SOURCE: Riviello, Tonia Caterina. “From Silence to Universality in Le piccole virtù by Natalia Ginzburg.” Forum Italicum 33, no. 1 (spring 1999): 185-99.

In the following essay, Riviello considers the major thematic concerns of the essays in Le piccole virtù.

In Natalia Ginzburg's book Le piccole virtù it is evident that the European sociological disruptions she has witnessed during the last fifty years have crucially influenced her writing. Expressing many of the same concerns as several of her contemporaries, Ginzburg offers commentary on the changing face of society as a result of World War II. Essentially, she evokes in her personal essays the post-war disillusionment that swept Europe as survivors became emotionally paralyzed. From her retrospective account it is apparent that many moral and spiritual effects of this period have lingered up through the present day. In the view of Ginzburg the most devastating consequence is the destruction of the family...