The life of Elsa Morante, a famous writer of the second half of the twentieth century and the summary of the novel La storia, set in Rome during the Second World War.
Elsa Morante , born in Rome in 1912 and died in 1985, is one of the most beloved and famous Italian writers of the second half of the twentieth century. Known mainly for her novel La storia , but also famous for having written L’isola di Arturo, she was also a poet, essayist and translator.
Let’s see the author’s biography and the summary of the work The Story .
Elsa Morante: biography
Childhood and young years
Elsa Morante was born in Rome in 1912; her mother, Irma Poggibonsi, was a Jewish teacher and her father, Augusto Morante, was a supervisor in a juvenile correctional facility. The writer’s biological father, however, was Francesco Lo Monaco, a postal worker.
Elsa spent her childhood in the Testaccio neighborhood of Rome and after completing her high school studies, she enrolled in the Faculty of Letters, which she later abandoned. Gifted with great talent, Elsa Morante began her literary activity at a young age , composing nursery rhymes, children’s tales, stories and poems that were published in various magazines, including Il Corriere dei piccoli and I diritti della scuola . In 1935 she began to collaborate with some periodicals, including Oggi and l’ Eroica .
The meeting with Moravia and the publication of the first book
In 1936 Elsa met the writer Alberto Moravia , whom she married in 1941. The two frequented many of the main Italian writers and thinkers of the time, among whom Pier Paolo Pasolini stands out , with whom they both struck up a great friendship. 1941 was also the year in which Elsa Morante published her first book Il gioco segreto, a collection of various youthful writings.
The first novels
During the Nazi occupation, Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia left Rome and took refuge in Fondi. It is here that the author began writing her first novel, entitled Menzogna e sortilegio (Menace and Sorcery ), published in 1948 and which won her the Viareggio Prize .
In 1957, Morante’s second novel, L’isola di Arturo , was published, which achieved great success and thanks to which the author won the Strega Prize .
The turning point
The Sixties marked a turning point in Elsa Morante’s life, both professionally and privately. In fact, during these years the writer separated from Alberto Moravia. In 1963 she published the collection of short stories Lo scialle andaluso , the last collection that falls within the production of the first period. The subsequent works reflect the period of instability experienced by the author and her worries about the outside world: in 1965 the essay Pro e contro la bomba atomica was published and in 1968 the poetry collection Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini .
The latest novels
1974 is the year of publication of the novel La storia , the most discussed and important work by Elsa Morante, set in Rome during the Second World War. Subsequently, the writer begins writing what will be her last novel, Aracoeli , published in 1982. Elsa Morante dies of a heart attack in 1985.
The story of Elsa Morante
Elsa Morante wrote La storia between 1971 and 1973, the following year it was published by the publishing house Einaudi. From the very beginning the novel aroused numerous consents but also heated controversies due to its unconventional and original spirit.
In fact, although the novel is characterized by a traditional structure, it presents itself as a neorealist novel, even though neorealism had already been abandoned for several years.
A peculiarity of the story is the extreme precision with which the true story is narrated in the period from 1900 to 1967. Within this narration there is ample space for the events of the Second World War and the immediate post-war period, in which the figures of the novel’s protagonists emerge: Ida Ramundo and her two sons, Nino and Useppe, and the mysterious Davide Segre.
The story: summary
The protagonist of the novel is Ida Ramundo , an elementary school teacher originally from southern Italy and Jewish on her mother’s side. Ida is a widow and has a son, Nino , a bold and exuberant young man who during Mussolini’s dictatorship fights in the fascist squads out of pure bravado. One day in January 1941, Ida is raped by a German soldier, who gives birth to a child, Giuseppe , known as Useppe .
Ida’s life suffered further traumas following Nino’s departure for the war and the destruction of her home caused by the bombing of San Lorenzo in 1943. Various moves followed, first to Pietralata where Ida and Useppe shared a large room with a Roman-Neapolitan family, nicknamed “I Mille” , then to rent with a family and finally to a small apartment in Testaccio.
The story of Ida and Useppe intertwines with that of Davide Segre , initially introduced with the name of Carlo Vivaldi, in Pietralata, where the young man also meets Nino, who escaped from the battlefields and returned to Rome as a partisan. The two will form an important friendship, which will last until Nino’s death, which occurred due to a car accident while transporting contraband goods. Davide, on the other hand, will die due to an overdose.
The epilogue is also tragic for Useppe and Ida: the child will lose his life at a very young age due to a serious form of epilepsy, while Ida, full of pain, ends up in a mental asylum, where she will die nine years later.
- What is Useppe’s fate in Elsa Morante’s The Story?
Useppe, Ida’s fragile and sweet son, dies prematurely due to an epileptic attack, aggravated by the difficult living conditions of the post-war period. His death symbolizes the innocence broken by the brutality of history.
- What disease did Useppe suffer from in Elsa Morante’s The Story?
Useppe suffered from epilepsy, a disease that progressively worsens due to the difficult living conditions. His fragility represents the innocence destroyed by war and suffering.
- How does the novel The Story by Elsa Morante end?
It ends tragically with the death of Useppe due to an epileptic attack and the consequent madness of Ida, his mother. The ending underlines the cruel fate of the weakest, crushed by the violence of history.
