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Modern Italy
Journal of Modern Italian Studies
RIVISTA DI STUDI ITALIANI
Anno XVI , n° 1, Giugno 1998 ( Contributi ) pag. 297-315

LUCA: THE PSYCHOTIC DEPRESSION
OF AN ADOLESCENT "GETTER"
STEVEN SLAVIK
Victoria, British Columbia
Although Alberto Moravia's novels are frequently concerned with
themes of sexuality as a substitute for love and its saving or debilitating
effects on individuals (Cottrell, 1974; Ross and Freed, 1972), several of his novels present a more significant issue, that of the well-being which arises through interest in others and the illness resulting from attempts to be superior to others. His novel Luca, originally published in 1948 as La disubbidienza, translated and published in England as
Disobedience (1950b), and published in America as half of Two Adolescents, is one such story. Luca is a sophisticated story of an adolescent psychological disorder brought about by an individual's rigid disinterest in others. The idea of interest in others and its absence is the linchpin of Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology (1956), in which the concept is known as social interest. The aim of this paper is twofold: to present an Adlerian formulation of Luca's disorder and to explicate Moravia's use and meaning of social interest, expressed as a sexual theme. [...]
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