Il torto, la ragione, la forza: «I promessi sposi», capitolo II

The second chapter of I promessi sposi features a carefully designed parabolic structure necessary for the content it presents on the narrative stage where, along with the novel’s main characters and their characteristics, two interwoven dynamics play a prominent role: the contagion of evil and the corruption of its victims. Given the victims’ absence of means and deprivation of freedom, corruption is almost always inevitable. In the dispositio of words and images, which will appear again at decisive points in the novel, the mechanism of symmetrical correlation reveals the pervasiveness of this corruption in its historical dimension. The mechanism is one whereby violence corresponds to violence (verbal or physical) in a logic of cyclical oppositions from which the only possible escape is through a broader perspective that goes beyond the ‘lecito’ towards the ‘santo’, beyond revenge towards forgiveness. A perspective that the «Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica» also encourages, through a reflection that helps illuminate some problematic aspects of Don Abbondio’s character.