Response to Senso

                                                             Superiority in Senso

            Livia's vanity allows her to easily deceive herself: she gets her false sense of superiority from her incredible self-interest.  She "falls in love" with men she feels superior to.  Her affair with the lawyer Gino puts her in an position of exceptional power, for he is a weak and pathetic man.  She gives orders in a manner that suggests little-to-no respect for the servants.  Her love for Remigio is initiated by his moral depravity--to which she holds herself superior--and is sustained by his need for money from her.  When she "[realizes] that Lieutenant Remigio is her life," she is affirming her position of control in their relation: with no financial aid from Livia, Remigio would be nothing.  But it is Remigio who deceives Livia by allowing her to feel that she is control of the relationship.  When he says "do you want to save me?," he is essentially putting his life in Livia's hands--a role that she more than gladly accepts, and a role that she accepts in her relationship with Gino (33).  However, it is when she discovers that it is actually Remigio who holds the control on the relationship that she plots to eliminate him and restart he affair with Gino.  We might even call into question the reliability of the narrator: the young officers in the cafe seem overly attracted to Livia, a detail she might have exaggerated to compensate for the loss of dignity she experienced upon realizing she had been deceived, therefore temporarily losing her sense of superiority over Remigio.  Understanding that she no longer holds power over him--in fact, he has gained the upper-hand in the relationship--Livia plots his death, and falls back into a relationship with Gino, who more than emboldens her sense of vanity and over whom she has the utmost control.