Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis

                                                  Freedom in Death

As Teresa predicts with her drawing of Five Springs Lake, it is freedom that Jacopo longs for--a freedom that he evidently experiences in Teresa's presence, and a freedom that he undoubtedly experienced in his youth.  But this freedom, like his homeland, is seized from beneath his feet and the remainder of the novel serves as an itinerant and  epistolary account of Jacopo's quest to rediscover his freedom.  Yet it is with the words of Calvino and Leopardi in the back of our minds that  we predict Jacopo's suicide before finishing the introduction…

            That is to say that true freedom is "such a precious thing...as those know who give up their lives for it" (132).      When Jacopo makes his decision to end his life, it is not without a dark and agonizing contemplation of the nature of human existence, to which he more or less comes up with the following: "Repentance in the past, boredom in the present, and fear in the future.  Such is human life" (Foscolo 114).  More than once, he finds pleasure in his memories of his youth, so that--just as Leopardi said, "Man is born rich in all, growing up he grows poorer…"--Foscolo seems to value the beauty in youth (Casale 59).  This explains the protagonist's love for the youthful Isabella, who bears a strong resemblance to Pearl in Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter.  I'll go as far as to say that Isabella represents the same truth that Pearl does and therefore we can assume that truth is also something that Jacopo hopes to find on his journey, but finds it only in Isabellea, Teresa, and eventually in death itself.

            Jacopo's search for freedom takes him through bouts of harsh criticism of the human race, and he eventually concludes that oppression--the lack of freedom that has become his life-- is caused by three things: Nature, society, and fate.  It is Nature who "transforms herself" and "blinds [Jacopo] with her light;" society who is composed of "oppressive creatures;" and fate who  puts Teresa in Odaurdo's hands (Foscolo 123, ix).  Jacopo is all at once unhappy because he has lost his youth, lost the love of his life, lost his homeland, and with all of this, he loses his faith in humanity.  The freedom that Jacopo seeks exists only in death.    
                                                              Works Cited
Casale, Ottavio M. "A Leopardi Reader."  Paperback. A LEOPARDI READER: Giacomo Leopardi, Ottavio M. Casale.  University of Illinois Press, 1981. 
Foscolo, Ugo. Last letters of Jacopo Ortis. London: Hesperus, 2002. Print.