Response to Artemisia

The structure that Anna Banti presents in terms of point of view can be complicated, especially considering the frequent shifts from first to third person and back again.  This creativity in the narrative voice establishes a relationship that is necessary to the novel's development of other themes: it especially echos the themes of abandonment and feminism.  The relationship between the author and the character of Artemisia is the retrieval of something lost--the reestablishment of a relationship with a woman of the past.  In switching the point of view from the author's to Artemisia's, Banti creates a ghostly presence within her novel--one that both juxtaposes and combines time.  The character of Artemisia then gains the appreciation that she was lacking in her own time in her revival by the author in a stroke of artistic structuring that is necessarily feminist.  In the author, the character of Artemisia finds a companion who not only refuses to abandon her, but is in desperate search for her.  The theme that developes because of this author-character relationship is one that begs comparison with Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author.  Both works exhibit the search for something lost.