Gli atomi, la scienza, la paura. Banalità del male e “funzione Colonna infame” in Sciascia

Abstract

The following essay proposes to analyze the different ways in which Sciascia deals with the problem of evil and its possible “banality”, entering into a very close relationship with Manzoni’s Storia della colonna infame, but without disdaining the most modern modulations of the topic proposed by Hannah Arendt. By reviewing a wide range of Sciascian works, both narrative and non-fiction, starting from the contributions of the early 1960s on the historical facts of Bronte up to the La scomparsa di Majorana (1975), not only the themes of the “necessity” of evil and the opposite one of individual responsibility for it are explored, but also and, above all, connection between these themes and the question of the refusal of the “myth of science”, with particular reference to the book on Majorana and Todo modo (1974). Here too in dialogue with Arendt, although, this time, with Vita activa. The result is a portrait of the extremely varied, complex as well as enormously stimulating way in which Sciascia tackles these decisive themes.

Keywords

• banality of evil
• science
• fear
• individual conscience
• free act