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Geppetto e Frankenstein: creatori o padri? La relazione tra creatura artificiale e creatore e il suo influsso sul comportamento della creatura in due romanzi europei dell’Ottocento
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- In this corpus, the reader is able to observe the relationship between the creator, that is, Victor Frankenstein or Geppetto, and the creature, i.e. Frankenstein’s monster or Pinocchio. Our first research question tries to determine the type of relationship that they share and to judge it positive or negative. Our second question, which constitutes the main issue of our paper, investigates the existence of a link between this relationship and the behaviour of the artificial being during the novel. Our hypothesis conjectures the existence of such a correlation: we assume that the creator, and especially the relationship that he shares with his creature, influence the actions of the latter. We broach the argument with a methodology that is based on various fields of study, among which cognitive sciences and psychology. These two fields stimulate the comparison between the artificial creature and children that grow up, helping us to elaborate a model to explain the creature’s behaviour. To consider our corpus, we also base ourselves on semantics and on literary critical research. All these theoretical concepts associated with a thorough analysis of the texts allow us to answer our initial questions. Concerning the first one, we show that while Geppetto and Pinocchio enjoy a relationship full of affection that resembles the one of a father and his child, Frankenstein and his creature share an extremely negative relationship. Our research has then revealed the evolution of the creature with regard to its behaviour: Pinocchio positively evolves while the actions of Frankenstein’s artificial creature become more and more negative. Finally, we evaluate the role of the creator in this evolution. We conclude that our hypothesis for the second question is not proved entirely correct in both novels: while we demonstrate the negative influence that Frankenstein and his bad relationship with his creature have on the behaviour of the latter, we cannot certify that Pinocchio’s positive evolution is due to the presence of Geppetto. We argue however that his affectionate and almost paternal relationship with the puppet have some influence on the motivations of Pinocchio to evolve favourably.