Immortal Fission

Italo Calvino, the Italian novelist, is recognized as one of the most influential novelists in contemporary world. His works with unique style has experienced the three stages:realism, surrealism and postmodernism. In a series of his works, he discussed the human problems in a sight of world view, and gave the following writers a lot of enlightenment and reference.Our Ancestors Trilogy is Calvino’s middle works, including The Cloven Viscount, The Baron in the trees and The Nonexistent Knight. Though the three works with different writing time and different stories, there is a common theme connected inside. That is, to express thinking of the dilemma of modernity through the form of fable, as well as how to realize the integrity, existence and freedom of the individual. Our Ancestors Trilogy, therefore, also known as "pursuing" trilogy. Calvino expressed the criticism and reflection on the practical problems in this work, paid attention to the spiritual predicament of modern people, including the people’s alienation, loneliness, splitting, restless, etc. At the same time, the author also through the protagonist’s action reveals how to overcome such difficulties and realize the integrity, existence,and freedom of the individual.In the three works, Calvino put the three heroines without exception in the " fission ", namely split their own to seek change, by physical division, and secular break, fragmentation of existence and consciousness.And then the unreasonable was destroyed, broken, and recombination. The protagonists are determined to resist the difficulties of life and self shackles to realize the new meaning of life. This process is a concrete manifestation of the " complete--split--new complete " form.The people in The Cloven Viscount was bombed into two halves in the war, and each half body wanted to seek the complete meaning of life. Because of the despotism oppression of the family, the boy in The Baron in the trees chose to climb up the tree, started a new life style by getting far away from the earth; people in The Nonexistent Knight had no body, splinted the body and will extremely, but also tried to prove the meaning of existence of himself in a stubborn way.They all have "fission" with different degrees and different forms, and against the reality and by the fission. In this process, they grow continuously and become better, which tends to realize the individual’s integrity, existence and freedom, and find the true self. Our Ancestors Trilogy reveals the journey of exploring the spiritual of self in a metaphor way. Therefore, the images of the three ancestors are also considered as" spirit likeness "of our modern people.