All the guilt. «Il mestiere di vivere» as a judicial court

Abstract

In the initial phase of his diary – Il mestiere di vivere (1936-1938) – Cesare Pavese employs writing as a sort of judicial court, where the ego undergoes the procedures of a ruthless and accusatory self-examination. This essay aims to demonstrate how the autobiographical procedural system, primarily employed by Rousseau and also found in the diaries of Tolstoy and Kafka, transforms the journal into a theatrical and gratuitous «self-performance». This spectacle disguises itself as an ethical conduct examination, only to culminate in a sterile representation of «maudlin self-pity». In this regard, the process of self-condemnation is confused with a narcissistic stage, where the humiliation of the diarist hides a masked and cathartic glorification of his ego, following the model observed by Baudelaire in Rousseau’s Confessions.