Erasure

Throughout the novel, Calvino uses the theme of erasure to discuss a variety of topics. In If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, the idea is used as a wish to erase time in an effort to remake history. In Chapter 4, erasure is used when discussing how the Cimmerian civilization was virtually erased as a result of war and assimilation. In Chapter 5, the reader discovers the lengths to which Marana would go to erase his path, as he winds country by country, erasing his past each time he recreates his existence. Also in this chapter, Ludmilla discusses the danger of erasing the fine line between reader and author and between fiction and reality. The main character in Looks Down in the Gathering Shadow does the same, in that he spends much of his time trying to erase his past, since he is a criminal. However, he, like Marana...