How Italy functions as a setting and why in The Italian is curious for me. Similar to A Room With a View, we have this place for a splendid, rich backdrop to a romance--or what appears to be a romance in the first few chapters (not entirely sure where it goes from here with these hints at Ellena's dark background). We get quite a few breaks in the narration to describe the rich scenery and beautiful setting of Italy.
Further, this novel is set apart by its Italian protagonist. I'm left questioning this move, however--just how Italian is The Italian? Vincentio comes from the Marchesa and Marchese, from money and aristocracy, so I wonder how different this main character really is from a British or American one--in that his status allows the author to confer on him the same sort of airs a white Western character might have.
He seems to have the romantic notions and personality that a stereotypically "from Italy" character might have, though--I'm thinking in particular of his instant love for Ellena, which so overwhelms him he is forced to sit and take a breather outside her home before he speaks to her for the first time. This goes directly against some of the views we've seen previously of Italians as uncultured, but I wonder what this novel's depictions of more common Italians might entail.
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