The Cloven Viscount

How does the child narrator’s dual position as a family member and a community observer enable Calvino to explore the nature of moral education in a fragmented world?

The “good” Medardo tells Pamela that “the good thing about being halved [is that] [o]ne understands the sorrow of every person and thing in the world at its own incompleteness” (51). How does Calvino develop this paradox throughout the novella to examine the relationship between suffering and wisdom?

Examine how the systematic halving of natural objects in the novel extends beyond representing Medardo’s condition to reveal the broader impact of moral extremism on the natural world.