Language and Identity in Calvino's "Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno"

Aspects of the language used by characters in Italo Calvino's Italian novel Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno ([The Path to the Nest of Spiders] 1947) are related to those characters' personal, social, & political identities. The abundant use of personal lexicons & dialectal varieties in character descriptions is related to the movement of neorealism, & the social roles of the characters in the novel are found intimately associated with their voice & language. Focusing on the protagonist Pin, it is argued that his status as a developmentally, politically, & sexually malleable outsider is reflected in his extremely flexible voice, as well as in his lack of comprehension of political & ideological terminology & his simplistic misogyny. It is found that Pin is unable to interpret language in a meaningful way, thus forever remaining in an undefined but magical world between childhood & adulthood. Furthermore, the virtual absence of written expression is associated with the subconscious level of the characters' thought processes. S. Paul