Framing Narratives of Irony in Italo Svevo's La Coscienza Di Zeno And

Framing Narratives of Irony in Italo Svevo’s La coscienza di Zeno and Robert Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften by Sorin Tomuța A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Comparative Literature University of Alberta © Sorin Tomuța, 2014 Tomuța ii Abstract This dissertation examines the use of irony in Italo Svevo’s La coscienza di Zeno and Robert Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. While both these novels can be said to be ironic, the manner in which the two writers choose to employ irony differs substantially. For the purposes of this study, Svevo’s tropological irony will be distinguished from Musil’s representational irony. Tropological irony consists in a series of dramatic reversals that the protagonist’s views of himself and of the world undergo in the course of the novel. The analysis of tropological irony exposes Svevo’s powerful critique of psychoanalysis, both as a theory of the psyche and more importantly, as a therapy designed to identify and treat various neuroses. I argue that this critique starts with Svevo’s ironic subversion of the two meanings of coscienza, “consciousness” and “conscience,” and constitutes the background against which Zeno’s most important reversal, from illness to health, unfolds. Unlike tropological irony, representational irony is primarily formal in nature. Dissatisfied with the illusory sense of order and cohesion that the narrative conventions governing the historical-realist novel of the nineteenth century create, but aware at the same time that no writer can completely step outside the existing patterns of narrations, Musil resorts to representational irony as a way out of this impasse. His strategy entails a double movement, of simultaneous affirmation and negation, which can be shown to replicate, on a larger scale, the same paradoxical dynamics present in the structure of irony as a trope. To illustrate how representational irony operates in Musil’s novel, my dissertation proves how the notion of narrative frame is concomitantly affirmed and undermined. Tomuța iii Acknowledgments Writing a dissertation is by definition a collaborative effort. I would like to thank Professor Massimo Verdicchio, my thesis supervisor, who has believed in this project and has thoroughly supported it. His invaluable advice, steadfast encouragement, and undaunted patience have been inspiring. I would also like to thank Professor Raleigh Whitinger for his kind support, intellectual generosity, and insightful comments. I consider myself privileged to have benefitted from such enlightening guidance. Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife, Mirela. Her selfless support and overwhelming loyalty have been humbling. This dissertation would have not been possible without her continuous help in good times and in bad. Tomuța iv Table of Contents Page Title Page…………………………………………………………………………..i Abstract……………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………..iii Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………iv Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………...v Introduction………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter I. Narrative and Tropological Irony in La Coscienza di Zeno…………..18 Chapter II. “Vorrei morire da sano dopo aver vissuto tutta una vita da malato”: Zeno’s Imaginary Illness……………………………………………………...52 Chapter III. To Frame or Not to Frame: Inescapability of Form and Ironic Resistance in Robert Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften………………...95 Chapter IV. To Affirm Is to Subvert: Representational Irony in Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften………………………………………………………………..143 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………184 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….192 Tomuța v Abbreviations D Robert Musil, Diaries 1899-1941 E Italo Svevo, Epistolario GW Robert Musil, Gesammelte Werke, 2 vols. MwQ Robert Musil, The Man without Qualities, 2 vols. O Italo Svevo, Opere PS Robert Musil, Precision and Soul T Robert Musil, Tagebücher, Vol. I Tomuța 1 Introduction The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the structure of the ironic narratives in Italo Svevo’s La coscienza di Zeno (Zeno’s Conscience) and Robert Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man without Qualities). Although irony is common to both works, their narratives differ in the way irony is applied and used. Thus, while irony in Svevo is tropological, in Musil it is representational.1 The essence of the Svevian tropological irony lies in a dramatic reversal of the protagonist’s view of himself, of the others and the world, and of his relation with others and the world. Almost everything Zeno happens to believe, the initial assumptions upon which he constructs his worldview, whether these assumptions concern his health, his self-confidence, or his insights, they are eventually undermined in the course of the novel. The domain of representational irony, on the other hand, is the form of the novel, rather than its subject matter. As such, representational irony is seen as the product of Musil’s struggle with formal innovation, especially narrative. Dissatisfied with traditional, realist narrative, Musil sought a new form in which his ideas and objectives could find proper expression. Representational irony is the solution to this conundrum, the skillful ploy to reconcile the tension inherent in narrative discourse. The difference between the two types of irony can be situated in the critical distance that separates them. In Svevo, the author and the reader stand above the 1 In establishing this distinction, I am indebted to Wladimir Krysinski’s analysis of the dialectical and intertextual function of irony in the modern novel. Krysinski distinguishes between what he identifies as tropal irony, a rhetorical device operating at sentence level, and what one might call discursive, structural, or systematic irony, which requires the space of the entire text to develop. Tomuța 2 protagonist to define how the world is always other than the way Zeno sees it. In Musil, the narrator invites the reader to join him at a critical distance to his own narrative project. He is telling a story, narrating it, yet often disrupting it to encourage us to see, with him, how narrative alone is insufficient, illusory. Musil’s technique of fragmentation plays a pivotal role in this scenario, and so does the notion of essay. Not only does Musil break the continuity of the narrative flow by inserting numerous essays or essayistic nuclei into the corpus of the story, the novel itself is styled after the formal principles of the essay. This difference is clear when we take a closer look at how their ironic narratives unfold. As for Svevo, the second (figurative) meaning of the word “irony” listed in The Oxford English Dictionary describes accurately the nature of tropological irony: “A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things” (VIII: 87). This is what the French call “ironie du sort,” irony of fate. I have defined tropological irony as a reversal, and narrative reversal in Zeno’s Conscience takes various shapes and forms. The most obvious one features Zeno as the protagonist in a two-step movement. Zeno is first described holding a certain belief about himself, about those around him, or about the world in general. As time goes on, both Zeno’s view of himself and his worldview undergo a radical adjustment: nearly everything that Zeno initially believes or says is disproved by subsequent narrative events. In the end, the opposite of what he believed, his opinions and pronouncements, turn out to be true. In stark contrast with the other characters (Malfenti, Guido), Svevo portrays Tomuța 3 Zeno as a misfit, as the one who is “sick” and longs for the health that others supposedly enjoy. The irony of Zeno’s Conscience consists in revealing, precisely, by a turn of the ironic narrative that the opposite is true: Zeno’s illness is only imaginary. Characters like Malfenti and Guido who are depicted, initially, as paragons of health, die. Moreover, the world that Zeno believed to be healthy and rational turns out to be “diseased” to the core. For the most part, characters in Svevo’s third novel are not what they seem at first. Augusta, Ada’s ugly sister, who is invisible to Zeno at the start, eventually proves to be the best wife for him. On the other hand, Ada that Zeno desires and wants as his future wife, catches a disease that literally disfigures her beautiful appearance. Similarly, Guido, Zeno’s archrival in the novel, who appears to symbolize all the qualities a man ought to possess, who marries Ada, and who seems to be the hero of the novel, to Zeno’s anti-hero, turns out to be a failure, not only financially but also as a man. His accidental suicide makes Zeno the hero and the stronger and healthier of the two. Zeno will salvage the business and save the family from a disgraceful bankruptcy. This reversal of fortune as well as the way in which the world that Zeno judges according to appearances always turns out to be the opposite of what he believes constitutes the essence of the ironic narrative of Svevo’s novel, which I am calling tropological irony. The other thesis I propose in this dissertation is that Svevo employs narrative, tropological irony as a means to formulate his ante and post litteram critique of psychoanalysis. The two exegetic chapters on Zeno’s Conscience will explore this inextricable connection in detail. In chapter I, I shall examine how Svevo undermines the two meanings of coscienza. In this sense, central to Svevo’s ironic Tomuța 4 subversion of conscience-as-awareness are the notions of self-observation and enhanced awareness. Contrary to the standard Freudian narrative, which asserts the therapeutic effects of self-observation as well as of an expanded awareness, Svevo emphasizes the negative impact they have on Zeno. In doing so, he clearly suggests that both of these concepts are, in reality, the opposite of what psychoanalytic theories predicted they were going to be.

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