48 pages • 1 hour read
The Adventures of Pinocchio
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Literary Context: Fables
A fable is a fictional narrative that typically aims to impart a moral lesson to the reader. Fables are usually short and often feature animal characters or inanimate objects as animate characters. The literary form of the fable first appeared in the fourth century BC through the prolific author Aesop, who wrote over 200 fables (“Fable.” Britannica, 12 June 2023).
Traditional fables involve a single conflict followed by a resolution. Through the resolution (or sometimes lack thereof), a truism or moral is imparted. The Adventures of Pinocchio borrows many conventions of the fable, although, unlike traditional fables, the narrative is long and involves numerous conflicts and resolutions. As a result of the comparative complexity of the fable, numerous lessons are imparted through Pinocchio’s adventures, including that children should obey their parents, unrealistic temptations should be avoided, one should not fall for charismatic conmen, children should work hard and study hard, and children should not lie.
This final moral lesson—children should not lie—is perhaps the most well-known in terms of the story of Pinocchio, as it is emphasized in the movie adaptations, including the extremely popular 1940 animated Disney film adaptation of Collodi’s work. However, Pinocchio’s nose growing when he lies only features in one scene of Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, and therefore this lesson shouldn’t be considered the seminal message of the work.
Socio-Historical Context: Collodi’s Critique of Industrialization and Capitalism in 19th-Century Italy
Collodi offers a critique of Italian industrialization, which drew many individuals away from pastoral towns and villages and toward cities. Through Pinocchio, who trusts the cat and the fox and therefore loses his money, Collodi presents the trope of the naive peasant who, lacking in life experience, is tricked by exploitative and duplicitous individuals in the city. Many Italian folk tales contemporaneous to Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio feature this same trope of the naive peasant (Sfetcu, Nicolae. “The Myth of Pinocchio.” Research Gate, 16 Apr. 2023).
Collodi celebrates traditional Italian life, which centers around farming, small villages, and small-scale commerce (such as the business of Geppetto the woodcarver). Furthermore, he praises characters who are engaged in honest work in a pastoral setting, such as Pinocchio at the end of the story, who pulls one hundred pails of water from Farmer John’s well each day and is then rewarded by being turned into a real boy.
On the other hand, the characters in the City of Simple Simons—an allegory for contemporaneous Italian industrialized cities—are condemned; the poor animals are ridiculed for their naivete in trading in their possessions and compromising their true selves: “Pinocchio notice[s] that all the streets [are] filled with hairless dogs, yawning from hunger; with sheared sheep, trembling with cold; with combless chickens, begging for a grain of wheat; with large butterflies, unable to use their wings because they had sold all their lovely colors,” while the wily and exploitative animals—the foxes, hawks, and vultures—are condemned for their dishonesty and their greed (38). Collodi suggests that factory owners, and other owners of capitalist ventures, are metaphorical vultures who prey on the less fortunate and steal their money and well-being, while peasants who work in capitalist ventures are left depleted and exhausted, “begging for a grain of wheat” (38).
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