Psychoanalysis and Irony in "La Coscienza di Zeno" Author(s): Brian ...

Psychoanalysis and Irony in "La Coscienza di Zeno"
Author(s): Brian Moloney
Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Apr., 1972), pp. 309-318
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3722314
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PSYCHOANALYSIS AND IRONY IN
'LA COSCIENZA DI ZENO'
In a stimulating essay entitled 'Freud and Literature', Lionel Trilling observed
that the relationship between psychoanalytical theory and literature is a reciprocal
one, and that the effect of Freud upon literature has been no greater than the effect
of literature upon Freud.' It was in fact the way in which many of Freud's ideas
were rooted in an intellectual tradition going back to the Enlightenment - that
of positivistic rationalism - which enabled creative writers to respond so fruitfully
to the stimulus of his theories.2 Svevo's La coscienza di Zeno was one of the first works
consciously to make use not only of psychoanalytical theory but also of the techniques
by means of which Freud put these theories into practice for therapeutic
purposes.
For a variety of reasons, some of which need further investigation, fame came late
to Svevo. One of these delaying causes was that as a result of a complexity of cultural
and political factors, psychoanalytical theory was not widely diffused in Italy in
the nineteen-twenties and nineteen-thirties, with the result that Italian literary
critics before I945 were not in a position to fully understand and evaluate the
novel. For La coscienza di Zeno postulated an ideal reader who was familiar enough
with Freudian theory and practice to appreciate how Svevo operated within the
framework of Freudianism, but in so highly unorthodox a way that Eduardo Weiss,
who was at that time the only practising analyst in Trieste, could tell the author
that his novel had nothing to do with psychoanalysis.3
More recently, however, Svevo's reputation has spread, and at the same time
discussion of psychoanalytical theory in Italy has become less inhibited and better
informed. It is possible to distinguish two main recurrent themes in the recent
criticism which has dealt specifically with the issue of Svevo's debt to Freud. One is
that Svevo's attitude to Freudianism was curiously ambivalent. Briefly touched on
in Silvio Benco's preface to the I947 Milan edition of La coscienza, developed at
greater length by E. Roditi in 1953,4 it has recently found its most elegant expression
in an important article by A. Bouissy, who speaks of 'l'ambivalence, l'attraction-repulsion
qui a marque l'histoire passionante et tourmentee des rapports de
Svevo et de la psychanalyse'.5 A second theme is that indicated in the title of a
'Freud and Literature', first published in the Kenyon Review in I940, is now available in The
Liberal Imagination (London, 1961), pp. 34-57. Svevo also wrote that 'talvolta anche l'opera dell'artista
pu6 promuovere il pensiero del filosofo' (Opera omnia, 4 vols (Milan, 1966-9), II, 688 - henceforward
referred to by volume and page number only).
2 For an account of Freudianism and of Freud's influence on a number of modern novelists, see
F. J. Hoffman, Freudianism and the Literary Mind, second edition (Louisiana, I957).
3 Svevo's (ironical) account of his conversations with Weiss will be found in the essay Soggiorno
londinese (III, 686). For the opposition to Freudianism in Italy, see 'Ragioni di una resistenza: l'idealismo
italiano e la psicanalisi', in M. David, Letteratura e psicanalisi (Milan, 1967), pp. 11-78; and
'Le forze di opposizione' in M. David, La psicanalisi nella cultura italiana, second edition (Turin,
1970), pp. 13-141. David singles out Trieste as a cultural centre which was particularly receptive to
Freudianism (La psicanalisi, pp. 373-84); when Svevo first read Freud, probably in 1908, Trieste
was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, closely linked to Vienna.
4 E. Roditi, 'I1 romanziere comincia dove Freud finisce - Fascino del quiproquo', La Fiera
Letteraria, I October 1953, p. 4.
5 A. Bouissy, 'Les fondements ideologiques de l'oeuvre d'Italo Svevo', Revue des JLtudes Italiennes, I2
(1966), 209-45; 350-73; I3 (1967), 23-50, 368.

3Io
Psychoanalysis and Irony in 'La coscienza di Zeno'
seminal article by J. Pouillon, namely that La coscienza is 'le roman d'une psychanalyse',
a study of the complexities of the analytical relationship of patient and
analyst and therefore to be interpreted in the most rigorously Freudian terms.1
The influence of Pouillon can be detected in the Bouissy article and also in
Rosowsky's attempt, based on the assumption that Freud offered Svevo 'une
nouvelle explication de la personalite humaine', to look at Zeno 'avec les yeux du
Docteur S.'.2 And in a recent, highly stimulating article, Eduardo Saccone briefly
reviews interpretations offered by Bouissy, Maier, Luti, Cattaneo, and De Castris,
which he rightly finds inadequate, while going on himself to discuss Svevo's
(and Zeno's) resistance to analysis, posing, but not yet answering, the question,
'Chi resiste ? e a chi? a quale psicanalisi ?'.3
The aim of the critic is naturally the elucidation of the work of art, but the
Svevo scholar finds himself confronted with two different kinds of evidence on which
to base his interpretation. The first is provided by the novel itself, of which more
will be said later. The second consists of non-fictional writings, namely the
Soggiorno londinese of 1928 and the letters to Valerio Jahier written in 1927-8. The
letter of I February 1928 (i, 862-4) makes it clear that Svevo was still smarting
from Weiss's observation, also mentioned in the Soggiorno londinese, that his novel
revealed only ignorance of psychoanalysis, and one of Svevo's aims in the letters
and the essay is to minimize the extent of his indebtedness to Freud and at the
same time to argue that any possible misunderstanding on his part did not ipso facto
invalidate his novel as a work of art. Freudianism, in the person of Weiss, has
rejected Svevo; Svevo will now, as far as he can, reject Freudianism. Even here -
or perhaps especially here, since he is on the defensive - Svevo naturally expresses
himself in terms of self-deprecating irony, and any thesis which takes the Soggiorno
londinese at its face value is bound to be misleading. The wounded tone of these
writings also prompts the reflection that they came from the pen of the frustrated
and disappointed Ettore Schmitz rather from that of the urbane and detached
Italo Svevo, Schmitz's 'second self'. The distinction between Svevo and Schmitz is
not unlike that between Manzoni the rather dull letter-writer and private citizen
and Manzoni the wise, cultured and urbane narrator of Ipromessi sposi, commented
on by a recent reviewer.4
Here we should do well, as Saccone suggests, to read the correspondence in the
light of Svevo's hostility towards the 'terrorismo ideologico' of all-embracing
philosophical systems. In the letters, and in the Soggiorno londinese Svevo describes
the misfortunes of a neurotic who failed to find a cure through analysis and
returned from Vienna 'abulico come prima ma con la sua abulia aggravata dalla
convinzione ch'egli, essendo fatto cosi, non potesse agire altrimenti. t lui che mi
diede la convinzione che fosse pericoloso di spiegare ad un uomo com'era fatto'
(IIi, 688). There is a link, as Saccone suggests, between this passage, the suggestion
to Jahier that with autosuggestion 'non Le cambieranno l'intimo Suo "io"'
1
J. Pouillon, 'La Conscience de Zeno: roman d'une psychanalyse', Les Temps Modernes, 10 (I954),
555-62.
2 G. Rosowsky, 'Theorie et pratiques psychanalytiques dans la Coscienza di Zeno', Revue des ttudes
Italiennes, I6 (I970), 49-70. It is however unlikely that Freud's explanation would have struck
Svevo as a complete novelty in view of his earlier interest in 'fringe medicine'.
3 E. Saccone, 'Svevo, Zeno e la Psicanalisi', Modern Language Notes, 85 (1970), 67-82 (p. 82).
4 Times Literary Supplement, 2 July 1971, p. 789. For a discussion of the concept of the 'second self',
see W. C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago and London, 1969), pp. 70-3.

BRIAN MOLONEY 3I"
(I, 860), and the early fable (1897) of the old man who loses all his capital through
no fault of his own and who is reduced to suicide only when Herbert Spencer, the
philosopher and economist, who of course was still alive in 1897, explains to him
come la sua sventura fosse evidentemente la conseguenza della sua incapacita e come non
meritasse n6 compassione ne aiuto perche l'aiuto dato a lui avrebbe corrotta la legge sociale
che vuole la soppressione del vinto. (II, 753)
The links extend indeed to include La coscienza, and are closer than has so far
been suggested, for it was Herbert Spencer who coined the phrase 'survival of the
fittest', and the reference in the fable to the 'social law' and to the 'vanquished'
refer to that offshoot of positivist thought known as 'social Darwinism', that
attempt to apply evolutionary theory to human society which Zeno so neatly turns
upside down and the vocabulary of which is so much in evidence at crucial
moments in Zeno's life. And Freudianism belongs to this same intellectual tradition.
Philosophers, Musil says, are 'violent and aggressive persons who, having no army
at their disposal, bring the world into subjection to themselves by means of locking
it up into a system'. Zeno achieves a similar insight, paradoxically in trying to
justify his rejection of the analyst's verdict, when he asks
come potevo sopportare la compagnia di quell'uomo ridicolo, con quel suo occhio che
vuole essere scrutatore e quella sua presunzione che gli permette di aggruppare tutti i
fenomeni di questo mondo intorno alla sua grande, nuova teoria ? (II, 2, 928)
What then was the appeal for Svevo of psychoanalysis? It is now conventional to
suggest that although Svevo may have been sceptical of the therapeutic possibilities
of Freudianism, he was nevertheless attracted by the way in which it offered
a model of the structure of human personality and enabled him to explore with
greater precision his character's motivation. This is true as far as it goes, but
Svevo's readers are apt to forget that they are dealing with a master ironist, and
Svevo criticism has been bedevilled by a tendency to take at their face value
statements made either by Svevo or by his characters which make sense only if
interpreted in the ironic mode. It was in large measure to the ironist in Svevo that
psychoanalysis appealed. There is unfortunately no mention of Svevo in either of
the two recent studies of irony by D. C. Muecke,1 but it is impossible not to think
of the Triestine novelist when the critic sketches the possibilities for irony of
Freudianism - not merely in terms of the 'Freudian slip' (such as the episode of
Guido Speier's funeral), but in more general terms too, which suggest that daily
life may be fraught with hidden tensions and inner conflicts:
The things which we say happen to us against our will, may really be the things which we
secretly will to happen; the unconscious may have its reasons, which reason knows nothing
of, for falling sick or into debt, for crashing the car or losing the job, or failing the
examination.2
- or, one might add, for Zeno's conducting his courtship of the serious Ada in such a
way as irrevocably to alienate her, and for allowing himself to be manoeuvredand
so clumsily! - into marrying the motherly Augusta. In other words, we can
distinguish in the novel a number of different forms of irony, all of which are
interrelated. Easiest to perceive, no doubt, is the Irony of Events, the mysterious
1 D. C. Muecke, The Compass
of Irony (London, 1969), and Irony (London, 1970).
2 Muecke, Irony, p. 74.

3I2
Pgychoanalysis and Irony in 'La coscienza di Zeno'
and surprising way in which things seem to turn out for the best as far as Zeno is
concerned, the process which allows him all the pleasures of a happy marriage and
illicit love, as well as the commercial success for which he claims by temperament to
be so ill equipped. This very success is accompanied by a sense of guilt, and so
Zeno's Self-deprecating Irony is designed to exculpate him, by making him appear
to be the buffoon or blunderer who has in no way been responsible for what has
happened, the perpetual victim either of circumstances or his own good intentions.
Beneath these two forms of irony, and at a deeper level, is the Irony of Self-betrayal,
which has been a favourite with novelists ever since Fielding, and which in La
coscienza di Zeno is presented to us in a guise so new that many have failed to
recognize the extent to which Svevo exploits it in order to expose the disparity not
so much between intention and achievement as between the motives which a man
consciously formulates in order to excuse or justify his conduct, either to himself or
others, and his real motivation, which he cannot, or dare not, articulate.
'Quale psicoanalisi?' asks Saccone. The pertinent question demands an answer
and there is one which would absolve Svevo of any charge of gross inconsistency in
his attitude towards the new science. Freud wrote in the I926 edition of the
Encyclopaedia Brittanica that the term psychoanalysis had by now 'come to have two
meanings: (i) a particular method of treating nervous disorders and (2) the
science of unconscious mental processes, which has also been appropriately
described as "depth psychology" '. It would also have been clear to Svevo that not
everyone who accepted Freud's findings under the second heading necessarily
shared his views concerning the first. Svevo, however, was an intelligent man with
a remarkably wide culture in which the 'non-literary' or 'extra-literary' elements
are of vital importance for a proper understanding of his novels, as even the early
essays for L'Indipendente show. In one of these essays, a review of Scarfoglio's
II libro di Don Chischiotte (I884), he writes admiringly of Zola's use of Darwin's
evolutionary theories:
Egli non si prefisse di provare le teorie di Darwin che ammise a priori per provate, e l'idea
della tesi, o almeno questa tesi, non appare dai suoi romanzi... Non scienziato, ma artista,
Zola descrive la vita servendosi di una teoria scientifica che gliela spiega. Se questa teoria
venisse scartata da altra, i nostri posteri vedrebbero, nell'opera di Zola, una rappresentazione
della vita quale la sentono i piu colti dei nostri contemporanei. (III, 590)
Zolva, for Svevo, is a novelist whose work is firmly rooted in the intellectual life of
his time. These words could surely be applied to Svevo himself, in relation to
Freudianism, and provide a vital clue as to the kind of novelist Svevo had set out to
become. Whether we accept Freud's theories or not, it is difficult to overestimate
their impact on our culture. Svevo, who insisted in the Soggiorno londinese, 'Ma quale
scrittore potrebbe rinunziare di pensar almeno la psicanalisi?' (III, 688), would
have applauded another critic's comment on Anatole France, whom he also
admired: 'The ironist's mind keeps pace with the pioneers of his time, embracing
eagerly each new discovery, ever open and on the alert for whatever science,
erudition and criticism may bring to light.'1
We learn from Svevo's novel that Zeno Cosini is a man of means who, because he
is suffering from certain personality problems, has himself psychoanalysed in the
1 H. M. Chevalier, The Ironic Temper: Anatole France and his Time (New York, 1932), p. 79 (quoted
in Muecke, The Compass of Irony, p. 232).

BRIAN MOLONEY 313
hope of finding some cure to his various ailments. His course of analysis begins in
late 1914 and goes on until the end of April I915. His contact with his analyst,
however, goes back to a date even earlier than this; the indications in the text are
mildly ambiguous, but Zeno could have first approached Dr S. early in 19I4.
Unfortunately he catches the analyst at an awkward moment, since he is about to
leave Trieste for a lengthy but undetermined period of time. Anxious not to waste
time, Dr S. invites his elderly patient to write about himself, beginning with his
addiction to smoking. This simple expedient is basically an up-to-date variant of
one of the oldest devices in the history of novel-writing, namely the convention by
which the author presents himself or one of his characters to the public in the guise
of an 'editor' of documents which circumstances have brought into his possession.
But it has in this context far-reaching implications for the construction and the
consequent interpretation of the novel.
Dr S. admits that his method was unorthodox: 'Debbo scusarmi di aver
indotto il mio paziente a scrivere la sua autobiografia; gli studiosi di psicoanalisi
arricceranno il naso a tanta novita' (II, 2, 599). Freud in fact repeatedly warned
practitioners that
It is wrong to set a patient tasks, such as collecting his memories or thinking over some
particular period in his life. On the contrary, he has to learn above all - what never comes
easily to anyone - that mental activities such as thinking something over or concentrating
the attention solve none of the riddles of a neurosis; that can only be done by patiently
obeying the psycho-analytic rule, which enjoins the exclusion of all criticism of the unconscious
or its derivatives. One must be especially unyielding about obedience to that rule
with patients who practise the art of sheering off into intellectual discussion during their
treatment, who speculate a great deal and often very wisely about their condition and in that
way avoid doing anything to overcome it.'
The reason for this advice is simple. Freudian analysis depends very largely on a
process of free association; a deliberate and systematic process of recalling, on the
other hand, allows the censorship mechanism to come into play. As Zeno says,
'Una confessione in iscritto e sempre menzognera' (II, 2, 928) - but for psychological
reasons, not for the linguistic reasons which he misleadingly adduces.
And what a splendid sense of timing makes Svevo attribute these words to him just
as Zeno is about to put on paper (and in what he hopes will pass for Tuscan) the
'truth' about the lies he now claims to have told his analyst! This is a factor of which
Zeno himself would have been aware, since he has read a book on psychoanalysis
(a practice against which Freud warned practitioners and patients) in order to
'assist' his analyst. Zeno's only attempt to practise the free-association method is
very revealing, since the disturbing sounds made by his dying father's breathing are
connected with the visual image of a railway train and dismissed as irrelevant. Its
significance is revealed in the chapter dealing with the death of Zeno's father. All
this is very Freudian and suggests that Svevo had read some of Freud's works more
carefully than he himself was prepared to admit.2 At all events, the doctor's preface
warns us - and what follows underlines the warning - that in Zeno we have to do
1 'Recommendations to Physicians practising Psycho-analysis', in The Complete
Psychological Works
of Freud (London, 1958), xII, 111-20.
2 On the other hand I doubt whether Rosowsky is right in seeing the train, casually mentioned
during the Zeno-Augusta honeymoon episode, as symbolic of an avenging father-figure. ('Avevo
una tale fede in quella salute che mi pareva non potesse perire che sfracellata sotto un intero treno in
corsa' (11, 2, 730). ) See Rosowsky, p. 56.

314
Psychoanalysis and Irony in 'La coscienza di Zeno'
with an unreliable narrator who, whether he knows it or not, is lying. One admires
Svevo's narrative skill: with remarkable economy he has put us on our guard
against Zeno the deceiver and has done by implication what other novelists (such
as William Gerhardi in his preface to Futility and Vladimir Nabokov in his postscript
to Lolita) have found it necessary to do explicitly, namely to dissociate themselves
from their first-person narrators.
This puts us into a particularly dynamic relationship with the protagonist as
Zeno weaves his complicated yarns, seeking to deceive himself rather than his
reader. And at this point it is relevant to remind ourselves who Zeno's reader is.
For if it is legitimate and necessary to distinguish between Svevo and Zeno, the
superior, clear-sighted ironist, and his devious narrator, it is equally legitimate to
distinguish between their readers. We are Svevo's readers; the novelist creates his
characters, sets them in motion, and writes for whoever will read. Zeno the character,
in the fiction which Svevo has devised, writes for another character who is
equally Svevo's creation - the absent analyst - absent for we know not what
reason for the first seven chapters, supposedly written by Zeno before analysis, and
absent once more, this time in neutral Switzerland, when Zeno writes the final
section ('Psicoanalisi'). Physically absent, he is nevertheless felt as a 'presence'
throughout the novel, since even before analysis Zeno writes as if on the defensive,
as though attributing to Dr S. attitudes which are really those of his uneasy
conscience, that disturbing voice which constantly urges his successful survival as
proof of his guilt. Zeno continually feels the need, not to reveal himself in order to
come to terms with his problems and so progress towards a cure, but to defend
himself. In effect there is a constant tension between the supposed writer of these
memoirs and his fictional reader, Dr S., so that it comes as no surprise when Zeno
rejects as unjust a diagnosis - that he is suffering from an Oedipus complex -
which he regards as an accusation. And just as he sees in Ada's accusation that he
had never loved Guido a manifestation of her grief and remorse, so too he interprets
the doctor's diagnosis as a manifestation of the latter's personality problems:
'Chissa perche si sia preso di tale odio per me? Anche lui dev'essere un istericone
che per aver desiderato invano sua madre se ne vendica su chi non c'entra affatto'
(1, 2, 937).
Zeno here, as elsewhere in this chapter, affects the belief that his life has been
normal in all respects; but may not that anche be an interesting Freudian slip?
And in any case does not Zeno in this comment unwittingly offer us an analysis of
some of the less edifying aspects of his relationship with Carla, whom he exploits
and humiliates ? In the case of Ada's accusation, Zeno's reaction gives him away:
he closes his eyes and covers his face.
Poi nell'oscurita rividi il cadavere di Guido e nella sua faccia sempre stampato lo stupore di
essere la, privato della vita. Spaventato, rizzai la testa. Era preferibile affrontare l'accusa di
Ada che io sapevo ingiusta che guardare nell'oscurita. (II, 2, 923)
From time to time of course Zeno will speculate about the workings of his
unconscious mind, as when he suggests that in blaming his ills on to his habit of
smoking he was merely looking for a scapegoat. But on the whole, 'guardare nell'oscurita',
in the sense of looking into the darker recesses of his mind, is what he
will not do. That is the function of his reader, the absent analyst. There are
indications, however, that he is disqualified from doing so, and that this function
may have to be exercised by Svevo's reader.

BRIAN MOLONEY
315
Svevo's ideal reader is warned by the very existence of the Prefazione as well
as by its contents. We assume, that is, that men have recourse to psychoanalysis
only when they think they have cause and we must assume that Zeno is maladjusted,
although in what respect and to what degree we have, initially, no means of
telling. To this Dr S. adds his warning that Zeno's memoirs are a mixture of
truth and lies. He also introduces us to the notion of transference, 'the process
whereby a patient shifts affects applicable to another person on to the analyst'.l
Zeno's antipathy towards Dr S. is, the analyst implies, a manifestation of the
hostility he feels towards his father. It is difficult, however, to accept this statement
at its face value, and it is even possible that Svevo derived his concept of Dr S.'s
character and methods from Freud's warnings about what the analyst should not
do. Dr S., for example, seems complacently to present his diagnosis to Zeno long
before his patient is ready to receive it. Freud wrote:
I have heard that there are analysts who plume themselves upon these kinds of lightning
diagnoses and 'express' treatments, but I must warn against following such examples.
Behaviour of this sort will completely discredit oneself and the treatment in the patient's
eyes and will arouse the most violent opposition in him, whether one's guess has been true or
not; indeed, the truer the guess the more violent will be the resistance. As a rule the therapeutic
effect will be nil; but the deterring of the patient from analysis will be final. 2
Freud also described this approach as ' "wild" psycho-analysis'.
Dr S. also unwittingly reveals that counter-transference has taken place-
'the arousal of the analyst's repressed feelings by the analytic situation; ... the
transference by the analyst of his repressed feelings upon the analysand'. After
such a Prefazione we are well and truly on our guard. We refrain from identifying
with Zeno, and we read his memoirs from a point of view akin to, but not identical
with, that of the analyst - akin to, in the sense that we attempt as far as we can to
sort the truth from the lies; not identical with, in the sense that we do not and are
surely not intended to feel for Zeno the antagonism which he has aroused in Dr
S. Svevo's ideal reader, unlike Zeno's, resembles Svevo himself, and is a lucid,
detached observer.
Such a reader, as the novel progresses, finds himself in the position of knowing
more about Zeno than Zeno does himself. This being the case, he finds himself
compelled to reject as false many of the statements which Zeno makes; most
importantly he rejects his claim to be cured, at least in any conventional sense of
that word.
Instead of accepting the analyst's diagnosis with due awe and gratitude, and then
going through a process of re-education, Zeno rejects it. His grounds for doing so
require some consideration. After pouring scorn upon the doctor, Zeno goes on to
construct a new version of his past which it is impossible to reconcile with anything
he has told us so far: 'Io chiudo gli occhi e vedo subito puro, infantile, ingenuo il
mio amore per mia madre, il mio rispetto ed il grande mio affetto per mio padre'
(I, 2, 928).
This is unacceptable simply because Zeno has hitherto consistently described his
relationship with his father in terms of antagonism and of feelings alternating
1 Definitions of psychological terms are taken from H. B. and A. C. English, A Comprehensive
Dictionary of Psychological and Psychoanalytical Terms: A Guide to Usage (New York, London, and
Toronto, 1958).
2 'On beginning the treatment', in The Complete Psychological Works of Freud, xn, I40.

3I6
Psychoanalysis and Irony in 'La coscienza di Zeno'
between superiority and inferiority. This transfiguration of the past is later carried
several stages further, and Zeno offers his own life as a kind of ideal against which
'normal' life is judged and found wanting.
Com'era stata piu bella la mia vita che non quella dei cosidetti sani, coloro che picchiavano o
avrebbero voluto picchiare la loro donna ogni giorno salvo in certi momenti. Io, invece, ero
stato accompagnato sempre dall'amore... Gli altri abbandonavano la donna delusi e
disperando della vita. (II, 2, 941)
Svevo posts enough clues to guide his reader towards his meaning, especially as
Zeno at this point chooses to support his argument by means of some thoroughly
bad logic, although it is as usual interspersed with occasional flashes of insight, as
when he perceives that counter-transference has taken place (II, 2, 937). He argues,
diagnosis is incorrect because it is based on information that is inadequate (since he
has not been cured of it (ii, 2, 928). It is at this point in the first part of the final
chapter, dated 3 May I9I5, that Zeno makes his celebrated statement that 'Una
confessione in iscritto e sempre menzognera. Con ogni nostra parola toscana noi
mentiamo' (II, 2, 928). He then goes on to explain (in Tuscan) that Dr S.'s
diagnosis is incorrect since it is based on information that is inadequate (since he
has, for example, made no enquiries of other people) or false (since Zeno now claims
that he invented episodes during his sessions with Dr S.). Zeno now attributes his
illness to his 'cura' (II, 2, 939-40), which is an interesting half-truth because patients
in the course of analysis are liable to feel much worse before they begin to improve.
By I8 May, Zeno is feeling somewhat better. Writing is apparently having its
desired therapeutic effect, and his new version of his past is confirmed to his own
satisfaction. We are also introduced to what is to become a central theme in
Svevo's later work - that of old age and the importance of keeping sexual desire
alive for as long as possible. Fidelity to his wife is something to be avoided for the
sake of his health.
At this point war intervenes to separate Zeno from his family, and we begin to see
that the dating of the action of the novel, and particularly of the final chapter, is as
crucial as the dating of the action of Musil's Man without Qualities and its 'Emperor
of Peace' campaign. Is not war-time Trieste a strange place in which to achieve
peace of mind?
There is much ambiguity about Zeno's statement that
La guerra mi prese, mi squasso come un cencio, mi priv6 in una sola volta di tutta la mia
famiglia ed anche del mio amministratore. Da un giorno all'altro io fui un uomo del tutto
nuovo, anzi per essere piu esatto, tutte le mie ventiquattr'ore furono nuove del tutto. Da
ieri sono un po' piu calmo perch6 finalmente, dopo l'attesa di un mese, ebbi le prime notizie
della mia famiglia. Si trova sana e salva a Torino mentre io gia avevo perduto ogni speranza
di rivederla. (n, 2, 944)
Zeno would presumably have us believe that his improved state of mind is that of
the benevolent paterfamilias and employer who is relieved to learn that his family
and principal employee are safe and sound. We should be able to accept this easily
enough if we had earlier been given some evidence that Zeno was such a laudable
personage. Since we have not, we look for some other interpretation and tentatively
conclude that his relief might derive from the certainty that separation is more or
less irrevocable, at least for the foreseeable future. The war has not only removed
Dr S., thus giving Zeno the perfect excuse for ending his course of analysis. It has
also removed and rendered powerless Olivi, that perpetual reminder of his father's

BRIAN MOLONEY 3I7
power and authority. Zeno can now ridicule the remote and impotent administrator.
'L' Olivi dalla Svizzera mi fece pervenire dei consigli. Se sapesse come i
suoi consigli stonano in quest'ambiente ch'e mutato del tutto' (II, 2, 952). War has
also removed Augusta, squinting Jocasta to his limping Oedipus. His symptoms
have been temporarily alleviated by a greater disorder in society at large. Naturally
Zeno seeks an explanation for his improved condition, and finds it in commerce,
although his account of how this came about is so misleading that he appears to be
saying both 'Commerce has cured me' and 'I can engage in commerce because I
am no longer ill', which is rather like saying 'I can now take medicine because I am
no longer ill'. Contradictions and illogicalities of this sort usually indicate that we
are a long way from the truth. Svevo's prognosis at this point would seem to be that
with the return of his wife and his administrator - Olivifils, so that Zeno is now
the older partner in the generation conflict - the end of the war will be marked by
his failure as a business man, fresh adultery and fresh problems. All these themes
are developed in Le confessioni del vegliardo, Umbertino, II mio ozio, and Un contratto,
which are best regarded as blocks of an unfinished novel rather than as isolated
short stories.
It would in any case be unwise to build too ambitious a critical edifice on Zeno's
commercial activities. There is a moment when Zeno, returning to Trieste from
Lucinico, is hailed by a friend, 'Hai preso parte ai saccheggi?' (n, 2, 952). The
question is friendly, gently ironical in tone; the questioner does not really believe
that such a law-abiding citizen as Zeno Cosini would have taken part in the looting
which marked the beginning of the war between Italy and Austria. Nevertheless, if
Zeno had been pressed for a reply, he would have been compelled to answer:
'Not yet!'. The looting prefigures his commercial activities, which are those of a
war profiteer. Zeno has not yet inserted himself into society, nor yet achieved
detachment from it; he preys upon it. Not for nothing does he talk of his activities in
terms of 'struggle' and 'victory' in language reminiscent of that used to describe his
feelings during the walk back to Trieste after missing Guido Speier's funeral.
'Ammetto che per avere la persuasione della salute il mio destino dovette mutare e scaldare il
mio organismo con la lotta e sopratutto col trionfo.' (In, 2, 953)
'Mi paragonavo al povero Guido e salivo, salivo in alto con la mia vittoria nella stessa lotta
nella quale egli era soggiaciuto.' (ii, 2, 919)
There is a remarkable similarity in mood, tone and vocabulary. There is also a
significant difference. Guido as a term of comparison is no longer relevant. Zeno is
privileged and successful by comparison with the whole war-stricken city, and
this is the main source of his feeling of health, deny it how he will.
What then are we left with ? Simply the quest for a cure which did not succeed ?
This would indeed be a reductive reading of La coscienza di Zeno. Zeno, more
fortunate than the old man in the fable, has had a lucky escape from the suffocating
embraces of a science which is condemned not only on the grounds that it is
stultifying, being basically a highly sophisticated form of determinism, but also on the
grounds that it is inadequate to cope with the ills it offers to cure. The tensions
between the individual and society were of great concern to Svevo. The complicated
interplay in that final section of La coscienza between the problems of the
individual and those of society reflect the failure of Freudianism and Marxism, the
two supposed universal panaceas which Svevo examined and, in the end, rejected.

318
Psychoanalysis and Irony in 'La coscienza di Zeno'
The one was too particular, the other too general; both were inadequate. It could
be argued that Svevo distorts or caricatures the philosophies or sciences which he
wishes to criticize, presenting them as more prescriptive than descriptive, and that
Dr S. is a very inadequate representative of Freudianism. In a way this is true, just
as the 'Herbert Spencer' of the fable of the elderly bankrupt does not adequately
represent Spencer's basically optimistic philosophy. What that fable satirizes is the
crudely deterministic popular version in which Spencer's views were widely
diffused, just as Dr S., as Freud's own warnings to practitioners show, represents a
cruder, simplified version of Freudianism which found wide acceptance.
Not that Svevo's conclusions are totally negative. Human beings are more
resilient and life itself more unpredictable than any doctrinaire creed makes allowance
for, and nothing in Svevo's view seems able to crush man's capacity for
hope. As Jacob puts it in Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, 'How shall a man
live, if he can no longer rely on things turning out differently from what he
thought?'. Zeno has to pay a price for his hope: that price is self-deception. But
can one say it is too high? It may well be that we have no freedom, that our
behaviour patterns are predetermined, but it may well be too that our illusions
are our protective devices. In this sense it would be dangerous for Zeno to know
'com'era fatto', for this would be to strip him of his only armour against fate.
LEEDS BRIAN MOLONEY