Theory, Practice and Social Conceptualization in Luigi Capuana’s Female Characters:

This thesis is an exploration of female characterization in Luigi Capuana’s fiction through five case studies. It aims to highlight the centrality of female characterization in understanding the genesis and development of Capuana’s theory of fiction, his narrative craft, and the conceptualization of gender dynamics in society emerging from his work. It does so through a methodological approach which combines a threefold narratological framework derived from Rimmon-Kenan’s Narrative Fiction (1980) and elements of other, post-structuralism-informed, theories with a focus mainly on gender studies. This investigation of Capuana’s oeuvre allow one to rethink its female characterization beyond the restrictive critical notion of caso psicopatologico, while adding new dimensions to the complexity of Capuana’s literary experimentalism and cultural mediation.