Constructing And Recalling

Calvino is one of the famous novelists in the20th century in Italy. In his forty years’ writing practice, Calvino researched and blazed a trail with unceasing efforts, and produced many distinctive and stylistic works. His "Our Ancestors" mirrors an oppressive situation of physical, mental or social distress of the people in the modern society, opens out an odyssey that the human beings in search of selfhood.In The Cloven Viscount, the leading character was broken up into two pieces by the harsh environment; in The Baron In the Trees, the Baron dropped out of ordinary society to hold his own free destiny; in The Non-existent Knight, the Knight endlessly prove the exsitence of himself.Calvino absorbed the merits of the Heroic Poetry, the fairy tale and the Romance, although the main characters comes from old times, he expressed the living condition of the people in the modern society. Many modern writing skills were used in Our Ancestors, which induced the practice of Calvino’s narrative idea successfully, and exposed the essence of fabricated story, in further step, it strengthened the novel’s theme.This thesis analysed the theme of searching selfhood and the narrative mode in Our Ancestors, expounded how Calvino became "writer of the writers",through his creating and drawing lessons from old writing skills.