SOURCE: "Women's Marginality and Self-Obliteration in Some of Pirandello's Novelle," in Forum Italicum, Vol. 27, Nos. 1-2, Spring-Fall, 1993, pp. 204-13.

In the following excerpt, Di Paolo assesses Pirandello's characterizations of women in his short stories, finding them stereotypical and limited in variety.

When reading Pirandello's novelle (and his other works as well), we become more and more convinced that his female characters convey traditional myths, which can broadly be so identified: woman as Flesh, as Nature, as Muse. Under these categories we encounter images of women in a variety of roles common to a male-dominated tradition. The most common among them are those of mother, caretaker, and fallen woman. Consequently, I intend to discuss here some novelle not only because they are important in themselves, but because, more than others, they illustrate modes of discourse in which both narrator and narratee are, in one way or another, engaged in...