SOURCE: "Nature as Structural-Stylistic Motive in Novelle per un anno," in A Companion to Pirandello Studies, edited by John Louis DiGaetani, Greenwood Press, 1991, pp. 385-95.

In the following essay, Vitti-Alexander maintains that a symbolic connection exists between Pirandello's characters and nature as it is depicted in his stories.

In the preface to Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello calls himself a philosophical writer because he aims to give his "figure, vicende, paesaggi" (characters, vicissitudes, landscapes) a universal value, a "patricolare senso della vita" (a particular sense of life). Driven by a "profondo bisogno spirituale" (a profound spiritual need), he continually probes, dissects, and analyzes everything, be it man, vicissitude, or nature.

This [essay] shows how nature in the Pirandellian short stories does not stand alone, for a "paesaggio" (landscape) is not presented "per il solo gusto di descriverlo" (for the simple reason of a mere description...