Gli adolescenti al lavoro nell’opera di Cesare Pavese

Abstract

The article highlights how in Pavese's life the contrast between otium and negotium, between evasion and commitment, has no solution. Work for him will always remain a labor, a pain and effort, as indispensable as it is useless, because industriousness will never be a means through which to strive for that completeness, growth and self-affirmation that he will always be looking for .

In the same way Pavese projects this split also on his characters, forced into the eternal limbo of adolescence. For them, who experience escape, various professions, and then the return, in the desperate search for their individuality, their fullness and, therefore, their maturity, the work will always remain only an effort, a penalty and will never be opus.