Arrogance and Immortality in "The Professor and the Siren"

          In Lampedusa’s short story, “The Professor and the Siren,” there are integrated realistic and mythical elements. The protagonist, Paolo Corbera, befriends an intelligent and demeaning senator who claims to have had intimate relations with a mythic Siren. The senator’s arrogance stems from his belief in his forthcoming immortality.  He believes himself superior to humans and earthly pleasures, because he does not fear death and has experienced superhuman, carnal ecstasy, initiating his condescension to the whole human race. The senator exhibits his extreme haughtiness by constantly degrading “you people” (65). He sets himself apart from the human race, and negates the knowledge of the world’s greatest intellectuals, saying, “I shall stop my ears to avoid hearing the nonsense of those (congressmen)” (71). His displays of supremacy arise from the assurance of immortality he receives from the Siren. The Siren “had shown (him) the way towards true eternal repose,” and, unlike other humans, he is not afraid of death. He treats their fear of dying condescendingly, saying, “always the same, you people, slaves to decay and putrescence, always with ears strained for the shuffling steps of Death. Poor devils!” (72). Additionally, he believes to engage in worldly, sexual pleasures would be degrading to his status as an immortal’s lover. He asks Paolo to “please do me the favour of being convinced that the sordid pleasures of you people have never been Rosario La Ciura’s” (68).  He considers himself above humanity’s natural urges, because his experiences with the Siren caused him to develop “an asceticism derived not from renunciation but from an incapacity to accept other inferior pleasures” (83).  The Senator’s romance with the Siren instigates his belief that he is superior to the human race, destined for another world, and it commences his rejection of humanity.

Eyes Shut - Frederigo Tozzi

In the novel, Eyes Shut, Frederigo Tozzi tells his life story with some distortions. His character, Pietro, feels inferior and is lost and conflicted in finding his identity because of his controlling father, Domenico. Domenico is a seemingly powerful man in his field and tries to control everyone around him. His desire to dominate has an effect on his son, whom he barely has a relationship with, because his son constantly yields to his demands and tolerates his insults. Pietro thus lacked self confidence yet had developed a desire for superiority and domination. Besides his condescending father, Pietro’s struggle to identify his individuality is affected by his sick mother, Anna, who cannot take care of her only surviving child, Pietro, as she would like to. Anna eventually dies in her feeble attempts to take care of and have a motherly relationship with Pietro who, because of his subjection to his father, couldn’t return her attempted affection. "Pietro always avoided showing her he loved her in case he became too submissive" (Tozzi, 50). This leaves Pietro with a constant atmosphere of neglect and loneliness surrounding him. These insecurities inflicted on Pietro by his parents’ actions and behaviour surface in his relationship with Ghisola, the woman he loves. His love for Ghisola made him feel like she overpowered him, a feeling his father had made very familiar to him so he equally disliked this feeling. In order to display that he still had power, he resorted to violence. He would “stab” (27) and “push” (38) Ghisola in his attempts to prove that she had no power or control over him.

Anna's Fatih

Despite her weak relationship with her husband and the loss of seven of her children, Anna has faith and supports Pierto up until her death. She feels a strong connection to God and believes that praying will save her from her awful reality. She constantly worries and one night Anna tells Pierto, “That’s three nights you haven’t said an Ave Maria. Bless yourself” (19). She tries to instill good values in her son, but his adolescent antics take over. Anna struggles because she wants the best for her son but since she and Domenico have trouble communicating, it makes it difficult to help Pierto. She tries her best, and “every day she said some prayers to a saint but never found it possible to have a serious talk about Pierto with her husband” (41). With strong faith but little reward, Anna experiences convulsions and worries that there are “enemies putting curses” on them (41). Her persistent preoccupation over Pietro causes the convulsions, “what distressed her at those times was not being able to look after Pietro” (49). The anguish amounted and Anna’s “sense of death was always present and it wasn’t enough for her to believe in God” (49). For her last attempt of faith, after Pierto continues to treat Ghisola poorly, “she decided to take him to the priest and ask his advice” (68). However, she has a convulsions attack and dies, weak and crumbling, with little faith and only a bit of hope for her son.

Tozzi

"Pietro always avoided showing her he loved her in case he became too submissive" pg 50

In Tozzi's Eyes Shut the character of Pietro has grown away from his mother who suffers from nervous convulsions. Pietro believes that by showing his mother he loves her he will appear as submissive. Pietro somewhat has this mentality when it comes to interactions with other people, particularly Ghisola. Ghisola's ability to assert herself makes Pietro become unintentionally submissive to her. This irritates Pietro, because to him "she was supposed to defer to him" (pg 38). Pietro is submissive to Ghisola because of the emotions she instills in him. Ghisola appears to make Pietro timid, at one point he "hadn't the courage to look [her] in the face" (pg 40). Pietro also becomes physically submissive to Ghisola, her eyes made him "[sag] at the knees with a new weakness that increased his confusion like a disease" (pg 40). Ultimately Ghisola jeopardizes Pietro's confidence, "his self-consciousness increased" (pg 45) and at times he became "so frantic he nearly tottered" (pg 46). Pietro may believe that by showing someone affection he becomes submissive, but that does not stop him from showing his affection for Ghisola. He infact acknowledges how emotionally and physically submissive he has become because of his emotions toward her, this acknowledgement causes his confusion and annoyance.

Tozzi Response

Pietro, Federigo personified, struggles with adolescent love because of his controlling father. The idea of forbidden love sticks in Pietro’s mind even when ghisola moves around; he still believes that he loves her. Pietro’s father is so successful in his businesses and he wants the same for his son. In order to ensure that Pietro is successful he tries to keep him sheltered from the world. Domenico thinks his son is easily swayed in beliefs, “Domenico mentioned school resentfully and at the times he thought Pietro most suggestible” (Tozzi, 75). His father didn’t approve of his socialist views and discouraged him from learning and traveling. Ghisola, forced into moving by Domenico, in throw into the real world and must come up with ways to survive and she eventually picks up a job at a brothel. Pietro still reads her letters and still believes in their love, so when he first hears of Ghisola’s involvement with the brothel he doesn’t quite believe and still has hope. Entering the brothel and seeing pregnant and compromised Ghisola is a defining moment for Pietro because he realizes that his former ideas about love were wrong and he no longer loves her.

Inferiority

Inferiority

In the novel Eyes Shut, the author describes his life through the alias Pietro with some slightly altered facts. Throughout the novel Pietro feels inferior and is not able to stand up for himself because of his dominate and power driven father. At a young age Pietro is distanced from his father when he lives with his mother in Poggio a’ Meli. This separation creates distance in the relationship between father and son, only knowing his father as someone whom he must consistently obey. His father, Domenico, was a perfectionist who was “afraid his orders wouldn’t be carried out with anxious attention to detail he seemed to follow in his mind.”(48) This obsession with perfection creates a mental barrier within Domenico, placing himself on a pedestal above all others. When Pietro does not live up to Domenico’s expectations, he is not afraid to share his disappointment both physically and vocally. Because of the constant disapproval from his father, Pietro does not only feel inferior to his father but “he considers himself inferior to others.”(45) The inferiority he feels is shown in school as well as in his social life. When Pietro’s cousin Antonio threatens his relationship with Ghisola, Pietro is unable to stand up for his love for Ghisola. Domencio abuses his dominance over Pietro, consistently placing Pietro beneath him.

Tozzi

Eyes Shut a novel by Federigo Tozzi explores his own life through the character of Pietro. Pietro lacks the knowledge of what he wants in life and his surrounding. Pietro has many fond memories of his time spent at the estate. He even will return to the estate if there was a bad moment. “He thought: Yes, she knows. The others know all about me. I’m the one who doesn’t” (45). Pietro cannot find what he is looking for in life and who is. However, the people around him see him for who he is and understand him more than he does himself. He does understand himself somewhat though, as he does realize that what he is looking for lies within the estate. He always returns to the estate and his return unknowingly is himself finding his way in the world and discovering who is.

Tozzi

“Let me talk about these March turbulences, impossible to describe exactly and nearly always associated with a subtle sensual pleasure, a thirst for beauty” (34). This paragraph has a massive impact. For the first time, Tozzi associates himself with the story. The sudden switch from third person where Tozzi had began to develop a setting and plot to first person develops an internal conflict that continues on through the rest of the novel. Tozzi recognizes himself as Pietro in this paragraph in describing the effects of Poggio a’ Meli on his character. The reason this interjection of the story’s flow has such a great impact is it stands as the catalyst to a deeper reflection and a more internalized and complex understanding of Pietro’s (Tozzi’s) psyche.

Poggio a’ Meli and it’s functionality from his abusive father to the laborers ignites in Pietro a journey in search of who he is and what he desires. “Yes, she knows. The others know all about me. I’m the one who doesn’t” (45). The estate beckons Pietro because he realizes the answer to who he is can be found from his experiences there. Even in the painful experiences he has there, Pietro can’t break away from the farm and what it represents. His adolescence is stained by his loneliness as his father doesn’t care much about him and his mother’s convulsions continue to worsen, obstructing her ability to care and watch over him. This freedom Pietro finds in his isolation binds him. Without guidance or someone to care for him, Pietro’s immaturity pushes him towards poor decisions and tumultuous situations that add to his blindness of who he is and what he desires.

Tozzi, Eyes Shut

In Eyes Shut, Pietro's mother, Anna, experiences nervous convulsions that ultimately lead to her death because of her inability to connect with her son. Early in the story, it is mentioned that there have been seven children of Anna and Domenico before Pietro, but they all died before they left the wet nurse. Anna deeply cares about Pietro because he was the only child of hers to survive. She wants to do what is right for him, but has much difficulty. "She seemed to herself not to belong to life any more, never to have done anything for him" (49). Anna is unhappy that she cannot fully care for her child and finds trouble in continuing to live. She wants to help Pietro become successful in life, but she does not have the ability. As well, Anna realizes that she is becoming absent in Pietro's life and does not know what to do about it. "She didn't know how to talk to him. She realized he was growing away from her and without her being able to tell him any of the things it would have cheered her to say" (50). Anna is sad that she is unable to fill the motherly role that she wants to provide to Pietro. Lastly, her sadness becomes worse until she dies from nervous convulsions after thinking about her son. Anna decided she would finally be an active role in her son's life, so she arranges for Pietro to meet a priest for advice. "All of a sudden [Anna] felt her heart tighten, tighter and tighter, but she couldn't cry out" (68). Her last thoughts were about her son, and she wanted to start becoming a strong motherly figure for Pietro. Unfortunately, her anxiety led her to die and Pietro to have a parental role that is unfulfilled.

Comparing Eyes Shut and A Woman

Kendall Weinert

FYS: Masterpieces of Italian Literature

Eyes Shut Blog Post

            The novels, A Woman, by Sibilla Aleramo and Eyes Shut, by Federigo Tozzi are very similar in the sense that the main characters struggle to become independent and go against what others expect. In Tozzi’s, Eyes Shut, the main character Pietro is constantly faced with the challenge of going against what others say. In, A Woman, Sibilla struggles to go against the social norms of that time. Neither of these characters will do as they wish because they are scared if they do they will be looked at differently. Pietro does as others ask because he is afraid that if he does his own thing and becomes an individual he will also become lost. He does as he is told and very rarely strays from following what he is told. Tozzi states, “[Pietro] gave in to [Ghisola’s] wishes, doing what he told him to do and trying to guess what he was thinking but didn’t say straight out.” (23) This illustrates that Pietro is scared to go against or even question what others tell him to do. He will wonder, but never ask because he may be looked at differently if he does. Pietro is scared that he will be lost if he does what he wants instead of what others want, so he remains doing what others tell him.