The Consolation of Pirandello’s Green Blanket and an Autistic Theology
Abstract
Luigi Pirandello’s 1926 novel One, No One and One Hundred
Thousand depicts its protagonist Vitangelo Moscarda as a
troubled, introspective searcher for reality. Moscarda finds
ultimate salvation though a mystical experience emanating
from his contemplation of a green blanket. This paper performs
a reading of Pirandello’s novel through a lens where
Moscarda’s journey is a deeply theological one, and how his
ultimate madness is in fact a place of consolation and rebirth.
It becomes an autistic theology when its problematic stance
towards relationships is taken into account, and the comfort of
Moscarda’s ultimate consolation becomes an acceptance of the
space where a mystical theology might resonate with a theology
of autistic Mindblindness, namely, the ultimate failure of
human knowledge and communion.
Publisher
LIR. journal
Collections
View/ Open
Date
2015Author
Dunster, Ruth
Keywords
autism
Pirandello
hermeneutic
mysticism
detachment
communion
Publication type
article, peer reviewed scientific
Language
eng