La terra madre: an Italian American reading of Carlo Levi's Cristo si è fermato a Eboli

This thesis’ objective is to offer a personal interpretation of Carlo Levi’s narrative, Cristo si è fermato a Eboli. This thesis evaluates Levi’s narrative according to a specific reading of the modern, realist novel. This dialogue evaluates Levi’s narrative as providing textual evidence for a work in realism as conceived by Giacomo Debenedetti. This thesis further addresses the questione meridionale by means of engaging the text with the theory of Antonio Gramsci. The following chapters elaborate on the capacity of the narrative’s subject to speak to a current, socioeconomic situation generating an evaluation that speaks to fundamental elements of the questione meridionale. This thesis examines in what way a distinctive aesthetic evaluation of Carlo Levi reaffirms the novel as a realist text as conceived by Giacomo Debenedetti. This thesis’ ultimate aesthetic evaluation considers Levi’s narrative as speaking to the specific reality of the Italian-American community