Piccolo ma Forte: The Child Narrator’s Role in Cultural Collective Processing of Historical Events
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Keywords
Italy, Africa, child narrator, film, short stories
Department
International Studies and Languages
Major
Intercultural Communication & Italian
Abstract
Whether dealing with genocide, organized crime or economic deprivation, the use of a child protagonist in film and literature allows for an unfiltered look at traumatic history that contributes to a broader collective healing process. In recollections of violent African events, painful Italian history and more recent happenings in Syria, artists use the child protagonist to introduce the perspective of a marginalized population into a historical reality, invoke sympathy from motivated audiences, and call attention to the universal and unifying human experience of suffering. This paper, firstly, compares the strategic use of the child narrator across cultures in short stories of African atrocities and Roberto Benigni's "Life is Beautiful" (1997), according to Pamela Kroll's six tools for understanding. Secondly, this paper demonstrates, in contrast to Giacomo Lichtner's 2012 article regarding child narratives in Italian Holocaust films, that the adoption of a child's perspective is not willing submission to ignorance, but a cathartic exercise to purge a population of an evil past.
Faculty Mentor
Fiona Stewart
Funding Source or Research Program
Academic Year Undergraduate Research Initiative
Presentation Session
Session C
Location
Plaza Classroom 188
Start Date
24-3-2017 4:45 PM
End Date
24-3-2017 5:00 PM
Piccolo ma Forte: The Child Narrator’s Role in Cultural Collective Processing of Historical Events
Plaza Classroom 188
Whether dealing with genocide, organized crime or economic deprivation, the use of a child protagonist in film and literature allows for an unfiltered look at traumatic history that contributes to a broader collective healing process. In recollections of violent African events, painful Italian history and more recent happenings in Syria, artists use the child protagonist to introduce the perspective of a marginalized population into a historical reality, invoke sympathy from motivated audiences, and call attention to the universal and unifying human experience of suffering. This paper, firstly, compares the strategic use of the child narrator across cultures in short stories of African atrocities and Roberto Benigni's "Life is Beautiful" (1997), according to Pamela Kroll's six tools for understanding. Secondly, this paper demonstrates, in contrast to Giacomo Lichtner's 2012 article regarding child narratives in Italian Holocaust films, that the adoption of a child's perspective is not willing submission to ignorance, but a cathartic exercise to purge a population of an evil past.