The divided self: Ethnic sensibility in selected works of Italian American fiction and their film adaptations

This study examined literary and cinematic techniques for rendering characters as divided selves in novels written by and/or about Italian Americans and the film adaptations of those novels. In addition, the researcher turned to whatever critical reviews and analyses were available on these subjects as a way of testing the researcher's perceptions and transactions with the literary and cinematic texts. Thus the primary problem addressed was to determine the impact of literary and cinematic techniques for rendering the divided self on the reader/viewer's transactions with the selected works of Italian American fiction and their film adaptations. The process was to examine four works of Italian American fiction to identify the literary techniques for rendering characters as divided selves: Pietro di Donato's Christ in Concrete, John Fante's Wait Until Spring, Bandini, Mario Puzo's The Godfather, and Francine Prose's Household Saints; to examine the corresponding film adaptations: Edward Dmytryk's Christ in Concrete (also know as Give Us This Day), Dominique Deruddere's Wait Until Spring, Bandini, Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, and Nancy Savoca's Household Saints; then, to make a comparative analysis of the techniques; and finally, to examine other critical responses to the four works of fiction and their film adaptations to determine the extent to which techniques for rendering the divided self were addressed in the critics' analyses. The findings have led the researcher to the conclusion that the reader/viewer's ability to perceive and understand how fictional characters are represented as divided selves is intimately related to literary and cinematic techniques for characterization. Moreover, not only have few critics who have examined Italian American fiction and film acknowledged the relevance of technique, but even fewer have addressed the divided self as an important aspect of characterization in these texts.