Memory, History and a Mother’s Resistant Mourning in Giuseppe Dessì’s Il disertore

This essay proposes a re-reading of Giuseppe Dessì’s Il disertore (1961) in the context of collective memory theory and postmodern concerns with mourning and melancholia. Through an examination of the way Dessì represents the interaction between individual memories and official memorialization in th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Quaderni d'italianistica 2012-01, Vol.33 (2), p.133-149
Main Author: Boylan, Amy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Collective memory
Grief
History
Postmodernism
World War I
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This essay proposes a re-reading of Giuseppe Dessì’s Il disertore (1961) in the context of collective memory theory and postmodern concerns with mourning and melancholia. Through an examination of the way Dessì represents the interaction between individual memories and official memorialization in the post-WWI period, I argue that Dessì anticipates postmodern perspectives on commemoration. In particular, I look at the protagonist, Mariangela, both as a recuperation of the private and public anti-war activities of many Italian women, and as a melancholic mother whose refusal to obey normative modes of mourning results in a form of resistant mourning. Furthermore, it is precisely through Mariangela’s oppositional gaze that Dessì exposes the inadequacies of her town’s official receptacle of war memories, the monumento ai caduti, in order to interrogate the way collective—but also individual—memory is constructed.
ISSN:0226-8043
2293-7382
DOI:10.33137/q.i..v33i2.19421