SOURCE: "Moravia and the Middle Class: the Case of 'Seduta spiritica,'" in Homage to Moravia, edited by Rocco Capozzi and Mario B. Mignone, Forum Italicum, 1993, pp. 141-50.

In the following essay, Moss examines the non-class-specific alienation present in "Seduta spiritica."

Moravia began to write about the middle class in 1927 with the short story "Cortigiana stanca," his first attempt at fiction to be published. It tells of the end of a depressing relationship between a woman and her younger lover who can no longer afford to keep her in the style she is used to and whose energy is absorbed in trying to "dominare il malessere che l'opprimeva." Hard upon its heels Gli indifferenti (1929) was also set in a middle-class milieu and dealt with similar problems, as was the case for other stories of the period such as "Inverno di malato" and "Fine di una relazione." But any...