11Story

22 January 2010

Pinocchio

 

Pinocchio. Enrico Mazzanti (1850-1910). Florence, 1883 Photograph. Original book illustration in Carlo Collodi [Carlo Lorenzini], Le avventura di Pinocchio. Storia di un burattino. Illustrata di E Mazzanti. Florence, Felice Paggi, 1883. H. 20cm (book) © British Library 064356

Pinocchio is an allegory not just of animation - dead wood become live flesh – but, through that, of conscience. Until the end of the story when he finally attains boyhood, the puppet remains wooden. Collodi appeals to his readers’ latent animism by externalising Pinocchio’s conscience as a talking cricket. But this just endorses the modernist view of humanity as a quality located inside people rather than in what they do, for Pinocchio needs a conscience before he can even look human.   But an interiorised humanity is a mixed blessing. When the puppet’s moral lapses are registered by his alarmingly tumescent /detumescent nose, it is easy enough to read his face. When he graduates as a real boy, conscience takes over, the nose settles down, and – though this can never be admitted – the face becomes more inscrutable.

 
 
 

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