Le coscienze di Gesualdo Motta e Isabella Trao

The paper is intended to show the gap between two characters‟ interior life in Mastro-don Gesualdo. Giovanni Verga and Guido Mazzoni agree that Gesualdo‟s subjectivity is never rendered in the novel while Isabella‟s “soul” is revealed through a monologue/soliloquy. Their theses are disproved on the basis of textual evidence: on one hand, the father is represented thinking, on the other hand, his daughter hardly ever speaks with herself. Subjectivity is not conveyed by a specific technique but by a particular style that is related to a certain sensibility and corresponds to a social class.