L'ospedale come metafora: un percorso attrvareso la narrativa italiana del '900

Background 20th century literature offers famous examples in which the hospital is a huge metaphor: for example the “Berghof sanatorium” described by Thomas Mann in the “Magic Mountain” or the “Cancer Ward” in the same title novel by Solzhenitsyn. Maybe Italian literary production is more humble but not less meaningful. The reality in the hospital instead of being the projection of a huge historical fresco is the symbolic space in which the contradictions of everyday life appear alive, where usual questions are amplified and the experiences of the sick and of the healthy people are mingled in one only question having meaning. Even though there are different stiles and purposes in the nearly coeval narration by Calvino, Buzzati, and Tobino it is possible to find the transfiguration of autobiographic experiences – hospitalization. This becomes the narrative starting point of a meditation that doesn’t consider only the illness itself nor the treatment but more than anything makes a comment on the value to life itself, human dignity and, obviously seeks the meaning to death.