La donna che guarda. Studio alle radici della narrativa di Alberto Moravia e Mario Soldati

This study interrogates the work of Alberto Moravia and Mario Soldati in parallel, starting from what we could define as an original paradigm, closely connected to the literary vocation of both: the figure of the woman-mother. In the first three chapters: “Staying young” in spite of the fathers, Montale against the moralists and Solmi and the revenge of aesthetics, we wanted to carry out a critical counter-history on the two debut works by Moravia and Soldati, Gli indifferenti and Salmace. Emphasizing the readings, which have hitherto remained on the sidelines of critical attention, by Salmace by Eugenio Montale and by Sergio Solmi's Indifferenti. The second chapter, Gli indifferenti and Vittoria in the mirror, focuses instead on the comparison of Moravia's novel and the first story in the Salmace collection, by Soldati. Analyzing the two texts in parallel, so different in their formal arrangement, surprising consonances and similarities were revealed thematically and not only. In the third chapter If God does not exist, nothing is possible. The moral dilemma in the characters of Moravia and Soldati proceeds the descent into the character-man, discovering the deep instances of Moravia and Soldati's morality through the characters. The fourth and fifth chapter God is dead, long live incest! and The eyes of the mother, constitute the central question of the thesis. Keeping as fixed points the two early theatrical works, Il dialogo tra Amleto e il proncipe di Danimarca by Moravia and La madre di Giuda by Soldati, an attempt was made to trace the fundamental thematic intersection between the extensive narrative production of Alberto Moravia and Mario Soldiers, starting from the original obsessions of both, who find themselves curiously similar. Finally, in the last chapter, Bad mothers and literary vocations, we re-read, in the light of the paradigm that emerged from the progress of the study, a well-known biographical episode that affects the childhood of Moravia and Soldati in the 1920s on the beach of Viareggio.