The river,the levee,love,and confession: The thematics of Grazia Deledda’s L'argine

Abstract

Grazia Deledda’s late novel L’argine is set in a modern Italy that is very different from the primitive peasant Sardinian society in which she situated the novels for which she is best known. Themes that play a prominent role in her earlier cycle of novels are still recognizable in her later work, but in an attenuated, less socially destructive form. The paired themes of a wild river and the embankment meant to control it are developed on literal, metaphorical, and symbolic levels. The complicated plot is built around a chain of unrequited loves and an intriguing conflation of the characters that, despite their differences, under the irresistible force of erotic desire, act out that desire in ways that tend to blur the distinctions among them. The linked themes of guilt, punishment, and atonement that are found in many of Deledda’s novels are embodied in a series of confessional narratives and relationships that I analyze in the framework of different theories about confession in the novel. I examine the variety and choice of narrative points of view and the relationship among the parts of the novel as they relate to the different forms of confession and the major themes of the novel.