The Structure of Meaning in Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo

Abstract

When it first appeared Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) was criticized for lacking structural coherence and for including digressive and superfluous narrative material. Such an appraisal, however, does not stand up under analysis. In arranging the individual episodes of the plot Lampedusa twice relies on a sophisticated pattern of chiastic ordering to throw into prominence the novel's central themes and to reinforce symbolic associations. The patterns of concentric symmetry compensate for the effects of the intentionally static quality of a plot that consists more of a sequence of moods and meditations than of specific actions. Lampedusa plays down linear development and compels the reader to seek the novel's unity in its thematic and symbolic structures. Seen from this perspective, IlGattopardo might well be celebrated rather than censured for the complexity of its structural coherence.

History trapped into eternity: Kinesis and stasis in The Leopard

“…It is worth noticing that the Prince’s wife is named Stella (“Star”), emphasizing Don Fabrizio’s desire of finding balance between opposite impulses and conceptual dichotomies, unresolved and unattained in life (Stella is far from providing sensual pleasure and intellectual stimuli to the Prince, their marriage being not a particularly good match). On the one hand, “the image of the woman and the trail of stars have provided escape from a prison of monotony, but they remain, until the moment of death, the objects of a ‘pursuit of the unattainable’” (Lansing, 1978: 413), on the other hand, this vision is a revelation of the profound sense the Prince had tried to find during his whole life: what in life has appeared as an insolvable contradiction (the fast historical transformation, versus the eternal sphere of unmodified nature) is here re-conciliated, showing how eternity encompasses everything with its stellar embrace.…”

“…14 The relevance of this scene, but with reference to the novel, is stressed also by Lansing, (1978: 412).…”