Significati del silenzio: Conversazione in Sicilia di Elio Vittorini
Meanings of Silence and Perception of the World in Conversazione in Sicilia (Conversations in Siciliy) by Elio Vittorini

Summary/Abstract: The paper proposes some considerations about silence, about its typology and its meanings in Conversation in Sicily by Elio Vittorini, as revealed especially in the incipit of the text, concerning the position of the individual in the surrounding world and his relationship with it through the senses. Relevant for the attitude towards the world and for the communication with others, and symptomatic for a state specific to many characters in the Italian literature of the time, the initial silence in Vittorini’s novel is part of the process of redefining the protagonist’s identity, contributing to the understanding of the premises of his trajectory. Its presence is justified, on the one hand, by the context, and, on the other, by the (deficient) functioning of the memory, being, at the same time, closely related to the manifestations in the perceptual field.

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