The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to sexual violence, antisemitism, genocide, and suicide.

As the narrator struggles to define his identity in a changing political and social landscape, he confronts long-standing barriers between classes. Despite his education and intelligence, he longs for the wealth and prestige of the Finzi-Contini family. As he oscillates between insecurity and entitlement, the novel draws distinctions between the social power granted to those with taste and those with class. The economic position of the Finzi-Continis as well as the status gained from the narrator’s education prompts a look at the differences between taste and class. Bassani ultimately suggests that taste should garner more respect than class since it must be nurtured and refined, yet class affords more social power which those with taste do not always have.

When the Jewish characters encounter the political oppression growing within Italy, the narrator’s first impulse is to ridicule the intelligence of its agents. Cariani interrupts the tennis finals at Eleonora d’Este, and despite the power he has to cancel the event, he is dismissed as nothing more than a “dimwit” who has “never overlooked an opportunity, in public or in private, to lick the feet of the provincial secretary” (54).