The king and the pilgrim. To the question of the identity of the characters in the Italian novels of the 20th century

This work is focussed on the question of problematic identity of literary characters. The characters are chosen from the modern italian novels to show the theme of crisis of a human identity as a constitutive element for the literature of the twentieth century. The first novel which is being interpreted and compared is "Un re umorista" by modernist Alberto Cantoni. The main character of this novel is the king of noname country who feels his "king's" identity as a role, only a mask. He considered himslef as two different persons, but one of them, the king, is not authentic, real. The second novel, called Il fu Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello, is the story of the identity as a social sign and its loss. The identity of human being in Pirandello's conception is closely linked with a society and its rules and law. To have an identity means to be a part of society, community, family and the only meaning of identity is the social meaning. Mattia Pascal lose his identity when he is said to be dead. At fisrt he finds his situation as a challenge and new chance to be free, to start a new life and create it from basis on his own. He made a new identity for himself with a fictitious past and name. Then he tried to make this identity real and valid but eventually he realised that it is not possible and he could not..