Literary Analysis: Motherhood and Relationships

Natalia Ginzburg's Writing Style

• Ginzburg's writing is translucent, clear, direct, and simple, enabling readers magical apprehension.
• Complex yet deceptively simple, her prose creates a calming, thrilling effect, which is not easily achieved.
• She has great precision and clarity in her sentences.
• Her raw prose invites introspection which reveals clarity in the shared world.
• Ginzburg's writing is remarkable, hard-won, and simple, welcoming in its literary nature.

Overview

• The Dry Heart is about an Italian woman who shoots and kills her husband on the first page of the 83-page novel.

Plot Points

• The narrator shoots her husband Alberto between the eyes after he shows her a sketch of a long train with a big cloud of black smoke swirling over it and himself waving out of a window.
• She had known for a long time she would do something of the sort.
• They were husband and wife for four years, and stayed together after the death of their baby because Alberto believed another child would be her salvation, but nothing resulted.
• When she finds him packing to go to Rome, she asks if he's going to be alone, which he denies.
• She goes to a cafe and drinks coffee, takes off her wedding ring in the park.
• Meeting Alberto at Dr. Gaudenzi's house, she imagines marrying and arranging her own house.
• At first, she was pleased that she liked the attention from Alberto's kind eyes.
• She began to think that if she could please him then she might please the man of her imagination.
• Her father is a country doctor at Maona with a walking cane, and her mother is a tiny women with thick white hair.
• Alberto never says that he is in love with her, but brings books and chocolates and they go out together.
• She tells Francesca, who suggests she throw out the gloves in his face because they look outdated and that he will bring trouble.
• Summer comes, and she goes to Maona, expecting Alberto to write, but he only sends a postcard of a village.
• When she returns she powders and sits waiting for Alberto, but he does not show.
• She calls him from a public telephone, but hangs up after he answers.
• Eventually he says he has been busy, and they continue as before.
• They see each other almost every afternoon or evening but never speak of love.
• Francesca returns from Rome in a bad humour.
• The narrator asks herself if they are is in love, without finding any answer.
• One night leaning against a bridge, she tells Alberto that she loves him.
• He replies that he cares for her and considers her a good friend, but is in love with another woman for years who he cannot marry because she is married, and he cannot be with anyone else.
• They return to boarding house and she says she does not want to see him again.
• Back in he bedroom she takes sleeping pills after talking about the situation with Francesca.
• The maid tells her the Alberto has been downstairs waiting.
• They go to a cafe and he explains that she is often unkind and his life is without joy, and like a cork bobbing on water.
• Back in the bedroom, she refuses to go to San Remo with Francesca.
• Alberto asks her to marry him and says he is in love with her and that plenty of marriages are like that and its unusual that each in love the same.
• They go to Maona together and Alberto asks her father for his blessing.
• He chats with her parents, makes a chess partner in the tax collector and promises Danish stamps for his collection.
• While she's readying for bed she gets disturbed that she is soon marrying Alberto, yet is only calmed when reminding herself other women must feel this too.
• After marriage, Alberto drew animals and trains rather than her face.
• One morning she finds him packing to revisit some of the youth scenes with Augusto
• The house has a young maid Gemma who thinks there are mice so sleeps with hair undercovers.
• Gemma brings home a cat but thinks Alberto's deceased mother would pop out of closet and strike her down, so she tempts the cat out with cheese.
• Alberoto's key has a lock with a loaded revolver which causes that room to always be locked.
• She is upset on how much Alberto lies.
• The Gaudenzis continue invites her to the house.
• Few days after Alberto left she encounters Augusto- they exchange very few pleasantries.
• As she sits alone Gemma brings up that the cat is in her lap but notes how she has felt like a guest at the house.
• After supper the narrator goes to sleep next to Alberto where they used to lay for their honeymoon.
• She reflects in disgust the tender and feverish words- where his breath would put him near his ears.
• She recalls how he then fell asleep and left her hearing his breathing beside her as she tried to remember his words
• Now Alberto has gone with the woman , undoubtedly their hadn't been their only trip together- so she imagines.
• Alberto returns 10 days later, with his cat- they exchange few words but it is not a pleasant thing to hear.
• He holds her closely and tries to tell her not to ask and not to be upset- just be still.
• Once again Alberto leaves without a question- and the narrator reads a vloume of Rilke.
• The nurse makes an unannoucned visit as well.
• Her face is pale and heavy, in which the narrator writes to her mother.
• She thinks she sees a slight figure near her and she should say You're all that is gone
• The narrator says "yes. Alberto says "I do remember that."
• Alberto continued to draw animals and trains, with little horses galloping- she then said why shouldn't I draw a mouse over your side and vice versa. The narrator smiles once more as the chapter then ends.
• Augusto suggests she take him to stay for company and to look over him for when he has gone.
• Alberto says that " on general principles he didn't like anybody, that the only person he'd ever really liked was himself. I would have tried every measure for I would not take his place." He has turned brick-red up to the eyebrows and then we had a good laugh together. That's how we started being friends. Sometimes when two people don't know what to say to each other some such trivial remark will turn the trick. “That woman, Augusto. . .” I said. “What's she like?” “What woman?” he asked. Alberto's absence had caused considerable friction- when she had to be consoled by music a little higher up.
• He didn't want to stay in the room because it was in his way and he wanted her to just forget him because he'd rather stay with Giovanna. Alberto says there isn't anything she could have been upset over as much when she had to give up a large sum of money for not coming in at a greater expense.
• Alberto was found the next day by Gemma and he had the same face he had worn over the years.

Key entities

• Natalia Ginzburg: Author.
• Alberto: Husband, artist, unfaithful.
• Francesca: Cousin, friend, worldy.
• Dr. Gaudenzi: Friend, connection point, doctor.
• Giovanna: Alberto's long time love.
• Augusto: Friend, confidant, interested in Christianity.
• Gemma: Maid, cares for cat.
• Maona: Hometown, residence of parents.

Explore themes of motherhood, relationships, and personal change in a literary analysis. The quiz delves into character reactions, symbolic elements, and evolving attitudes after childbirth. Analysis includes character motivations and the significance of subtle changes.