Il commissario Montalbano e altri romanzi: la psicopatologia emergente nella narrativa di Andrea Camilleri

Abstract

The so-called psychological novel is widespread within the Italian and the international narrative. In this type of novel the narration focuses on the inner and intimate dimension of the characters rather than on the description of the surrounding environment. Andrea Camilleri's narrative reflects the above mentioned definition as well, and therefore focuses on the psychological features of the characters. Indeed, in the detective novels dedicated to the Inspector Montalbano, the author focuses on the intimate and personal dimension of his narrative character whose psychological profile can be worthily outlined, although without any scientific claim. Throughout the course of his investigations, Montalbano changes, ages, makes mistakes, falls in love, suffers, smiles and lives. In other words, he goes beyond the mere dimension of the narrative character and becomes realistic. The proposed dissertation is therefore meant to be an investigation of Montalbano's behaviours, states of mind and personal history. The first part of the dissertation analyses the history, the characters, the authors and the mechanisms of the detective novel from its origins to Camilleri. The aim is to focus on the capability of this type of narrative to produce emotions and feelings in the reader, such as fear, anguish, anxiety, doubt, dismay, surprise, those being important from a psychological perspective. In the second part of the dissertation, the analysis only focuses on some of Camilleri's detective and non-detective novels. In the stories where Montalbano is the protagonist, a psychological profile of him can be outlined, sometimes with interesting indepth analyses on some other characters as well. However, two other historical novels are interesting in the same way: The Signalman and The Capture of Macallè, which were both set in the Fascist period. In these two novels the psychopathological evolution of the two characters, related to a trauma, evolves during the narration with positive consequences in the first case and negative ones in the second case.