Farewell to the mountains: commentary and analysis of the passage from chapter VIII of The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni and reflection on the theme of emigration.
Farewell to the mountains: analysis
At the end of chapter VIII of The Betrothed , Manzoni creates a description of the landscape of Lake Como and of Lucia’s feelings as she leaves her village: this description is commonly referred to as a ddio ai monti . After the failed marriage and the failed kidnapping attempt, Lucia and Renzo leave their village on a boat.
Farewell to the Mountains is one of the most famous passages from The Betrothed.
In this passage Lucia’s first reflections arise, as she thinks about her country that she is leaving, and given her great melancholy for the departure, even the surrounding landscape transmits sadness, underlining her state of mind. The description is very poetic, capable of making the reader feel in that place.
What is meant by Farewell to the Mountains?
Manzoni’s visual representation of the landscape declares Lucia’s sad thoughts, forced from one day to abandon her native land, to which she was very fond and where, at least before the incident involving Don Rodrigo, she felt safe and protected.
In the complete silence, when the eye falls on Don Rodrigo’s palace and his properties, the image takes the form of a threat: Lucia feels threatened by the power and grandeur of the palace and therefore by Don Rodrigo, and she can do nothing but cry secretly. ” Lucia saw him, and shivered. She pressed her forehead against her arm as if to sleep and wept secretly .”
In the description of the landscape, Manzoni includes all the details of the surrounding environment, because Lucia is leaving behind something truly loved. For Lucia, her home and those places are the only places she has ever known. According to Manzoni ‘s vision , the reasons for leaving one’s land can be different: one can leave one’s native land to go and seek fortune elsewhere, knowing that one will return there with greater wealth, and in others (like Lucia) one is unjustly forced to flee, without ever having wanted to.
Lucia, even in this situation and particular circumstance, once again turns her thoughts and hopes to God, with the conviction that He is assisting her in her misfortune (the provident misfortune is also mentioned in the text). However, the girl does not express her feelings, her fears and her thoughts to Renzo. She is reserved and does not want Renzo to feel sorry for her.
In Farewell to the Mountains the thoughts and reflections are attributed to Lucia, but in reality it is the author, Alessandro Manzoni , who reflects on how difficult it is to leave one’s own land without knowing what one will find in the new one. Lucia thinks these things in the same way, but she could not have expressed them in such a poetic way. The language attributed to Lucia is much higher than one might actually expect.
The landscape in The Betrothed
The use of landscape in The Betrothed is a very important technical element, which Manzoni uses to make the reader deeply aware of the conditions, the way of life, the customs of the seventeenth century. Not only that: the landscape also expresses the feelings, opinions and lifestyle of his characters.
It is important to underline how Manzoni manages, with a landscape, to communicate to the reader the feelings and visual details making him feel at the centre of the scene: the description of Lake Como in the first chapter, the signs of famine, the place where some characters live, and finally the farewell to the mountains , where Lucia’s torment is communicated by the bright sky, the still and static landscape, the atmosphere of tranquility.
It is also interesting to note the description that Manzoni , with these words, makes of Lucia: even if the latter is a simple and uneducated person, the author attributes to her an uncommon intelligence and sensitivity. Lucia often uses the word ” goodbye ” precisely to underline a separation that could last a long time: Lucia knows that no one can really know how long Renzo and Lucia will have to put up with the injustices, abuses and spite of Don Rodrigo.
The importance of saying goodbye to the mountains
In Farewell to the Mountains, Manzoni reflects on the condition of emigration : “ Goodbye, mountains ”; “ goodbye, native home ”; “ goodbye, still foreign home ”; “ goodbye, church ”. In every beloved place that is abandoned, often not by one’s own will but by external constraint, there is the pain of a difficult condition. The reader can easily compare the discomfort of Renzo and Lucia with that of those who, nowadays, are forced to emigrate due to external conditions and events, leaving everything they love.
This characteristic of Manzoni’s , that is, his ability to make Lucia’s thoughts resonate over time, also makes the novel unique in its ability to be a source of reflection even for people in today’s society.