Yohana Jabotinsky Youth Town
Six Year Comprehensive School for Sciences and Arts
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Literature
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‫כפר הנוער יוהנה ז'בוטינסקי‬
‫בית ספר מקיף שש שנתי למדעים ואמנויות‬
11th -12th grade
–Short story #4
4-5 points
Luigi Pirandello was born in 1867 in Girgenti (now Agrigento) on the island of Sicily. Luigi's father was a fairly
prosperous sulphur dealer and intended that his son should follow in his footsteps, but the boy demonstrated a
studious bent early on, and as a result, he was provided with a literary schooling. He entered the University of Rome
in 1887, but later transferred to Bonn University where he completed his doctoral thesis, a study of his native
Sicilian dialect.
Pirandello's sense of disillusionment was burned into his psyche early on by a very personal tragedy. In 1894, at the
age of 27, he married a young woman whom he had never met. The marriage had been arranged by his parents according to custom. His
young bride, Antonietta Portulano, was the daughter of his father's business partner. The girl's mother had died in childbirth because
her father was so insanely jealous that he would not allow a doctor to be present during the birth. For a time, the young couple found
happiness, but after the birth of their third child and the loss of the family fortune in a flood, Antonietta suffered a mental
breakdown. She became so violent that she should have been institutionalized, but Pirandello chose instead to keep her at home for
seventeen years while she spat her venom at the young writer and his three children. Their daughter was so disturbed by her mother's
illness that she tried to take her own life. Fortunately, her instrument of choice, a revolver, was so old as to be of no use. The illness
had a profound effect on Pirandello's writing as well, leading him to explorations of madness, illusion, and isolation. It was not until his
plays finally began to prove profitable around 1919 that he was able to send Antonietta to a private sanitarium.
Pirandello wrote his first widely acclaimed novel, The Late Mattia Pascal, in 1904. By the time the First World War broke out ten years
later, he had published two other novels and numerous short stories. It was not until 1916, however, that he turned his attention to the
theatre. He quickly became enthralled by this new medium, and became quite prolific, turning out as many as nine plays in one year. His
first three plays, Better Think Twice About It!, Liol‫א‬, and It is So!, If You Think So, were each written in less than a week. His first
notable critical success came in 1920 with As Before, Better than Before. Then, within a five week period in 1921, he wrote two
masterpieces: Six Characters in Search of an Author, and Henry IV. Six Characters had a successful but scandalous opening in Rome
and, soon after, another successful--but less scandalous--opening in Milan. Almost overnight, the play was being directed by
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Komisarjevsky in London, Brock Pemberton in New York, and Max Reinhardt in Germany. 1922 saw the successful opening of two more
plays, Henry IV and Naked.
Between 1922 and 1924, Pirandello became a major public figure. In Paris, he received the Legion of Honor, and in 1925, with the help
of Mussolini who had publicly announced his admiration for the playwright, Pirandello opened his own Art Theatre in Rome. Pirandello's
relationship with Mussolini has been the subject of much debate. Some scholars have suggested that the playwright's enthusiastic
adoption of fascism was simply a matter of practicality, a strategic ploy to advance his career. Had he opposed the fascist regime, it
would have meant serious difficulties for him and for his art. Acceptance, on the other hand, meant subsidies and publicity. His
statement that "I am a Fascist because I am an Italian." has often been called on to support this theory, and one of his later plays, The
Giants of the Mountain, has often been interpreted as showing the author's growing realization that the fascist giants were hostile to
culture. And yet, during his last appearance in New York, Pirandello voluntarily distributed a statement announcing his support of
Italy's annexation of Abyssinia. He even gave his Nobel medal over to the Italian government to be melted down for the Abyssinian
campaign. However, Pirandello was a complex creature, and all that can be certain is that nothing is certain.
Pirandello was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1934, and continued to experience a great deal of critical success until the time of his death
in 1936.
Luigi Pirandello left instructions for his funeral, saying, "When I am dead, do not clothe me. Wrap me naked in a sheet. No flowers on
the bed and no lighted candle. A pauper's cart. Naked. And let no one accompany me, neither relatives nor friends. The cart, the horse,
the coachmen, e basta. Burn me." But the church did not believe in cremation and the Fascist party did not want a world-famous fascist
to slip away naked, without his black shirt. Thus, against his wishes, Pirandello was given a state funeral.
Source and complete text here: http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc30.html
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War
by: Luigi Pirandello (1867-1937)
The passengers who had left Rome by the night express had had to stop until dawn at the
small station of Fabriano in order to continue their journey by the small old-fashioned
local joining the main line with Sulmona.
At dawn, in a stuffy and smoky second-class carriage in which five people had already
spent the night, a bulky woman in deep mourning was hosted in — almost like a shapeless
bundle. Behind her — puffing and moaning, followed her husband — a tiny man; thin and
weakly, his face death-white, his eyes small and bright and looking shy and uneasy.
Having at last taken a seat he politely thanked the passengers who had helped his wife and
who had made room for her; then he turned round to the woman trying to pull down the
collar of her coat and politely inquired:
"Are you all right, dear?"
The wife, instead of answering, pulled up her collar again to her eyes, so as to hide her
face.
"Nasty world," muttered the husband with a sad smile.
And he felt it his duty to explain to his traveling companions that the poor woman was to
be pitied for the war was taking away from her her only son, a boy of twenty to whom both
had devoted their entire life, even breaking up their home at Sulmona to follow him to
Rome, where he had to go as a student, then allowing him to volunteer for war with an
assurance, however, that at least six months he would not be sent to the front and now,
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all of a sudden, receiving a wire saying that he was due to leave in three days' time and
asking them to go and see him off.
The woman under the big coat was twisting and wriggling, at times growling like a wild
animal, feeling certain that all those explanations would not have aroused even a shadow
of sympathy from those people who — most likely — were in the same plight as herself. One
of them, who had been listening with particular attention, said:
"You should thank God that your son is only leaving now for the front. Mine has been sent
there the first day of the war. He has already come back twice wounded and been sent back
again to the front."
"What about me?
I have two sons and three nephews at the front," said another passenger.
"Maybe, but in our case it is our only son," ventured the husband.
"What difference can it make? You may spoil your only son by excessive attentions, but
you cannot love him more than you would all your other children if you had any. Parental
love is not like bread that can be broken to pieces and split amongst the children in
equal shares. A father gives all his love to each one of his children without
discrimination, whether it be one or ten, and if I am suffering now for my two sons, I am
not suffering half for each of them but double..."
"True...true..." sighed the embarrassed husband, "but suppose (of course we all hope it
will never be your case) a father has two sons at the front and he loses one of them,
there is still one left to console him...while..."
"Yes," answered the other, getting cross, "a son left to console him but also a son left
for whom he must survive, while in the case of the father of an only son if the son dies
the father can die too and put an end to his distress. Which of the two positions is
worse? Don't you see how my case would be worse than yours?"
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"Nonsense," interrupted another traveler, a fat, red-faced man with bloodshot eyes of the
palest gray.
He was panting. From his bulging eyes seemed to spurt inner violence of an uncontrolled
vitality which his weakened body could hardly contain.
"Nonsense, "he repeated, trying to cover his mouth with his hand so as to hide the two
missing front teeth. "Nonsense.Do we give life to our own children for our own benefit?"
The other travelers stared at him in distress. The one who had had his son at the front
since the first day of the war sighed: "You are right. Our children do not belong to us,
they belong to the country..."
"Bosh," retorted the fat traveler. "Do we think of the country when we give life to our
children? Our sons are born because...well, because they must be born and when they come
to life they take our own life with them. This is the truth. We belong to them but they
never belong to us. And when they reach twenty they are exactly what we were at their
age. We too had a father and mother, but there were so many other things as well...girls,
cigarettes, illusions, new ties...and the Country, of course, whose call we would have
answered — when we were twenty — even if father and mother had said no. Now, at our age,
the love of our Country is still great, of course, but stronger than it is the love of our
children. Is there any one of us here who wouldn't gladly take his son's place at the
front if he could?"
There was a silence all round, everybody nodding as to approve.
"Why then," continued the fat man, "should we consider the feelings of our children when
they are twenty? Isn't it natural that at their age they should consider the love for
their Country (I am speaking of decent boys, of course) even greater than the love for us?
Isn't it natural that it should be so, as after all they must look upon us as upon old
boys who cannot move any more and must sit at home? If Country is a natural necessity
like bread of which each of us must eat in order not to die of hunger, somebody must go to
defend it. And our sons go, when they are twenty, and they don't want tears, because if
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they die, they die inflamed and happy (I am speaking, of course, of decent boys). Now, if
one dies young and happy, without having the ugly sides of life, the boredom of it, the
pettiness, the bitterness of disillusion...what more can we ask for him? Everyone should
stop crying; everyone should laugh, as I do...or at least thank God — as I do — because my
son, before dying, sent me a message saying that he was dying satisfied at having ended
his life in the best way he could have wished. That is why, as you see, I do not even
wear mourning..."
He shook his light fawn coat as to show it; his livid lip over his missing teeth was
trembling, his eyes were watery and motionless, and soon after he ended with a shrill
laugh which might well have been a sob.
"Quite so...quite so..." agreed the others.
The woman who, bundled in a corner under her coat, had been sitting and listening and had
— for the last three months — tried to find in the words of her husband and her friends
something to console her in her deep sorrow, something that might show her how a mother
should resign herself to send her son not even to death but to a probable danger of life.
Yet not a word had she found amongst the many that had been said...and her grief had been
greater in seeing that nobody — as she thought — could share her feelings.
But now the words of the traveler amazed and almost stunned her. She suddenly realized
that it wasn't the others who were wrong and could not understand her but herself who
could not rise up to the same height of those fathers and mothers willing to resign
themselves, without crying, not only to the departure of their sons but even to their
death.
She lifted her head, she bent over from her corner trying to listen with great attention
to the details which the fat man was giving to his companions about the way his son had
fallen as a hero, for his King and his Country, happy and without regrets. It seemed to
her that she had stumbled into a world she had never dreamt of, a world so far unknown to
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her, and she was so pleased to hear everyone joining in congratulating that brave father
who could so stoically speak of his child's death.
Then suddenly, just as if she had heard nothing of what had been said and almost as if
waking up from a dream, she turned to the old man, asking him:
"Then...is your son really dead?"
Everyone stared at her. The old man, too, turned to look at her, fixing his great,
bulging, horribly watery light gray eyes, deep in her face. For some time he tried to
answer, but words failed him. He looked and looked at her, almost as if only then — at
that silly, incongruous question — he had suddenly realized at last that his son was
really dead — gone for ever — for ever. His face contracted, became horribly distorted,
then he snatched in haste a handkerchief from his pocket and, to the amazement of
everyone, broke into harrowing, heart-breaking, uncontrollable sobs.
http://www.eslbee.com/short_stories/ss_war.htm
http://www.geocities.com/muna_qudah/pirandello.html
http://www.rozanehmagazine.com/SeptOct.03/awar.html
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Tick the response that best answers the question.
1. What assurance had the fat woman and her husband received when their son joined the military?
o that he would always stay well behind the front lines
o that the war would end soon
o that he would not be sent to the front for six months
2. Can the argument among the passengers be won, and why or why not?
o no, because no one knows what has happened to the fat man's son until the end
o yes, because some of the passengers are more self-centered and less moral than others
o no, because it is impossible to compare different people's grief
3. How does the fat man use reason to explain away his own grief?
o He argues that his son's chances of surviving or dying were about even.
o He argues that everyone dies eventually, and that it is better to die in battle than in any other way.
o He argues that his son gave his life for a cause he believed in and died young and happy.
4. Why does the fat man respond as he does to the woman's question?
o The question shatters his rational facade.
o The question makes him remember that he is the only parent in the car whose child has died.
o The question implies that the old man did not love his son, and he is deeply hurt by this.
Answer the following questions:
1. Why is the bulky woman who enters the second-class carriage in deep mourning?
2. Why does she feel that her situation will not arouse sympathy from the others in the carriage?
3. Why does the woman’s husband feel that their situation is special? Why don’t the others agree with him?
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4. Why does the fat man feel parents should not cry for sons who die as soldiers? Do you think he really believes this? Explain why
or why not.
5. Pirandello titles this story “War”, but the events he describes take place away from the war. Why do you think he does this?
6. What specific war do you think Pirandello is writing about? What clues led you to this conclusion?
7. What do you think is the theme of this story? Which events in the story best convey this theme?