'Pirandello's Islands of the Mind: The Isola-ted Self'

This paper has its roots in the title of the 2017 anniversary celebration conference of the Society for Pirandello Studies, ‘Exploring Pirandello’s Islands of the Map and of the Mind’: reflecting on this title I consider that the most island-like structure in Pirandello’s work is probably that of (certain of) his characters. There is a tendency, throughout his oeuvre, in the plays, novels and short stories, for the individual to cast himself (and I use this pronoun deliberately) adrift from others, and to connect with them only sporadically, if often intensely. Pirandello’s characters, like other islands, depend on communication, interaction and negotiation for survival (although, of course, some of them do not survive) and even where they are aware of these dependencies, they often fight against them, metaphorically cutting the moorings of the ships (the other characters) which touch on their individual promontories.