The conflicts of ethnicity: The (un)making of Americans in Italian-American narrative.
Item
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Title
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The conflicts of ethnicity: The (un)making of Americans in Italian-American narrative.
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Identifier
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AAI9908319
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identifier
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9908319
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Creator
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Guida, George Mario.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Morris Dickstein
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Date
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1998
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, American | American Studies | Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies
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Abstract
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Two narrative enterprises, ripresa and impresa, dominate Italian American narrative, particularly the body of narrative written by Italian American men about their experience of being Italian American. Impresa is the struggle to achieve individual success in America. Ripresa is the reaching back to Italian culture of the late nineteenth-century Mezzogiorno for social and spiritual fulfillment.;We can better understand the power and limitation of nineteenth-century Mezzogiorno culture by examining the social practice, myth, superstition, and history brought to life in the short stories of Giovanni Verga. We can better understand the Italian American understanding of nineteenth-century Mezzogiorno culture--"Italian" culture to many Italian Americans--by studying the conflict of impresa and ripresa in Italian immigrant autobiographies. The autobiographies of Rocco Corresca and Francesco Ventresca tell us a great deal of Italian American male attitudes toward the Italy they left and about American attitudes toward Italian American males during before World War II.;The fiction of John Fante carries on the impresa/ripresa conflict and presents its effect on Italian American/ethnic male identity, vis-a-vis American and ethnic women--all in context of Depression Era America, particularly Hollywood. The fiction of Anthony Valerio portrays the same narrative conflict, as it makes and unmakes stereotypes of Italian American men, Ripresa and Impresa continue today to dominate the (re)construction and literary discussion of Italian American identity.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
