Rosso Malpelo is a story written by the Italian writer Giovanni Verga, first published in 1878, and it is part of Vita dei Campi. The story is about a young boy who works in a cave as a miner. The extract under analysis is the last part of the story.

The extract is based entirely on a narrative scene, which focuses on the protagonist’s death. There are no dialogues. However, the third person narrator is omniscent, thus the reader is allowed to know the characters’ thoughts.

The narrator immediately unveils to the reader Malpelo’s fate. His death is connoted in a material way with the word “ossa”, underlining Malpelo’s physical appearance but also referring to death as death of the body rather than of the mind.

The occasion that brought Malpelo’s death is explained along with the reason why he died. Indeed, the miners had to explore a passage but no one wanted to risk. The miners who were fathers did not want to die, nor they didn’t want their own children to die (nè avrebbe permesso che si arrischiasse il sangue suo). Malpelo is therefore picked because he doesn’t have nor parents neither friends.

Malpelo’s death is close to his father’s because they both die in the cave. Their closeness is underlined by the narrator’s inferences and by the fact that Malpelo takes his father’s tools with himself. Malpelo seems to be perfectly aware of his imminent death and his action seems to express his will to be less alone: bringing his father’s tools may be a way for Malpelo to have his father next to him.

There is a difference between Malpelo’s death and his father’s, which is highlighted by the narrator at the beginning of the extract. The difference is that Malpelo’s body was never found. His death is characterized by a disappearance, as if Malpelo dematerialized himself. It marks Malpelo’s exclusion and solitude. Malpelo’s disappearance creates a contrast with the strong presence of his memory: everyone is still scared and use low voices when Malpelo is the subject of a conversation.

Among the themes developed by Verga’s story there are child labour and denial of childhood. Indeed, Malpelo is one of the children who is forced to work and therefore to grow up early without living his childhood in a proper way. Malpelo is very close to Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Verga’s story is close to Dickens’ novel as for the interest and attention towards the living condition of children in their own countries.