FAIRY TALES IN THE LAND OF RIGHTS, Tesi di laurea di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica FAIRY TALES IN THE LAND OF RIGHTS e più Tesi di laurea in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI VERONA Corso di Laurea in Lingue e culture per il turismo e il commercio internazionale Elaborato finale FAIRY TALES IN THE LAND OF RIGHTS Relatore Laureanda Prof.ssa Anna ZANELLATO Chiara Battisti Matr. VR392244 Anno Accademico 2016 - 2017 INDEX Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1. The deep connection between Law and Literature .......................................... 3 1.1 - Fundamental Human Rights ......................................................................... 6 1.2 - Children’s Rights ........................................................................................... 7 2. The secret behind the darkness surrounding “Hansel and Gretel” 2.1 - Correlation between the dark fairy tale and the Holocaust ......................... 11 2.2 - “Hansel and Gretel” historical background ................................................. 12 2.3 - Parallelism between “Hansel and Gretel” and the Holocaust from the perspective of the children’s rights ...................................................................... 15 3. “The Adventures of Pinocchio” contextualised in the 19th century Italy 3.1 - “Pinocchio nel Paese dei Diritti” .................................................................. 23 3.2 - Italy in the “Age of Pinocchio” ..................................................................... 26 3.3 - Collodi’s tale correlation to the current social reality ................................... 30 Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 35 Webliography ........................................................................................................... 37 ! ! ! 3! As we will point out in our analysis of Collodi’s “The Adventures of Pinocchio”, the tale expresses the social and judicial inequities of the XIX century Italy. As regards the relationship between fairy tales and law, they have been considered as being very influential on each other. Katherine J. Roberts asserts that “law, or at least certain domain of law, and fairy tales seem to share a similar program of social control”5. While it is true that fairy tales are associated with fantastic worlds and fictional situations, it is also true that the overall aim is “to punish the bad and reward the good, and to teach readers the boundary between the two”6. By comparing law and literature from this point of view, we can notice that the main goals of the judicial system and of the fairy tale are not that different: to find the truth, punish the guilty, and save the innocent. After all, we all know the guidelines of tales: good characters deserve to be rewarded, while the evil ones are justly punished. Roberts states that “fairy tales are “legal” because they seek to internalise norms of good behaviour in readers and concern themselves with the legitimacy of violent punishments” 7 . Looking at this connection, we can deduce hence that also literature has an important disciplinary role. A concrete example can be find in the tales written by Brothers Grimm which contain elements of law and justice, of punishment and reward. This tales were historically accurate in terms of the punishment inflicted for various crimes in the Middle Ages, the period in which classic tales were created. In “Hansel and Gretel”, at the end, the abandoned siblings are rewarded with riches, while the cannibalistic witch has what she deserved and died burned in a oven: the historically prevalent punishment for witchcraft. Additionally, the well-known “Little Red Riding Hood” can be mentioned to better explain what was said before. In this fairy tale the wolf committed a crime when it ate the grandmother and, at the end, the evil animal was legitimately punished when it was killed by the hunter. Another important example is related to Carlo Collodi’s “The Adventures of Pinocchio”. The story of the puppet can be read as a metaphor of the author’s childhood. Throughout the tale, punishments, Court’s judgements, moral lessons and due rewards emerge as dominant elements. The whole story of Pinocchio is a !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 Roberts, “Once Upon the Bench: Rule Under the Fairy Tale”, Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, cit., p. 511. 6 Ibid. 7 Ivi., cit., p.499. ! 4! metaphor for the childhood in the XIX century Italy, where the law and rights related to children were quite inexistent. Because of his misbehaviour, the puppet is harshly punished several times during his adventures, but at the end, when Pinocchio learns what is the right thing to do and he finally uses his judgement, he is duly rewarded becoming a real live boy. Both Brothers Grimm and Collodi, somehow, through the tale express the life of people of their current society. The characters are the personification of citizens and express all the mistreatments and suffering they were subjected to. Thus, the two authors allow current readers to have an idea about what happened during these dark periods of our history. To take stock of the situation, readers know that fairy tales are mostly pretty, naive, amusing and even instructive and have an important role in the child’s recreation. Besides that, some of these tales like “Hansel and Gretel” and “The Adventures of Pinocchio” guard something more. We can state, indeed, that these fairy tales also have those “abiding qualities one seeks in a story he presents as discipline”8. As stated above, law and literature are linked: fairy tales can be defined as source of law. Tales, according to Robert Cover, are the discursive site where we constantly define, negotiate and resist the notions of right and wrong, lawful and unlawful, just and unjust9. Fables and fairy tales are also used by means to convey messages which are too bloody for children. Educators see the fairy tale as a way to teach law- related concepts and this is why tales might play a more effective role in shaping lawful behaviour than the written laws10. Teachers, indeed, shall be supported by literature in their intent of spreading themes which may be inappropriate for children, who are particularly susceptible. Through metaphors, it represents an easier way to make clear the incomprehensible, to raise awareness among children about past mistakes in order to prevent that one day they may recur. The bridge between fairy tales and law has thus been built from both sides. Law has made an imprint on the fairy tales, and fairy tales have, in turn, become one of law's tools11. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8 Lander MacClintock, Porter, “Fairy Tales as Literature in the School”, The Elementary School Teacher, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, Vol. 3(9), 1903, pp. 609-619. 9 Gómez Romero, Luis, “The Wondrous Gender Revolution, or the Rise and Fall of the Empire of Fairies”, Fables of the Law, Fairy Tales in the Legal Context, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2016. 10 Roberts, “Once Upon the Bench: Rule Under the Fairy Tale”, Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, cit., p. 512. 11 Roberts, “Once Upon the Bench: Rule Under the Fairy Tale”, Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, cit., p. 512. ! 5! 1.1 - Fundamental Human Rights Over the centuries the topic of Human Rights has been taken up and stressed in several occasions all over the world. An important step forward towards the recognition of citizens’ freedoms and rights came with the birth of the European Union. We are talking about an International organisation born thanks to the agreements among the sovereign states and whose decisions, which affect all of us, are binding only on these states. Behind the EU we find a long and troubled history which sees as protagonists a number of International and supranational organisations that came to light mainly after World War II. In 1945, for instance, many transnational associations were created to promote international co-operation: for the purpose of improving the economic, social and cultural status of citizens, reducing poverty and helping countries in difficulties and, besides which, trying to abolish customs duties in order to guarantee the free movement of goods and people. We illustrated the main duties of the UN (United Nations), the World Bank, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the WTO (World Trade Organisation) created in 1995. One of the most important aftermath of World War II was the 1948 “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” 12 . The first eleven articles in particular protect individuals from aggression and assure fair procedures: some of the pillars of the universal concept of human rights. The EU as we intended nowadays, was formally established when the Maastricht Treaty came into force on 1 November 1993. It provided for the unification of the three previous european communities (ECSC - European Coal and Steel Community; EEC - European Economic Community; and EURATOM or EAEC - European Atomic Energy Community) in order to establish a new legal entity: the European Union. It was born essentially as an economic organisation, but in the Treaty of Nice (2001) something new emerged. The States Parties started talking about the need of a European Constitution: it should have served as a reference document for Europe from the point of view of values and rights. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), formally the Convention for the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 12 “Universal Declaration in Human Rights”, 1948, available at: http://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/pdf/udhr_booklet_en_web.pdf. Last access: 21/05/2017. ! 8! 38.4: States Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by armed conflicts.22 We are dealing with an agreement between states about the rights granted to children aged less than 18 years with the purpose of improving their lives. It classifies children’s rights in four main categories: legal, welfare, moral and liberty rights. Legal rights are written and are the ones applied by means of laws, e.g. the right to get an education. Welfare rights are linked to the protection and the interests of the child according to the promotion of his well-being, e.g. the right to shelter. Moral rights are construed as aims to achieve, like the right to express a choice or the right to play. Lastly, liberty rights are for example the right to participate in decision making or the right to vote23. “Childhood is precious. It’s where the building blocks of life are laid. We have a duty to protect our little ones […].”24 ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 22!Unicef, “United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child”, 1989, Art. 38.! 23!Kanyal, “Children's Rights 0-8: Promoting Participation in Education and Care”, cit. 24 Granille, Eliza, Gretel and the Dark, London, Penguin, 2014. ! 9! CHAPTER 2 The secret behind the darkness surrounding “Hansel and Gretel” 2.1 - Correlation between the dark fairy tale and the Holocaust In this first chapter I will introduce the issue of the social situation reflected by one of the fairy tales written by Brothers Grimm and published in their two volumes of 156 tales in 1812 and 1815: “Hansel and Gretel”. I will analyse the correlation between the darkness and the unusual childhood depicted in the tale and the fundamental rights children were not entitled to. The well-known fairy tale no longer focuses on innocent and optimistic aspects. It is the story of the two children of a poor woodcutter who are abandoned by their parents and held captive by a cannibalistic witch hidden in a house made by confectionery in the deep of the forest. First and foremost, the fairy tale constantly refers to the themes of poverty, abandonment, deprivation and hardship. “Hansel and Gretel” explores the harsh realities of human relations and family life under such conditions. This overall framework can be intended as a criticism of Nineteenth century social situation of Germany, where widespread child labor was not prosecuted. It embodies the need for a childhood free from adult abuses, a childhood where both gender deserve to be treaded equally. “Hansel and Gretel” is one of the darkest tales in the collection of Brothers Grimm. Indeed, it could be considered as a metaphor of the violation of children’s rights and human dignity. Many writers, after the end of World War II, have written tales dealing with the topic of the Holocaust with intertextual links with “Hansel and Gretel”. This link is useful to understand how the children’s rights denied to the young protagonists of our fairy tale were banned during the war. The tale by Brothers Grimm could, indeed, be considered as a metaphor for the abandonment and extermination of children during the Holocaust. “Hansel and Gretel” describes implicitly a similar reality of threat, abandonment and vulnerability, a reality that was too horrible to be expressed out loud. In this regard, “fairy tales provide the metaphorical language that succeeds in telling yet not telling, in revealing while veiling, in explaining the ! 10! inexplicable”25. One of the most important aftermath of this traumatic period was the agreement European countries made with the purpose of establishing a charter for the protection of Human Rights in 1948: the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. Human Rights are the recognition of the inalienable dignity of human beings. Free of discrimination, inequality, or distinction of any kind, human dignity is universal, equal and inalienable. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Beyond the concept, Human Rights are expressed and defined in legal texts, which seek to guarantee the dignity of human beings and to make it a reality26. By deeply examining the fairy tale concerned, I will discuss which rights contained in the 1989 “Convention on the Rights of the Child” were denied to our protagonists and I will try to find out the reason behind the widespread practice of mistreating children. 2.2 - “Hansel and Gretel” historical background The origin of the darkness present in the tale lies in the social background Brothers Grimm took as a reference point. This tale presents elements of law and justice, of punishment and reward with regard to the common crimes committed in the Middle Ages, the period in which classic tales were created. The story of Hansel and Gretel has its origins in the medieval period of the Great Famine (1315 - 1321), the first of a series of large-scale crises which affected Europe at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The period was marked by extremely high levels of crime, diseases, mass deaths and even cannibalism and infanticide. The origin of this massacre can be traced back to the period of bad weather which characterised the Middle Ages, with severe winters and cold and rainy summers. Under such conditions, the grain could not ripen, thus leading to the famine. Consequently, the price of food began to rise and the stores of grain for the emergencies were closed to the public and devolved only to the nobles and the Church27. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 25!Carpi, “Fables of the Holocaust: Hansel an Gretel”, cit., pp. 309-330.! 26!“Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, 1948, available at http://www.humanium.org/en/childrens-rights- history/references-on-child-rights/universal-declaration/. Last access: 10/05/2017. 27!Henry S. Lucas, “The Great European Famine of 1315, 1316, and 1317”, Speculum, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, Vol. 5(4), 1930, pp. 343-377. ! 13! during World War II: “to give some sense to reality”31. A concrete example of the rewriting of the original “Hansel and Gretel” is the 2003 version of Louise Murphy: The True Story of Hansel and Gretel: A Novel of War and Survival, a novel which deals with the traumatic events of the Holocaust. By taking as a starting point the fairy tale by Brothers Grimm, Murphy adapts her novel of war and survival by associating the evil cannibalistic witch with the figure of the Nazi official, the nameless Oberführer32. Jack Zipes explains that adaptations of fairy tales “comment metaphorically on attitudes toward the maltreatment of children, the causes of physical abuse and violence suffered by young people, and the trauma of incest”33, behaviours that are too horrible to be clearly expressed. Fairy tales represent a way to talk about these trauma more “confortably”. 2.3 - Parallelism between “Hansel and Gretel” and the Holocaust from the perspective of the children’s rights As claimed at the beginning, one of the most important aftermath of World War II was the 1948 “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. Alongside this new chapter in the history of human fundamental rights, we could mention the “Convention on the Rights of the Child”: a step forward towards the protection of children dignity and integrity ratified in 1989. We clearly stated that the rights denied to the protagonists of “Hansel and Gretel” were banned also to the children during World War II. Analysing the fairy tale more closely, we notice that one of the main topics is the childhood of poverty and emotional deprivation the siblings are subjected to as a consequence of the absence of the natural mother and the famine spread across Europe. In the fairy tale, the two children are motherless while the father still exists, even though he represents the living example of what we called “emotional deprivation”. He could not stop his wife !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 31!Ibid.! 32!Khader, Jamil, “Humanising the Nazi?: The Semiotics of Vampirism, Trauma, and Post-Holocaust Ethics in Louise Murphy's The True Story of Hansel and Gretel: A Novel of War and Survival”, Children’s Literature, Vol. 39, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011, pp. 126-143.! 33!Zipes, Jack, The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films, London, Routledge, 2011, p. 193. ! 14! from abandoning his children and furthermore he cooperates with her to succeed. The stepmother, indeed, wanted to get rid of the children because of the famine which reduced dramatically the food supply and she had to resort to this subterfuge in order to feed herself and her husband and survive. In contrast, the father is portrayed as kind but, despite the love he has for his children, he is too weak to contradict the woman. In the first attempt of abandonment, Hansel’s cleverness is of vital importance: when the light of the moon made the white pebbles he left along the path in the forest glitter like real silver pennies, the children easily found their way back the the house. The second time things turned out differently. When the two brothers were taken out again and left deeper into the wood by their father, instead of pebbles Hansel used bread crumbs to mark the path. He did not realise the threat animals represented. The birds, indeed, ate the bread up before the moon rose and the children found themselves completely lost and abandoned. Fig. 1 - Hermann Vogel, illustration for “Hansel and Gretel” from Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1894).! ! 15! Hermann Vogel’s illustration of the forest scene (Fig. 1.) fully emphasises Hansel and Gretel’s abandonment, their powerlessness and loss of hope. The children are small, sad, and vulnerable. With regard to the Holocaust, children were often turned away from their parents, an action which represents the violation of one of the children’s fundamental rights contained in the 1989 “Convention in the Rights of the Child” that asserts: States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child. Such determination may be necessary in a particular case such as one involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are living separately and a decision must be made as to the child's place of residence34. Even worse than abandonment, Gretel’s great fear was to be deceived35. Even though she was only a little girl, she had already experienced the evil nature and the manipulation played by adults. As a result of her neglected childhood she expected others to pretend to take care or be concerned: her father pretended to take care of them but did nothing to stop the stepmother; similarly the stepmother pretended to be concerned when the children returned after the failure of the first attempt of abandon them, but this simply increased her determination to get rid of them. “I’ll tell you what, husband,” answered the woman, “early tomorrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where it is the thickest. […] They will not find the way home again, and we shall be rid of them”. […] They knocked on the door, and when the woman opened it and saw that it was Hansel and Gretel, she said, “You wicked children, why did you sleep so long in the woods? We thought that you did not want to come back”. […] “We have again eaten up everything. We have only a half loaf of bread, and then the song will be over. We must get rid of the children. We will take them deeper into the woods, so they will not find their way out. Otherwise there will be no help for us”36. [said the woman] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 34Unicef, “United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child”, 1989, Art. 9. 35!White, Robert S., “Hansel and Gretel: A Tale of Terror”, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 2015, 84(4), pp. 893- 920. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/psaq.2015.84.issue-4/issuetoc, last access: 21/05/2017. 36!Grimm and Grimm, Hansel and Gretel, London, Penguin Books, 1990.! ! 18! We stated above one of the fundamental rights children should have: the right to be loved and to be protected from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse. In the the earliest illustrations of “Hansel and Gretel” (Fig. 2 e 3) we are facing two sides of the same story. On the one hand, the first illustration represents a scene of passive suffering and unjust persecution, on the other hand, the second picture symbolises a triumphal tale of self-liberation, and self-assertion. Interestingly, the image of self-liberation was not published, and instead, young readers were confronted with a sad demonstration of children’s powerlessness43. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 43!Freudenburg, Rachel, “Illustrating Childhood - Hansel and Gretel”, Marvels & Tales, Wayne State University Press, Vol. 12(2), 1998, pp. 263-318. Fig. 3 - Ludwig Emil Grimm, illustration for “Hansel and Gretel” from Kinder- und Hausmärchen: Kleine Ausgabe (1825).! Fig. 2 - Ludwig Emil Grimm, drawing of “Hansel and Gretel”.! ! 19! We can therefore identify as the main themes of the tale “Hansel and Gretel” the abandonment, wandering, and homecoming of innocents children after dangerous adventures and the moral lessons which enriched their cultural background. The weak cannibalistic witch can be compared to the deceitful stepmother who made everything to leave the children into the forest. Both women pretend to be nice and concerned, but beneath the surface they showed to be manipulative and opportunist. The house of sweets can be read as the metaphor of how the risk is often disguised or bypassed by the need to feed. Only by cooperating and exploiting their cleverness the two siblings were able to survive and run away. After killing the wicked witch thanks to the trick Gretel implemented, the children “inherited” the treasure they found in every corner of the house. Finally they found their way back home. The stepmother was dead and the father almost forgot what happiness was since when he abandoned his children and, as in every fairy tale, they lived together happily ever after. The concepts of childhood, innocence and motherhood seem to represent what the characters were deprived of. The children wish only one thing: loving parents or someone who love them. This statement represents a critic of social and familiar negligence, and the greed and violence of adults, which can damage children. On the other hand, it establishes the orphans as representatives of deprived childhoods44. The two siblings, at the end, learn to be more self-confident, to trust each other and to rely only on themselves to be safe, without the need of parental figures. “Hansel, we are saved! The old witch is dead!” - Gretel, “Hansel and Gretel” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 44!Park, So-Jin, “Mothers Are Not Obtainable with Magic: The Uncanny and the Construction of Orphan Children’s Desires in Yim Pil-Sung’s Hansel and Gretel”, International Research in Children’s Literature, Edinburgh University Press, Vol. 8(1), 2015, pp. 61-74. ! ! 20! “Hansel and Gretel”, as other fairy tales, can be intended as a disciplinary novel: at the end, the abandoned siblings are rewarded with riches, while the cannibalistic witch had what she deserved and died burned in a oven. The overall aim is “to punish the bad and reward the good, and to teach readers the boundary between the two”45. Educators consider the fairy tale as a way to teach law-related concepts and they are supported by literature in their intent of spreading atrocious themes which may be inappropriate for children, who are particularly susceptible. This fairy tale by Brothers Grimm should be proposed to students in the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, celebrated every year on January 27th. It is important that what happened in the past does not occur again and it is worth passing this message in schools. Through this practice, schoolchildren could understand, in an easier way, how their peers lived in the past. In particular as regards the fairy tale we are analysing, children confronted themselves with the atrocities people faced during World War II. This is the only way they could end up having their own particular ideas and take them forward in order to avoid that racist attitudes towards other children could emerge. The atrocity lived during the Holocaust are, though, too hard to be openly discussed with children, who are at risk of not understanding the significance entirely. Especially for this reason, fairy tales with thier language and images turn out to be advantageous to teachers who use them with the aim of spreading particular messages otherwise inappropriate for children. Children are warned in order to avoid past mistakes, they identify themselves with the characters of the tale, reading the cruel facts between the lines: facts narrated through the eyes of the young characters. To conclude, in support of what said before, the english literature professor Daniela Carpi asserts that “the fairy tale makes us see the outrageous of the persecution through the children’s eyes”46. Despite the fact the introduction of this kind of brutal themes could be inappropriate for children, I think it is essential for their growth to know the terrible conditions our ancestors faced in the past in order to realise what they should avoid creating their future. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 45!Roberts, Katherine J., “Once Upon the Bench: Rule Under the Fairy Tale, cit., pp. 497-529, 511. ! 46!Carpi, “Fables of the Holocaust: Hansel an Gretel”, cit., pp. 309-330. ! 23! Every child alleged as, accused of, or recognised as having infringed the penal law shall have the right to defend himself (Art. 40), a right Pinocchio was deprived of: In desperation, he ran to the city and went straight to the courthouse to report the robbery to the magistrate. The Judge was a Monkey, a large Gorilla venerable with age. […] Pinocchio, standing before him, told his pitiful tale, word by word. He gave the names and the descriptions of the robbers and begged for justice. The Judge listened to him with great patience. […] He became very much interested in the story; he felt moved; he almost wept. When the Marionette had no more to say, the Judge put out his hand and rang a bell. At the sound, two large Mastiffs appeared, dressed in Carabineers' uniforms. Then the magistrate, pointing to Pinocchio, said in a very solemn voice: “This poor simpleton has been robbed of four gold pieces. Take him, therefore, and throw him into prison”50. At the end of the story, when Pinocchio after a long search finally finds his father, we can mention the right of every child whose parents live in a different country to maintain on a regular basis personal relations and contacts with both of them (Art. 10)51. The farther on he went, the brighter and clearer grew the tiny light. […] He found a little table set for dinner and lighted by a candle stuck in a glass bottle; and near the table sat a little old man, white as the snow, eating live fish. […] At this sight, the poor Marionette was filled with such great and sudden happiness that he almost dropped in a faint. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, he wanted to say a thousand and one things, but all he could do was to stand still, stuttering and stammering brokenly. last, with a great effort, he was able to let out a joy and, opening wide his arms he threw them around old man's neck. “Oh, Father, dear Father! Have I found you at last? Now I shall never, never leave you again!”52. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 50!Collodi, Le Avventure di Pinocchio, cit., p. 52. 51 Unicef, “United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child”, 1989, Art. 40 / 10. ! 52 Collodi, Le Avventure di Pinocchio, cit., p. 116. ! 24! 3.2 - Italy in the “Age of Pinocchio” There are many volumes that bring back to the attention of their readers the period in which the Unification of Italy took place, a period in which the country was characterised by a high illiteracy rate and the phenomenon of children exploitation, where the young were marked by a poor standard of living and forced to work from an early age. Carlo Collodi wrote “The Adventures of Pinocchio” two decades after the birth of the new unified Italian State. Its publication coincides approximately with the beginning of what is known as the Liberal era. It corresponds to the period between the 1870s and the years prior to World War I, called by Carl Ipsen the “Age of Pinocchio”53. In his work, the history professor explains the name he attributes to these years with a comparison: “Pinocchio is the archetype of a child image that raised new and special concern at the time”54. It was during this period that the awareness about the poor conditions and suffering of children grew. Italy throughout the 1880s and 1890s dealt with the increase of juvenile delinquency (vagabonds, idlers, beggars, street children and criminals) and other phenomena like children emigration, abandonment and labor. Pinocchio is the classic example of what was childhood in Italy in that period as, at the end, he represents the possibility also for idlers of becoming proper responsible boys. By analysing the story of the puppet Pinocchio, we can read between the lines the untenable situation of children in the Nineteenth century Italy. The first legislation concerning children was the 1873 law which tried to prohibit the widespread tendency of using children as wandering entertainers, which was what Geppetto initially had planned to do with his dancing puppet. At the beginning, after Geppetto had given Pinocchio his legs, the puppet ran away. With the help of the carabinieri (the rural police in Italy) Geppetto finally found him but, while he was bringing the puppet back home dragging him by the neck, the police arrested Geppetto for mistreatment: for child abuse. Furthermore, as Carl Ipsen argues, the unnamed man who transports Pinocchio and his friend Lucignolo to the Land of Toys resembles those infamous agents who signed up children in !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 53 Ipsen, Carl, Italy in the age of Pinocchio: Children and Danger in the Liberal Era, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 3-4. 54 Ibid.! ! 25! southern Italy and then abroad, in particular to the glass factories of southern France55. In his novel, Collodi shows the situation of uneducated children in Italy during the 1800s. Collodi punishes the puppet every time he does not follow the rules of “good behaviour”. Pinocchio deserves the punishments he receives, but Collodi wants also to emphasise the disproportion of these punishments. This unbelievable situation well represents the attitude towards children in Europe at the time. In his work, Jack Zipes suggests a connection between Pinocchio and the difficult childhood of Collodi himself or the difficulties he faced as a Florentine of humble origins to be accepted in the society of his time56. The growing attention to children in Italy in this period could be construed as an attempt to bring tangible improvements to the security and welfare of citizens, with the aim of saving the image of the nation and of enhancing the underdeveloped Italian society. The abandonment of infants, children employed in factories and mines, high levels of juvenile crime and begging and the emigration of Italian children abroad are, indeed, all characteristics of a backward society which differ from the idea the Italian Liberal elite had about a modern post unification Italy. Italy was not a child-friendly place. The scenarios previously suggested clarify to contemporary readers the miserable situation of children in the past. In order to highlight the aspects of Pinocchio’s tale Collodi referred to the Italian children’s situation, we have to focus our attention on the Italian society in the late Nineteenth century. After the unification, emigration of men, women and children not always accompanied by parents, in search of a better life emerged as the major social issue of the age. Pinocchio is, indeed, a story of a voyage written during the period in which this phenomenon peaked. We are talking, for instance, about the “petits italiens”, the Italian children employed in French glass factories. This phenomenon, the demand for child labour, increased in the 1890s for several reasons, including the increase of production thanks to new technical innovations. It was a problem that affected especially boys who started working in the factories at a young age57. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 55 Ipsen, Carl, Italy in the age of Pinocchio: Children and Danger in the Liberal Era, cit., pp. 1-2. 56 Zipes, Jack, Oltre il Giardino, Milano, Mondadori, 2002. 57 Heywood, Colin, Childhood in Nineteenth-Century France. Work, Health and Education among the “Classes Populares”, Cambridge, Cambridge University, 1988. ! 28! powers of Europe and North America, finally released that it had an obligation to succour its troubled children62. A theme which goes through the entire story of Pinocchio is the one of marginalised children who act as criminals. The puppet himself commits several crimes in his adventures. Among the childhood problems present in Italy in the Nineteenth century, the juvenile delinquency is probably the most serious one. In our analysis of the problems of this country and the measures the state took to solve them, we have pointed out that the government worked to achieve its goal trying to overcome the obstacles. But the case in question was more difficult to dealt with. In some cases the bills have been passed into law decades later with respect to the moment in which they were introduced. The situation was different for the Committee on Juvenile Delinquency created in 1909, which represents an exception. In his work Ipsen describes the difficulties the State met to achieve a juvenile justice legislation and the long-delayed attempt to create a modern Juvenile Court System which came into existence only in 193463. 3.3 - Collodi’s tale correlation to the current social reality As we have already pointed out, Pinocchio is set in a country which differs from the current reality in all its aspects: from the role of the legal state to the moral issues of the time and to the problematic situation concerning childhood. This path through Nineteenth century Italy enabled the readers to understand the brutality of some episodes in Collodi’s tale and of the reasons behind the maltreatment to which Pinocchio is subjected. As I mentioned before, Jack Zipes in his article attributes these violent scenes to Collodi’s own childhood64. According to him, Pinocchio could be considered a kind of indirect biography of the author who tried to show his past in a brutal and funny manner at the same time using an adventurous and irresponsible puppet who loves getting into troubles in order to reproduce the Italian background of the age marked by a high level of backwardness. Throughout the entire story we can find references to the terrible childhood conditions we mentioned before. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 62 Ipsen, Italy in the age of Pinocchio: Children and Danger in the Liberal Era, cit., pp. 20-30. 63 Ivi., pp. 160-163. 64 Ivi., p. 197. ! ! 29! “The Adventures of Pinocchio” narrates the story of a voyage, both physical and personal. In fact, it leads to the discovery of new lands and, at the end, transforms the puppet into a “real live boy”. What is more, this journey leads to the raise of his social status: the end of the story is marked by the transition of Pinocchio and his father from poverty to a middle-class status65. It is worth highlighting another link between the world of Collodi’s tale and the Italian reality of the period. At the beginning of the book Geppetto, despite the cold, sells his coat to buy his beloved son a spelling book, thus allowing him to go to school. Geppetto’s benevolence is in reality a demonstration of the noticeable sacrifice poor families had to do to allow their children to get an education and, in a certain sense, justifies the choice of some parents to abandon infants because of their poor living conditions. This tale was also composed in the period marked by the peak of emigration, when the topic emerged as one of the most relevant social issue. Pinocchio could be considered as a traveller who usually moves alone. Let us consider, for example, the journey to the Field of Miracles (the “Campo dei Miracoli”) when he is deceived by the Cat and the Fox and, above all, when he flies for 1000 kilometres on a Pigeon's back to join his father who had left in search of his son, heading towards a new land that Carl Ipsen, in his work, identifies as the New World. This is an explicit reference to emigration, since this land was the favourite destination of many Italian emigrants at the time66. For what concerns work, we have noticed from the beginning that Geppetto’s original idea about the puppet was to exploit it around the world to earn money, an activity linked, at the time, with the category of the wandering trades. Work, together with school, is what Pinocchio wants to avoid with all his heart, but in several occasions he is forced to work and usually he is mistreated: the episodes in which he works as a watchdog and as a performer in the circus after becoming a donkey (a discipline which belongs to the category of wandering trades). Only at the end Pinocchio finally becomes a serious worker. If we consider this unexpected turn of events, the story of Pinocchio can be interpreted as an opportunity for growth also for those belonging to the lower classes if they are able to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 65 Ipsen, Italy in the age of Pinocchio: Children and Danger in the Liberal Era, cit., p197. 66 Ivi., p. 200.! ! 30! use the opportunities they have67. Pinocchio works hard to help his father and the Fairy and it is precisely for his sacrifice that she decided to reward the puppet making him a real respectable boy and raising his social status: Pinocchio in the last chapter is well dressed and lives in a big modern house, while Geppetto heals and becomes a successful wood craver. With respect to the judicial system, in his book Collodi satirises the authorities his characters meet: the gorilla-judge finds Pinocchio guilty when he was innocent, while the carabinieri arrest twice the wrong person, firstly Geppetto68 and then Pinocchio69. As regards the theme of juvenile delinquency, Pinocchio’s troubles derive from his disobedience and criminal behaviour. Pinocchio is punished every time he does not follow the rules and performs wandering trades activities: his nose grows when he lies, he begs several times, he is a lazy vagabond and, on top of that, when he goes to the Land of Toys with his friends, he plays games and performs in the street. Moreover, every time Pinocchio decide to skip school to go to the “Marionette Theatre”, to go to the seashore to see the terrible shark, or to go to the Land of Toys, he is severely punished. The message behind the story that Collodi wants to spread consists in the hard truth that who prefers games rather than education, like Pinocchio or his friend Lucignolo, is destined to become a donkey (in a metaphorical sense) and deserves this punishment. We can find other scenes throughout the text which clarify that this is the sad fate of a child who rejects school and authority: he will always be associated with foolishness. All these problems, from the abandonment of children to the foundling homes, to the young sent to work, to those left to wander the street, describe the poverty and the backwardness of the country in the past. This catastrophic situation began to change in the industrialising Europe during the Nineteenth and Twentieth century, when the financial situation of the working classes became more secure, allowing them to take care of their children. It was with this improvement of the standard of living that children started going to school rather than to factories. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 67 Ivi., p. 206. 68 Collodi, Le Avventure di Pinocchio, Chapter III. 69 Ivi., Chapter XXVII.! ! 33! - Hunecke, Volker, I Trovatelli di Milano. 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