The Construction of the Self: An Existentialist Reading of John Fante's The Bandini Quartet

• Autor(a) principal: Edvalda Torres Paes Guizzardi
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFMG
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1843/68956
• topic: John Fante; Arturo Bandini; Existentialism.; Fante, John, 1909- Crítica e interpretação; Existencialismo na literatura

This thesis reresents a contribution to the academic corpus of studies on John Fante, a writer long neglected and most often studied within the limits of his ethnicity. Believing that his works have the potential for different approaches, this analysis concentrates on the existentialist aspects embodied by Arturo Bandini, the protagonist of Fante’s The Bandini Quartet. Before entering into the existentialist analysis, Fante is contextualized and his lifetime achievements reviewed, confirming that his recognition and positive appraisal mostly arrived after his death. Then, a theoretical path adopts the lens of existentialism, taking into account the assumptions of the most representative philosophers of the movement to produce an existentialist literary reading of some of Bandini’s life experiences. These instances bear witness to the construction of his own self, illustrating the principal assumptions of existentialism: From Kierkegaardian despair to Sisyphean stubborn defiance (in his confrontation with the absurd), Fante presents the figure of an individual whose narrative existence and self-reflection captures the essence of the existential philosophical movement and justifies the lines of this research. Keywords: John Fante; Arturo Bandini; Existentialism.