»Una ventata di pazzia«?

Abstract

Luigi Pirandello’s novels are based on scenarios of extreme emotional movement. By focusing on the novel ‚Suo marito‘, the essay will question the textual presentation of extremes, in order to point out the structural patterns in Pirandello’s writing practice with regard to the issue of emotional self-discovery of the individual. How does the emotional dynamic emerge and develop in selected sequences of scenes? And which structural characteristics or aesthetic paradigms of the representation of emotional movement can be summarized? Pirandello shows a special conception of aesthetic functionality of emotions, which in its specific character of movement reflects individual self-experience. The special analytic focus lies on the protagonist Giustino Boggiolo, whose ambition to build on his wife’s literary success and to exploit it commercially puts him into an ecstatic rush, endangering not only his own existence and self-image, but also his family.