SOURCE: Kozma, Janice M. “Pratolini's Il quartiere: The Metaphor.” Kentucky Romance Quarterly 29 (1982): 37-45.

In the following essay, Kozma deals with questions of metaphor and allegory in Il quartiere, an earlier novel which the critic sees as a study in the interplay of the forces of good and evil.

Il quartiere is a study of the young people of Santa Croce, a Florentine lower class neighborhood. It traces their transition to adulthood through falling in love and marriage during Italy's Fascist period. The novel has been duly recognized for its social implications transmitted through the collective protagonist of the work; however, no one yet has considered the importance of stylistic devices to enhance the individual characters, and in turn the social themes. Giorgio and Carlo are brought into relief stylistically more than the others, in part to illustrate better the presence of good and evil (Communism and Fascism), within...