The Little Virtues

The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg is an extremely powerful collection of her life experiences growing up in Europe, specifically London and Italy. In the collection of memoirs, Ginzburg revisits themes that have continued to be prevalent throughout our 20^th Century Italian course. Ginzburg is no stranger to political discourse. We are taken back to the Abruzzo region while she lives a portion of her life in exile. Ginzburg is very critical of Fascism, which we have seen in numerous previous works.

            The passage that stuck out the most was the chapter describing her experiences living in London, of which she has very little good things to say. She says, “We are quickly infected by the English melancholy. It is a sheepish, stunned melancholy, a sort of empty bewilderment, and on its surface the conversations about the weather, the seasons – about all those things one can discuss without going to deeply into anything, without giving offence or being offended – linger like the constant quiet buzzing of mosquitos” (Ginzburg 27).

            I found this passage to be a criticism of Fascism. England is a country with strict social and political order. Ginzburg refers to this as the “English Melancholy.” In the eyes of Ginzburg, social and political control means power. Fascism needed control to maintain power. In order to maintain control measures were used such as censorship and spying. Ginzburg describes this as the English’s desire to prevent giving offence or being offended.

            Melancholy is defined as the feeling of the sense of loss, when one does not know what is lost. What is lost in Ginzburg’s chapter titled “England: Eulogy and Lament” is freedom. Social and political order, or Fascism is taking away the freedom of its people without them realizing, through censorship and persecution.