RIVISTA DI STUDI ITALIANI | |
Anno XVI , n° 1, Giugno 1998 ( Contributi ) | pag. 297-315 |
LUCA: THE PSYCHOTIC DEPRESSION OF AN ADOLESCENT "GETTER" |
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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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