The conversion of Manzoni's l'Innominato or, The Repressed Catholic Consciousness of a Criminal

Abstract

THE CONVERSION OF MANZONFS L INNOMINATO OR, THE REPRESSED CATHOLIC CONSCIOUSNESS OF A CRIMINAL ANNETTE LEDDY In the portrayal ofl' Innominato 's religious conversion, conflict we see the dis- which runs throughout Promessi Sposi between two historical novel. tinctly different narrators. One narrator extends the lens of psycho- logical realism, the subjective dimension of the The other narrator is Catholic, and seeks to prove the intrinsically Catholic is nature of fact that human we psychology.^ This problem comphcated by the are the products of are presented with characters who Catholic upbringings within a Cathohc culture and who therefore, whether or not they bave rejected Catholicism, would realistically possess a Catholic psychology. Thus, while the psychological-realist narrator often successfully captures the experience of Catholic anxiety, the Catholic narrator often makes this anxiety less credible, interesting and profound by his habit of informing us of when a character's are those of a anxieties are those of a good Catholic and when they bad Catholic. The Catholic narrator often seems to intervene in the he can give that character's crisis a Catholic name. It is almost as though the Catholic narrator is resisting the dis- analysis of a character so covery of the universal; that is, the potentially non-Catholic nature of