The Charterhouse of Parma

The first false passport in the novel, the barometer dealer’s which Fabrizio takes to Waterloo, indicates part of the concern with identity that this symbol expresses. Because the disguise is lower class and Fabrizio is not, he must mask his manners—though he is hardly capable of masking anything for long. Fabrizio takes on as many passport identities as he does life roles, feeling at ease in whatever scenario or identity comes his way—except perhaps that of Giletti, the man he killed. When Fabrizio becomes for a time Bossi, student of theology, readers may suspect that even those identities he has occupied are merely externally applied. So much depends on passports in the novel’s political climate because borders were freshly divided amidst the Napoleonic Wars and in their wake. Different rules apply to different segments of what is now known as the Italian nation, just as different laws might be applied to different ranks. Borders are a place where one might expect transformation, so that Fabrizio may seem to leave one phase and enter into a new one, but such transformation occurs only when he moves upward, into towers and platforms. The novel’s horizontal movement amounts to a mere shifting around of identity cards and images—a restless but inventive dance around a chessboard. Nevertheless, it is at the border that Fabrizio feels even more terror than in prison. Borders threaten to stop Fabrizio in his tracks, to replace movement with stasis, but without the perspective and internal rest of renunciation.