and official receptions where she sat next to ambassadors and ministers of state. She had rubbed shoulders with all sorts of different people; her whole life had been like the pages of a novel and maybe, before she died, she would write her memoirs.

(87)⁹

Scilla appears to the mother as an example of the new woman, who is not only a capable housewife but also a sophisticated and modern person, ready to assert herself in a world dominated by men. According to the portrait that she paints of herself, she is a single mother, separated from a weak husband, looks after her daughter, the beautiful Barbara, and at the same time forges ahead in city life and claims her position in the world of business and of the arts. She appears to combine feminine and masculine qualities, that is, to be both a good mother and a successful, enterprising father figure. The name Fontana (Fountain) seems to point to Scilla's unlimited capacity for nourishing those around her. On the other hand, the name of her zodiac sign, Sagittarius (the Archer), which is also the name of the art gallery she is going to open with the mother, points to her aggressive and masculine characteristics, which will allow her to compete and be successful in public life. It is significant that Natalia Ginzburg uses Scilla's zodiac sign as the title of her novel, to convey the main message of her book.

Scilla presents herself as a masculine, aggressive woman, ready to make fun of the protagonist's fears of catching a cold or of walking in the rain. Scilla always wears sandals and does not need heavy shoes even in winter. She uses the same shoemaker as the mother does but, differently from her, she is able to stride boldly and recklessly in any weather (606-7). When the mother asks her for a book to read, Scilla gives her Dumas' The Three Musketeers, a novel designed to satisfy her adolescent craving for adventure in a man's world (619). Scilla is the protagonist's masculine ideal, who does not feel castrated and wounded by a series of narcissistic losses and can compete fearlessly with any man.

Scilla is also the caricature of the ‘new’ woman. I have already mentioned the many activities that she claims to have performed successfully in the working world and in the artistic milieu. The same attitude of bragging and bravado permeates all her life. For instance, as soon as she meets the mother and her family, she insists on painting a portrait of her daughter Barbara and of the narrator and calls it Ragazze col maglione (Girls in Sweaters). It is one of her typical desolate pictures, consisting of ‘teste bislunghe e livide, una coi capelli a nuvola, l'altra con un pennacchio fiammeggiante; occhi a croce, bocca a sbarre’ (622) (‘livid, elongated heads, one topped by a frizz of hair, the other by a fiery plume, crosses for eyes and railings for mouths’) (94). Yet Scilla thinks that she has captured ‘la sostanza della vita moderna, ragazze ardite e spregiudicate, ragazze senza fronzoli né leziosaggini, fatte per battersi al fianco dell'uomo’ (622) (‘the very essence of modern life: these were today's young women, fearless, uninhibited, without frill or affectation, built to fight beside their menfolk’) (94).

As I mentioned before, Scilla also presents herself as a maternal person who is ready to take care of and feed those who need her. She states that she is an expert in child rearing (one of her many jobs has been as worker in a kindergarten [614]) and declares that her house is open to all her friends, whom she entertains whenever they appear for dinner (609). She feeds the mother with all her adventurous tales about her family, her past life, her wealthy girlfriends and their love lives. The protagonist feels immediately won over by Scilla and identifies with her, to the point of despising her own middle-class way of life in favour of Scilla's more bohemian lifestyle.

In reality, Scilla will reveal herself as the bad mother, who feeds her child poisoned food: she gives the protagonist drugged wine in order to put her to sleep and rob her of her money. Her name is that of the mythical sea monster Scylla, who lived in a cave by the coast of Sicily and devoured all the fish and sailors that went near her, with her horrible six heads full of teeth. That name, in fact, points to her true nature as the cruel and orally sadistic mother.¹⁰ Scilla is also the mother who deprives the child of the content of her bowels with too severe an upbringing. As Freud has explained, the attitude that the adult has towards money and possessions can be traced back to the anal period and to the pleasure she experienced as a child towards her most precious possession: her feces. In the light of these theories, the avaricious protagonist, who clings to her money, represents symbolically the constipated child, who is unwilling to surrender the content of her body to a parent perceived as hostile and depriving. Conversely, Scilla represents the parent who imposes a strict toilet training on her child and becomes a thief in her eyes.¹¹

The optimistic world described by Scilla in her stories contrasts with the dreary pictures she paints, which represent ‘delle teste livide e bislunghe, non si capiva se di uomo o di donna, con due crocette al posto degli occhi e al posto della bocca un'inferriata; e sullo sfondo case e case addossate contro un cielo a sbarre e comignoli storti, che mandavano fuori fumo livido’ (613)¹² (‘livid, elongated heads of indeterminate sex with little crosses for eyes and metal grills for mouths, set against backgrounds of rows and rows of houses with barred windows and crooked chimneys that emitted a livid smoke’) (86). These figures are similar to de Chirico's mannequins, people who can neither speak nor see, who do not have a sexual identity, and whose extreme anxiety and anger are echoed by the prison-like landscape in which they are set. The only manifestation of their feelings is the livid smoke that comes out of the crooked chimneys in the background, a symbol of oral and anal aggression coming out of the only outlet in an otherwise closed world.¹³

The extreme deprivation portrayed in Scilla's paintings appears to reflect the psychological situation of the mother and her daughters. The two daughters cannot speak and barely function in the presence of a suffocating mother, and the mother herself constantly demands to be fed, entertained, and looked after, while at the same time she attacks all the members of her family with her oral and anal aggression. In fact, the trio of the mother and the two daughters, from the psychological point of view, seems to represent the different sides of a manic-depressive personality, which alternates between periods of melancholia (the repressed and passive condition of the two daughters, especially the older one) and periods of mania (the uncontrolled, instinctual outbursts of the mother).¹⁴

The part of the city where Scilla lives is as symbolic as her paintings and gives us an important insight into the psychology of the mother and her daughters. It is ‘un quartiere di case nuove, su strade non lastricate, fra pozzanghere e lembi di prato imbrattati d'una neve grigia’ (612) (‘an area of newly-built houses and unpaved roads among puddles and patches of grass streaked with dirty snow’) (85). The mother and her daughters, in the course of their first visit to Scilla, wander around in these utterly desolate surroundings until they find a road which is ‘un fosso lungo una siepe, che terminava entro un cortiletto pieno di neve e di lastroni di ferro’ (612) (‘hardly more than a ditch bordered by hedges leading to a small courtyard heaped with snow and sheets of metal’) (85). Finally, at the end of the road, they find Scilla's house, ‘una casa alta e stretta come una torre, protesa nella nebbia sul ciglio della campagna’ (612) (‘a tall, narrow apartment block, reaching up like a tower into the fog and backing on to fields’) (85).

As Ginzburg herself points out, the area in which Scilla lives has the same feeling of desolation that is reflected in her paintings.¹⁵ The dirt and disrepair of the road and the junk heaps in the courtyard symbolize anal aggression and might refer to a trauma endured at an early age, during the anal period, by the protagonist and her daughters. Such a trauma might be caused, for instance, by a too-strict toilet training and upbringing that deprives the young child of her freedom of movements and of the control of her bodily contents. That this indeed is the case is confirmed both by the controlling and castrating behaviour of the mother towards her daughters, and by the robbery that the protagonist herself endures at the hands of a mother figure (symbolic deprivation of her feces).¹⁶

In her relationship with Scilla, the mother relives various stages of her life: her adolescent desire to grow up and find her own identity outside of the house and make a career for herself, and also her earlier desires to be cared for and protected by her parents. Scilla represents for the protagonist at the same time a bold and independent ideal self and a protective parental figure.¹⁷ Just when the mother thinks that her wishes are going to be fulfilled, that her dream of running a successful business with Scilla and retiring afterwards with her on the Riviera will be realized, she is confronted with the devastating reality of being abandoned and robbed by her beloved friend.

Scilla's betrayal causes the protagonist to re-experience earlier traumatic deprivations suffered during the oral and anal periods. Old wounds are reopened. The mother suddenly regresses to helpless childhood, wanders around the city sobbing uncontrollably, and seems to lose all energy and desire to live. The extent of her early traumas is revealed in the final scene of the novel. Here we find the mother mourning the loss of her favourite daughter, Giulia, who has died in childbirth, and we see at the same time Giulia's newborn baby crying desperately in the arms of Teresa, a cousin of the mother.

At this point, the original trauma in the protagonist's life, the loss of maternal cares, is symbolically portrayed through Giulia's death in childbirth. The protagonist is left overwhelmed with sorrow and anger at the disappearance of the beloved one, who has ‘betrayed’ her by refusing life and withdrawing into death. Giulia's death, like Scilla's treachery, is only an echo of an earlier and much more traumatic loss: the loss experienced by the baby who feels abandoned by mother. Giulia's baby, who cries in cousin Teresa's arms, mirrors the anguish and sorrow of the mother and explains her complete helplessness in this situation. Behind the mother's frantic search for happiness lies the inextinguishable sorrow and mourning for this early loss of parental love.

The protagonist's problems in relating to family and friends reflect her inability to overcome the enormous ambivalence created by these early traumas. We have already indicated that the narrator and her sister may be seen as portraying the various parts of the protagonist's character and the different ways of dealing with the same internal and external conflicting situations. The older daughter, Giulia, represents the ultimate stages of the depressive personality. She accepts passively anything her mother imposes on her and gets married only for the sake of finding another ‘mother’ figure, a person ready to take care of her from an emotional and physical point of view. She is a permanent invalid, who makes no effort to communicate with the people around her and who expresses her rejection of the world in the most primitive ways. The blood that she spits from her mouth as well as her enigmatic, empty smile represent the way the infant refuses the world around her, by spitting the milk of the bad mother or by refusing to take it altogether (Fenichel, 62-6). Giulia's death in childbirth is described by Ginzburg as the ultimate refusal of life and is equivalent to a suicide:

Sul letto ricomposto, Giulia giaceva nell'abito di quando s'era sposata, e aveva le gracili braccia venate d'azzurro incrociate al seno. Con le labbra spianate in un vago sorriso gentile e malinconico, Giulia sembrava dire addio a questa vita che non era stata capace di amare … Adesso mia madre capiva il senso di quel sorriso. Era il sorriso di chi vuol essere lasciato in disparte, per ritornare a poco a poco nell'ombra.

(666)

Laid out on her bed, dressed in her bridal gown with her thin, blue-veined arms crossed over her breast and her lips parted slightly in a vague, sweet, melancholic smile, Giulia looked as though she was bidding farewell to this life, a life that she had never managed to love … My mother understood that smile now. It was the smile of someone who wants nothing more than to be left alone to retreat softly into the shadows.

(134)

The younger daughter, the narrator of the story, who most overtly mirrors some of Ginzburg's own activities as a writer and as an editor in a publishing house, represents an active way of dealing with depression. She is clearly more independent and more in control of the situation than any of the other characters. She strives for economic and emotional independence from her family. She is able to channel her creativity in a constructive way through her writing career and her university studies. Most of all, she has a clear perception and understanding of what is going on and is the only person the mother respects: on many occasions she acts, in fact, as a mother to her own mother.

And yet the narrator too is repeatedly portrayed as a shy, introverted person. She feels ugly and unwanted and relies desperately on the woman with whom she shares her apartment to provide her with maternal love and protection. When her companion leaves to get married, the narrator feels a sense of loss and isolation, which echoes, in a muffled way, the piercing sorrow felt by the mother at the end of the novel. The little apartment in which the narrator lives, which belongs to her companion, is portrayed almost like a protecting womb. The apartment and the little square in front of it are a safe enclosure and an extension of the maternal figure with which the narrator longs to share all her life.

The protagonist's attitude towards men is coloured by the same ambivalence that is so obvious in her relationships with women. She alternately longs for a father figure to take care of her and solve her problems, and resents any man who may separate her from her daughters (she symbolically competes with father for the possession of mother). The protagonist feels ‘abandoned’ by her husband, who has left her a widow and compelled her to bring up her daughters all alone (589). She tries to regain a protective milieu by marrying off her daughter Giulia to some well-to-do, middle-class young man, thereby validating her own success as a woman and as a mother. Yet when Giulia finally marries the gentle and kind doctor Chaim Wesser, the mother shows overt hostility towards him. She thinks of him as dirty and repulsive and cannot understand how his patients can stand being touched by him (582).

It is an interesting and telling point that the money the mother invests in her business venture could have been given to her son-in-law Chaim to help him pay for a medical office in the city and establish his practice. The mother thus chooses to further her own career at the expense of her son-in-law's. Chaim is compelled to run all over town on his bicycle to visit his clients, cannot afford a new overcoat, and has to wear the same old jacket he was given as a war refugee (583).

The mother keeps the son-in-law in a state of miserable subjection and constantly humiliates him, taking away any money he earns and making him feel guilty for any little pleasure he may have (she even grudges him the cigarettes he smokes). In this situation she is clearly the castrating woman, who wants to deprive the man of the family of his potency so as to acquire it herself. In fact, she competes with her son-in-law for the exclusive possession of her older daughter's affection, just like a little girl who competes with father for the exclusive possession of mother.

The protagonist's aggression towards men covers up old wounds and fears. We have already seen her dependence on her husband and her desire to find a substitute father figure. The mother's fear of a critical and severe father figure is revealed in the episode when, after discovering Scilla's robbery, she goes to a police inspector to report the theft. The inspector has little patience with the poor woman, who is beside herself with grief, and accuses her of having acted ‘col giudizio d'un bambino di quattro anni’ (660) (‘with the circumspection of a four-year-old’) (128). Afterwards, the mother does not want to have anything to do with the police: ‘Nutriva ormai una piena sfiducia, e anche un sordo odio, verso i commissariati di questura: e in questura non voleva tornarci mai più a nessun costo’ (661-2) (‘Her attitude towards the police was one of total mistrust now, even of unreasoning hatred, and nothing on earth would ever induce her to set foot in a police station again’) (130).

Sexual fears and dependencies are apparent in the mother and in the female characters who surround her. The mother's fear of male sexuality is clear in her reaction to Scilla's intention to employ a manservant rather than a maid. The mother is alarmed and warns her friend that a man would eat too much and that he might suddenly get some dangerous ideas in his head: Scilla and Barbara might not feel safe alone with him at night (626).

These feelings are made clear even further in the behaviour of her two daughters. Giulia, the tall, attractive one, with long hair and long legs, avoids sex and discourages all her suitors. When she finally meets someone she likes, she develops tuberculosis and spits blood, driving away her beau. The condition of Giulia in love, not dissimilar to that of the famous heroine of La dame aux camélias, shows us that love can be a dangerous and destructive passion. Giulia's sexuality is symbolically represented by tuberculosis, the disease that killed so many people in the nineteenth century. The loss of blood in the menstrual cycle is here displaced to the upper part of the body and seen as the result of an internal sickness.¹⁸ But in contrast to the passionate Marguerite Gautier, after the appearance of her disease Giulia will never love again. She will marry Dr Wesser only out of need for a protector and will bitterly resent being made pregnant by him. In the end, she will die in childbirth, rejecting life and maternity.

The second daughter, the narrator, is portrayed as small and unattractive, with a mass of wavy, frizzy hair sticking out. She conceals her femininity inside bulky, dark clothes, much to her mother's disappointment. She is painfully shy and aware of her physical shortcomings and turns to intellectual life for those satisfactions that she cannot find in her love life. Both the mother and her younger daughter have intellectual aspirations and value the world of the artists (though the mother appears like a caricature of her daughter). Both have masculine characteristics, in their physical appearance and in their desire to find a place in a world dominated by men.

The two daughters embody different reactions to the dangers of feminine sexuality. Giulia, the beautiful one, who accepts the dictates of family and society and appears to represent the typical middle-class girl, avoids sexuality by carrying her passivity to extreme lengths and almost regresses to the helpless state of a baby. Her illness and her death in childbirth represent adolescent fears about menstruation and pregnancy, which obviously constitute an obstacle to the acceptance of female sexuality.¹⁹ The more rebellious younger sister, the narrator, who opts for independence and an intellectual career, defends herself from the dangers of sexuality by identifying with father and assuming a more masculine and aggressive role.

The two daughters are in fact complementary, the two sides of the same coin, separating in an exaggerated way the passive and active characteristics present in a normal personality. They represent the typical oscillations between a positive and a negative Oedipus complex that can be found in adolescents struggling for a sexual identity. Ginzburg, however, emphasizes the anxiety of this situation because she does not indicate any way to solve the problem, which, in the case of the protagonist and her daughters, is the outcome of childhood traumas. Scilla's pictures of creatures of uncertain sex, locked in their inner world and incapable of communicating, sum up the complex issues explored throughout the novel.

The masculine and feminine attitudes embodied in the protagonist's two daughters are repeated in different ways in the couple of Scilla and her daughter Barbara. The latter is completely the opposite of her mother. While Scilla is very active and claims to be an intellectual and an artist, Barbara is a beautiful, voluptuous, and empty-headed girl, the equivalent of the American ‘dumb blonde,’ all instinct and no brains.

Barbara, with her joy of life and combination of good-natured naïvety and flirtatiousness, also represents the carefree and healthy sexuality of the person who is close to nature, as opposed to the neurotic sexuality and perversions of civilized man. She has many of the ideal traits of the actress, interpreted by Anita Eckberg in Fellini's La dolce vita, and her flaming red hair is a beacon and a reminder to the other women of the pleasures of sex. The pale and wan Giulia is completely captivated by the fiery Barbara: only in her company does she acquire some vitality and is able to laugh.

However, even Barbara, who would seem destined to have an easy and enjoyable life next to an adoring man, dies tragically at the hand of her paranoid husband Pinuccio. Although he appears to be an ideal suitor—a wealthy, handsome, and educated Sicilian aristocrat—unfortunately the young man suffers from paranoid jealousy and condemns Barbara's open sexuality because he thinks she is always ready to betray him. Once they are married, he ill-treats her and finally, in a fit of rage, shoots her in the lungs and kills her. The protagonist's and Scilla's plan of conquering the male-dominated environment by means of a store, bearing the warlike name of Sagittarius, literally backfires. Instead of the two women shooting their arrows into the crowd, like proud Dianas, we have Pinuccio shooting his gun at Barbara.

Barbara's violent death is soon followed by Giulia's death in childbirth. The two beautiful young women who get married both end tragically. Barbara, who actively embraces life and love with enthusiasm, is shot in the chest by her brutal husband (the shooting might here be symbolic of the sexual act).²⁰ Giulia, in spite of her passive attitude and her withdrawal from life and love, is rendered pregnant by her husband and dies as a result of it. Both situations represent a sadomasochistic view of sexuality, destined to cause woman's death. The tragic end of the two women stresses the fact that the masculine stance of Scilla and of the protagonist conceals a fundamental fear of male sexuality, perceived as brutal and destructive.

Scilla's behaviour towards men is particularly interesting because of the ambiguities and secretiveness that surround her character. In fact, Scilla's life is viewed by the protagonist with the same avid curiosity with which children watch the world of adults and try to understand adult sexuality. Though Scilla presents herself as an independent, modern woman, the opposite of her seductive daughter, she is in fact quite similar to Barbara in many ways and dreams of a happy marriage as a way of ensuring her daughter's happiness. She encourages Barbara to put up with her fiancé's scenes of jealousy, in spite of the young man's unstable personality. She even leaves Barbara alone for a long time with the young man so as to catch him in a compromising situation with her and compel him to marry her. She refuses to accept the reality of Barbara's unhappiness with her husband and keeps thinking of her as a bride enjoying her honeymoon.

Scilla's apparent daring and success in many careers is belied by other features of her personality. She is in reality only a humble dress-maker, who strains her eyes to embroider blouses for her rich clients. She makes up for that dreary side of her existence by talking of her wealthy ‘friends’ and of their luxurious lives and love affairs. She recounts to the mother the imaginary adventures of her ‘friend’ Valeria with the same enthusiasm with which young people watch soap operas on television, thereby fulfilling vicariously their oedipal fantasies.

Though she claims to be completely independent from her husband, she has an ambiguous relationship with him. Scilla's husband is a gambler and a drunkard, a weak and narcissistic man, who does not seem to be very concerned with his daughter in spite of her affection for him. Scilla speaks of him as an unreliable person, who cannot give her the support she needs and who is only a friend, and yet she runs away with him after stealing the mother's money, thereby revealing her strong link to him.

In conclusion, the only couple who seem to have a ‘healthy’ relationship are the narrator's girlfriend and her fiancé. The girlfriend is physically unattractive but has a nice personality and cares deeply for the narrator. She is a practical woman, who does not abandon herself to daydreaming and appears to know what she wants and to have no doubts about her future. She is economically independent thanks to her teaching position and is getting married to find a companion rather than a saviour or protector (as in the case of Giulia and Barbara). The fiancé is a nice-looking man, an engineering student, who is introduced to us briefly at the beginning of the novel. The two of them seem to be the only ones capable of attaining happiness, and their fleeting appearance is like a ray of sunshine in an otherwise overcast and stormy sky.

The various psychological themes so far examined are rendered effectively by Ginzburg's writing technique. The author links the various scenes of the novel through a repetition of key images, situations, and symbols in a way that is typical of dreams and that has been generally adopted by filmmakers. We have already seen how the various characters of the novel are reflected in the buildings they inhabit and in the landscapes and art work that surround them. We have also seen how the various characters mirror each other or represent the various sides of the same personality and sometimes undergo a similar fate (in the case of the two couples of the protagonist and Giulia and of Scilla and Barbara, the daughters come to a tragic end and the mothers remain hopelessly bereaved).²¹

There are, moreover, various visual symbols that are repeated throughout the novel and become increasingly meaningful as the story unfolds, just as certain images acquire particular value within the context of a dream.²² For instance, the symbol of the fountain, with its clear associations of nourishing food and drink, of beginning of life and of early childhood, is present not only in the name of one of the main characters, Scilla Fontana, but in two landscapes that have a particular meaning attached to them. In the first case, the narrator eats with her girlfriend the supper which the latter has prepared. From the safety of their little apartment the two girls watch ‘la piccola piazza dove gli uomini entravano ed uscivano dall'osteria, si fermavano in circolo sotto i lampioni, scalciavano e scalpitavano per il freddo, e facevano deviare per scherzo lo zampillo della fontanina sull'angolo’ (623) (‘the little square below, where people were going in and out of the osteria or standing in groups around the street lamps, stamping their feet with the cold while others played with water jetting from the little fountain on the corner’) (95).

It is clear from this description that the actions of the people in the square, going in the osteria and playing with the fountain, reflect the feelings of sadness and longing of the narrator, who regrets the pleasures of childhood and knows that the happy time spent with her maternal companion is almost over. Now the narrator will not be able to ‘play’ happily while mother is preparing dinner for her: she will have to behave like a mature adult and look after herself:

Mi pareva che quella piccola piazza, e quel nostro cucinino e la nostra stanza, coi libri e il tavolo dove la sera io studiavo, fosse un porto sicuro a cui tornavo per trovare quiete e conforto. Fra qualche mese, la mia amica si sarebbe sposata; e io sarei rimasta sola in quella stanza, sempre sola la sera a segnare con la matita rossa, in margine alle dispense, le cose che dovevo ricordare.

(623-4)

For me, the square and our tiny kitchen and the room with its books and the table I used for studying were a haven of refuge, to which I could always return for peace and comfort. In a few months' time, my friend would be married and I should be left alone in that room, spending every evening alone jotting down notes with a red pencil in the margins of the texts of my university lectures about all the things I had to remember.

(95)

The other appearance of the fountain is in the house of Scilla's rich client, Valeria Lubrani. It is ‘una villetta signorile, con un giardino ricoperto di ghiaia e una vasca con lo zampillo’ (662) (‘a pleasant house with a neatly gravelled garden and a pool with a fountain’) (130). The mistress of the house is a distinguished lady dressed in black, with a fox fur draped over one shoulder, who works deftly at a piece of crochet, seated in a leather armchair in a study lined with bookshelves. In this case, Valeria represents an ideal of feminine domesticity within the frame of an orderly life and against the background of Valeria's husband's intellectual activities (he is the director of an archive and Valeria knits in the library).

Once more, the landscape of the garden with the pool and the fountain reflect the character of the mistress of the house and represent for the protagonist a certain model of femininity. The mother tries for a while to imitate Valeria and starts crocheting a cot-cover for Giulia's baby. She dreams of striking a friendship with Valeria and spending the time with her, crocheting in her library, but recognizes that this fantasy is unrealistic and that she is too old to behave like an adolescent.

Other recurrent symbols are certain physical characteristics on which the author insists: hair, feet (and shoes), legs, hands, mouths, which come to represent also psychological traits of the various characters.²³ I have already mentioned how the wiry hair of the mother (578), the frizzy, shapeless hair of the narrator (595), and Scilla's shock of straw-coloured hair (606) represent their lack of feminine attraction and their masculine characteristics, in contrast with Giulia's beautiful long hair (585) and Barbara's flaming ponytail (608).

Masculine characteristics are also represented in the way the mother and Scilla stride along: the first with her imperious stiletto heels (578) and the second with her sandals and galoshes (606-7), which allow her to wade even in the mud. The fact that the mother has to lie in bed in Dronero, with a broken leg, just at the time when Giulia falls in love for the first time with a suitable young man, might indicate the destructive (and castrating) effect of sexuality and be a prelude to Giulia's illness and the disastrous effects of Giulia's and Barbara's marriages (586). Yet shoes and legs can represent femininity as well: the mother insists with the narrator that she should dress better and have her shoes made at the mother's shoemaker so as to appear more feminine and more attractive to men (581-2).

Hands are particularly significant in the various contexts of the novel. At the very beginning of the novel we are told that the mother, when moving house from Dronero to the city, takes among her few belongings ‘una mano di marmo posata su un cuscinetto’ (577) (‘a marble hand resting on a cushion’) (53). This gruesome ornament (a typical nineteenth-century knick-knack) is possibly an allusion to the protagonist's penis envy and feelings of mutilation and deprivation, since hands and feet are often eroticized and given phallic significance.

The large, protective hands of the narrator's girlfriend well represent her capable, maternal attitude towards other people (624), whereas Valeria's ‘larga mano ossuta, dalle nocche sporgenti’ (663) (‘broad bony hand, with big knuckles’) (131) which crochets non stop, embodies masculine strength combined with feminine skills. Dr Wesser's hands, full of cuticles and with broken and bitten nails, reveal his constant inner turmoil and anxiety, which he turns on himself as well as his castrated position (582).

Mouths and teeth are naturally important, since they reveal directly the emotions of the various characters. I have already mentioned Giulia's permanent empty smile, which is symbolic of her passive rejection of life and love. Dr Wesser's broken teeth are a reminder of the persecution he endured in Poland at the hands of anti-Semites, but they also represent the present persecution he suffers silently at the hands of his mother-in-law (621).

The narrator has crooked teeth, which the mother wanted to straighten with braces when she was a little girl but was prevented from doing so by a decision of the father. In this case the situation of the mother who worries about her daughter's crooked teeth, in contrast with the eccentric father, gives us an insight into the daughter's character (595-6). The narrator's silent rebellion, her desire to write and to move out of the house, and her identification with a masculine model might be represented by her crooked teeth, which her father has insisted should not be straightened and which now keep boyfriends away from her. Since teeth can have a symbolic meaning at both the oral and phallic levels, the narrator's crooked teeth might symbolize in a condensed way the bond between the narrator and her parents: in particular her fear of her authoritarian and possessive mother (a cause for her silence) and her oedipal attachment to her father and identification with him in her search for intellectual achievement and recognition in a man's world.

Animal symbolism plays an important part in the story and stresses both the grotesque and surrealistic elements present in the novel. The mother, with her wiry grey hair, her mangy fur coat, and her jerky movements, is like a wild animal. When poor Giulia is in hospital in Viareggio, her mother paces up and down the hospital corridor ‘come un orso in gabbia’ (590) (‘like a bear in a cage’) (65). In an earlier part of the novel the image of the bear appears as an absurd object consisting of a bear supporting a table lamp, which the mother intends to take from her sisters' china shop and exhibit in her projected art gallery with a view to selling it (581). Clearly, the bear with the lamp is a reflection on the mother herself, who, with her clumsy movements and awkward personality, has invaded her sisters' delicate china shop and created havoc in their lives.

The mother's personality is also associated with the image of other wild animals: tigers, buffalo, bison, and elephants. We are told at the beginning of the novel that the mother, in her move to the new house in the city, has taken with her a tiger skin among the few objects from the old house. Later on, after her friend Scilla has refused to spend the afternoon with her, alleging tiredness, and has pushed her out of the apartment, the mother goes to a movie about African safaris:

Davano un film di cacce africane, a colori; e lei rimase a guardare, nella sala semivuota, mandrie e mandrie di bufali su sconfinati orizzonti color rosso fuoco; non c'era intreccio, non succedeva niente, si vedevano solo bufali, bisonti e elefanti.

(650)

They were showing a film in colour about African safaris, and she sat in the half-empty auditorium watching endless herds of buffalo seen against a boundless, fiery-red horizon; there was no plot, nothing actually happened and one saw nothing except buffalo, bison and elephants.

(119)

The wild animals in these cases clearly represent the anger the mother feels inside her at previous deprivations and present frustrations in her instinctual life.

Animal symbolism is used to make fun of the characters in the novel. A symbolic meaning might be given to the scene in which Valeria laughs frankly at hearing the mother's adventures and then swallows her laughter, ‘come una gru che inghiotte un pesciolino’ (663) (‘like a crane swallowing a fish’) (131). This is a comic commentary not only on Valeria's jutting chin but also on the mother's unrealistic expectations and childish behaviour. In fact, the mother herself has been like a crane, greedily swallowing all the lies that Scilla has fed her (Valeria's laughter also mirrors Scilla's insolent laughter when she first meets the mother in the hairdresser's store and makes fun of her constant complaints).

Animal imagery is also used to describe Giulia's failed suitors and to stress their inadequacies in the eyes of the mother. The rich and aristocratic Tuscan industrialist whom the mother sees at a coffee bar and whom she imagines as her future son-in-law, suddenly ‘agitava d'un tratto fiaccamente le mani in direzione d'una ragazza lontana e faceva un verso nella gola che pareva un chioccolare d'uccello’ (585) (‘waggled a feeble finger in the vague direction of a girl in the distance and made a noise in his throat like the trilling of a bird’) (61). This causes the mother to consider him a ‘ciula’ (Piedmontese expression meaning ‘stupid’).

Giulia's first fiancé, who is compelled by his parents to abandon the poor girl without a word when her tuberculosis is discovered, says goodbye to Teresa, the mother's cousin, while crying like a lamb (590). Clearly the young man is seen as a feeble and childlike person, who follows his parents' orders and does not have the courage to fight for his love. The image of the little lamb serves to emphasize the young man's ineffectual and weak personality.

The dog and the cat, which are connected with Giulia and with Scilla's household, also have a particular meaning. Poor Giulia who, after developing tuberculosis, has withdrawn into herself, finds comfort in the company of a little white poodle which she takes for brief walks around the house or cuddles in her lap (583-4). There is something very poetic and Chekhovian in the elegant figure of the young lady, sick with tuberculosis and knowing that her life will be brief, walking with her little dog. Giulia's puppy is her link to life and to childhood.

On the contrary, Menelao, Barbara's Siamese cat, with his name and with his unhappy destiny, represents the castrated condition of some of the characters in the novel. The cat bears the name of Helen's betrayed husband, who had to fight a long and bloody war to get back his faithless wife and regain power and honour. But unlike the Greek hero, who wins in the end, the poor cat loses an eye in a fight with another cat and is ‘put to sleep’ by his mistress, who cannot tolerate the sight of such an ugly animal (642).

I would like to conclude this list of animal symbolism on a literary note. Ginzburg, with the biting irony of an insider, describes the ‘intellectual’ world of the city as being made up of a few old people, who fall asleep during the lectures held at a literary club:

Poi un'altra volta un giovinottino aggraziato ed esile, bellino e quasi senza naso, aveva sfarfallato per la stanza in punta di piedi, leggendo qualche pagina di un romanzo che parlava d'una balena. Mia madre s'era annoiata con quella balena; e nelle seggioline intorno a lei c'erano quei vecchietti appisolati; tuttavia s'era trattenuta fino all'ultimo, immobile in prima fila, fissando il giovinottino coi suoi occhi neri lampeggianti. Visto un po' da presso, il giovinottino aveva una faccetta stanca di quarantenne, un roseo frutto avvizzito dal freddo.

(603)

On another occasion a slender, pretty young man with a tiny button nose had flitted about the room on the tips of his toes, reading extracts from a novel about a whale; the whale had been very boring and all the little old people around her had dozed off, but my mother endured to the end, sitting motionless in the front row and fixing the youth with her bright black eyes. Seen close up, the youth had the face of a worn forty-year-old, like a rosy fruit pinched by the frost.

(77)

The whale, with its enormous proportions and its mythical and literary importance, is set in deliberate contrast to the ridiculously effeminate reader of the novel, who performs ineffectually in front of a sleeping audience. This might be a possible comment on the failed ambitions of some of Ginzburg's contemporary writers, who behaved like helpless children in front of a gigantic mother.

Food, as we have seen above, has great importance in the novel in representing the oral dependency of most of the characters. The mother goes from coffee bar to coffee bar in the city, eating coffee ices with cream, in search of an ideal milieu (603). She has a sweet tooth and is forever buying pastries for herself and her daughters (604). The empty store she hopes to buy with her friend Scilla in order to set up her art gallery is strategically located near a pastry shop (648). She constantly feeds her daughters with eggs and other foods in the hope of keeping them dependent on her and of asserting her maternal importance (580, 597).

On the other hand, she bitterly resents having to feed people other than herself and her daughters. She is very much aware of having to pay Scilla's bills when they go to coffee bars together (629). She leaves Dronero so as not to feed the father of her maid Carmela and see him constantly in her kitchen (598-600). She resents the burden of having to feed her son-in-law, whom she considers a good-for-nothing (604), and the one time she invites Chaim's brother Jozek for dinner, she counts the slices of meat he eats (610).

During the ‘last supper’ she has at Scilla's house, the mother is served an overdone steak and a bottle of wine containing a sleeping powder (655). One of the mother's sources of indignation, when the swindle is revealed, is that Scilla did not even pay for the steak at the butcher (661).

The mother's weakness for sweets is shared by the beautiful Barbara, who, on her first appearance, immediately consumes at the coffee bar a large quantity of fresh strawberries with whipped cream, for which the mother has to pay (608). Barbara cannot resist the chocolates with liqueur that her fiancé Pinuccio brings her, even if the sweets cause her do develop acne on her pretty face (617-18). Barbara eats even the tangerines, which were to be used as part of the portrait that her mother wanted to paint of her and the narrator (621-2).

We have already seen that Barbara represents the joy of life and the pleasures of sexuality. It is significant that poor Barbara, who likes food so much, does not like the spicy Sicilian sausages and the excessively sweet cakes that her fiancé receives from his family as a special treat (616). It is almost as if her distaste of Sicilian food is a warning to her of the dangers that await her if she marries jealous Pinuccio.

Scilla, on the other hand, seems to have problems with food, suffering from frequent indigestions and keeping to a diet limited to vegetables. When she first meets the mother, she orders a bitter drink in contrast with the mother's coffee ices with cream and feels nauseated by the mother's rich food (607, 654). When she does not feel well, she eats only vegetables and stewed fruit purée (627), and on the day she swindles the mother, she is pale, shivers, and complains about indigestion (654). After robbing the mother and running away with her money, she leaves in the house a ball of cooked chicory and a celery stalk in a glass (658). As we have already seen, she is a symbol of the bad mother, who does not feed her children or who gives them ‘poisoned’ food.

It is interesting to note that the narrator, like Scilla, lives on a meagre diet. In order to assert her independence, she refuses to go to live with her mother, who would feed her too well, and does not even want to follow her mother's advice of having a more nourishing diet. Yet she longs to be fed by a mother figure and is comforted by her girlfriend, who is about to get married, with the promise that the girlfriend will invite her into her new home and feed her with some wonderful milkshakes (624).

Colour symbolism also plays an important part in the novel. We have already mentioned the symbolism of Barbara's flaming red hair to represent her exuberant sexuality. Her link to the mother's personality is established by the flaming red silk dressing gown that the protagonist wears in the morning before applying purple powder and greasy lipstick to her face in an effort to assert her femininity (580).

In contrast with this bright colour, we have the grey skirt and dark blue sweater of the unassuming and depressed narrator (582) and the foggy sky and muddy ground against which the story unfolds. Bright colours, in this case, represent instinctual life ready to burst out in spite of the repressive environment (the grey sky and dreary setting of the novel).

In conclusion, this novel not only explores the difficulties that women experience in searching for their identity but also gives us an insight into the meaning of creativity and writing for Natalia Ginzburg. The act of storytelling on the part of the narrator, who is both an editor in a publishing house and a poet, is mirrored by the colourful dreams of the mother and by the exciting stories that Scilla tells the protagonist. The dreams and fantasies of the two older women and their hopes for a bright future are a denial of and an escape from the dreary world that surrounds them.

The narrator offers a further dimension to the story by telling us these dreams in a detached and critical way and showing us how the pleasure principle, embodied in the mother's hopes, has to give way to the reality principle, embodied in the tragic ending. The narrator defends herself from the pain and rage implicit in the story by presenting the facts in a humorous way, telling them at breakneck speed, and mixing the elements of a detective story with those of a melodrama and of a soap opera. Only in the last scene does she slow down and let us feel the tragic sorrow of loss of love and of premature death.²⁴

Writing, then, truly acquires a cathartic function, since it gives the narrator an insight into her life, into her repressed instincts, and into the mechanisms with which she defends herself from those instincts. It also provides her with a safe way of releasing her pent-up emotions as well as a means of sublimating her sexuality, through the creative act of writing.

Notes

1. The translation of this Italian passage is mine.

2. Among the positive criticisms of the novel, see Pina Sergi's review of Valentino in Il Ponte 13 (1957): 1882-4; Ferdinando Virdia, ‘The romanzi brevi di Natalia Ginzburg,’ Fiera Letteraria (4 August 1957); Mario Bonfantini, ‘Il “muto” segreto di molte esistenze,’ Corriere della Sera (14 February 1965). More recently, Alan Bullock shows appreciation for Ginzburg's psychological insight into the character of the mother (98).

   Among the negative critics of Sagittarius we find Seroni, who complains that the author has lost her ability to portray inner reality (84-5); Manacorda, who, in his Storia della letteratura italiana contemporanea, 1940-1965 (321) and in Vent'anni di pazienza (376-7), writes about the novel's lack of depth and its shadowy and unsubstantial characters; and De Tommaso, who points out the lack of a unifying source of inspiration (828). Also on the negative side we find Marchionne Picchione, who comments on the lack of realism in the psychology of the characters and in the dramatic events of the story (52-6), and Clementelli, who criticizes the plot as too artificial and complicated (74-5).

3. For my psychoanalytic interpretation of the novel I shall rely on the Freudian theories discussed by Chehrazy and Chasseguet-Smirgel.

4. Marchionne Picchione, commenting on the last scene of the novel, speaks of ‘un brusco, inaspettato ritorno della Ginzburg al tono narrativo dei suoi momenti migliori’ (‘a brusque, unexpected return of Ginzburg to the narrative tone of her best moments’) (55).

5. For the mechanisms of condensation and displacement in dreams, see Sigmund Freud's chapters on ‘The Work of Condensation’ and on ‘The Work of Displacement’ in The Interpretation of Dreams, Standard Edition, vol. 4, 279-304, 305-9.

6. Freud mentions the mechanism of splitting in dreams in The Interpretation of Dreams, Standard Edition, vol. 4, 90-1. Later on, in ‘Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming,’ when comparing the work of artists with the fantasies and daydreaming of adults, Freud writes: ‘The psychological novel in general no doubt owes its special nature to the inclination of the modern writer to split up his ego, by self-observation, into many part-egos, and, in consequence, to personify the conflicting currents of his own mental life in several heroes’ (Standard Edition, vol. 9, 150).

7. Marchionne Picchione comments on the ‘masculine aggression’ of the protagonist and finds that there is too great a contrast between the mother's frenetic activity and the passive attitude of Giulia and her aunts, who tend to disappear in the shadows (55). According to my interpretation, what appears excessive from a realistic perspective is very significant from a psychological point of view.

8. For Freud's theories on female sexuality, see ‘Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes,’ Standard Edition, vol. 19, 241-58; ‘Female Sexuality,’ Standard Edition, vol. 21, 221-43; ‘Femininity,’ New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, Standard Edition, vol. 22, 112-35.

9. For the quotations in Italian from the novel I am using the first volume of the 1986 edition of Ginzburg's Opere published by Mondadori. For the English version of Sagittarius I am using Avril Bardoni's translation of the novel. I would like to caution the reader, however, that Bardoni's translation of Sagittarius (the only one available, to my knowledge) sometimes omits or mistranslates the original Italian text. The passages quoted in this article are correctly translated.

10. For a description of Scylla, the sea monster, see Homer Odyssey 11.85-100. The oral stage of the development of the child has been studied in detail by Karl Abraham. This stage corresponds to the first year of the infant's life, when the child's interest and pleasure are concentrated first in the action of sucking from the mother's breast and then in the action of biting when the first teeth appear.

    Abraham distinguishes sucking, which he sees as a purely positive action, from biting, which is aggressive and can be destructive when used in anger and not just to satisfy one's basic needs.

    Jacques Schnier, in his article ‘Dragon Lady,’ examines the psychological origin of many devouring female monsters, including Medusa and Scylla. Schnier concludes that the figures are fantasies of a child who is angry because he or she is denied the breast and projects his or her aggression onto the mother.

    For examples of oral aggression see my study of Nievo's life and works, The Uses of Myth in Ippolito Nievo, 25, 89-91, 207.

11. Freud repeatedly points out that the proud and possessive attitude of the child towards his feces, the product of his body, is subsequently transferred to objects in general and to money in particular. See Sigmund Freud, ‘Character and Anal Erotism,’ Standard Edition, vol. 9, 167-75, and ‘On Transformations of Instinct as Exemplified in Anal Erotism,’ Standard Edition, vol. 17, 125-33.

12. Scilla's denial of reality can also be seen in the way she transforms the dreary winter landscape around her apartment into an idyllic spring setting where she can go and paint the beauty of nature (86).

13. Since the house can symbolize the human body, as evidenced by its frequent personification in everyday language, the chimney could represent various orifices of the human body belching out or evacuating its refuse.

14. For an explanation of the nature of depression, see Freud, ‘Mourning and Melancholia,’ Standard Edition, vol. 16, 237-58.

15. Marchionne Picchione aptly comments on the fact that the sinister and squalid landscape near Scilla's house forebodes the outcome of her relationship with the mother (52).

16. During the anal development in the second year of age, the child is toilet trained and taught to be clean and neat. When this period of the child's life is affected by traumatic events, the personality develops certain traits that denote fixation on the anal stage. Such traits include obstinacy, rebellion, the desire to control and be controlled, and excessive concern about money, cleanliness, and order. See note 11 for Freud's articles on the subject.

    For examples of anal erotism and aggression, see Giuliana Sanguinetti Katz, The Uses of Myth in Ippolito Nievo, 30-7, 39-42, 47, 57-8, 91, 207-9.

17. For the issues concerning the development of girls during puberty and adolescence and the difficulties of separating from the parents and identifying with them, see Helene Deutsch, The Psychology of Women, vol. 1, 91-148.

18. For an example of the displacement of the female genitals to the upper part of the body, see the symbol of the Medusa's head as discussed by Freud in his article ‘Medusa's Head,’ (Standard Edition, vol. 18, 273-4).

    Speaking of the flower symbolism in Dumas' novel La dame aux camélias, Freud in the Interpretation of Dreams connects the camellias with Marguerite's sexuality and points out that she usually ‘wore a white camellia, except during her periods, when she wore a red one’ (Standard Edition, vol. 4, 319). Freud does not comment on Marguerite's tuberculosis, but there is no question that Armand is completely fascinated by Marguerite when he first comes to her house, remains alone with her in her room, and sees her coughing blood. We are also told that if Marguerite gave up her dissolute life and remained chaste, her disease would disappear. In short, tuberculosis is clearly linked with Marguerite's promiscuous sex life, first, and passionate love for Armand afterwards.

19. For a discussion of female fantasies and fears about menstruation and pregnancy, see Helene Deutsch, Psychology of Women, vol. 1, 15, 78-80, 87, 149-84, 321; vol. 2., 126-201.

20. Freud, in The Interpretation of Dreams, points out that there is no doubt ‘that all weapons and tools are used as symbols for the male organ: e.g. ploughs, hammers, rifles, revolvers daggers, sabres, etc.’ (Standard Edition, vol. 5, 356).

21. Marchionne Picchione had already commented on the similarities between Scilla and the protagonist (53-4).

22. For the importance of visual representation in dreams, see Freud, ‘On Dreams,’ Standard Edition, vol. 5, 659-60.

23. For the phallic significance that certain parts of the body can acquire, see Freud, ‘Fetishism,’ Standard Edition, vol. 21, 147-57. Freud explains that the individual who suffers from castration anxiety reassures himself by imagining that women are provided with a penis and gives phallic significance to some part of the body or to some object in contact with the body. Fashionable garments for women provide us with many examples of fetishism: for instance, padded shoulders, thick boots, leather jackets, and stiletto heels.

24. The defence mechanisms used by the narrator are paralleled by the attitude of Ginzburg herself, who transforms autobiographical material into fiction. It has already been remarked that the narrator—a university student, a poet, and a magazine editor—seems to represent various facets of the author herself (Bullock, Natalia Ginzburg, 98). The narrator seems to have inherited some of the characteristics of the adolescent Ginzburg: her painful shyness, her feelings of being excluded by the outside world, her need of being fed and taken care of by her mother, her fear of men, her obstinate search for identity and for her own artistic voice, and her unconventional way of dressing, much criticized by her mother.

Works Cited

Abraham, Karl. ‘The First Pregenital Stage of the Libido.’ In Karl Abraham, On Character and Libido development, edited by Bertram D. Lewin, 35-66. New York: Basic Books, 1966.

Bonfantini, Mario. ‘Il “muto” segreto di molte esistenze.’ Corriere della Sera (14 February 1965).

Bullock, Alan. Natalia Ginzburg. New York/Oxford: Berg, 1991. Chasseguet-Smirgel, Janine. ‘Feminine Guilt and the Oedipus Complex.’ In Female Sexuality, edited by J. Chasseguet-Smirgel, 94-134. London: Maresfield Library, 1970.

———. ‘The Femininity of the Analyst in Professional Practice.’ In Sexuality and Mind, 29-44. London: Maresfield Library, 1986.

———. ‘Freud and Female Sexuality: The Consideration of Some Blind Spots in the Exploration of the “Dark Continent”’ (1976). In Sexuality and Mind, 9-28. London: Maresfield Library, 1986.

Chehrazy, Shahla. ‘Female Psychology: A Review.’ Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 34, no. 1 (1986): 141-62.

Clementelli, Elena. Invito alla lettura di Natalia Ginzburg. Milano: Mursia, 1972.

De Tommaso, Piero. ‘Natalia Ginzburg.’ Letteratura Italiana, vol 3: I Contemporanei, 817-33. Milano: Marzorati, 1975.

Deutsch, Helene. The Psychology of Women. A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. 2 vols. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1944-45.

Fenichel, Otto. The Psycho-Analytic Theory of Neurosis. New York: Norton, 1945.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vols 4, 5. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953.

———. ‘On Dreams.’ Standard Edition. Vol. 5. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953.

———. ‘Medusa's Head.’ Standard Edition. Vol. 18. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1955.

———. ‘On Transformation of Instincts as Exemplified in Anal Erotism.’ Standard Edition. Vol. 17. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1955.

———. ‘Character and Anal Erotism.’ Standard Edition. Vol. 9. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1959.

———. ‘Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming.’ Standard Edition. Vol. 9. London: Hogarth Press and The Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1959.

———. ‘Female Sexuality.’ Standard Edition. Vol. 21. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1961.

———. ‘On Fetishism.’ Standard Edition. Vol. 21. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1961.

———. ‘Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes.’ Standard Edition. Vol. 19. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1961.

———. ‘Mourning and Melancholia.’ Standard Edition. Vol. 16. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1963.

———. ‘Femininity.’ New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Standard Edition. Vol. 22. Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1964.

Ginzburg, Natalia. Family Sayings. Translated by D. M. Low. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1984.

———. The Little Virtues. Translated by Dick Davis. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1985.

———. Opere. 2 vols. Milano: Mondadori, 1986-7.

———. Two Novellas: Valentino and Sagittarius. Translated by Avril Bardoni. New York: Seaver Books Henry Holt and Co., 1988.

Manacorda, Giuliano. Storia della letteratura contemporanea, 1940-1965. Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1967.

———. Vent'anni di pazienza. Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1972.

Marchionne Picchione, Luciana. Natalia Ginzburg. Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1978.

Sanguinetti Katz, Giuliana. The Uses of Myth in Ippolito Nievo. Ravenna: Longo, 1981.

Schnier, Jacques. ‘Dragon Lady.’ American Imago 4 (1947): 78-98.

Sergi, Pina. Review of Valentino, by Natalia Ginzburg. Il Ponte 13 (1957): 1882-4.

Seroni, Adriano. Esperimenti critici sul Novecento letterario. Milano: Mursia, 1967.

Virdia, Ferdinando. ‘Tre romanzi brevi di Natalia Ginzburg.’ Fiera Letteraria (4 August 1957).