ABSTRACT
What has to be inferred in a fairy-tale in the popular tradition, through a laborious network of suppositions, is revealed in an original work by the date of composition and, if one is luckier still, by introductory notes. Italo Calvino explains the cleaving of Medardo in terms of the existential condition of contemporary man. Amongst the variants to the pattern mentioned, a very common one which Bettelheim also considered particularly significant, concerns leaving home, a step not always taken by the adventurous brother. Perhaps Calvino's decision to represent an involuntary and traumatic separation on an open battle-field may conversely be interpreted as injury taking a reluctant and psychologically unprepared character by surprise. 'Responsibility' seems to be the keyword, all the more so in that what little previous biographical history Calvino provides for the narrator allows us to see him as a fully paid-up escapist/nature-loving daydreamer.
