The novel Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889) of Giovanni Carmelo Verga (1840-1922)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the Italian literature of the Lost and the basic theories of verisimilitude that appear and are applied in the work of the Italian author Giovanni Carmelo Verga (2 September 1840 - 27 January 1922). He represents one of the most important authors of the literary movement of Verismo at the end of the 19th century and specifically regarding the novel Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889), which realistically describes the desperate struggle of the newly rich strata in order to rise socially. A work with which Verga launches a monumental modern tragedy, representing not only the life of a Sicilian village of the last century, but also the eternal struggle of the man with the elements of his character: the good, the evil and so on.

It is a work in which, on one hand prevails the hard-working and unfaithful labourer Mastrodon Jesualdo, who acquired his property through hard work and not by heritage. On the other hand the arrogant and relaxed bourgeois society of the time being, a member of which he was willing to become and put all his efforts to realise it. This would chase him until the last moment expropriating his fortune with the result that the conflict of ideals would exclude any case of acceptance.