Passion

Giorgio admits that happiness requires only one fulfilled desire, love. Instantly he characterizes himself with a sensitive nature that develops his susceptibility to both Clara and Fosca. With Clara, the second they meet he recognizes her sensitivity for his torment. She breaks him down with her eyes and he instantly feels his life are left in her hands. But even in his desire for love to attain happiness, Giorgio’s sensitivity, especially towards women can be attributed to his relationship with his mother. “I could never recall my mother, whom I lost as a boy” (Tarchetti 49). The loss of his mother at such a young age left him with a desire for a woman who would coddle and care for him in his darkest days. Clara’s pity for him transformed into love and they become so infatuated with each other.

            Ironically, in meeting Fosca his role reverses. He was able to find weakness in Clara for his torment, allowing him to open up his heart to her knowing that she could not resist. On the other hand, Fosca recognizes Giorgio’s weakness for those in a worse state than his own and manipulates him with her sorrows, outlining her own mentality. Fosca’s illness isn’t grasping her and killing her, rather she is grasping onto it as to draw attention to herself. Her intelligence and understanding of reality gives her the realization that her intelligence has no value to those around her and she believes the only way someone will care for her is through sympathy for her suffering. In fact, that grasping of her suffering and despair is exactly what draws Giorgio in, even in his attempts to avoid her. He couldn’t help but feel moved by her gestures even in regret.

            One quote, “I knew that we are incapable of evading our instincts, and that a young man and woman who want to violate nature by loving each other as friends share nothing more than a mutilated, artificial, violent, often ridiculous affection, because it leads to a love that is bare of every illusion, every charm” (Tarchetti 57). Tarchetti views love to be the conclusion of all relationships between men and women; implying sexual tension is unavoidable and there is no such thing as friends between the opposite sexes. So if your wife or husband has a friend of the opposite sex they’re cheating on you according to Tarchetti.