SOURCE: "Woman or Mother? Feminine Conditions in Pirandello's Theater," in A Companion to Pirandello Studies, edited by John Louis DiGaetani, Greenwood Press, 1991, pp. 57-72.

Women as objects of desire, scorn, fear, as victims or as traps; conflicts arising over pregnancy and female identity—these lie at the very heart of Pirandello's dramatic plots. The triangular basis of a number of plays (old man-young woman-young man; husband-wife-lover) might place Pirandello squarely in the tradition of both classical and boulevard comedy were it not for the absence of, or at least the lack of emphasis on, romantic love. For Pirandello there can be no comic resolution, no affirmation of eros, fertility, or even delight in seeing the duper duped, because these have become the very sources of the problems that he explores in their agonizing and endless labyrinths. Even Li-lá, long hailed as a life-affirming, sun-drenched master-piece, poses, as we...